Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:46:08 -0800 (PST)
From:      Josh Brooks <user@mail.econolodgetulsa.com>
To:        Sean Chittenden <sean@chittenden.org>
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, <nate@yogotech.com>
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD firewall for high profile hosts - waste of time ?
Message-ID:  <20030116124254.J9642-100000@mail.econolodgetulsa.com>
In-Reply-To: <20030116203739.GA34165@perrin.int.nxad.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help

Again, thank you very much for your advice and comments - they are very
well taken.

I will clarify and say that the fbsd system I am using / talking about is
a _dedicated_ firewall.  Only port 22 is open on it.

The problem is, I have a few hundred ipfw rules (there are over 200
machines behind this firewall) and so when a DDoS attack comes, every
packet has to traverse those hundreds of rules - and so even though the
firewall is doing nothing other than filtering packets, the cpu gets all
used up.

I have definitely put rules at the very front of the ruleset to filter out
bad packets, and obvious attacks, but there is a new one devised literally
every day.

------

So, you say that a poorly configured netscreen is no better than a poorly
configured freebsd+ipfw ... but what about the best possibly configured
netscreen vs. the best possibly configured freebsd+ipfw ?

thanks.


On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Sean Chittenden wrote:

> > If I have a large network with high profile hosts (50+ shell servers, 50
> > or more different ircds running) am I wasting my time trying to hack and
> > tweak a FreeBSD host-based firewall running ipfw ?
>
> The suggestion later on to use a FreeBSD appliance is likely the best
> advice you've gotten.  The only thing I'd suggest is to use ipfw in
> bridging mode that way your firewall is non-existant as far as the
> rest of the world is concerned.  Don't do anything stateful and just
> filter out crap (where your definition of crap is left up to you).
> I've used PIX's before and have even gone so far as to work for Cisco
> for a while, so while I'm not allowed to say anything negative about
> the product (and won't ::wink::), I will suggest that you stick with
> FreeBSD as your firewall.  -sc
>
> --
> Sean Chittenden
>



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20030116124254.J9642-100000>