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linux/net/ipv6/netfilter
Pablo Neira Ayuso 12f7a50533 netfilter: add user-space connection tracking helper infrastructure
There are good reasons to supports helpers in user-space instead:

* Rapid connection tracking helper development, as developing code
  in user-space is usually faster.

* Reliability: A buggy helper does not crash the kernel. Moreover,
  we can monitor the helper process and restart it in case of problems.

* Security: Avoid complex string matching and mangling in kernel-space
  running in privileged mode. Going further, we can even think about
  running user-space helpers as a non-root process.

* Extensibility: It allows the development of very specific helpers (most
  likely non-standard proprietary protocols) that are very likely not to be
  accepted for mainline inclusion in the form of kernel-space connection
  tracking helpers.

This patch adds the infrastructure to allow the implementation of
user-space conntrack helpers by means of the new nfnetlink subsystem
`nfnetlink_cthelper' and the existing queueing infrastructure
(nfnetlink_queue).

I had to add the new hook NF_IP6_PRI_CONNTRACK_HELPER to register
ipv[4|6]_helper which results from splitting ipv[4|6]_confirm into
two pieces. This change is required not to break NAT sequence
adjustment and conntrack confirmation for traffic that is enqueued
to our user-space conntrack helpers.

Basic operation, in a few steps:

1) Register user-space helper by means of `nfct':

 nfct helper add ftp inet tcp

 [ It must be a valid existing helper supported by conntrack-tools ]

2) Add rules to enable the FTP user-space helper which is
   used to track traffic going to TCP port 21.

For locally generated packets:

 iptables -I OUTPUT -t raw -p tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp

For non-locally generated packets:

 iptables -I PREROUTING -t raw -p tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp

3) Run the test conntrackd in helper mode (see example files under
   doc/helper/conntrackd.conf

 conntrackd

4) Generate FTP traffic going, if everything is OK, then conntrackd
   should create expectations (you can check that with `conntrack':

 conntrack -E expect

    [NEW] 301 proto=6 src=192.168.1.136 dst=130.89.148.12 sport=0 dport=54037 mask-src=255.255.255.255 mask-dst=255.255.255.255 sport=0 dport=65535 master-src=192.168.1.136 master-dst=130.89.148.12 sport=57127 dport=21 class=0 helper=ftp
[DESTROY] 301 proto=6 src=192.168.1.136 dst=130.89.148.12 sport=0 dport=54037 mask-src=255.255.255.255 mask-dst=255.255.255.255 sport=0 dport=65535 master-src=192.168.1.136 master-dst=130.89.148.12 sport=57127 dport=21 class=0 helper=ftp

This confirms that our test helper is receiving packets including the
conntrack information, and adding expectations in kernel-space.

The user-space helper can also store its private tracking information
in the conntrack structure in the kernel via the CTA_HELP_INFO. The
kernel will consider this a binary blob whose layout is unknown. This
information will be included in the information that is transfered
to user-space via glue code that integrates nfnetlink_queue and
ctnetlink.

Signed-off-by: Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>
2012-06-16 15:40:02 +02:00
..
ip6_tables.c net: Convert net_ratelimit uses to net_<level>_ratelimited 2012-05-15 13:45:03 -04:00
ip6t_ah.c netfilter: ip6_tables: add flags parameter to ipv6_find_hdr() 2012-05-09 12:53:47 +02:00
ip6t_eui64.c
ip6t_frag.c netfilter: ip6_tables: add flags parameter to ipv6_find_hdr() 2012-05-09 12:53:47 +02:00
ip6t_hbh.c netfilter: ip6_tables: add flags parameter to ipv6_find_hdr() 2012-05-09 12:53:47 +02:00
ip6t_ipv6header.c
ip6t_mh.c
ip6t_REJECT.c net: Convert net_ratelimit uses to net_<level>_ratelimited 2012-05-15 13:45:03 -04:00
ip6t_rpfilter.c netfilter: add ipv6 reverse path filter match 2011-12-13 11:34:43 +01:00
ip6t_rt.c netfilter: ip6_tables: add flags parameter to ipv6_find_hdr() 2012-05-09 12:53:47 +02:00
ip6table_filter.c netfilter: remove forward module param confusion. 2012-03-22 22:36:17 -04:00
ip6table_mangle.c net: Convert net_ratelimit uses to net_<level>_ratelimited 2012-05-15 13:45:03 -04:00
ip6table_raw.c
ip6table_security.c
Kconfig netfilter: remove ip_queue support 2012-05-08 20:25:42 +02:00
Makefile netfilter: remove ip_queue support 2012-05-08 20:25:42 +02:00
nf_conntrack_l3proto_ipv6.c netfilter: add user-space connection tracking helper infrastructure 2012-06-16 15:40:02 +02:00
nf_conntrack_proto_icmpv6.c netfilter: nf_conntrack: add namespace support for cttimeout 2012-06-07 14:58:41 +02:00
nf_conntrack_reasm.c net: Convert net_ratelimit uses to net_<level>_ratelimited 2012-05-15 13:45:03 -04:00
nf_defrag_ipv6_hooks.c Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00