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On 12.08.2009 14:56, Matthias Buecher / Germany wrote:
> On 12.08.2009 10:50, Ferenc Wagner wrote:
>> Matthias Buecher / Germany <[email protected]> writes:
> 
>>> When compiling a kernel prepared for all packages, then bridge
>>> firewalling is enabled inside the kernel.
>> Rather, I think you get the "problem" when you start the firewall.
> 
>>> This leads to "unexpected" behaviour for newbies and normal users: they
>>> can not access other devices on the LAN.
>> Well, I'd expect a firewall to filter traffic, actually.  It's more
>> alarming that a couple of packets can slip through, as the Trac ticket
>> #5640 shows.
> 
>>> Therefore disable bridge firewalling in sysctl.conf to avoid newbiw
>>> problems.
>> I'm not sure that less security by default is a good idea.  Especially
>> via changing a long time Linux default.  If you don't want a firewall,
>> why install and start it?
> 
> I agree that in general "less security by default" is not a good idea,
> but in this special case it makes sense.
> 
> * bridge firewalling is not on by default (see [1]). it just gets
> activated when compiling the OpenWrt kernel from trunk with all packages.
> 
> * the kernel mostly is compiled from trunk with all packages (seems also
> true for the official snapshot), to be prepared for future uses (e.g.
> kmod-tun for VPN) and to be able to use the official OpenWrt package
> repository.
>   if a kernel is used that wasn't compiled with all packages, then this
> causes errors/crashes with several packages from the OpenWrt repository
> (see #5341 for OpenVPN).
> 
> * bridge firewalling is an additional kernel firewall for bridges. when
> disabled, this doesn't mean that iptables is not working.
> 
> * the typical bridge in OpenWrt is the LAN switch of a router. so it's
> mainly an additional security for interal threads, not external threads.
> 
> * the typical default behaviour of a router/switch is: allow all LAN
> traffic and all outgoing WAN traffic, block all incoming WAN traffic.
> 
> 
> The other "but" is the user side:
> * Although I have some Linux experience and work as a programmer it took
> me over 3 mandays to find the solution. A normal user will be totally lost.
> * Someone who wants "bridge firewalling" will find it within some
> minutes as he knows what he is looking for.
> 
> 
> So in my eyes "bridge firewalling" is an extra security option for
> experts, that have/want to protect the LAN ports against each others.
> Therefore I would add these settings to the trunk, just like the already
> existing more "insecure" settings (e.g. "net.ipv4.ip_forward=1" for VPN).
> 
> 
> About the slip-through packets:
> This only happens when starting the kernel, the bridge firewalling (not
> iptables) seems to be enabled after the network.
> So for some seconds some packets may not be "bridge firewalled" on startup.
> 
> 
> [1] Linux bridge firewalling:
> http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Net:Bridge#Kernel_Configuration

Another solution would be to compile it as a separate module (BRIDGE=m).
Then the user can decide if he want to install it or not.

Maddes

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