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Date:      Fri, 31 Jul 1998 14:07:31 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu>
To:        spork <spork@super-g.com>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: IPFilter and "stateful inspection"(TM)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.00.9807311405360.14321-100000@resnet.uoregon.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.00.9807301926110.18364-100000@super-g.inch.com>

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On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, spork wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I saw a post on the Cisco list regarding routers vs. PCs, and someone had
> mentioned doing "stateful inspection" (a'la Firewall-1) under FreeBSD.  He
> pointed to IPFilter (http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~avalon/ip-filter.html).
> 
> Looking at this snippet is it saying what I think it says?  Which is
> "throw away FW-1 for your cheap clients and install IPFilter and FBSD on a
> PC"??  From what I know of FW-1, it keeps track ("state") of outgoing
> connections, ie: user goes to www.news.com, firewall makes a note of it,
> opens a hole in the packet filter to let the return packets from
> www.news.com in and then closes the hole.  Roughly...
> 
> So does that sound like what this describes?  If so, that rocks so hard I
> might wet myself.  Opinions?  Questions?  IPFW vs. IPFilter rants?
> IPFilter will be in 3.0 if memory serves, correct?

It sounds like 'stateful inspection' is the connection-setup half of NATD.
NATD's other half is to map the addresses.  

If the network behind the firewall isn't Internet-reachable anyway, then
you might as well use a stock FreeBSD box with ipfw & natd and fake
addresses on the interior.

> "keep state" automatically matches packets going in the reverse direction
> (usually out) or on other interfaces without
> needing explicit rules.

I've seen this written by allowing established TCP connections, but I
think this is a bit more intelligent.

Doug White                              | University of Oregon  
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | Residence Networking Assistant
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | Computer Science Major


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