firehol-cthelper(5)

NAME
firehol-cthelper - control connection tracking helpers

SYNOPSIS
{ cthelper | cthelper4 | cthelper6 } protocol helper where [rule-params]

DESCRIPTION
The netfilter team has included in the Linux kernel protocol helpers that monitor traffic and allow them to work under the connection tracker.

The following protocol helpers have been provided:

•   amanda

•   ftp

•   tftp (cannot be configured)

•   h323 (cannot be configured)

•   irc (does not support IPv6)

•   netbios_ns (cannot be configured)

•   pptp (does not support IPv6)

•   gre (cannot be configured)

•   sane

•   sip

By default, the helpers will trust either side of the communication. This is considered a security issue and should be avoided.

Using cthelper the helpers that can be configured, can be instructed to trust a specific side of the communication.

Before doing so, the variable FIREHOL_CONNTRACK_HELPERS_ASSIGNMENT should be set to manual.

where defines where the trusted traffic is expected. It can be:

•   IN, INPUT, or PREROUTING to match incoming packets

•   OUT, OUTPUT to match outgoing packets

•   BOTH, BIDIRECTIONAL, or INOUT to match all packets

The rule-params define a set of rule parameters to further restrict the traffic that is matched. See firehol-params(5) for more details.

FIREHOL_CONNTRACK_HELPERS_ASSIGNMENT accepts the following values:

•   kernel which is the default, allows the kernel to determine by itself which side to trust.

•   firehol to have FireHOL automatically generate cthelper statements keeping src, dst, inface and outface from the statements that require each helper. Keep in mind this will only generate valid statements if you don’t use NAT at all. cthelper statements are executed by iptables before any NAT is applied, while packet filtering is configured after DNAT and before SNAT, resulting in wrong statements when NAT is applied.

•   manual to use the cthelper helper to configure the trusts in firehol.conf.

When set to kernel, FireHOL will set net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_helper=1. In all other cases, FireHOL will set net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_helper=0.

EXAMPLES

         # enable manual protocol helpers mode
         FIREHOL_CONNTRACK_HELPERS_ASSIGNMENT="manual"

         # trust SIP packets we send via interface dsl0
         cthelper sip out outface dsl0

         # trust SIP packets we receive from 10.0.0.1 via eth0
         cthelper sip in inface eth0 src 10.0.0.1

         # trust pptp packets we send via interface wan0 (IPv4 only)
         cthelper4 pptp out outface wan0

SEE ALSO

•   firehol(1) - FireHOL program

•   firehol.conf(5) - FireHOL configuration

•   FireHOL Website (http://firehol.org/)

•   FireHOL Online PDF Manual (http://firehol.org/firehol-manual.pdf)

•   FireHOL Online Documentation (http://firehol.org/documentation/)

AUTHORS
FireHOL Team.