Shorewall FAQs

1. I want to forward UDP port 7777 to my my personal PC with IP address 192.168.1.5. I've looked everywhere and can't find how to do it.

1a. Ok -- I followed those instructions but it doesn't work.

1b. I'm still having problems with port forwarding

2. I port forward www requests to www.mydomain.com (IP 130.151.100.69) to system 192.168.1.5 in my local network. External clients can browse http://www.mydomain.com but internal clients can't.

2a. I have a zone "Z" with an RFC1918 subnet and I use static NAT to assign non-RFC1918 addresses to hosts in Z. Hosts in Z cannot communicate with each other using their external (non-RFC1918 addresses) so they can't access each other using their DNS names.

3. I want to use Netmeeting/MSN Messenger with Shorewall. What do I do?

4. I just used an online port scanner to check my firewall and it shows some ports as 'closed' rather than 'blocked'. Why?

4a. I just ran an nmap UDP scan of my firewall and it showed 100s of ports as open!!!!

5. I've installed Shorewall and now I can't ping through the firewall

6. Where are the log messages written and how do I change the destination?

6a. Are there any log parsers that work with Shorewall?

7. When I stop Shorewall using 'shorewall stop', I can't connect to anything. Why doesn't that command work?

8. When I try to start Shorewall on RedHat 7.x, I get messages about insmod failing -- what's wrong?

9. Why can't Shorewall detect my interfaces properly?

10. What distributions does it work with?

11. What features does it support?

12. Why isn't there a GUI

13. Why do you call it "Shorewall"?

14. I'm connected via a cable modem and it has an internel web server that allows me to configure/monitor it but as expected if I enable rfc1918 blocking for my eth0 interface, it also blocks the cable modems web server.

14a. Even though it assigns public IP addresses, my ISP's DHCP server has an RFC 1918 address. If I enable RFC 1918 filtering on my external interface, my DHCP client cannot renew its lease.

15. My local systems can't see out to the net

16. Shorewall is writing log messages all over my console making it unusable!

17. How do I find out why this is getting logged?

18. Is there any way to use aliased ip addresses with Shorewall, and maintain separate rulesets for different IPs?

1. I want to forward UDP port 7777 to my my personal PC with IP address 192.168.1.5. I've looked everywhere and can't find how to do it.

Answer: The first example in the rules file documentation shows how to do port forwarding under Shorewall. The format of a port-forwarding rule to a local system is as follows:

ACTION SOURCE DESTINATION PROTOCOL PORT SOURCE PORT ORIG. DEST.
DNAT net loc:<local IP address>[:<local port>] <protocol> <port #>

So to forward UDP port 7777 to internal system 192.168.1.5, the rule is:

ACTION SOURCE DESTINATION PROTOCOL PORT SOURCE PORT ORIG. DEST.
DNAT net loc:192.168.1.5 udp 7777

     DNAT net loc:192.168.1.5 udp 7777

If you want to forward requests directed to a particular address ( <external IP> ) on your firewall to an internal system:

ACTION SOURCE DESTINATION PROTOCOL PORT SOURCE PORT ORIG. DEST.
DNAT net loc:<local IP address>[:<local port>] <protocol> <port #> - <external IP>

1a. Ok -- I followed those instructions but it doesn't work

Answer: That is usually the result of one of two things:

1b. I'm still having problems with port forwarding

Answer: To further diagnose this problem:

2. I port forward www requests to www.mydomain.com (IP 130.151.100.69) to system 192.168.1.5 in my local network. External clients can browse http://www.mydomain.com but internal clients can't.

Answer: I have two objections to this setup.

If you insist on an IP solution to the accessibility problem rather than a DNS solution, then assuming that your external interface is eth0 and your internal interface is eth1 and that eth1 has IP address 192.168.1.254 with subnet 192.168.1.0/24, do the following:

a) In /etc/shorewall/interfaces, specify "multi" as an option for eth1 (No longer required as of Shorewall version 1.3.9).

b) In /etc/shorewall/rules, add:

ACTION SOURCE DESTINATION PROTOCOL PORT SOURCE PORT ORIG. DEST.
DNAT loc:192.168.1.0/24 loc:192.168.1.5 tcp www - 130.151.100.69:192.168.1.254
     DNAT    loc:192.168.1.0/24    loc:192.168.1.5    tcp    www    -    130.151.100.69:192.168.1.254

That rule only works of course if you have a static external IP address. If you have a dynamic IP address and are running Shorewall 1.3.4 or later then include this in /etc/shorewall/params:

     ETH0_IP=`find_interface_address eth0`

and make your DNAT rule:

ACTION SOURCE DESTINATION PROTOCOL PORT SOURCE PORT ORIG. DEST.
DNAT loc:192.168.1.0/24 loc:192.168.1.5 tcp www - $ETH0_IP:192.168.1.254

Using this technique, you will want to configure your DHCP/PPPoE client to automatically restart Shorewall each time that you get a new IP address.

2a. I have a zone "Z" with an RFC1918 subnet and I use static NAT to assign non-RFC1918 addresses to hosts in Z. Hosts in Z cannot communicate with each other using their external (non-RFC1918 addresses) so they can't access each other using their DNS names.

Answer: This is another problem that is best solved using Bind Version 9 "views". It allows both external and internal clients to access a NATed host using the host's DNS name.

Another good way to approach this problem is to switch from static NAT to Proxy ARP. That way, the hosts in Z have non-RFC1918 addresses and can be accessed externally and internally using the same address.

If you don't like those solutions and prefer routing all Z->Z traffic through your firewall then:

a) Specify "multi" on the entry for Z's interface in /etc/shorewall/interfaces (If you are running a Shorewall version earlier than 1.3.9).
b) Set the Z->Z policy to ACCEPT.
c) Masquerade Z to itself.

Example:

Zone: dmz
Interface: eth2
Subnet: 192.168.2.0/24

In /etc/shorewall/interfaces:

ZONE INTERFACE BROADCAST OPTIONS
dmz eth2 192.168.2.255 multi

In /etc/shorewall/policy:

SOURCE DESTINATION POLICY LIMIT:BURST
dmz dmz ACCEPT
     dmz    dmz    ACCEPT

In /etc/shorewall/masq:

INTERFACE SUBNET ADDRESS
eth2 192.168.2.0/24

3. I want to use Netmeeting/MSN Messenger with Shorewall. What do I do?

Answer: There is an H.323 connection tracking/NAT module that may help. Also check the Netfilter mailing list archives at http://netfilter.samba.org.

4. I just used an online port scanner to check my firewall and it shows some ports as 'closed' rather than 'blocked'. Why?

Answer: The common.def included with version 1.3.x always rejects connection requests on TCP port 113 rather than dropping them. This is necessary to prevent outgoing connection problems to services that use the 'Auth' mechanism for identifying requesting users. Shorewall also rejects TCP ports 135, 137 and 139 as well as UDP ports 137-139. These are ports that are used by Windows (Windows can be configured to use the DCE cell locator on port 135). Rejecting these connection requests rather than dropping them cuts down slightly on the amount of Windows chatter on LAN segments connected to the Firewall.

If you are seeing port 80 being 'closed', that's probably your ISP preventing you from running a web server in violation of your Service Agreement.

4a. I just ran an nmap UDP scan of my firewall and it showed 100s of ports as open!!!!

Answer: Take a deep breath and read the nmap man page section about UDP scans. If nmap gets nothing back from your firewall then it reports the port as open. If you want to see which UDP ports are really open, temporarily change your net->all policy to REJECT, restart Shorewall and do the nmap UDP scan again.

5. I've installed Shorewall and now I can't ping through the firewall

Answer: If you want your firewall to be totally open for "ping":

a) Do NOT specify 'noping' on any interface in /etc/shorewall/interfaces.
b) Copy /etc/shorewall/icmp.def to /etc/shorewall/icmpdef
c) Add the following to /etc/shorewall/icmpdef:

run_iptables -A icmpdef -p ICMP --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT

6. Where are the log messages written and how do I change the destination?

Answer: NetFilter uses the kernel's equivalent of syslog (see "man syslog") to log messages. It always uses the LOG_KERN (kern) facility (see "man openlog") and you get to choose the log level (again, see "man syslog") in your policies and rules. The destination for messaged logged by syslog is controlled by /etc/syslog.conf (see "man syslog.conf"). When you have changed /etc/syslog.conf, be sure to restart syslogd (on a RedHat system, "service syslog restart").

By default, older versions of Shorewall ratelimited log messages through settings in /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf -- If you want to log all messages, set:

     LOGLIMIT=""
LOGBURST=""

6a. Are there any log parsers that work with Shorewall?

Answer: Here are several links that may be helpful:

http://www.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/parsefw/
http://www.fireparse.com
http://cert.uni-stuttgart.de/projects/fwlogwatch
http://www.logwatch.org

7. When I stop Shorewall using 'shorewall stop', I can't connect to anything. Why doesn't that command work?

The 'stop' command is intended to place your firewall into a safe state whereby only those interfaces/hosts having the 'routestopped' option in /etc/shorewall/interfaces and /etc/shorewall/hosts are activated. If you want to totally open up your firewall, you must use the 'shorewall clear' command.

8. When I try to start Shorewall on RedHat 7.x, I get messages about insmod failing -- what's wrong?

Answer: The output you will see looks something like this:

     /lib/modules/2.4.17/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_tables.o: init_module: Device or resource busy
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters
/lib/modules/2.4.17/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_tables.o: insmod
/lib/modules/2.4.17/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_tables.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.17/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_tables.o: insmod ip_tables failed
iptables v1.2.3: can't initialize iptables table `nat': iptables who? (do you need to insmod?)
Perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.

This is usually cured by the following sequence of commands:

     service ipchains stop
chkconfig --delete ipchains
rmmod ipchains

Also, be sure to check the errata for problems concerning the version of iptables (v1.2.3) shipped with RH7.2.

9. Why can't Shorewall detect my interfaces properly?

I just installed Shorewall and when I issue the start command, I see the following:

     Processing /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf ...
Processing /etc/shorewall/params ...
Starting Shorewall...
Loading Modules...
Initializing...
Determining Zones...
Zones: net loc
Validating interfaces file...
Validating hosts file...
Determining Hosts in Zones...
Net Zone: eth0:0.0.0.0/0
Local Zone: eth1:0.0.0.0/0
Deleting user chains...
Creating input Chains...
...

Why can't Shorewall detect my interfaces properly?

Answer: The above output is perfectly normal. The Net zone is defined as all hosts that are connected through eth0 and the local zone is defined as all hosts connected through eth1

10. What Distributions does it work with?

Shorewall works with any GNU/Linux distribution that includes the proper prerequisites.

11. What Features does it have?

Answer: See the Shorewall Feature List.

12. Why isn't there a GUI?

Answer: Every time I've started to work on one, I find myself doing other things. I guess I just don't care enough if Shorewall has a GUI to invest the effort to create one myself. There are several Shorewall GUI projects underway however and I will publish links to them when the authors feel that they are ready.

13. Why do you call it "Shorewall"?

Answer: Shorewall is a concatenation of "Shoreline" (the city where I live) and "Firewall".

14. I'm connected via a cable modem and it has an internal web server that allows me to configure/monitor it but as expected if I enable rfc1918 blocking for my eth0 interface (the internet one), it also blocks the cable modems web server.

Is there any way it can add a rule before the rfc1918 blocking that will let all traffic to and from the 192.168.100.1 address of the modem in/out but still block all other rfc1918 addresses.

Answer: If you are running a version of Shorewall earlier than 1.3.1, create /etc/shorewall/start and in it, place the following:

     run_iptables -I rfc1918 -s 192.168.100.1 -j ACCEPT

If you are running version 1.3.1 or later, simply add the following to /etc/shorewall/rfc1918:

SUBNET TARGET
192.168.100.1 RETURN

Be sure that you add the entry ABOVE the entry for 192.168.0.0/16.

Note: If you add a second IP address to your external firewall interface to correspond to the modem address, you must also make an entry in /etc/shorewall/rfc1918 for that address. For example, if you configure the address 192.168.100.2 on your firewall, then you would add two entries to /etc/shorewall/rfc1918:

SUBNET
TARGET
192.168.100.1
RETURN
192.168.100.2
RETURN

14a. Even though it assigns public IP addresses, my ISP's DHCP server has an RFC 1918 address. If I enable RFC 1918 filtering on my external interface, my DHCP client cannot renew its lease.

The solution is the same as FAQ 14 above. Simply substitute the IP address of your ISPs DHCP server.

15. My local systems can't see out to the net

Answer: Every time I read "systems can't see out to the net", I wonder where the poster bought computers with eyes and what those computers will "see" when things are working properly. That aside, the most common causes of this problem are:

  1. The default gateway on each local system isn't set to the IP address of the local firewall interface.

  2. The entry for the local network in the /etc/shorewall/masq file is wrong or missing.

  3. The DNS settings on the local systems are wrong or the user is running a DNS server on the firewall and hasn't enabled UDP and TCP port 53 from the firewall to the internet.

16. Shorewall is writing log messages all over my console making it unusable!

Answer: "man dmesg" -- add a suitable 'dmesg' command to your startup scripts or place it in /etc/shorewall/start. Under RedHat, the max log level that is sent to the console is specified in /etc/sysconfig/init in the LOGLEVEL variable.

17. How do I find out why this is getting logged?

Answer: Logging occurs out of a number of chains (as indicated in the log message) in Shorewall:
  1. man1918 - The destination address is listed in /etc/shorewall/rfc1918 with a logdrop target -- see /etc/shorewall/rfc1918.
  2. rfc1918 - The source address is listed in /etc/shorewall/rfc1918 with a logdrop target -- see /etc/shorewall/rfc1918.
  3. all2<zone>, <zone>2all or all2all - You have a policy that specifies a log level and this packet is being logged under that policy. If you intend to ACCEPT this traffic then you need a rule to that effect.
  4. <zone1>2<zone2> - Either you have a policy for <zone1> to <zone2> that specifies a log level and this packet is being logged under that policy or this packet matches a rule that include a log level.
  5. logpkt - The packet is being logged under the logunclean interface option.
  6. badpkt - The packet is being logged under the dropunclean interface option as specified in the LOGUNCLEAN setting in /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf.
  7. blacklst - The packet is being logged because the source IP is blacklisted in the /etc/shorewall/blacklist file.
  8. newnotsyn - The packet is being logged because it is a TCP packet that is not part of any current connection yet it is not a syn packet. Options affecting the logging of such packets include NEWNOTSYN and LOGNEWNOTSYN in /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf.
  9. INPUT or FORWARD - The packet has a source IP address that isn't in any of your defined zones ("shorewall check" and look at the printed zone definitions) or the chain is FORWARD and the destination IP isn't in any of your defined zones.

18. Is there any way to use aliased ip addresses with Shorewall, and maintain separate rulesets for different IPs?

Answer: Yes. You simply use the IP address in your rules (or if you use NAT, use the local IP address in your rules). Note: The ":n" notation (e.g., eth0:0) is deprecated and will disappear eventually. Neither iproute (ip and tc) nor iptables supports that notation so neither does Shorewall.

Example 1:

/etc/shorewall/rules
     # Accept AUTH but only on address 192.0.2.125

ACCEPT net fw:192.0.2.125 tcp auth
Example 2 (NAT):

/etc/shorewall/nat
     192.0.2.126	eth0	10.1.1.126
/etc/shorewall/rules
     # Accept HTTP on 192.0.2.126 (a.k.a. 10.1.1.126)

ACCEPT net loc:10.1.1.126 tcp www

Last updated 11/09/2002 - Tom Eastep

Copyright © 2001, 2002 Thomas M. Eastep.