ICMPv6 Firewall Recommendations

Introduction

RFC 4890 is entitled “Recommendations for Filtering ICMPv6 Messages in Firewalls”.

The recommendations pertain to firewalling at router level, not necessarily hosts or bridges (which may need to treat some packets differently, e.g. NS/NA and RS/RA).

The sections below were extracted from the example implementation; each one describes how the recommendation can be achieved with FireHOL.

It is assumed that a policy of reject or deny is in place. If that is not the case then some packet types need dropping explicitly to meet the recommendations.

Allow outbound echo requests from prefixes which belong to the site

The router command should be used with an appropriate src rule parameter.

Allow inbound echo requests towards only predetermined hosts

The ping service should be used in combination with an appropriate dst rule parameter.

Allow incoming and outgoing echo reply messages only for existing sessions

This is handled automatically by the ping service.

The router command should be used with an appropriate src and dst rule parameter. For example:

src not "${UNROUTABLE_IPS}" dst not "${UNROUTABLE_IPS}"

Drop echo replies which have a multicast address as a destination

The ping service can be used with an appropriate src rule parameter. For example:

ipv6 route ping src not "${MULTICAST6_IPS}"

will prevent incoming echo-requests from multicast IPs and replies to them.

Allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions

This is handled automatically by FireHOL 3+.

Allow outgoing destination unreachable messages

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” will also meet this recommendation.

Allow incoming Packet Too Big messages only for existing sessions

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow outgoing Packet Too Big messages

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow incoming time exceeded code 0 messages only for existing sessions

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow incoming time exceeded code 1 messages

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Note

In the example RFC script, non-established/related messages are allowed through for this type.

It is not clear why since code 0 and not code 1 messages are listed as part of the establishment of communications. Code 1 messages are listed as less essential for propagation over the network.

The behaviour implemented here is as per destination unreachable messages, so the same as the incoming time exceeded code 0 messages example.

Allow outgoing time exceeded code 0 messages

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow outgoing time exceeded code 1 messages

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow incoming parameter problem code 1 and 2 messages for an existing session

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow outgoing parameter problem code 1 and code 2 messages

The rule(s) suggested by “allow incoming destination unreachable messages only for existing sessions” ill also meet this recommendation.

Allow incoming and outgoing parameter problem code 0 messages

From the RFC it is not really necessary to allow these messages. FireHOL handles this automatically (by dropping them) unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets using the icmpv6 type bad-header.

Drop NS/NA messages both incoming and outgoing

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you set up an explicit route for the packets.

Note

Hosts and bridges need to allow these messages. See ipv6neigh.

Drop RS/RA messages both incoming and outgoing

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you set up an explicit route for the packets.

Note

Hosts and bridges need to allow these messages. See ipv6router.

Drop Redirect messages both incoming and outgoing

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you set up an explicit route for the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type redirect -j DROP

Drop incoming and outgoing Multicast Listener queries (MLDv1 and MLDv2)

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you set up an explicit route for the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 130 -j DROP

Drop incoming and outgoing Multicast Listener reports (MLDv1)

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 131 -j DROP

Drop incoming and outgoing Multicast Listener Done messages (MLDv1)

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 132 -j DROP

Drop incoming and outgoing Multicast Listener reports (MLDv2)

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 143 -j DROP

Drop router renumbering messages

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 138 -j DROP

Drop node information queries (139) and replies (140)

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets.

Note

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify allowing these messages on a host/bridge. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables command:

ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 139 -j DROP
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 --icmpv6-type 140 -j DROP

If there are mobile ipv6 home agents present on the trusted side allow

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify this setup. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables commands from the RFC script:

#incoming Home Agent address discovery request
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -d $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 144 -j ACCEPT
#outgoing Home Agent address discovery reply
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -s $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 145 -j ACCEPT
#incoming Mobile prefix solicitation
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -d $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 146 -j ACCEPT
#outgoing Mobile prefix advertisement
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -s $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 147 -j ACCEPT

If there are roaming mobile nodes present on the trusted side allow

At some point FireHOL may have a helper command added to simplify this setup. Meantime this is an example of the relevant ip6tables commands from the RFC script:

#outgoing Home Agent address discovery request
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -s $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 144 -j ACCEPT
#incoming Home Agent address discovery reply
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -d $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 145 -j ACCEPT
#outgoing Mobile prefix solicitation
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -s $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 146 -j ACCEPT
#incoming Mobile prefix advertisement
ip6tables -A icmpv6-filter -p icmpv6 -d $inner_prefix \
     --icmpv6-type 147 -j ACCEPT

Drop everything else

FireHOL handles this automatically unless you create a rule to explicitly allow the packets.