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<h1 style="text-align: center;">ECN<br>
</h1>
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) is described in RFC 3168 and is
a proposed internet standard. Unfortunately, not all sites support ECN
and when
a TCP connection offering ECN is sent to sites that don't support it,
the
result is often that the connection request is ignored.<br>
<br>
To allow ECN to be used, Shorewall allows you to enable ECN on your
Linux systems then disable it in your firewall when the destination
matches a list that you create (the /etc/shorewall/ecn file).<br>
<br>
You enable ECN by<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
  <pre><b><font color="#009900">echo 1 &gt; /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn</font></b></pre>
</blockquote>
You must arrange for that command to be executed at system boot. Most
distributions have a method for doing that -- on RedHat, you make an
entry in /etc/sysctl.conf.<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
  <pre><b><font color="#009900">net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 1<br><br></font></b></pre>
</blockquote>
Entries in /etc/shorewall/ecn have two columns as follows:<br>
<br>
INTERFACE&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; - The name of an interface on your system<br>
<br>
HOST(S)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; - An address (host or
subnet) of a system or group of systems accessed through the
&nbsp;interface in the first column. You may include a comma-separated
list of such addresses in this column. <br>
<br>
Example: Your external interface is eth0 and you want to disable ECN
for tcp connections to 192.0.2.0/24:<br>
<br>
In /etc/shorewall/ecn:<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
  <table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1">
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td valign="top"><b>INTERFACE<br>
        </b></td>
        <td valign="top"><b>HOST(S)<br>
        </b></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td valign="top">eth0<br>
        </td>
        <td valign="top">192.0.2.0/24<br>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>
  <br>
</blockquote>
<font size="2">Last updated 3/28/2003 - <a href="support.htm">Tom
Eastep</a></font>
<p><a href="copyright.htm"><font size="2">Copyright</font> &copy; <font
 size="2">2001, 2002, 2003 Thomas M. Eastep.</font></a><br>
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