Multiple Sub-Policies & Transform Sets for 1 tunnel peer?

[Dean Romanelli]

Just recently acquired an ASA heavy company, with no network administrators.  They appear to be doing some things in the ASA's that I don't quite understand below.

This is a spoke site, and there is only 1 tunnel on it to the hub. That tunnel is calling the transform sets named "ESP-3DES-SHA" & "ESP-3DES-MD5." With that said, why have they configured transform sets for AES 256,AES 192, AES, and DES if they are only calling the 3DES transform sets in the crypto map?  The sub-policies towards the bottom of the snippet appear to have something to do with that, but if that were the case, wouldn't you need to call all of the configured transform sets in the crypto map in order to fully execute all of the sub-policies set in this config, since each set of sub-policy is setting the encryption to a different type/method?

Config Snippet:

crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-128-SHA esp-aes esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-128-MD5 esp-aes esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-192-SHA esp-aes-192 esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-192-MD5 esp-aes-192 esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-256-SHA esp-aes-256 esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-256-MD5 esp-aes-256 esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-128-SHA-TRANS esp-aes esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-128-SHA-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-128-MD5-TRANS esp-aes esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-128-MD5-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-192-SHA-TRANS esp-aes-192 esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-192-SHA-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-192-MD5-TRANS esp-aes-192 esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-192-MD5-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-256-SHA-TRANS esp-aes-256 esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-256-SHA-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-256-MD5-TRANS esp-aes-256 esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-AES-256-MD5-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA esp-3des esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-MD5 esp-3des esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA-TRANS esp-3des esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-MD5-TRANS esp-3des esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-MD5-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-DES-SHA esp-des esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-DES-MD5 esp-des esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-DES-SHA-TRANS esp-des esp-sha-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-DES-SHA-TRANS mode transport
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-DES-MD5-TRANS esp-des esp-md5-hmac
crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set ESP-DES-MD5-TRANS mode transport

crypto map outside_map 1 match address outside_cryptomap
crypto map outside_map 1 set peer XX.XXX.XXX.XX
crypto map outside_map 1 set ikev1 transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA ESP-3DES-MD5

crypto map outside_map interface outside

crypto ikev1 policy 10
authentication crack
encryption aes-256
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 20
authentication rsa-sig
encryption aes-256
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 30
authentication pre-share
encryption aes-256
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 40
authentication crack
encryption aes-192
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400

crypto ikev1 policy 50
authentication rsa-sig
encryption aes-192
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 60
authentication pre-share
encryption aes-192
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 70
authentication crack
encryption aes
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 80
authentication rsa-sig
encryption aes
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 90
authentication pre-share
encryption aes
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 100
authentication crack
encryption 3des
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 110
authentication rsa-sig
encryption 3des
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 120
authentication pre-share
encryption 3des
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 130
authentication crack
encryption des
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 140
authentication rsa-sig
encryption des
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400
crypto ikev1 policy 150
authentication pre-share
encryption des
hash sha
group 2
lifetime 86400

[Marvin Rhoads · Accepted solution]

Only the transform-set called by the crypto map will be used. The policies will be tried in priority order until one matching the hub is found. Ideally it would be the first one.

You're right for the use case you describe only a single transform set and policy is needed. The multiples are often the legacy of default settings and sometimes an attempt to standardize by putting every transform set and policy on all ASAs so that no matter where they end up connecting to the necessary building blocks are in the the config. It does result in a lot of unused lines though.