Advanced Firewall Configurations with ipset

Blocking Access to Hosts for All but Certain PCs (Inverse Scenario)

Let's say the boss wants to block access to a set of sites across all hosts on the LAN except his PC and his assistant's PC. For variety, in this example, let's match the boss and assistant PCs by MAC address instead of IP. Let's say the MACs are 11:11:11:11:11:11 and 22:22:22:22:22:22, and the sites to be blocked for everyone else are badsite1.com, badsite2.com and badsite3.com.

In lieu of using a second ipset to match the MACs, let's utilize multiple iptables commands with the MARK target to mark packets for processing in subsequent rules in the same chain:

ipset -N blocked_sites iphash
ipset -A blocked_sites badsite1.com
ipset -A blocked_sites badsite2.com
ipset -A blocked_sites badsite3.com
iptables -I FORWARD -m mark --mark 0x187 -j DROP
iptables -I FORWARD \
         -m mark --mark 0x187 \
         -m mac --mac-source 11:11:11:11:11:11 \
         -j MARK --set-mark 0x0
iptables -I FORWARD \
         -m mark --mark 0x187 \
         -m mac --mac-source 22:22:22:22:22:22 \
         -j MARK --set-mark 0x0
iptables -I FORWARD \
         -m set --set blocked_sites dst \
         -j MARK --set-mark 0x187

As you can see, because you're not using ipset to do all the matching work as in the previous example, the commands are quite a bit more involved and complex. Because there are multiple iptables commands, it's necessary to recognize that their order is vitally important.

Notice that these rules are being added with the -I option (insert) instead of -A (append). When a rule is inserted, it is added to the top of the chain, pushing all the existing rules down. Because each of these rules is being inserted, the effective order is reversed, because as each rule is added, it is inserted above the previous one.

The last iptables command above actually becomes the first rule in the FORWARD chain. This rule matches all packets with a destination matching the blocked_sites ipset, and then marks those packets with 0x187 (an arbitrarily chosen hex number). The next two rules match only packets from the hosts to be excluded and that are already marked with 0x187. These two rules then set the marks on those packets to 0x0, which "clears" the 0x187 mark.

Finally, the last iptables rule (which is represented by the first iptables command above) drops all packets with the 0x187 mark. This should match all packets with destinations in the blocked_sites set except those packets coming from either of the excluded MACs, because the mark on those packets is cleared before the DROP rule is reached.

This is just one way to approach the problem. Other than using a second ipset, another way would be to utilize user-defined chains.

If you wanted to use a second ipset instead of the mark technique, you wouldn't be able to achieve the exact outcome as above, because ipset does not have a machash set type. There is a macipmap set type, however, but this requires matching on IP and MACs together, not on MAC alone as above.

Cautionary note: in most practical cases, this solution would not actually work for Web sites, because many of the hosts that might be candidates for the blocked_sites set (like Facebook, MySpace and so on) may have multiple IP addresses, and those IPs may change frequently. A general limitation of iptables/ipset is that hostnames should be specified only if they resolve to a single IP.

Also, hostname lookups happen only at the time the command is run, so if the IP address changes, the firewall rule will not be aware of the change and still will reference the old IP. For this reason, a better way to accomplish these types of Web access policies is with an HTTP proxy solution, such as Squid. That topic is obviously beyond the scope of this article.

Automatically Ban Hosts That Attempt to Access Invalid Services

ipset also provides a "target extension" to iptables that provides a mechanism for dynamically adding and removing set entries based on any iptables rule. Instead of having to add entries manually with the ipset command, you can have iptables add them for you on the fly.

For example, if a remote host tries to connect to port 25, but you aren't running an SMTP server, it probably is up to no good. To deny that host the opportunity to try anything else proactively, use the following rules:

ipset -N banned_hosts iphash
iptables -A INPUT \
         -p tcp --dport 25 \
         -j SET --add-set banned_hosts src
iptables -A INPUT \
         -m set --set banned_hosts src \
         -j DROP

If a packet arrives on port 25, say with source address 1.1.1.1, it instantly is added to banned_hosts, just as if this command were run:

ipset -A banned_hosts 1.1.1.1

All traffic from 1.1.1.1 is blocked from that moment forward because of the DROP rule.

Note that this also will ban hosts that try to run a port scan unless they somehow know to avoid port 25.

Clearing the Running Config

If you want to clear the ipset and iptables config (sets, rules, entries) and reset to a fresh open firewall state (useful at the top of a firewall script), run the following commands:

iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -t filter -F
iptables -t raw -F
iptables -t nat -F
iptables -t mangle -F
ipset -F
ipset -X

Sets that are "in use", which means referenced by one or more iptables rules, cannot be destroyed (with ipset -X). So, in order to ensure a complete "reset" from any state, the iptables chains have to be flushed first (as illustrated above).

Conclusion

ipset adds many useful features and capabilities to the already very powerful netfilter/iptables suite. As described in this article, ipset not only provides new firewall configuration possibilities, but it also simplifies many setups that are difficult, awkward or less efficient to construct with iptables alone.

Any time you want to apply firewall rules to groups of hosts or addresses at once, you should be using ipset. As I showed in a few examples, you also can combine ipset with some of the more exotic iptables features, such as packet marking, to accomplish all sorts of designs and network policies.

The next time you're working on your firewall setup, consider adding ipset to the mix. I think you will be surprised at just how useful and flexible it can be.

Resources

Netfilter/iptables Project Home Page: http://www.netfilter.org

ipset Home Page: http://ipset.netfilter.org