Starting/Stopping and Monitoring the FirewallTomEastep2004-05-032001-2004Thomas M. EastepPermission 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.Operating ShorewallIf you have a permanent internet connection such as DSL or Cable, I
recommend that you start the firewall automatically at boot. The installation procedure attempts to set up the
init scripts to start the firewall in run levels 2-5 and stop it in run
levels 1 and 6. If you want to configure your firewall differently from
this default, you can use your distribution's run-level editor.Shorewall startup is disabled by default. Once you have
configured your firewall, you can enable startup by removing the
file /etc/shorewall/startup_disabled. Note:
Users of the .deb package must edit
/etc/default/shorewall and set
startup=1.If you use dialup or some flavor of PPP where your IP address
can change arbitrarily, you may want to start the firewall in your
/etc/ppp/ip-up.local script. I recommend just
placing /sbin/shorewall restart in
that script.You can manually start and stop Shoreline Firewall using the
/sbin/shorewall shell program.shorewall [ -q ] [ -f ] start - starts the
firewall. It important to understand that when the firewall is in the
Started state there is no
Shorewall Programrunning. It rather
means that Netfilter has been configured to handle traffic as
described in your Shorewall configuration files. Please refer to the
Shorewall State Diagram as shown at the
bottom of this page for more information. The -q option was added in
Shorewall 2.0.2 Beta 1 and reduces the amout of output produced. Also
beginning with Shorewall version 2.0.2 Beta 1, the -f option may be
specified; if this option is given and the file
/var/lib/shorewall/restore is present (see
shorewall save below), then that script is run to
restore the state of the firewall to the state when
/var/lib/shorewall/restore was created. This is
generally must faster than starting the firewall without the -f
option.shorewall stop - stops the firewall; the only
traffic permitted through the firewall is from systems listed in
/etc/shorewall/routestopped (Beginning with
version 1.4.7, if ADMINISABSENTMINDED=Yes in
/etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf then in addition,
all existing connections are permitted and any new connections
originating from the firewall itself are allowed).shorewall [ -q ] restart - stops the firewall
(if it is in the Started state) and
then starts it again. The -q option was added in Shorewall 2.0.2 Beta
1 and reduces the amout of output produced.shorewall reset - reset the packet and byte
counters in the firewallshorewall clear - remove all rules and chains
installed by Shoreline Firewall. The firewall is wide
openshorewall refresh - refresh the rules
involving the broadcast addresses of firewall interfaces, the black
list, traffic control rules and ECN control rules.shorewall save - Beginning with Shorewall
2.0.2 Beta1, this command creates a script
/var/lib/shorewall/restore which when run will
restore the state of the firewall to its current state.shorewall restore - Runs the
/var/lib/shorewall/restore created by the
shorewall save command.shorewall forget - Added in Shorewall 2.0.2 Beta 1. Removes the
/var/lib/shorewall restore script created by the
shorewall save command.If you include the keyword debug as the first argument, then a shell
trace of the command is produced as in:shorewall debug start 2> /tmp/traceThe
above command would trace the start command and place the
trace information in the file /tmp/traceBeginning with version 1.4.7, shorewall can give detailed help about
each of its commands: shorewall help [ command | host | address ]The
shorewall program may also be used to monitor the
firewall.shorewall status - produce a verbose report
about the firewall (iptables -L -n -v)shorewall show <chain1> [ <chain2> ...
] - produce a verbose report about the listed chains
(iptables -L chain -n -v) Note: You may only list
one chain in the show command when running Shorewall version 1.4.6 and
earlier. Version 1.4.7 and later allow you to list multiple chains in
one command.shorewall show nat - produce a verbose report
about the nat table (iptables -t nat -L -n
-v)shorewall show tos - produce a verbose report
about the mangle table (iptables -t mangle -L -n
-v)shorewall show log - display the last 20
packet log entries.shorewall show connections - displays the IP
connections currently being tracked by the firewall.shorewall show tc - displays information
about the traffic control/shaping configuration.shorewall monitor [ <delay> ] -
Continuously display the firewall status, last 20 log entries and nat.
When the log entry display changes, an audible alarm is sounded. The
<delay> indicates the number of seconds
between updates with the default being 10 seconds.shorewall hits - Produces several reports
about the Shorewall packet log messages in the current log file named
in the LOGFILE variable in
/etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf.shorewall version - Displays the installed
version number.shorewall check - Performs a cursory
validation of the zones, interfaces, hosts, rules and policy
files.The check command is
totally unsuppored and does not parse and validate the generated
iptables commands. Even though the check command
completes successfully, the configuration may fail to start.
Problem reports that complain about errors that the
check command does not detect will not be
accepted.See the recommended way to make configuration changes
described below.shorewall try
<configuration-directory> [
<timeout> ] - Restart shorewall using the specified
configuration and if an error occurs or if the
<timeout> option is given and the new
configuration has been up for that many seconds then shorewall is
restarted using the standard configuration.shorewall logwatch (added in version 1.3.2) -
Monitors the LOGFILE and produces an audible alarm when new Shorewall
messages are logged.Beginning with Shorewall 1.4.6, /sbin/shorewall supports a couple of
commands for dealing with IP addresses and IP address ranges:shorewall ipcalc [ <address> <mask> |
<address>/<vlsm> ] - displays the network
address, broadcast address, network in CIDR notation and netmask
corresponding to the input[s].shorewall iprange
<address1>-<address2> - Decomposes the specified
range of IP addresses into the equivalent list of network/host
addressesThere is a set of commands dealing with dynamic blacklisting:shorewall drop <ip address list> -
causes packets from the listed IP addresses to be silently dropped by
the firewall.shorewall reject <ip address list> -
causes packets from the listed IP addresses to be rejected by the
firewall.shorewall allow <ip address list> -
re-enables receipt of packets from hosts previously blacklisted by a
drop or reject command.shorewall save - save the dynamic
blacklisting configuration so that it will be automatically restored
the next time that the firewall is restarted. Beginning with Shorewall
version 2.0.2 Beta1, this command also creats the
/var/lib/shorewall/restore script as described
above.show dynamic - displays the dynamic
blacklisting chain.Finally, the shorewall program may be
used to dynamically alter the contents of a zone.shorewall add <interface>[:<host>]
<zone> - Adds the specified interface (and host if
included) to the specified zone.shorewall delete <interface>[:<host>]
<zone> - Deletes the specified interface (and host if
included) from the specified zone.Examples:shorewall add ipsec0:192.0.2.24 vpn1 -- adds the address 192.0.2.24 from interface ipsec0 to the zone vpn1
shorewall delete ipsec0:192.0.2.24 vpn1 -- deletes the address 192.0.2.24 from interface ipsec0 from zone vpn1Error HandlingWhen shorewall start, shorewall
restart or shorewall refresh encounter an
error, the behavior depends on which version of Shorewall you are running
and whether there is a /var/lib/shorewall/restore
script available (see shorewall save above).If you are running a version of Shorewall earlier than 2.0.2
Beta 1 then the effect is as if a shorewall stop
command had been run.If you have executed a shorewall save command
without a subsequent shorewall forget, then the
firewall is restored to the state when shorewall
save was executed.Alternate ConfigurationsThe shorewall start, shorewall
restart, shorewall check, and
shorewall try commands allow you to specify which
Shorewall configuration to use:shorewall [ -c <configuration-directory> ] {start|restart|check}shorewall try <configuration-directory>If a <configuration-directory> is
specified, each time that Shorewall is going to use a file in /etc/shorewall it will first look in
the <configuration-directory> . If the file is
present in the <configuration-directory>, that
file will be used; otherwise, the file in /etc/shorewall will be used. When changing
the configuration of a production firewall, I recommend the
following:mkdir /etc/testcd /etc/test<copy any files that you need to change from /etc/shorewall
to . and change them here>shorewall -c ./ check<correct any errors found by check and check again>/sbin/shorewall try ./If the configuration starts but doesn't work, just shorewall
restart to restore the old configuration. If the new configuration
fails to start, the try command will automatically start
the old one for you.When the new configuration works then just:cp * /etc/shorewallcdrm -rf /etc/testShorewall State DiagramThe Shorewall State Diargram is depicted below.You will note that the commands that result in state transitions use
the word firewall rather than shorewall.
That is because the actual transitions are done by
/usr/share/shorewall/firewall;
/sbin/shorewall runs firewall according
to the following table:/sbin/shorewall CommandResulting /usr/share/shorewall/firewall
CommandEffect if the Command Succeedsshorewall startfirewall startThe system filters packets based on your current Shorewall
Configurationshorewall stopfirewall stopOnly traffic to/from hosts listed in /etc/shorewall/hosts
is passed to/from/through the firewall. For Shorewall versions
beginning with 1.4.7, if ADMINISABSENTMINDED=Yes in
/etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf then in addition, all existing
connections are retained and all connection requests from the
firewall are accepted.shorewall restartfirewall restartLogically equivalent to firewall stop;firewall
startshorewall addfirewall addAdds a host or subnet to a dynamic zoneshorewall deletefirewall deleteDeletes a host or subnet from a dynamic zoneshorewall refreshfirewall refreshReloads rules dealing with static blacklisting, traffic
control and ECN.shorewall resetfirewall resetResets traffic countersshorewall clearfirewall clearRemoves all Shorewall rules, chains, addresses, routes and
ARP entries.shorewall tryfirewall -c <new configuration> restart If
unsuccessful then firewall start (standard configuration) If
timeout then firewall restart (standard configuration)Revision History1.3-1.82004-01-04TEDocbook standards1.22003-12-31TEAdded clarification about "Started State"1.12003-12-29TEInitial Docbook conversion