Shorewall FAQs
Shorewall Community
Tom
Eastep
2003-12-04
1.1
2003-12-04
MN
Converted to Simplified DocBook XML
1.0
2002-08-13
TE
Initial revision
Looking for Step by Step Configuration Instructions? Check out the
QuickStart Guides.
Port Forwarding
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
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>
Finally, if you need to forward a range of ports, in the PORT
column specify the range as low-port:high-port.
Ok -- I followed those instructions but it doesn't work
Answer: That is usually the
result of one of three things:
You are trying to test from inside your firewall (no, that
won't work -- see ).
You have a more basic problem with your local system (the
one that you are trying to forward to) such as an incorrect
default gateway (it should be set to the IP address of your
firewall's internal interface).
Your ISP is blocking that particular port inbound.
I'm still having problems with port forwarding
Answer: To further diagnose
this problem:
As root, type "iptables -t nat -Z". This clears the
NetFilter counters in the nat table.
Try to connect to the redirected port from an external host.
As root type "shorewall show nat"
Locate the appropriate DNAT rule. It will be in a chain
called <source zone>_dnat
('net_dnat' in the above examples).
Is the packet count in the first column non-zero? If so, the
connection request is reaching the firewall and is being
redirected to the server. In this case, the problem is usually a
missing or incorrect default gateway setting on the local system
(the system you are trying to forward to -- its default gateway
should be the IP address of the firewall's interface to that
system).
If the packet count is zero:
the connection request is not reaching your server
(possibly it is being blocked by your ISP); or
you are trying to connect to a secondary IP address on
your firewall and your rule is only redirecting the primary IP
address (You need to specify the secondary IP address in the
"ORIG. DEST." column in your DNAT rule); or
your DNAT rule doesn't match the connection request
in some other way. In that case, you may have to use a packet
sniffer such as tcpdump or ethereal to further diagnose the
problem.
From the internet, I want to connect to port 1022 on my
firewall and have the firewall forward the connection to port 22 on
local system 192.168.1.3. How do I do that?
In /etc/shorewall/rules:
ACTION
SOURCE
DESTINATION
PROTOCOL
PORT
SOURCE PORT
ORIG. DEST.
DNAT
net
loc:192.168.1.3:22
tcp
1022
I'm confused about when to use DNAT rules and when to use
ACCEPT rules.
It would be a good idea to review the QuickStart Guide
appropriate for your setup; the guides cover this topic in a tutorial
fashion. DNAT rules should be used for connections that need to go the
opposite direction from SNAT/MASQUERADE. So if you masquerade or use
SNAT from your local network to the internet then you will need to use
DNAT rules to allow connections from the internet to your local network.
In all other cases, you use ACCEPT unless you need to hijack connections
as they go through your firewall and handle them on the firewall box
itself; in that case, you use a REDIRECT rule.
DNS and Port Forwarding/NAT
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.
Having an internet-accessible server in your local network is
like raising foxes in the corner of your hen house. If the server is
compromised, there's nothing between that server and your other
internal systems. For the cost of another NIC and a cross-over
cable, you can put your server in a DMZ such that it is isolated
from your local systems - assuming that the Server can be located
near the Firewall, of course :-)
The accessibility problem is best solved using Bind Version 9 "views"
(or using a separate DNS server for local clients) such that
www.mydomain.com resolves to 130.141.100.69 externally and
192.168.1.5 internally. That's what I do here at shorewall.net
for my local systems that use one-to-one NAT.
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.
If you are running Shorewall 1.4.0 or earlier see the 1.3 FAQ for instructions suitable for
those releases.
If you are running Shorewall 1.4.1 or Shorewall 1.4.1a, please
upgrade to Shorewall 1.4.2 or later.
Otherwise:
In /etc/shorewall/interfaces:
ZONE
INTERFACE
BROADCAST
OPTIONS
loc
eth1
detect
routeback
In /etc/shorewall/rules:
ACTION
SOURCE
DESTINATION
PROTOCOL
PORT
SOURCE PORT
ORIG. DEST.
DNAT
loc
web: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/init:
ETH0_IP=`find_interface_address eth0`
and make your DNAT rule:
ACTION
SOURCE
DESTINATION
PROTOCOL
PORT
SOURCE PORT
ORIG. DEST.
DNAT
loc
web: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.
I have a zone "Z" with an RFC1918 subnet and I use
one-to-one 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.
If the ALL INTERFACES column in /etc/shorewall/nat is empty or
contains "Yes", you will also see log messages like the
following when trying to access a host in Z from another host in Z
using the destination hosts's public address:
Oct 4 10:26:40 netgw kernel: Shorewall:FORWARD:REJECT:IN=eth1 OUT=eth1
SRC=192.168.118.200 DST=192.168.118.210 LEN=48 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=127
ID=1342 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=1494 DPT=1491 WINDOW=17472 RES=0x00 ACK SYN URGP=0
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
one-to-one 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:
Set the Z->Z policy to ACCEPT.
Masquerade Z to itself.
Set the routeback option on the interface to Z.
Set the ALL INTERFACES column in the nat file to
"Yes".
WARNING: In this
configuration, all Z->Z traffic will look to the server as if
it came from the firewall rather than from the original client! I
DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SETUP.
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
routeback
In /etc/shorewall/policy:
SOURCE
DESTINATION
POLICY
LIMIT:BURST
dmz
dmz
ACCEPT
In /etc/shorewall/masq:
INTERFACE
SUBNET
ADDRESS
eth2
192.168.2.0/24
In /etc/shorewall/nat, be sure that you have "Yes" in
the ALL INTERFACES column.
Netmeeting/MSN
I want to use Netmeeting or MSN Instant Messenger with Shorewall.
What do I do?
Answer: There is an H.323
connection tracking/NAT module that helps with Netmeeting. Look
here for a
solution for MSN IM but be aware that there are significant security
risks involved with this solution. Also check the Netfilter mailing list
archives at http://www.netfilter.org.
Open Ports
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.
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.
I have a port that I can't close no matter how I change my
rules.
I had a rule that allowed telnet from my local network to my
firewall; I removed that rule and restarted Shorewall but my telnet
session still works!!!
Answer: Rules only govern the
establishment of new connections. Once a connection is established
through the firewall it will be usable until disconnected (tcp) or
until it times out (other protocols). If you stop telnet and try to
establish a new session your firerwall will block that attempt.
How to I use Shorewall with PortSentry?
Here's
a writeup on a nice integration of Shorewall and PortSentry.
Connection Problems
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",
Create /etc/shorewall/common if it doesn't already exist.
Be sure that the first command in the file is ".
/etc/shorewall/common.def"
Add the following to /etc/shorewall/common
run_iptables -A icmpdef -p ICMP --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT
For a complete description of Shorewall 'ping' management,
see this page.
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:
The default gateway on each local system isn't set to the
IP address of the local firewall interface.
The entry for the local network in the /etc/shorewall/masq
file is wrong or missing.
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.
FTP Doesn't Work
See the Shorewall and FTP page.
Logging
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=""
Beginning with Shorewall version 1.3.12, you can set up Shorewall to log all of its messages
to a separate file.
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
http://gege.org/iptables
http://home.regit.org/ulogd-php.html
I personnaly use Logwatch. It emails me a report each day from
my various systems with each report summarizing the logged activity on
the corresponding system.
DROP messages on port 10619 are flooding the logs with their
connect requests. Can i exclude these error messages for this port
temporarily from logging in Shorewall?
Temporarily add the following rule:
DROP net fw udp 10619
All day long I get a steady flow of these DROP messages from
port 53 to some high numbered port. They get dropped, but what the
heck are they?
Jan 8 15:50:48 norcomix kernel: Shorewall:net2all:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:40:c7:2e:09:c0:00:01:64:4a:70:00:08:00
SRC=208.138.130.16 DST=24.237.22.45 LEN=53 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00
TTL=251 ID=8288 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=53 DPT=40275 LEN=33
Answer: There are two
possibilities:
They are late-arriving replies to DNS queries.
They are corrupted reply packets.
You can distinguish the difference by setting the logunclean option (/etc/shorewall/interfaces)
on your external interface (eth0 in the above example). If they get
logged twice, they are corrupted. I solve this problem by using an
/etc/shorewall/common file like this:
#
# Include the standard common.def file
#
. /etc/shorewall/common.def
#
# The following rule is non-standard and compensates for tardy
# DNS replies
#
run_iptables -A common -p udp --sport 53 -mstate --state NEW -j DROP
The above file is also include in all of my sample
configurations available in the Quick Start Guides and in
the common.def file in Shorewall 1.4.0 and later.
Why is the MAC address in Shorewall log messages so long? I
thought MAC addresses were only 6 bytes in length.
What is labeled as the MAC address in a Shorewall log message is
actually the Ethernet frame header. IT contains:
the destination MAC address (6 bytes)
the source MAC address (6 bytes)
the ethernet frame type (2 bytes)
Example:
MAC=00:04:4c:dc:e2:28:00:b0:8e:cf:3c:4c:08:00
Destination MAC address = 00:04:4c:dc:e2:28
Source MAC address = 00:b0:8e:cf:3c:4c
Ethernet Frame Type = 08:00 (IP Version 4)
Shorewall is writing log messages all over my console making it
unusable!
Answer: If you are running
Shorewall version 1.4.4 or 1.4.4a then check the errata.
Otherwise, see the 'dmesg' man page ("man dmesg"). You
must 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.
How do I find out why this traffic is getting logged?
Answer: Logging occurs out of a
number of chains (as indicated in the log message) in Shorewall:
man1918 or logdrop
The destination address is listed in /etc/shorewall/rfc1918
with a logdrop target -- see
/etc/shorewall/rfc1918.
rfc1918 or logdrop
The source address is listed in /etc/shorewall/rfc1918 with
a logdrop target -- see /etc/shorewall/rfc1918.
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.
<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
includes a log level.
<interface>_mac
The packet is being logged under the maclist
interface option.
logpkt
The packet is being logged under the logunclean
interface option.
badpkt
The packet is being logged under the dropunclean
interface option
as specified in the LOGUNCLEAN
setting in /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf.
blacklst
The packet is being logged because the source IP is
blacklisted in the /etc/shorewall/blacklist
file.
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.
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. Also see
for another cause of packets being logged
in the FORWARD chain.
logflags
The packet is being logged because it failed the checks
implemented by the tcpflags
interface option.
Here is an example:
Jun 27 15:37:56 gateway kernel: Shorewall:all2all:REJECT:IN=eth2 OUT=eth1
SRC=192.168.2.2 DST=192.168.1.3 LEN=67 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=63 ID=5805 DF
PROTO=UDP SPT=1803 DPT=53 LEN=47
Let's look at the important parts of this message:
all2all:REJECT
This packet was REJECTed out of the all2all
chain -- the packet was rejected under the
"all"->"all" REJECT policy ( above).
IN=eth2
the packet entered the firewall via eth2. If you see
"IN=" with no interface name, the packet originated on
the firewall itself.
OUT=eth1
if accepted, the packet would be sent on eth1. If you see
"OUT=" with no interface name, the packet would be
processed by the firewall itself.
SRC=192.168.2.2
the packet was sent by 192.168.2.2
DST=192.168.1.3
the packet is destined for 192.168.1.3
PROTO=UDP
UDP Protocol
DPT=53
The destination port is 53 (DNS)
In this case, 192.168.2.2 was in the "dmz" zone and
192.168.1.3 is in the "loc" zone. I was missing the rule:
ACCEPT dmz loc udp 53
I see these strange log entries occasionally; what are they?
Nov 25 18:58:52 linux kernel: Shorewall:net2all:DROP:IN=eth1 OUT= MAC=00:60:1d:f0:a6:f9:00:60:1d:f6:35:50:08:00
SRC=206.124.146.179 DST=192.0.2.3 LEN=56 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=110 ID=18558 PROTO=ICMP TYPE=3 CODE=3
[SRC=192.0.2.3 DST=172.16.1.10 LEN=128 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=47 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=53 DPT=2857 LEN=108 ]
192.0.2.3 is external on my firewall... 172.16.0.0/24 is my
internal LAN
Answer: While most people
associate the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) with
'ping', ICMP is a key piece of the internet. ICMP is used to
report problems back to the sender of a packet; this is what is
happening here. Unfortunately, where NAT is involved (including SNAT,
DNAT and Masquerade), there are a lot of broken implementations. That is
what you are seeing with these messages.
Here is my interpretation of what is happening -- to confirm this
analysis, one would have to have packet sniffers placed a both ends of
the connection.
Host 172.16.1.10 behind NAT gateway 206.124.146.179 sent a UDP DNS
query to 192.0.2.3 and your DNS server tried to send a response (the
response information is in the brackets -- note source port 53 which
marks this as a DNS reply). When the response was returned to to
206.124.146.179, it rewrote the destination IP TO 172.16.1.10 and
forwarded the packet to 172.16.1.10 who no longer had a connection on
UDP port 2857. This causes a port unreachable (type 3, code 3) to be
generated back to 192.0.2.3. As this packet is sent back through
206.124.146.179, that box correctly changes the source address in the
packet to 206.124.146.179 but doesn't reset the DST IP in the
original DNS response similarly. When the ICMP reaches your firewall
(192.0.2.3), your firewall has no record of having sent a DNS reply to
172.16.1.10 so this ICMP doesn't appear to be related to anything
that was sent. The final result is that the packet gets logged and
dropped in the all2all chain. I have also seen cases where the source IP
in the ICMP itself isn't set back to the external IP of the remote
NAT gateway; that causes your firewall to log and drop the packet out of
the rfc1918 chain because the source IP is reserved by RFC 1918.
Routing
My firewall has two connections to the internet from two
different ISPs. How do I set this up in Shorewall?
Setting this up in Shorewall is easy; setting up the routing is a
bit harder.
Assuming that eth0 and eth1 are the interfaces to the two ISPs
then:
/etc/shorewall/interfaces:
ZONE
INTERFACE
BROADCAST
OPTIONS
net
eth0
detect
...
net
eth1
detect
...
/etc/shorewall/policy:
SOURCE
DESTINATION
POLICY
LIMIT:BURST
net
net
DROP
The following information regarding setting up routing
for this configuration is reproduced from the LARTC HOWTO and has not been verified
by the author. If you have questions or problems with the instructions
given below, please post to the LARTC mailing list.
A common configuration is the following, in which there are two
providers that connect a local network (or even a single machine) to
the big Internet.
________
+------------+ /
| | |
+-------------+ Provider 1 +-------
__ | | | /
___/ \_ +------+-------+ +------------+ |
_/ \__ | if1 | /
/ \ | | |
| Local network -----+ Linux router | | Internet
\_ __/ | | |
\__ __/ | if2 | \
\___/ +------+-------+ +------------+ |
| | | \
+-------------+ Provider 2 +-------
| | |
+------------+ \________
There are usually two questions given this setup.
Split access
The first is how to route answers to packets coming in over a
particular provider, say Provider 1, back out again over that same
provider.
Let us first set some symbolical names. Let $IF1 be the name of the first interface (if1 in
the picture above) and $IF2 the name
of the second interface. Then let $IP1
be the IP address associated with $IF1
and $IP2 the IP address associated
with $IF2. Next, let $P1 be the IP address of the gateway at
Provider 1, and $P2 the IP address of
the gateway at provider 2. Finally, let $P1_NET
be the IP network $P1 is in, and
$P2_NET the IP network $P2 is in.
One creates two additional routing tables, say T1 and T2.
These are added in /etc/iproute2/rt_tables. Then you set up routing in
these tables as follows:
ip route add $P1_NET dev $IF1 src $IP1 table T1
ip route add default via $P1 table T1
ip route add $P2_NET dev $IF2 src $IP2 table T2
ip route add default via $P2 table T2
Nothing spectacular, just build a route to the gateway and build
a default route via that gateway, as you would do in the case of a
single upstream provider, but put the routes in a separate table per
provider. Note that the network route suffices, as it tells you how to
find any host in that network, which includes the gateway, as
specified above.
Next you set up the main routing table. It is a good idea to
route things to the direct neighbour through the interface connected
to that neighbour. Note the `src' arguments, they make sure the
right outgoing IP address is chosen.
ip route add $P1_NET dev $IF1 src $IP1
ip route add $P2_NET dev $IF2 src $IP2
Then, your preference for default route:
ip route add default via $P1
Next, you set up the routing rules. These actually choose what
routing table to route with. You want to make sure that you route out
a given interface if you already have the corresponding source
address:
ip rule add from $IP1 table T1
ip rule add from $IP2 table T2
This set of commands makes sure all answers to traffic coming in
on a particular interface get answered from that interface.
'If $P0_NET is the local network and $IF0 is its
interface, the following additional entries are desirable:
ip route add $P0_NET dev $IF0 table T1
ip route add $P2_NET dev $IF2 table T1
ip route add 127.0.0.0/8 dev lo table T1
ip route add $P0_NET dev $IF0 table T2
ip route add $P1_NET dev $IF1 table T2
ip route add 127.0.0.0/8 dev lo table T2
Now, this is just the very basic setup. It will work for all
processes running on the router itself, and for the local network, if
it is masqueraded. If it is not, then you either have IP space from
both providers or you are going to want to masquerade to one of the
two providers. In both cases you will want to add rules selecting
which provider to route out from based on the IP address of the
machine in the local network.
Load balancing
The second question is how to balance traffic going out over the
two providers. This is actually not hard if you already have set up
split access as above.
Instead of choosing one of the two providers as your default
route, you now set up the default route to be a multipath route. In
the default kernel this will balance routes over the two providers. It
is done as follows (once more building on the example in the section
on split-access):
ip route add default scope global nexthop via $P1 dev $IF1 weight 1 \
nexthop via $P2 dev $IF2 weight 1
This will balance the routes over both providers. The weight parameters can be tweaked to favor one
provider over the other.
balancing will not be perfect, as it is route based, and
routes are cached. This means that routes to often-used sites will
always be over the same provider.
Furthermore, if you really want to do this, you probably also
want to look at Julian Anastasov's patches at http://www.ssi.bg/~ja/#routes
, Julian's route patch page. They will make things nicer to work
with.
Starting and Stopping
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 hosts listed in
/etc/shorewall/routestopped' are activated. If you want to totally
open up your firewall, you must use the 'shorewall clear'
command.
When I try to start Shorewall on RedHat, 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.
When I try to start Shorewall on RedHat I get a message
referring me to FAQ #8
Answer: This is usually cured
by the sequence of commands shown above in .
Why can't Shorewall detect my interfaces properly at startup?
I just installed Shorewall and when I issue the start command, I
see the following:
Processing /etc/shorewall/params ...
Processing /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf ...
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
I have some iptables commands that I want to run when Shorewall
starts. Which file do I put them in?
You can place these commands in one of the Shorewall Extension Scripts.
Be sure that you look at the contents of the chain(s) that you will be
modifying with your commands to be sure that the commands will do what
they are intended. Many iptables commands published in HOWTOs and other
instructional material use the -A command which adds the rules to the
end of the chain. Most chains that Shorewall constructs end with an
unconditional DROP, ACCEPT or REJECT rule and any rules that you add
after that will be ignored. Check "man iptables" and look at the
-I (--insert) command.
About Shorewall
What Distributions does it work with?
Shorewall works with any GNU/Linux distribution that includes the
proper prerequisites.
What Features does it have?
Answer: See the Shorewall Feature List.
Is there a GUI?
Answer: Yes. Shorewall support is
included in Webmin 1.060 and later versions. See http://www.webmin.com
Why do you call it "Shorewall"?
Answer: Shorewall is a
concatenation of "Shoreline" (the city where I live) and
"Firewall". The full name of the product is
actually "Shoreline Firewall" but "Shorewall" is must
more commonly used.
Why do you use such ugly fonts on your web site?
The Shorewall web site is almost font neutral (it doesn't
explicitly specify fonts except on a few pages) so the fonts you see are
largely the default fonts configured in your browser. If you don't
like them then reconfigure your browser.
How to I tell which version of Shorewall I am running?
At the shell prompt, type:
/sbin/shorewall version
Does Shorewall provide protection against....
IP Spoofing: Sending packets over the WAN interface using an
internal LAP IP address as the source address?
Answer: Yes.
Tear Drop: Sending packets that contain overlapping fragments?
Answer: This is the responsibility of the IP stack, not the
Netfilter-based firewall since fragment reassembly occurs before
the stateful packet filter ever touches each packet.
Smurf and Fraggle: Sending packets that use the WAN or LAN
broadcast address as the source address?
Answer: Shorewall can be configured to do that using the
blacklisting
facility.
Land Attack: Sending packets that use the same address as the
source and destination address?
Answer: Yes, if the routefilter interface option
is selected.
DOS: - SYN Dos - ICMP Dos - Per-host Dos protection
Answer: Shorewall has facilities for limiting SYN and ICMP
packets. Netfilter as included in standard Linux kernels
doesn't support per-remote-host limiting except by explicit
rule that specifies the host IP address; that form of limiting is
supported by Shorewall.
RFC 1918
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:
Be sure that you add the entry ABOVE the entry for 192.168.0.0/16.
SUBNET
TARGET
192.168.100.1
RETURN
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
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 above.
Simply substitute the IP address of your ISPs DHCP server.
Alias IP Addresses/Virtual Interfaces
Is there any way to use aliased ip addresses with Shorewall, and
maintain separate rulesets for different IPs?
Answer: Yes. See Shorewall and Aliased
Interfaces.
MISCELLANEOUS
I have added entries to /etc/shorewall/tcrules but they don't
seem to do anything. Why?
You probably haven't set TC_ENABLED=Yes in
/etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf so the contents of the tcrules file are
simply being ignored.
I have just set up a server. Do I have to change Shorewall to
allow access to my server from the internet?
Yes. Consult the QuickStart
guide that you used during your initial setup for information
about how to set up rules for your server.
How can I allow conections to let's say the ssh port only
from specific IP Addresses on the internet?
In the SOURCE column of the rule, follow "net" by a colon
and a list of the host/subnet addresses as a comma-separated list.
net:<ip1>,<ip2>,...
Example:
ACCEPT net:192.0.2.16/28,192.0.2.44 fw tcp 22
When I try to use any of the SYN options in nmap on or behind the
firewall, I get "operation not permitted". How can I use nmap
with Shorewall?"
Edit /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf and change
"NEWNOTSYN=No" to "NEWNOTSYN=Yes" then restart
Shorewall.
When I try to use the "-O" option of nmap from the
firewall system, I get "operation not permitted". How to I
allow this option?
Add this command to your /etc/shorewall/start file:
run_iptables -D OUTPUT -p ! icmp -m state --state INVALID -j DROP
I'm compiling a new kernel for my firewall. What should I
look out for?
First take a look at the Shorewall kernel
configuration page. You probably also want to be sure that you
have selected the "NAT of local connections
(READ HELP)" on the Netfilter Configuration menu.
Otherwise, DNAT rules with your firewall as the source zone won't
work with your new kernel.
How do I use Shorewall as a Bridging Firewall?
Basically, you don't. While there are kernel patches that
allow you to route bridge traffic through Netfilter, the environment is
so different from the Layer 3 firewalling environment that very little
of Shorewall works. In fact, so much of Shorewall doesn't work that
my official position is that "Shorewall doesn't work with Layer
2 Bridging".