Build It Yourself: A Linux Network Appliance, Part 4

In Part 3, we installed Webmin. Now we turn our sites to configure the network interfaces and firewall box security. Obviously, a firewall, like any network border device, must be highly secure.

Configuring Networking

Since your firewall box has two network cards, you need to configure one with your WAN IP and one with a LAN IP. Additionally, it’s a good idea to label each physical card so you know which one is which, and then use ifrename to ensure that the configurations stick to the correct cards. Please refer to Nail Down Network Interface Names with ifrename for this. You’ll need to take two more steps than the article gives, because Debian Stable does not include a startup script. Copy the one in the article to your firewall box and name it /etc/init.d/ifrename. Then make it start at boot by adding it to runlevels 2, 3, 4, and 5 with the update-rc.d command:

firewall1:~# update-rc.d ifrename start 40 2 3 4 5 . stop 0 1 6 .

Login on the firewall box as root. If you successfully initiated a remote Webmin session (last week’s installment) then you already know which NIC is your LAN interface. Open the interface configuration file:

firewall1:~# nano /etc/network/interfaces

This example configuration shows how to configure a static LAN IP, and a dynamic WAN IP:

# The loopback network interfaceauto loiface lo inet loopback

#lan and wan interfaces
auto lan wan

iface lan inet static
address 192.168.1.26
netmask 255.255.255.0

iface wan inet dhcp

If your Internet account gives you a static IP, use your account information. You’ll need the address, netmask, and gateway.

You’ll also need to enter your ISP’s DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf. Note that the interface names “lan” and “wan” are arbitrary.

I like to use descriptive names, rather than the default eth0, eth1, etc. so I instantly know what their roles are. These names are assigned with the ifrename program. Reboot, then run ifconfig -a to make sure everything is correct.

Locking it Down

Debian Stable installs with a number of services you don

’

t need, so they should be turned off. You can see these with the

netstat

command:

firewall1:~# netstat -untap
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address  Foreign Address  State PID/Program name
tcp    0   0 0.0.0.0:643   0.0.0.0:*     LISTEN   1733/rpc.statd
tcp    0   0 0.0.0.0:113   0.0.0.0:*     LISTEN   1616/inetd
tcp    0   0 0.0.0.0:111   0.0.0.0:*     LISTEN   1340/portmap
tcp    0   0 0.0.0.0:10000  0.0.0.0:*     LISTEN   1821/perl
tcp    0   0 0.0.0.0:22    0.0.0.0:*     LISTEN   1726/sshd
udp    0   0 0.0.0.0:640   0.0.0.0:*          1733/rpc.statd
udp    0   0 0.0.0.0:10000  0.0.0.0:*          1821/perl
udp    0   0 0.0.0.0:111   0.0.0.0:*          1340/portmap
udp    0   0 0.0.0.0:637   0.0.0.0:*          1733/rpc.statd

That’s a whole lot of unnecessary open ports. All that’s needed are sshd, for secure remote administration, and port 10000 for Webmin. To fix this, use the update-rc.d command to remove them from the startup directory, /etc/init.d/. Then reboot and run netstat again to verify that it worked:

firewall1:~# update-rc.d -f nfs-common remove
firewall1:~# update-rc.d -f portmap remove
firewall1:~# update-rc.d -f inetd remove

Next, we need to disable direct root logins over SSH, which is an important basic security measure on any system running an SSH server, and especially on a firewall. We’ll also limit SSH access to the LAN only. You can change this later, but for now a stricter policy is a good thing. Open /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

firewall1:~# nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Change PermitRootLogin yes to PermitRootLogin no, and change ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 to ListenAddress 192.168.1.26, or whatever the LAN IP is. Close out and save your changes, then restart the SSH daemon:

firewall1:~# /etc/init.d/ssh restart
Restarting OpenBSD Secure Shell server: sshd.

Now all future SSH logins will be as an ordinary user, then you’ll su to root after establishing an SSH session.

That locks down the firewall box pretty tightly. Come back next week to learn how to build your actual Internet-connection sharing firewall.

Resources

Nail Down Network Interface Names with ifrename
The Penguin’s Practical Network Troubleshooting Guide, Part 1
The Penguin’s Practical Network Troubleshooting Guide, Part 2
the Linux Cookbook

, step-by-step Linux system administration

Adapted from PracticallyNetworked.com, part of the EarthWeb.com Network.