Firewall Wizards: Re: Is the order of the rules entered in iptables important?

[David Lang <david.lang () digitalinsight com>]

having worked with both types I think that the 'best fit' approach is
easier if you have small rulesets, but the 'rule order' approach offers
more precise control with a complicated ruleset.

one thing that makes the 'best fit' approach work on raptor is that since
it is a proxy based firewall you are not putting in two rules for each
traffic type, only one so some of the more obvious reordering problems
vanish.

David Lang

On 5 Aug 2002, Anton J Aylward, CISSP wrote:

> Date: 05 Aug 2002 08:14:43 -0400
> From: "Anton J Aylward, CISSP" <aja () si on ca>
> To: David Lang <david.lang () digitalinsight com>
> Cc: Christopher Hicks <chicks () chicks net>,
>      firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com
> Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] Is the order of the rules entered in iptables
>     important?
>
> You should also check Brent Chapman's papers and the O'Reilly book he
> co-authored with Elizabeth Zwicky.
>
> Brent found that some routers try to optimize their filter rules and do
> so in such a way that results in untoward effects.
>
> I don't know which volume will be available to you, but in mine its in a
> section:
>
>   Choosing a filtering Packet Router
>       It should apply rules in the order specified.
>
>
> See if the problems he describes with the optimizations would apply to
> you.
>
> On Sun, 2002-08-04 at 23:14, David Lang wrote:
> > there are a few firewalls that apply rules in a 'best fit' strategy rather
> > then in order. Raptor (now Symantec Enterprise Firewall) is one example
> > that does this.
> >
> > there was a debate on the pros and cons of this a year or so ago.
> >
> > David Lang
> >
> > On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Christopher Hicks wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Kenny G. Dubuisson, Jr. wrote:
> > > > does the order in which rules are added for an iptables table matter?
> > > Yes.  I'm not aware of many firewall ruleset system where the order
> > > doesn't matter.
> --
> Anton J Aylward, CISSP        | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ITTMG-Canada
> System Integrity      | http://www.isc2.org
> InfoSec Consulting    | http://www.issa-intl.org
> Voice: (416) 497-0201         | http://www.issa-toronto.org
> mailto:aja () si on ca        |
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