Setting up a network firewall

Personal Firewall

This is a setup or program, for Windows commercially sold by companies such as Symantec, of which they claim or pretend that it secures a home or desktop-pc with internet access. This topic is highly relevant for users who do not know the ways their computers might be accessed via the internet and how to disable these, especially if they are always online and if they are connected via broadband links.

Masquerading Router

This is a box placed between the internet and an intranet. To minimize the risk of compromising the firewall itself it should generally have only one role, that of protecting the intranet. Although not completely riskless, the tasks of doing the routing and eventually IP masquerading[1] are commonly considered harmless.

BusyBox

This is often an old box you may have retired and nearly forgotten, performing masquerading or routing functions, but offering a bunch of services, e.g., web-cache, mail, etc. This may be very commonly used for home networks, but can definitely not to be considered as secure anymore because the combining of server and router on one machine raises the complexity of the setup.

Firewall with a demilitarized zone [not further described here]

This box performs masquerading or routing, but grants public access to some branch of your network which, because of public IP's and a physically separated structure, is neither considered to be part of the inter- nor intranet. These servers are those which must be easily accessible from both the inter- and intranet. The firewall protects them all.

Packetfilter / partly accessible net [partly described here, see BusyBox]

Doing routing or masquerading, but permitting only selected services to be accessible, sometimes only by selected internal users or boxes; mostly used in highly secure business contexts, sometimes by distrusting employers. This was the common configuration of a firewall at the time of the Linux 2.2 kernel. It's still possible to configure a firewall this way, but it makes the rules quite complex and lengthy.

Personal Firewall

A Personal Firewall is supposed to let you access the all services offered on the internet, but keep your box secure and your data private.

Below is a slightly modified version of Rusty Russell's recommendation from the Linux 2.4 Packet Filtering HOWTO:

cat > /etc/rc.d/init.d/firewall << "EOF" #!/bin/sh # Begin $rc_base/init.d/firewall # Insert connection-tracking modules (not needed if built into the kernel). modprobe ip_tables modprobe iptable_filter modprobe ip_conntrack modprobe ip_conntrack_ftp modprobe ipt_state modprobe ipt_LOG # allow local-only connections iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT # free output on any interface to any ip for any service (equal to -P ACCEPT) iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT # permit answers on already established connections # and permit new connections related to established ones (eg active-ftp) iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT # Log everything else: What's Windows' latest exploitable vulnerability? iptables -A INPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INPUT " # set a sane policy: everything not accepted > /dev/null iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -P FORWARD DROP iptables -P OUTPUT DROP # be verbose on dynamic ip-addresses (not needed in case of static IP) echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_dynaddr # disable ExplicitCongestionNotification - too many routers are still ignorant echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn # End $rc_base/init.d/firewall EOF

His script is quite simple, it drops all traffic coming in into your computer that wasn't initiated from your box, but as long as you are simply surfing the internet you are unlikely to exceed its limits.

If you frequently encounter certain delays at accessing ftp-servers, please have a look at BusyBox - example no. 4.

Even if you have daemons / services running on your box, these should be inaccessible everywhere but from your box itself. If you want to allow access to services on your machine, such as ssh or pinging, take a look at BusyBox.

Masquerading Router

A true Firewall has two interfaces, one connected to an intranet, in this example, eth0, and one connected to the internet, here, ppp0. To provide the maximum security against the box itself being broken into, make sure that there are no servers running on it, especially not X11 et al. And, as a general principle, the box itself should not access any untrusted service[3].

cat > /etc/rc.d/init.d/firewall << "EOF" #!/bin/sh # Begin $rc_base/init.d/firewall echo echo "You're using the example-config for a setup of a firewall" echo "from the firewalling-hint written for LinuxFromScratch." echo "This example is far from being complete, it is only meant" echo "to be a reference." echo "Firewall security is a complex issue, that exceeds the scope" echo "of the quoted configuration rules." echo "You can find some quite comprehensive information" echo "about firewalling in Chapter 4 of the BLFS book." echo "http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org/" echo # Insert iptables modules (not needed if built into the kernel). modprobe ip_tables modprobe iptable_filter modprobe ip_conntrack modprobe ip_conntrack_ftp modprobe ipt_state modprobe iptable_nat modprobe ip_nat_ftp modprobe ipt_MASQUERADE modprobe ipt_LOG modprobe ipt_REJECT # allow local-only connections iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT # allow forwarding iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state NEW -i ! ppp+ -j ACCEPT # do masquerading (not needed if intranet is not using private ip-addresses) iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp+ -j MASQUERADE # Log everything for debugging (last of all rules, but before DROP/REJECT) iptables -A INPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INPUT " iptables -A FORWARD -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:FORWARD" iptables -A OUTPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:OUTPUT " # set a sane policy iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -P FORWARD DROP iptables -P OUTPUT DROP # be verbose on dynamic ip-addresses (not needed in case of static IP) echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_dynaddr # disable ExplicitCongestionNotification echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn # activate TCPsyncookies echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies # activate Route-Verification = IP-Spoofing_protection for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/rp_filter; do echo 1 > $f done # activate IP-Forwarding echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward EOF

With this script your intranet should be sufficiently secure against external attacks: no one should be able to setup a new connection to any internal service and, if it's masqueraded, it s even invisible; furthermore, your firewall should be nearly immune because there are no services running that a cracker could attack.

Note: if the interface you're connecting to the Internet doesn't connect via ppp, you will need to change ppp+ to the name of the interface which you are using. If you are using the same interface type to connect to both your intranet and the internet, you need to use the actual name of the interface such as eth0, on both interfaces.

If you need stronger security (e.g., against DOS, connection highjacking, spoofing, etc.) have a look at the list of Links for further reading at the end of this section.

BusyBox

This scenario isn't too different from (Masquerading Router), but in this case you want to offer some services to your intranet. Examples of this can be when you want to admin your box from another host on your intranet or use it as a proxy or a name server. Note: Outlining a true concept howto protect a server that offers services on the internet goes far beyond the scope of this document, see Disclaimer.

Be cautious. Every service you offer and have enabled makes your setup more complex and your box less secure: You induce the risks of misconfigured services or running a service with an exploitable bug, both risks that a firewall principally should be immune of. See the introduction to Masquerading Router for some more details.

If the services you'd like to offer do not need to access the internet themselves, like internal-only samba- or name-servers, it's quite simple and should still be acceptable from a security standpoint. Just add the following lines before the logging-rules into the script.

iptables -A INPUT -i ! ppp+ -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -o ! ppp+ -j ACCEPT

If your daemons have to access the web themselves, like squid would need to, you could open OUTPUT generally and restrict INPUT.

iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT

However, it is generally not advisable to leave OUTPUT unrestricted: you lose any control on trojans who'd like to "call home", and a bit of redundancy in case you've (mis-)configured a service so that it does broadcast its existence to the world.

If you prefer to have this protection, you may restrict INPUT and OUTPUT on all ports except those that it's absolutely necessary to have open. Which ports you have to open depends on your needs: mostly you will find them by looking for failed accesses in your log-files.

Have a look at the following examples:

1. Squid is caching the web:

   iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --sport 80 -m state --state ESTABLISHED \    -j ACCEPT

2. Your caching name server (e.g., dnscache) does its lookups via udp:

   iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p udp --sport 53 -m state --state ESTABLISHED \    -j ACCEPT

3. Alternatively, if you want to be able to ping your box to ensure it's still alive:

   iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-request \    -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT

4. If you are frequently accessing ftp-servers or enjoy chatting you might notice certain delays because some implementations of these daemons have the feature of querying an identd on your box for your username for logging. Although there's really no harm in this, having an identd running is not recommended because some implementations are known to be vulnerable.

   To avoid these delays you could reject the requests with a 'tcp-reset':

   iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 113 -j REJECT \    --reject-with tcp-reset iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --sport 113 -m state --state RELATED \    -j ACCEPT

5. To log and drop invalid packets, mostly harmless packets that came in after netfilter's timeout, sometimes scans:

   iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp -m state --state INVALID -j LOG \    --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INVALID" iptables -I INPUT 2 -p tcp -m state --state INVALID -j DROP

6. Anything coming from the outside should not have a private address, this is a common attack called IP-spoofing:

   iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp+ -s 10.0.0.0/8 -j DROP iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp+ -s 172.16.0.0/12 -j DROP iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp+ -s 192.168.0.0/16 -j DROP

7. To simplify debugging and be fair to anyone who'd like to access a service you have disabled, purposely or by mistake, you should REJECT those packets that are dropped.

   Obviously this must be done directly after logging as the very last lines before the packets are dropped by policy:

   iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp --icmp-type 3 -j ACCEPT

These are only examples to show you some of the capabilities of the new firewalling-code in Linux-Kernel 2.4. Have a look at the man page of iptables. There you will find more of them. The port-numbers you'll need for this can be found in /etc/services, in case you didn't find them via "try'n'error" in your logfile.

If you add any of your offered or accessed services such as the above, maybe even in FORWARD and for intranet-communication, and delete the general clauses, you get an old fashioned packet filter.

Where to start with further reading on firewalling.

Homepage of the netfilter/iptables project
FAQ
List of Netfilter-related HOWTO's
http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/nag2/x-087-2-firewall.html
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Security-HOWTO.html
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/security/library/s-fire.html +s-fire2.html
http://www.interhack.net/pubs/fw-faq/
http://csrc.nist.gov/isptg/html/ISPTG-6.html
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/
http://www.little-idiot.de/firewall (German & outdated, but very comprehensive)
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue65/stumpel.html
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2000/03/10/netadmin/ddos.html
http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/ddos
http://ipmasq.cjb.net/
http://www.e-infomax.com/ipmasq
http://www.circlemud.org/~jelson/writings/security/index.htm
http://www.securityfocus.com
http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/
http://www.uni-siegen.de/security/pointers.html
http://security.ittoolbox.com/
http://www.linux-firewall-tools.com/linux/
http://logi.cc/linux/athome-firewall.php3
http://www.insecure.org/reading.html
http://www.robertgraham.com/pubs/firewall-seen.html

If a link proves to be dead or if you think I missed one, please mail!

firewall.status

If you'd like to have a look at the chains your firewall consists of and the order in which the rules take effect:

cat > /etc/rc.d/init.d/firewall.status << "EOF" #!/bin/sh # Begin $rc_base/init.d/firewall.status echo "iptables.mangling:" iptables -t mangle -v -L -n --line-numbers echo echo "iptables.nat:" iptables -t nat -v -L -n --line-numbers echo echo "iptables.filter:" iptables -v -L -n --line-numbers EOF

firewall.stop

If you need to turn firewalling off, this script will do it:

cat > /etc/rc.d/init.d/firewall.stop << "EOF" #!/bin/sh # Being $rc_base/init.d/firewall.stop # deactivate IP-Forwarding echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward iptables -Z iptables -F iptables -t nat -F PREROUTING iptables -t nat -F OUTPUT iptables -t nat -F POSTROUTING iptables -t mangle -F PREROUTING iptables -t mangle -F OUTPUT iptables -X iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT EOF