Comments to both posters inline ...

On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 12:42:31AM +0200, David Sommerseth wrote:
> On 19/05/16 20:47, Scott Crooks wrote:
> > Thank you also for the explanation regarding the firewalling. 
> > Part of the problem (and why I didn't reply to /dev/rob0) is 
> > because when it comes to iptables, I "don't know what I don't 
> > know" if that makes sense. It's hard to specify what I'm going 
> > for since there's a multitude of ways to do it I'm sure. However, 
> > if using the FORWARD chain can allow a user to have access to 
> > only what they need, and avoids having to use NAT, then that 
> > sounds like the way to go! Thank you again.

FORWARD simply means that packets arrived via network and are routed 
to depart via network.  They are not destined to nor originated from 
local sockets.

FORWARD does not avoid NAT.  You avoid NAT by not routing packets 
from RFC 1918 addresses to the Internet and vice versa, not routing 
packets from the Internet to RFC 1918 addresses.

Most NAT traffic does in fact go through filter/FORWARD.

> Yes, that should work.

... unless the particular traffic in question does not go to FORWARD, 
such as if a VPN user is connecting to / restricted from services on 
the VPN server itself.

>  Again, please have a look at the firewall
> configuration documentation in eurephia.  The key concept between 
> what you describe and what eurephia does is quite similar, so you 
> might get some ideas from there:
> 
> <http://www.eurephia.net/documentation/eurephia/1.1/html/Administrators_Tutorial_and_Manual/chap-Administrators_Manual-FWintegration_Chapter.html>
> 
> What is not described there is the magic eurephia does to update 
> iptables on-the-fly when clients connect and disconnect.  But in 
> essence that is eurephia running iptables commands updating the 
> 'vpn_users' table.  However, beware that OpenVPN needs to run with 
> root privileges to be able to update iptables on the fly.  And that 
> is one of the reasons eurephia will fork out a sub-process during 
> the init phase which keeps root privileges and gets limited update 
> requests from the unprivileged openvpn process (after it has 
> dropped privileges etc).

This sounds like eurephia could benefit from the use of ipset(8) and 
the "set" match.  You don't necessarily need to be root to update 
ipsets.  And even if you are or do need root, it's a more sane way to 
manage the ruleset than adding & deleting rules.

Oh, Scott: I saw your note in IRC, but I wasn't there when you were.
-- 
  http://rob0.nodns4.us/
  Offlist GMX mail is seen only if "/dev/rob0" is in the Subject:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mobile security can be enabling, not merely restricting. Employees who
bring their own devices (BYOD) to work are irked by the imposition of MDM
restrictions. Mobile Device Manager Plus allows you to control only the
apps on BYO-devices by containerizing them, leaving personal data untouched!
https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/304595813;131938128;j
_______________________________________________
Openvpn-users mailing list
Openvpn-users@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/openvpn-users

Reply via email to