You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to users@httpd.apache.org by Ed Suominen <ge...@eepatents.com> on 2004/03/13 06:21:35 UTC

[users@httpd] Re: Crazy Apache/Shorewall Problem

Tom Eastep, the author of Shorewall, helped me figure this one out. He
wrote:

> What you are doing is a hack to work around some more fundimental problem.
> My guess is that the real problem is either that:
> 
> a) You need CLAMPMSS=Yes in shorewall.conf but have CLAMPMSS=No ; or

Tried that, after ensuring that my kernel is properly configured. But it
didn't help -- still didn't work without my "--proto icmp" hack.

> b) On your internal network, the firewall has an MTU that is different
> from the MTU configured in the client systems.

Excellent tip! I changed the MTU of my Internet NIC to 1492 and it works
without the hack. (I left "CLAMPMSS=Yes" alone, figuring that's probably
the right setting whether it matters for this or not.)

I noticed during my packet sniffing that the "shorewall clear" (worked OK)
setup was sending 8 fewer bytes per packet than the "shorewall start" (bad
HTTP) setup, which is interesting given that 1500-1492=8.


Ed Suominen wrote:

>  I have spent an embarassingly large number of hours today trying to get
>  Apache to serve stuff through iptables as configured by the Shorewall
> firewall package.
>  
>  After much logging, shorewall reloading, and packet sniffing, I found
>  that my router (192.168.254.254) is sending ICMP packets back to me when
>  big files are requested by some (but not all?!?!?) clients:
>  
>  Mar 12 19:45:51 [kernel] DEBUG:IN
>  IN=eth1 OUT=
>  MAC=<whatever> SRC=192.168.254.254 DST=192.168.254.1
>  LEN=56 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=22404 DF
>  PROTO=ICMP TYPE=3 CODE=4 [SRC=192.168.254.1 DST=69.57.157.43 LEN=1520
>  TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=63 ID=54196 FRAG:64 PROTO=TCP ]
>  MTU=1492
>  
>  The type and code mean "Fragmentation needed but no frag. bit set."
>  
>  Shorewall drops ICMP packets, so I had to add the following
>  to /etc/shorewall/start:
>  
>  iptables -I INPUT -i eth1 -s 192.168.254.254 -p icmp --icmp-type 3 -j
> ACCEPT
>  
>  Presumably, no one will be able to make my router send malicious ICMP
>  packets of type 3, all codes of which look pretty benign.
>  
>  Not really asking for any help here, but curious if anyone knows of a fix
>  for the ICMP junk and if anyone has ever heard of this.
>  
>  --
>  Ed Suominen
>  Registered Patent Agent
>  Open Source Developer (Yes, both...)
>  Web Site: http://www.eepatents.com
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project.
> See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info.
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@httpd.apache.org
>    "   from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@httpd.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@httpd.apache.org

-- 
Ed Suominen
Registered Patent Agent 
Open Source Developer (Yes, both...)
Web Site: http://www.eepatents.com



---------------------------------------------------------------------
The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project.
See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info.
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@httpd.apache.org
   "   from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@httpd.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@httpd.apache.org