Adding the iptables firewall to the Xen domU (part 2)
Posted by: John Little
Linux, xen, red hat, centos, iptables, dom0, domU, pciback, Firewalls
In my last column we set up a physical NIC in our Xen domU to expose it to the internet and setup our iptables firewall.
At this point you should have 2 interfaces in your domU. One should be facing the internet and have an IP Address assigned from your ISP. The other should be a typical Xen interface with a static IP that connects to the rest of your network.
To start off our iptables network let’s open up the system-config-security application and make sure that iptables is enabled. Go ahead and close this once that is done. That should create a standard Red Hat\CentOS firewall setup as a starting point. You can check this by issuing the command:
iptables -L
Notice the chain that Red Hat\Centos adds to the typical iptables -L output. It is referenced by the input and forward chains. Generally when you put in a reference to the input chain you need a corresponding reference to the forward chain. This extra chain is the one that we will work with the most. Since it is referenced by both the forward and input chains we don’t need to put corresponding rules in both chains It is called:
RH-Firewall-1-INPUT
The first thing that we want to do is get the machines on our network out to the internet. We do this by using the nat table and the postrouting chain. This is the command to accomplish that:
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth1 -j MASQUERADE
This will let any internet request from your internal network access the internet. My internet facing NIC is eth1. Your’s may vary. Notice the -o eth1. This indicates that it is looking for outbound packets on eth1.
By default anything coming in from the internet is blocked. You’re probably going to want to let ssh and maybe openvpn come in from the internet. The solution that I use for this is to use domUs behind the firewall so that these requests land there rather than on the firewall machine. Here is how to setup an inbound request and have it directed to the landing server. From there you can go where you need on the network.
##ssh
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth1 -p tcp –dport 22 -j DNAT –to 172.16.0.201
##openvpn
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth1 -p tcp –dport 1194 -j DNAT –to 172.16.0.201
Any port that you need uses the exact same syntax except for the port number.
We also need to enable port forwarding so that it will survive a reboot. Use the following commands to enable it for your current session and set it up to survive a reboot:
[root@virtual-host ~]# sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
[root@virtual-host ~]# sysctl -p
#output
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter = 1
net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_source_route = 0
kernel.sysrq = 0
kernel.core_uses_pid = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1
kernel.msgmnb = 65536
kernel.msgmax = 65536
kernel.shmmax = 4294967295
kernel.shmall = 268435456
[root@virtual-host ~]#
As we can see from the first line under #output ip forwarding is set to 1 which means that it is turned on.
Note that if you go back and use any of the firewall GUIs provided you will lose all of the settings that used the nat table. I suggest that you stick with the command line after making your initial setup.
Here is what my iptables output looks like:
[root@fw0 ~]# iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
RH-Firewall-1-INPUT all — anywhere anywhere
Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
RH-Firewall-1-INPUT all — anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:servicetag
ACCEPT udp — anywhere anywhere udp dpt:servicetag
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain RH-Firewall-1-INPUT (2 references)
target prot opt source destination
DROP tcp — yktgi01e0-s4.watson.ibm.com anywhere tcp dpt:https
DROP tcp — yktgi01e0-s4.watson.ibm.com anywhere tcp dpt:http
ACCEPT all — anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT all — anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT icmp — anywhere anywhere icmp any
ACCEPT esp — anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT ah — anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT udp — anywhere 224.0.0.251 udp dpt:mdns
ACCEPT udp — anywhere anywhere udp dpt:ipp
ACCEPT udp — anywhere anywhere state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED udp dpt:servicetag
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED tcp dpt:servicetag
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:ipp
ACCEPT all — anywhere anywhere state RELATED,ESTABLISHED
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere state NEW tcp dpt:domain
ACCEPT udp — anywhere anywhere state NEW udp dpt:domain
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere state NEW tcp dpt:ssh
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere state NEW tcp dpt:smtp
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere state NEW tcp dpt:http
ACCEPT tcp — anywhere anywhere state NEW tcp dpt:https
REJECT all — anywhere anywhere reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
[root@fw0 ~]#
The two drops that you see at the top of the input chain are from somebody that kept hitting on my web server. Usually if you want to put a drop in against a specific target your will want to insert (I) it at the top of the chain like so:
iptables -I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT 1 -p tcp –dport 80 –source 11.22.33.444 -j DROP
The 1 just after INPUT instructs iptables to make that the first rule in the chain. Since both the input and forward chains are reference by the RH-Firewall-1-INPUT chain we don’t have to concern ourselves with putting the same rule in the forward chain.
I hope this helps you get started with your domU firewall.
-j
0 Comments
RSS Feed
Email a friend
