linux/include
Pablo Neira Ayuso 12f7a50533 netfilter: add user-space connection tracking helper infrastructure
There are good reasons to supports helpers in user-space instead:

* Rapid connection tracking helper development, as developing code
  in user-space is usually faster.

* Reliability: A buggy helper does not crash the kernel. Moreover,
  we can monitor the helper process and restart it in case of problems.

* Security: Avoid complex string matching and mangling in kernel-space
  running in privileged mode. Going further, we can even think about
  running user-space helpers as a non-root process.

* Extensibility: It allows the development of very specific helpers (most
  likely non-standard proprietary protocols) that are very likely not to be
  accepted for mainline inclusion in the form of kernel-space connection
  tracking helpers.

This patch adds the infrastructure to allow the implementation of
user-space conntrack helpers by means of the new nfnetlink subsystem
`nfnetlink_cthelper' and the existing queueing infrastructure
(nfnetlink_queue).

I had to add the new hook NF_IP6_PRI_CONNTRACK_HELPER to register
ipv[4|6]_helper which results from splitting ipv[4|6]_confirm into
two pieces. This change is required not to break NAT sequence
adjustment and conntrack confirmation for traffic that is enqueued
to our user-space conntrack helpers.

Basic operation, in a few steps:

1) Register user-space helper by means of `nfct':

 nfct helper add ftp inet tcp

 [ It must be a valid existing helper supported by conntrack-tools ]

2) Add rules to enable the FTP user-space helper which is
   used to track traffic going to TCP port 21.

For locally generated packets:

 iptables -I OUTPUT -t raw -p tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp

For non-locally generated packets:

 iptables -I PREROUTING -t raw -p tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp

3) Run the test conntrackd in helper mode (see example files under
   doc/helper/conntrackd.conf

 conntrackd

4) Generate FTP traffic going, if everything is OK, then conntrackd
   should create expectations (you can check that with `conntrack':

 conntrack -E expect

    [NEW] 301 proto=6 src=192.168.1.136 dst=130.89.148.12 sport=0 dport=54037 mask-src=255.255.255.255 mask-dst=255.255.255.255 sport=0 dport=65535 master-src=192.168.1.136 master-dst=130.89.148.12 sport=57127 dport=21 class=0 helper=ftp
[DESTROY] 301 proto=6 src=192.168.1.136 dst=130.89.148.12 sport=0 dport=54037 mask-src=255.255.255.255 mask-dst=255.255.255.255 sport=0 dport=65535 master-src=192.168.1.136 master-dst=130.89.148.12 sport=57127 dport=21 class=0 helper=ftp

This confirms that our test helper is receiving packets including the
conntrack information, and adding expectations in kernel-space.

The user-space helper can also store its private tracking information
in the conntrack structure in the kernel via the CTA_HELP_INFO. The
kernel will consider this a binary blob whose layout is unknown. This
information will be included in the information that is transfered
to user-space via glue code that integrates nfnetlink_queue and
ctnetlink.

Signed-off-by: Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>
2012-06-16 15:40:02 +02:00
..
acpi ACPI: Add _PLD support 2012-05-11 17:03:12 -07:00
asm-generic Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2012-06-01 10:34:35 -07:00
crypto
drm introduce SIZE_MAX 2012-05-31 17:49:26 -07:00
keys KEYS: Permit in-place link replacement in keyring list 2012-05-11 10:56:56 +01:00
linux netfilter: add user-space connection tracking helper infrastructure 2012-06-16 15:40:02 +02:00
math-emu
media [media] patch for Asus My Cinema PS3-100 (1043:48cd) 2012-05-20 16:05:02 -03:00
memory ddr: add LPDDR2 data from JESD209-2 2012-05-02 00:04:06 -07:00
misc
mtd UBI: amend commentaries WRT dtype 2012-05-20 20:25:59 +03:00
net netfilter: add user-space connection tracking helper infrastructure 2012-06-16 15:40:02 +02:00
pcmcia
rdma Merge branches 'core', 'cxgb4', 'ipath', 'iser', 'lockdep', 'mlx4', 'nes', 'ocrdma', 'qib' and 'raw-qp' into for-linus 2012-05-21 09:00:47 -07:00
rxrpc
scsi [SCSI] fcoe, bnx2fc, libfcoe: SW FCoE and bnx2fc use FCoE Syfs 2012-05-23 09:43:13 +01:00
sound ASoC: Last minute updates 2012-05-22 02:58:55 +02:00
target target: Add MI_REPORT_TARGET_PGS ext. header + implict_trans_secs attribute 2012-05-17 00:45:58 -07:00
trace mm: vmscan: remove reclaim_mode_t 2012-05-29 16:22:19 -07:00
video fbdev updates for 3.5 2012-06-01 16:57:51 -07:00
xen xen: do not map the same GSI twice in PVHVM guests. 2012-05-21 14:11:36 -04:00
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