# Port Knocking and Other Uses of 'Recent Match'

Tom
Eastep
2005
2006
Thomas M. Eastep

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

The feature described in this article require 'Recent Match' in your iptables and kernel. See the output of `shorewall show capabilities` to see if you have that match.

## What is Port Knocking?

Port knocking is a technique whereby attempting to connect to port A enables access to port B from that same host. For the example on which this article is based, see http://www.soloport.com/iptables.html which should be considered to be part of this documentation.

## Implementing Port Knocking in Shorewall

In order to implement this solution, your iptables and kernel must support the 'recent match' extension (see FAQ 42). These instructions also assume Shorewall version 2.2.0 or later.

In this example:

1. Attempting to connect to port 1600 enables SSH access. Access is enabled for 60 seconds.

2. Attempting to connect to port 1601 disables SSH access (note that in the article linked above, attempting to connect to port 1599 also disables access. This is an port scan defence as explained in the article).

To implement that approach:

1. Add an action named SSHKnock (see the Action documentation). Leave the `action.SSHKnock` file empty.

2. Create /etc/shorewall/SSHKnock with the following contents:

       if [ -n "$LEVEL" ]; then
           log_rule_limit $LEVEL $CHAIN SSHKnock ACCEPT "" "$TAG" -A -p tcp --dport 22   -m recent --rcheck --name SSH
           log_rule_limit $LEVEL $CHAIN SSHKnock DROP   "" "$TAG" -A -p tcp --dport ! 22
       fi
       run_iptables -A $CHAIN -p tcp --dport 22   -m recent --rcheck --seconds 60 --name SSH          -j ACCEPT
       run_iptables -A $CHAIN -p tcp --dport 1599 -m recent                       --name SSH --remove -j DROP
       run_iptables -A $CHAIN -p tcp --dport 1600 -m recent                       --name SSH --set    -j DROP
       run_iptables -A $CHAIN -p tcp --dport 1601 -m recent                       --name SSH --remove -j DROP

3. Now if you want to protect SSH access to the firewall from the Internet, add this rule in `/etc/shorewall/rules`:

       #ACTION          SOURCE            DEST           PROTO       DEST PORT(S)
       SSHKnock         net               $FW            tcp         22,1599,1600,1601

   If you want to log the DROPs and ACCEPTs done by SSHKnock, you can just add a log level as in:

       #ACTION          SOURCE            DEST           PROTO       DEST PORT(S)
       SSHKnock:info    net               $FW            tcp         22,1599,1600,1601

4. If you wish to use SSHKnock with a forwarded connection, you must be using Shorewall 2.3.1 or later for fullest protection. Assume that you forward port 22 from external IP address 206.124.146.178 to internal system 192.168.1.5. In /etc/shorewall/rules:

       #ACTION          SOURCE            DEST            PROTO       DEST PORT(S)  SOURCE      ORIGINAL
       #                                                                            PORT(S)     DEST
       DNAT-            net               loc:192.168.1.5 tcp         22            -           206.124.146.178
       SSHKnock         net               $FW             tcp         1599,1600,1601
       SSHKnock         net               loc:192.168.1.5 tcp         22            -           206.124.146.178

   You can use SSHKnock with DNAT on earlier releases provided that you omit the ORIGINAL DEST entry on the second SSHKnock rule. This rule will be quite secure provided that you specify 'norfc1918' on your external interface.

## Limiting Per-IP Connection Rate

Debian users. This feature is broken in the Debian version 3.0.7 of Shorewall (and possibly in other versions). The file `/usr/share/shorewall/Limit` was inadvertently dropped from the .deb. That file may be obtained from Shorewall SVN and installed manually.

Beginning with Shorewall 3.0.4, Shorewall has a 'Limit' action. Limit is invoked with a comma-separated list in place of a logging tag. The list has three elements:

1. The name of a 'recent' set; you select the set name which must conform to the rules for a valid chain name. Different rules that specify the same set name will use the same set of counters.

2. The number of connections permitted in a specified time period.

3. The time period, expressed in seconds.

Connections that exceed the specified rate are dropped.

For example,to use a recent set name of SSHA, and to limiting SSH to 3 per minute, use this entry in `/etc/shorewall/rules`:

    #ACTION                SOURCE            DEST           PROTO       DEST PORT(S)
    Limit:none:SSHA,3,60   net               $FW            tcp         22

If you want dropped connections to be logged at the info level, use this rule instead:

    #ACTION                SOURCE            DEST           PROTO       DEST PORT(S)
    Limit:info:SSHA,3,60   net               $FW            tcp         22

To summarize, you pass four pieces of information to the Limit action:

- The log level. If you don't want to log, specify "none".

- The name of the recent set that you want to use ("SSHA" in this example).

- The maximum number of connections to accept (3 in this example).

- The number of seconds over which you are willing to accept that many connections (60 in this example).

### How Limit is Implemented

For those who are curious, the Limit action is implemented in Shorewall 3.0 and Shorewall 3.2 as follows:

- The file `/usr/share/shorewall/action`.Limit is empty.

- The file `/usr/share/shorewall/Limit` is as follows:

      set -- $(separate_list $TAG)

      [ $# -eq 3 ] || fatal_error "Rule must include <set name>,<max connections>,<interval> as the log tag"

      run_iptables -A $CHAIN -m recent --name $1 --set

      if [ -n "$LEVEL" ]; then
          run_iptables -N $CHAIN%
          log_rule_limit $LEVEL $CHAIN% $1 DROP "" "" -A
          run_iptables -A $CHAIN% -j DROP
          run_iptables -A $CHAIN -m recent --name $1 --update --seconds $3 --hitcount $(( $2 + 1 )) -j $CHAIN%
      else
          run_iptables -A $CHAIN -m recent --update --name $1 --seconds $3 --hitcount $(( $2 + 1 )) -j DROP
      fi

      run_iptables -A $CHAIN -j ACCEPT

In Shorewall 3.3, Limit is made into a built-in action; basically that means that the above code now lives inside of Shorewall rather than in a separate file.