Tag: NFWS

Jan Engelhardt, “Merge Me”

Xtables2

xtables 2 suppress the different tables that exits in current Netfilter. If a rule only apply to a specific type of traffic (read owner id match per-example) then it just don’t match.

One of the interest to have one single table is that it is possible to easily update the ruleset by just doing a single atomic swap.

Manual chains can be created by hand as there are very useful to create factorized rules.

To avoid performance issue, rules counter are disabled by default and can be activated on rules.

Discussion

There is a discussion between Patrick McHardy and Jan Engelhardt over the blob usage in xtables2. The point of Jan is that blob should provide a better CPU cache usage than a dynamically allocated structure. Patrick points out that this will make the state swap difficult and it occurs that the state of matches needing one are not stored in the blob but in allocated memory. So for Patrick it breaks the initial idea.

Jan restarts the discussion that was interrupted on the ML. Patrick and Pablo insist on the lack of jump in current xtables2 implementation. And they ask for the availability of some interesting features of nftables. Jan argues that this can be done and that there is already a good documentation of xtables2 but not for nftables.

This continues in a sterile discussion where Jan argues he can develop the features if all parts agreed on xtables2’s starting patches. He’s answered that the real interesting things is the features.

Eric Dumazet makes an interesting point on asking for benchmarks. If he’s got numbers he will have some real information to decide. Holger Eitzenberger is asking for both party to agree on complete testing modality.

Victor Julien asked Jan if backward compatibility will be provided and Jan is answering that this could be done but that it is not important to him. David Miller answered that backward compatibility is the thing that is important for users.

Jan agree that xtables2 does not currently take into account the code redundancy issue that is severe in the different matches and that is fixed by nftables. He talked about using nftables code…

Performance benchmarking is almost agreed and may occurs soon but in its current state xtables2 can not compete to nftables features.

NFWS group photo

Top starting from left:
Jan Engelhardt, Tomasz Bursztyka, Daniel Borkmann, Julien Vehent, Holger Eitzenberger, Victor Julien, Eric Leblond, Eric Dumazet, Nicolas Dichtel, David Miller, S. Park

Bottom starting from left:
Martin Topholm, Jesper Sander Lindgren, Pablo Neira Ayuso, Simon Horman, Jozsef Kadlecsik, Jesper Dangaard Brouer, Patrick McHardy, Thomas Graf

Tomasz Bursztyka, connMan usage of Netfilter

Introduction

connMan is a network manager which has support for a lot of different layers from ethernet and WiFi to NFC and link sharing.

It features automatic link switch and allow you to select your preferred type of support. The communication with UI is event based so it is easy to do as only a few windows type are needed.

Discussion

David Miller pointed out the fact that DHCP client is really often putting the interface in promiscuous mode and this is not a good idea as it is like having a tcpdump started on every laptop. As connMann does ahave its own implementation, they could maybe take this into account and improved the situation. This is in fact already the case as the DHCP client is using an alternate method.

Jozsef Kadlecsik, ipset status

Tc interaction

tc interaction has been contributed by Florian Westphal. It is thus now possible to use a set match to differentiate Qos or routing of packet. This opens a wide area for experimentation.

Packet and byte counters

This is a fairly larger rewriting of set element and extensions which adds packets and bytes counters to the element.

The syntax has been updated:

ipset add   packets n bytes m

It is also possible to do check on counters !! For example, ipset will be able to do a match on a set and to refine the selection by specifying the number of packets we must have seen before matching. Counters can also be updated in the set match.

This will permit some really interesting possibilities to the rules writers.

This work is currently in progress and should be released really soon.

Discussion

nftables is containing a set system which is serving almost the same target. But there is some difference in them. nftables set can be used to parameter a rules: a set can be made with a list of interface: port and a DNAT rules can be written where it will choose the destination port to NAT to depending on the interface.
So it is possible to define ipset set as performance specialized set that could be implemented and used by nftables.

Jozsef Kadlecsik is speaking about the extension of conntrackd to ipset and maybe nftables rules. This would allow to fully synchronized hosts. It is found to be really interesting by the attendees and should be do and provided as an option.

Pablo Neira Ayuso, nftables strikes back

Introduction

This is a new kernel packet filtering framework. The only change is on iptables. Netfilter hooks, connection tracking system, NAT are unchanged.
It provides a backward compatibility. nftables was released in March 2009 by Patrick Mchardy. It has been revived in the precedent months by Pablo Neira Ayuso and other hackers.

Architecture

It uses a pseudo-state machine in kernel-space which is similar to BPF:

  • 4 registers: 4 general purpose (128 bits long each) + 1 verdict
  • provides instruction set (which can be extended)

Here’s a example of existing instructions:

reg = pkt.payload[offset, len]
reg = cmp(reg1, reg2, EQ)
reg = byteorder(reg1, NTOH)
reg = pkt.meta(mark)
reg = lookup(set, reg1)
reg = ct(reg1, state)
reg = lookup(set, data)

Assuming this complex match can be developed in userspace by using this instruction set. For example, you can check if source and destination port are equal by doing two pkt.payload operation and then do a comparison:

reg1 = pkt.payload[offset_src_port, len]
reg2 = pkt.payload[offset_dst_port, len]
reg = cmp(reg1, reg2, EQ)

This was strictly impossible to do without coding a C kernel module with iptables.
C module still needs to be implemented if they can not be expressed with the existing instructions (for example the hashlimit module can not be expressed with current instructions). In this case, the way to do will be to provide a new instruction that will allow more combination in the futur.

nftables shows a great flexibility. The rules counters are now optional. And they come in two flavors, one system-wide counter with a lock (and so with performance impact) and a per-cpu counter. You can choose which type you want when writing the rule.

Nftables operation

All communications are made through Netlink messages and this is the main change from a user perspective. This change is here to be able to do incremental changes. iptables was using a different approach where it was getting the whole ruleset from kernel in binary format making update to this binary blob and sending it back to the kernel. So the size of the ruleset has a big impact on update performance.

Rules have a generation masks attached coding if the rules is currently active, will be active in next generation or destroyed in next generation. Adding rules is starting a transaction, sending netlink messages adding or deleting rules. Then the commit operation will ask the kernel to switch the ruleset.
This allow to have the active ruleset to change at once without any transition state where only a part of the rules are deployed.

Impact of the changes for users

The iptables backward comptability will be provided and so there is no impact on users. xtables is a binary which is using the same syntax as iptables and that is provided by nftables. Linking the xtables binary to iptables and ip6tables will be enough to assure compatibility of existing scripts.

User will have more and more interest in switching due to new features that will be possible in nftables but not possible with iptables.

A high level library will be provided to be able to handle rules. It will allow easy rule writing and will have an official public API.

The main issue in the migration process will be for frontends/tools which are using the IPTC library which is not officially public but is used by some. As this library is an internal library for iptables using binary exchange, it will not work on a kernel using nftables. So, application using IPTC will need to switch to the upcoming nftables high level library.

The discussion between the attendees also came to the conclusion that providing a easy to use search operation in the library will be a good way to permit improvement of different firewall frontends. By updating their logic by doing a search and then adding a rule if needed, they will avoid conflict between them as this is for example currently the case with network manager which is destroying any masquerading policy in place by blindly inserting a masquerading rule on top when he thinks he needs one.

Release date

A lot of works is still needed but there is good chance the project will be proposed upstream before the end of 2013. The API needs to be carefully review to be sure it will be correct on a long time. The atomic rule swapping systems needs also a good review.

More and more work power is coming to the project and with luck it may be ready in around 6 months.

Simon Horman, MPLS Enlightened Open vSwitch

Open vSwitch is a multi-layer switch. It is designed to enable network automation through programmatic extension, while still supporting standard management interfaces and protocols.

Openflow is a management protocol that is supported by Open vSwitch. Openflow is has a basic support for MPLS. It features a minimum operation set to enable to configure MPLS correclty.
Openflow MPLS support is partially implemented in Open vSwitch but there is some difficulties.

SOme of the operations feature update of L3+ parameter like TTL. They must be updated in same manner in the MPLS header and in the packet header. And this is quite complicated as it supposed to decode the packet below MPLS. But MPLS header does not include the encapsulated ethernet type so it is almost impossible to access correctly to the packet structure.

A possible solution is to reinject the packet after modification to modify layer by layer in each step. This is currently a work in progress.

Victor Julien, Suricata and Netfilter

Suricata and Netfilter can be better friend as they are doing some common work like decoding packet and maintaining flow table.

In IPS mode, Suricata is receiving raw packet from libnetfilter_queue. It has to made the parsing of this packet but this kind of thing has also been done by kernel. So it should be possible to avoid to duplicate the work.

In fact Netfilter work is limited as ipheaders srtucture are used. Patrik McHardy proposed that Netfilter offset but this is not the most costly part.

The flow discussion was more interesting because conntrack is really doing a similar work as the one done by Suricata. Using the CT extension of libnetfilter_queue, Suricata will be able to get access to all the CT information. And at a first glance, it seems it contains almost all information needed. So it should be possible to remove the flow engine from suricata. The garbage operation would not be necessary as Suricata will get information via NFCT destroy event.

Jozsef Kadlecsik proposed to use Tproxy to redirect flow and provide a “socket” stream instead of individual packet to Suricata. This would change Suricata a lot but could provide a interesting alternative mode.

Pablo Neira Ayuso, Netfilter summary of changes since last workshop

Pablo Neira Ayuso has made a panorama of Netfilter changes since last workshop.

On user side, the first main change to be published after last workshop, is libnetfilter_cttimeout. It allows you to define different timeout policies and to apply them to connections by using the CT target.

An other important new “feature” is a possibility to disable to automatic helper assignment. More information on
Secure use of iptables and connection tracking helpers.

The ‘fail-open’ option of Netfilter allow to change the default behavior of kernel when packet are queued. When the maximum length of a queue is reached, the kernel is dropping by default all incoming packets. For some software, this is not the desired behavior. The ‘fail-open’ socket option allow you to change this and to have the kernel accept the packets if they can not be queued.

An other interesting feature is userspace cthelper. It is now possible to implement a connection tracking helper in userspace.

nfnetlink_queue has now CT support. This means it is possible to queue a packet with the conntrack information attached to it.

IPv6 NAT has been added by Patrick McHardy.

In october 2012, the old QUEUE target has been removed. A switch to NFQUEUE is now required.

connlabel has been added to kernel to provide more category than what was possible by using connmark.

A new bpf match has been committed but the final part in iptables part is missing.

Logging has been improved in helpers. They can reject packets and the user did not have the packet data and can not understand the reason of the drop. The nf_log_packet infrastructure can now be used to log the reason of the drop (with the packet). This should help user to understand the reason of the drops.

Martin Topholm: DDoS experiences with Linux and Netfilter

Martin is working for one.com a local ISP and is facing some DDoS. SYN cookie was implemented but the performance were too low with performance below 300kpps which is not what was expected. In fact SYN is on a slow path with a single spin lock protecting the SYN backtrack queue. So the system behave like a single core system relatively to SYN attacks.

Jesper Dangaard Brouer has proposed a patch to move the syn cookie out of the lock but it has some downside and could not be accepted. In particular, the syncookie system needs to check every type of packet to see if they belong to a previous syn cookie response and thus a central point is needed.

Alternate protection methods include using filtering in Netfilter. Regarding the performance, connection tracking is very costly as it split the packets rate by 2. With conntrack activated, the rate was 757 kpps and without conntrack it was 1738 kpps.

A Netfilter module implementing offloading of SYN cookies is proposed. The idea is to fake the SYN ACK part of the TCP handshake in the module which act as a proxy for the initiation of the connection. This would allow to treat syn cookie algorithm via a small dedicated table and will provided better performances.

David Miller: routing cache is dead, now what ?

The routing cache was maintaining a list of routing decisions. This was an hash table which was highly dynamic and was changing due to traffic. One of the major problem was the garbage collector. An other severe issue was the possibility of DoS using the increase

The routing cache has been suppressed in Linux 3.6 after a 2 years effort by David and the other Linux kernel developers. The global cache has been suppressed and some stored information have been moved to more separate resources like socket.

There was a lot of side effects following this big transformation. On user side, there is no more “neighbour cache overflow” thanks to synchronized sizes of routing and neighbour table.

Metrics were stored in the routing cache entry which has disappeared. So it has been necessary to introduce a separate TCP metrics cache. A netlink interface is available to update/delete/add entry to the cache.

A other side effect of these modifications is that, on TCP socket, xt_owner could be used on input socket but the code needs to be updated.

On security side, the Reverse path filtering has been updated. When activated it is causing up to two extra FIB lookups But when deactivated there is now no overhead at all.