The FB6000 is shipped in a factory reset state. This means it has a default configuration that allows the unit to be attached directly to a computer, or into an existing network, and is accessible via a web browser on a known IP address for further configuration.

Besides allowing initial web access to the unit, the factory reset configuration provides a starting point for you to develop a bespoke configuration that meets your requirements.

A printed copy of the QuickStart Guide is included with your FB6000 and covers the basic setup required to gain access to the web based user interface. If you have already followed the steps in the QuickStart guide, and are able to access the FB6000 via a web browser, you can begin to work with the factory reset configuration by referring to Chapter 3.

Initial set up is also covered in this manual, so if you have not already followed the QuickStart Guide, please start at Chapter 2.

The remainder of this chapter provides an overview of the FB6000's capabilities, and covers your product support options.

The FB6000 series of products is a family of high speed ISP/telco grade routers and firewalls providing a range of specific functions.

Key features of the FB6000 family:

The FB600 series are provided in a number of variants. This manual is for the FB6202. This variant includes:

The FB6000 has two copper (RJ45) Ethernet network ports that operate at 1Gb/s. The ports implement auto-negotiation by default, but operation can be fine-tuned to suit specific circumstances. The function of these ports is very flexible, and defined by the device's configuration. The ports implement one or more interfaces.

Multiple interfaces can be implemented on a single physical port (or port group) via support for IEEE 802.1Q VLANs, ideal for using the FB6000 with VLAN-capable network switches. In this case, a single physical connection can be made between a VLAN-capable switch and the FB6000, and with the switch configured appropriately, this physical connection will carry traffic to/from multiple VLANs, and the FB6000 can do Layer 3 processing (routing/firewalling etc.) between nodes on two or more VLANs.

The two ports on the FB6000 can be combined as a single 2Gb/2 LACP bundle, with a choice of hashing logic for traffic distribution.

Every major FB6000 software release is accompanied by a release-specific version of this manual. This manual documents software version V1.61.010 - please refer to Section 4.3 to find out more about software releases, and to see how to identify which software version your FB6000 is currently running.

If your FB6000 is running a different version of system software, then please consult the version of this manual that documents that specific version, as there may be significant differences between the software versions. Also bear in mind that if you are not reading the latest version of the manual (and using the latest software release), references in this manual to external resources, such as the FireBrick website, may be out of date.

You can find the latest revision of a manual for a specific software version on the FB6000 software downloads website. This includes the revision history for all software releases.

This manual is intended to guide FB6000 owners in configuring their units for their specific applications. We try to make no significant assumption about the reader's knowledge of FireBrick products, but as might be expected given the target market for the products, it is assumed the reader has a reasonable working knowledge of common IP and Ethernet networking concepts. So, whether you've used FireBrick products for years, or have purchased one for the very first time, and whether you're a novice or a network guru, this Manual sets out to be an easy to read, definitive guide to FireBrick product configuration for all FireBrick customers.

There are a number of useful technical details included in the appendices. These are intended to be a reference guide for key features.

At FireBrick, we appreciate that different people learn in different ways - some like to dive in, hands-on, working with examples and tweaking them until they work the way they want, referring to documentation as required. Other people prefer to build their knowledge up from first principles, and gain a thorough understanding of what they're working with. Most people we suspect fall somewhere between these two learning styles.

This Manual aims to be highly usable regardless of your learning style - material is presented in an order that starts with fundamental concepts, and builds to more complex operation of your FireBrick. At all stages we hope to provide a well-written description of how to configure each aspect of the FireBrick, and - where necessary - provide enough insight into the FireBrick's internal operation that you understand why the configuration achieves what it does.

Various typefaces and presentation styles are used in this document as follows :-

If you'd like to make any comments on this Manual, point out errors, make suggestions for improvement or provide any other feedback, we would be pleased to hear from you via e-mail at : docs@firebrick.co.uk.

Technical support is available, in the first instance, via the reseller from which you purchased your FireBrick. FireBrick provide extensive training and support to resellers and you will find them experts in FireBrick products.

However, before contacting them, please ensure you have :-

Many FireBrick resellers also offer general IT support, including installation, configuration, maintenance, and training. You may be able to get your reseller to develop FB6000 configurations for you - although this will typically be chargeable, you may well find this cost-effective, especially if you are new to FireBrick products.

If you are not satisfied with the support you are getting from your reseller, please contact us.

A public IRC channel is available for FireBrick discussion - the details are :-

Some applications notes have been created by the FireBrick team and included on the web site. There are also useful Wiki web sites provided by main dealers which cover specific configuration examples. Ask your dealer for more details. These are usually public Wiki web sites even if not buying from that specific dealer.

FireBrick provide training courses for the full FireBrick series of products, and also training course on general IP networking that are useful if you are new to networking with IP.

Training course attendance is mandatory for all FireBrick dealers to be accredited.

To obtain information about upcoming courses, please contact us via e-mail at : training@firebrick.co.uk.

The setup wizard allows you to fill in a few key items before entering the normal configuration editor.

Figure 2.2. Setup Wizard

The key settings may vary in later versions, but they represent the main settings you need to consider to get started.

The object model has a formal definition in the form of an XML Schema Document (XSD) file, which is itself an XML file, normally intended for machine-processing. A more readable version of this information is available in Appendix K.

Note, however, that this is reference material, containing only brief descriptions, and intended for users who are familiar with the product, and in particular, for users configuring their units primarily via XML.

The XSD file is also available on the software downloads website by following the "XSD" link that is present against each software release.

Most objects have a comment attribute which is free-form text that can be used for any purpose. Similarly, most objects have a source attribute that is intended for use by automated configuration management tools. Neither of these attributes have a direct effect on the operation of the FB6000.

Many objects have a name attribute which is mandatory and often needs to be unique within the list of objects. This allows the named object to be referenced from other attributes. The data type for these is typically an NMTOKEN which is a variant of a string type that does not allow spaces. If you include spaces then they are removed automatically. This helps avoid any problems referencing names in other places especially where the reference may be a space separated list.

Many objects have a graph attribute. This allows a graph name to be specified. However, the actual graph name will be normalised to avoid spaces and limit the number of characters. Try to keep graph names as basic characters (letters, numbers) to avoid confusion.

When you send the FireBrick a configuration the value is parsed and stored internally in a binary format. This means that when you access the config later it is possible the value you see is a normalised version of the value. For example storing a number as 000123 will return as 123.

In some cases you can enter a value in a format you will never see come back when you view the config. For example, simple integers can have SI magnitide suffixes, e.g. G (giga), M (mega), or k (kilo), so you can enter 1.5k but will see 1500. You can also use Gi (gibi), Mi (mebi), or Ki (kibi) for IEC units based on powers of two. You can also suffix B to mean bytes and the resulting value stored will be 8 times larger (as integers are used for bits/second speed settings). Other examples include using colour names like red which you see as #ff0000.

Where the type is in fact a list of a type, the actual value in the XML attribute is actually a space separated list. This is consistent with the XSD (XML Schema Definition). In the web based editor such lists are automatically split on to separate lines to make it easier to read and edit, but in the raw XML the list simple uses a single space between each item.

For example allow="192.168.0.0/16 10.0.0.0/8 172.16.0.0/12" lists three IP prefixes to allow.

Some types are simply a set of acceptable values, the simplest of which is Boolean allowing false and true.

The simple lists of values are detailed in Section K.2, with the acceptable values.

However, in some cases a data type is a reference to some other object, in which case the acceptable values are the name of those referenced objects. In most cases the web based config can ensure it provides a pull down menu of the acceptable values.

There is one special case for IP groups where the value can be an IP address, or range, or the name of an IP group. In this case the web config editor expects you to correctly type the name of an IP group.

There is one other special case of graph names where you can typically enter any name, including one of the defined shaper names or make up a new name as you wish with no error when you save the config. Graphs are created on the fly and so you have to be careful to correctly type graph names in the config to get the desired effect.

As per normal XML Schema rules, dates and times are in ISO8601 format, e.g. 2022-04-28 or 2022-04-28T16:37:48.

However, unlike XML Schema rules, durations are in the format for HH:MM:SS, or MM:SS, or just seconds, e.g. 1:00:00 for one hour. However, to allow XML Schema compliant input a duration can also be entered in the normal format such as PT1H for one hour, which appears as 1:00:00. Note that P1M and PT1M specify 1 month and one minute durations, respectively.

Colours can be entered in normal css style format such as #FF0000 or #F00, or use a small set of colour names such as red. A fourth byte for transparency can be provided if applicable.

There are two cases where the information entered in the config may be sensitive. One case is a password, for example one used for a user log in to the FireBrick. This this case you can provide a simple text password in the config you send, but what you get back will be a hash, e.g. SHA256#92E12F9A333C68690078AC041CD840996EB366A190F7D8966C48AB84A5729F66DCBC7C1A01​9FC277583684E81015EA. The exact format used may change over time, and if an older hash, such as MD5 exists in the config, it will actually change to a newer hash format automatically next time someone logs in using that password. The hashes include salt to make them harder to crack, but none the less it is best to keep config files secure and not reveal the hashes used.

Another special case is the use of a OTP (One Time Passcode) system. You can put a plain text password and a BASE32 OTP seed in the config for a user, and they will come back as a hashed password (as above), and a # followed by base64 coded data for the OTP code.

In addition, there are also secrets which are passwords which cannot be stored in a hashed format (because of the way they are used). Both passwords and secrets are only displayed if you have full access to the config. If you have limited access, or select to view the config with secrets hidden then they all appear as "secret". However such secrets are stored in the config file in plain text.

It is possible (though complex) for you to make hashes and OTP seeds off-line and simply store in the config. For more information on how passwords are hashed and OTP seeds are stored, see Appendix J.

Being an IP based router the FireBrick config has a lot of places where an IP address can be entered. In some cases a simple single IP address, but in other cases as an IP and subnet size (CIDR notation) or even a range of IP addresses. Often a list of IP addresses and/or ranges can be specified in a space separated list.

The User Interface has the following general layout :-

Figure 3.1 shows the main menu when it is set to display horizontally. Note that the main-menu items themselves have a specific function when clicked - clicking such items displays a general page related to that item - for example, clicking on Status shows some overall status information, whereas sub-menu items under Status display specific categories of status information.

Figure 3.1. Main menu

The user interface pages used to change the device configuration are referred to as the 'config pages' in this manual - these pages are accessed by clicking on the "Edit" item in the sub-menu under the "Config" main-menu item.

3.5.1.1. Customising the layout

The following aspects of the user interface layout can be customised :-

• The banner area can be reduced in height, or removed all together
• The main menu strip can be positioned vertically at the left or right-hand sides, or horizontally at the top (under the banner, if present)

Additionally, you can choose to use the default fonts that are defined in your browser setup, or use the fonts specified by the user interface.

These customisations are controlled using three icons on the left-hand side of the page footer, as shown in Figure 3.2 below :-

Figure 3.2. Icons for layout controls

The first icon, an up/down arrow, controls the banner size/visibility and cycles through three settings : full size banner, reduced height banner, no banner. The next icon, a left/right arrow, controls the menu strip position and cycles through three settings : menu on the left, menu on the right, menu at the top. The last icon, the letter 'A', toggles between using browser-specified or user-interface-specified fonts.

Layout settings are stored in a cookie - since cookies are stored on your computer, and are associated with the DNS name or IP address used to browse to the FB6000, this means that settings that apply to a particular FB6000 will automatically be recalled next time you use the same computer/browser to connect to that FB6000.

It is also possible to configure an external CSS to use with the FireBrick web control pages which allows a great deal of control over the overall layout and appearance. This can be usful for dealers or IT support companies to set up FireBricks in a style and branding of their choice.

The structure of the config pages mirrors the object hierarchy, and therefore they are themselves naturally hierachical. Your position in the hierarchy is illustrated in the 'breadcrumbs' trail at the top of the page, for example :-

Firewall/mapping rules :: rule-set 1 of 3 (filters) :: rule 7 of 19 (ICMP)

This shows that the current page is showing a rule, which exists within a rule-set, which in turn is in the "Firewall/mapping rules" category (see below).

3.5.2.1. Configuration categories

Configuration objects are grouped into a number of categories. At the top of the config pages is a set of icons, one for each category, as shown in Figure 3.3 :-

Figure 3.3. Icons for configuration categories

Within each category, there are one or more sections delimited by horizontal lines. Each of these sections has a heading, and corresponds to a particular type of top-level object, and relates to a major part of the configuration that comes under the selected category. See Figure 3.4 for an example showing part of the "Setup" category, which includes general system settings (the system object) and control of system services (network services provided by the FB6000, such as the web-interface web server, telnet server etc., controlled by the services object).

Figure 3.4. The "Setup" category

Each section is displayed as a tabulated list showing any existing objects of the associated type. Each row of the table corresponds with one object, and a subset (typically those of most interest at a glance) of the object's attributes are shown in the columns - the column heading shows the attribute name. If no objects of that type exist, there will be a single row with an "Add" link. Where the order of the objects matter, there will be an 'Add' link against each object - clicking an 'Add' link for a particular object will insert a new object before it. To add a new object after the last existing one, click on the 'Add' link on the bottom (or only) row of the table.

Tip

If there is no 'Add' link present, then this means there can only exist a limited number of objects of that type (possibly only one), and this many already exist. The existing object(s) may have originated from the factory reset configuration.

You can 'push-down' into the hierarchy by clicking the 'Edit' link in a table row. This takes you to a page to edit that specific object. The page also shows any child objects of the object being edited, using the same horizontal-line delimited section style used in the top-level categories. You can navigate back up the hierarchy using various methods - see Section 3.5.3.

Caution

Clicking the "Add" link will create a new sub-object which will have blank/default settings. This can be useful to see what attributes an object can take, but if you do not want this blank object to be part of the configuration you later save you will need to click Erase. Simply going back "Up" or moving to another part of the config will leave this newly created empty object and that could have undesirable effects on the operation of your FireBrick if saved.

3.5.2.2. Object settings

The details of an object are displayed as a matrix of boxes (giving the appearance of a wall of bricks), one for each attribute associated with that object type. Figure 3.5 shows an example for an interface object (covered in Chapter 6) :-

Figure 3.5. Editing an "Interface" object

By default, more advanced or less frequently used attributes are hidden - if this applies to the object being edited, you will see the text shown in Figure 3.6. The hidden attributes can be displayed by clicking on the link "Show all".

Figure 3.6. Show hidden attributes

Each brick in the wall contains the following :-

• a checkbox - if the checkbox is checked, an appropriate value entry widget is displayed, otherwise, a default value is shown and applied for that setting. If the attribute is not optional then no checkbox is show.
• the attribute name - this is a compact string that exactly matches the underlying XML attribute name
• a short description of the attribute

Tip

If there is no default shown for an attribute then its value, if needed, is zero, blank, null, empty string, false (internally it is zero bits!). In some cases the presence of an attribute will have meaning even if that attribute is an empty string or zero value. In some cases the default for an attribute will not be a fixed value but will depend on other factors, e.g. it may be "auto", or "set if using xyz...". The description of the default value should make this clear. Where an optional attribute is not ticked the attribute does not appear in the XML at all.

These can be seen in Figure 3.7 :-

Figure 3.7. Attribute definitions

If the attribute value is shown in a 'strike-through' font (with a horizontal line through it mid-way vertically), this illustrates that the attribute can't be set - this will happen where the attribute value would reference an instance of particular type of object, but there are not currently any instances of objects of that type defined.

Tip

Since the attribute name is a compact, concise and un-ambiguous way of referring to an attribute, please quote attribute names when requesting technical support, and expect technical support staff to discuss your configuration primarily in terms of attribute (and object/element) names, rather than descriptive text, or physical location on your screen (both of which can vary between software releases).

You navigate around the hierarchy using one or more of the following :-

Figure 3.8. Navigation controls

Navigating away from an object using the supported navigation controls doesn't cause any modifications to that object to be lost, even if the configuration has not yet been saved back to the FB6000. All changes are initially held in-memory (in the web browser itself), and are committed back to the FireBrick only when you press the Save button.

The navigation button area, shown in Figure 3.8, also includes three other buttons :-

To back up / save or restore the configuration, start by clicking on the "Config" main-menu item. This will show a page with a form to upload a configuration file (in XML) to the FB6000 - also on the page is a link "Download/save config" that will download the current configuration in XML format.

An XML file is a text file (i.e. contains human-readable characters only) with formally defined structure and content. An XML file starts with the line :-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

This defines the version of XML that the file complies with and the character encoding in use. The UTF-8 character coding is used everywhere by the FireBrick.

The XML file contains one or more elements, which may be nested into a hiearchy.

Each element consists of some optional content, bounded by two tags - a start tag AND an end tag.

A start tag consists of the following sequence of characters:-

An end tag consists of the following sequence of characters:-

If an element needs no content, it can be represented with a more compact self closing tag. A self closing tag is the same as a start tag but ends with /> and then has no content or end tag.

Since the <, > and " characters have special meaning, there are special ('escape') character sequences starting with the ampersand character that are used to represent these characters. They are :-

Note that since the ampersand character has special meaning, it too has an escape character sequence.

Attributes are written in the form : name="value" or name='value'. Multiple attributes are separated by white-space (spaces and line breaks).

Generally, the content of an element can be other child elements or text. However, the FB6000 doesn't use text content in elements - all configuration data is specified via attributes. Therefore you will see that elements only contain one or more child elements, or no content at all. Whilst there is generally not any text between the tags, white space is normally used to make the layout clear.

At the top level, an XML file normally only has one element (the root element), which contains the entire element hierarchy. In the FB6000 the root element is <config>, and it contains 'top-level' configuration elements that cover major areas of the configuration, such as overall system settings, interface definitions, firewall rule sets etc.

In addition to this User Manual, there is reference material is available that documents the XML elements - refer to Section 3.2.1.

The XML representation of the configuration can be viewed and edited (in text form) via the web interface by clicking on "XML View" and "XML Edit" respectively under the main-menu "Config" item. Viewing the configuration is, as you might expect, 'read-only', and so is 'safe' in as much as you can't accidentally change the configuration.

An example of a simple, but complete XML configuration is shown below, with annotations pointing out the main elements

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config xmlns="http://firebrick.ltd.uk/xml/fb9000/"	
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="http://firebrick.ltd.uk/xml/fb9000/  ...
        timestamp="2022-03-14T12:24:07Z"
        patch="8882">

 <system name="gateway"             
         contact="Peter Smith"
         location="The Basement"
         log-support="fb-support">
 </system>

 <user name="peter"                 
       full-name="Peter Smith"
       password="FB105#4D42454D26F8BF5480F07DFA1E41AE47410154F6"
       timeout="PT3H20M"
       config="full"
       level="DEBUG"/>

 <log name="default"/>           
 <log name="fb-support">
  <email to="crashlog@firebrick.ltd.uk"
         comment="Crash logs emailed to FireBrick Support"/>
 </log>

 <services>                      
  <time/>
  <telnet log="default"/>
  <http/>
  <dns domain="watchfront.co.uk"
       resolvers="81.187.42.42 81.187.96.96"/>
 </services>

 <port name="WAN"                   
       ports="1"/>
 <port name="LAN"
       ports="2"/>

 <interface name="WAN"              
            port="WAN">
  <subnet name="ADSL"
          ip="81.187.106.73/30"/>
 </interface>

 <interface name="LAN"               
            port="LAN">
  <subnet name="LAN"
          ip="81.187.96.94/28"/>
  <dhcp name="LAN"
        ip="81.187.96.88-92"
        log="default"/>
 </interface>

 </config>

      

To download the configuration from the FB6000 you need to perform an HTTP GET of the following URL :-

http://<FB6000 IP address or DNS name>/config/config

An example of doing this using curl, run on a Linux box is shown below :-

curl http://<FB6000 IP address or DNS name>/config/config
   --user "username:password" --output "filename"
      

Replace username and password with appropriate credentials.

The XML configuration file will be stored in the file specified by filename - you can choose any file extension you wish (or none at all), but we suggest that you use .xml for consistency with the file extension used when saving a configuration via the User Interface (see Section 3.5.4).

To upload the configuration to the FB6000 you need to send the configuration XML file as if posted by a web form, using encoding MIME type multipart/form-data.

An example of doing this using curl, run on a Linux box is shown below :-

curl http://<FB6000 IP address or DNS name>/config/config
   --user "username:password" --form config="@filename"
      

A user's login level is set with the level attribute, and determines what CLI commands the user can run. The default, if the level attribute is not specified, is ADMIN - you may wish to downgrade the level for users who are not classed as 'system administrators'.

The configuration access level determines whether a user has read-only or read-write access to the configuration, as shown in Table 4.2 below. This mechanism can also be used to deny all access to the configuration using the none level, but still allowing access to other menus and diagnostics.

Config access also requires at least admin level for their login level to access config via the web interface.

It is possible to test a new config, causing it to be applied but not saved to permament storage. This test config automatically reverts after a few minutes if not committed, or if the brick restarts, e.g. power cycle. It is recommended that you test a config first to ensure you have not locked yourself out, and there is a user level to force you to have to test configs first.

To improve security, login sessions to either the web user interface, or to the command-line interface (via telnet, see Chapter 17), will time-out after a period of inactivity. This idle time-out defaults to 5 minutes, and can be changed by setting the timeout attribute value.

The time-out value is specified using the syntax for the XML fb:duration data type. The syntax is hours, minutes and seconds, or minutes and seconds or just seconds. E.g. 5:00.

To set a user's time-out in the user interface, tick the checkbox next to timeout, and enter a value in the format described above.

Setting a timeout to 0 means unlimited and should obviously be used with care.

Normally, all config data is updated via the config edit process, and this allows a new password to be set for any user.

However, there is also a menu to allow a logged in user to change their own password. This does not require the user to have any config access permission. Simply enter the old password, and the new password twice and the password is updated.

If you have set up an OTP configuration for a user, then you cannot change the password simply using the configuration editor (unless also setting a new OTP configuration from scratch or removing it). In such cases the password should be set using the password change web page. This is also good practice as it avoids the administrator knowing people's passwords.

A login to the FireBrick normally requires only a username and password. However you can configure an additional security measure using a One Time Password (OTP) device. These are available as key fobs that show a code, but are more commonly done by use of a mobile phone application.

In order for the device to work you need a key which is known to the FireBrick and the device. However, this is very simple to set up. A user can access the Password / OTP menu where a random key is allocated and displayed within a QR 2D bar code. Most authenticator applications simply scan the QR code and start showing the 6 digit number on the display (which changes every 30 seconds). You then enter your password and a code from your device to complete the process.

It is possible for anyone with configuration access to edit your user settings and remove the OTP settings if you wish. This can be useful if you lose or break the phone, for example. You may want to keep a local configuration user as a backup as well, as OTP cannot be used if the clock is not set for any reason.

When you login, after you submit your username and password you are asked for a code from the authenticator to complete the login process.

It is also possible to enter the password as the authenticator code followed by the configured password. This is useful if using HTTP authentication to access a web page where there is no separate option for the authenticator input to be provided.

If OTP is configured you can leave the password blank (which is not normally allowed) and hence use the authenticator code as the entire password, though this is not recommended for security reasons as it also means the TOTP seed is recoverable from the config.

The system name, also called the hostname, is used in various aspects of the FB6000's functions, and so we recommend you set the hostname to something appropriate for your network.

The hostname is set using the name attribute.

The attributes shown in Table 4.3 allow you to specify general administrative details about the unit :-

The log and log-... attributes control logging of events related to the operation of the system itself. For details on event logging, please refer to Chapter 5, and for details on the logging control attributes on system object, please refer to Section 5.7.

The home page is the first page you see after logging in to the FB6000, or when you click the Home main-menu item. The home page displays the system name, and, if defined, the text specified by the intro attribute on the system object.

Additionally, you can define one or more web links to appear on the home page. These are defined using link objects, which are child objects of the system object.

To make a usable link, you must specify the following two attributes on the link object :-

Additionally, you can name a link, specify a comment, and make the presence of the link on the home page conditional on a profile.

There are three types of software release : factory, beta and alpha. For full details on the differences between these software releases, refer to the FB6000 software downloads website - please follow the 'read the instructions' link that you will find just above the list of software versions.

The current software version is displayed on the main Status page, shown when you click the Status main menu-item itself (i.e. not a submenu item). The main software application version is shown next to the word "Software", e.g. :-

Software     FB9001 TEST Ogust (V1.61.010 2022-11-07T15:35:32)

The software version is also displayed in the right hand side of the 'footer' area of each web page, and is shown immediately after you log in to a command-line session.

If automatic installs are allowed, the FB6000 will check for new software on boot up and approximately every 24 hours thereafter - your FB6000 should therefore pick up new software at most ~ 24 hours after it is released. You can choose to allow this process to install only new factory-releases, factory or beta releases, or any release, which then includes alpha releases (if your FB6000 is enabled for alpha software - see Section 4.3.1) - refer to Section 4.3.3.2 for details on how to configure auto upgrades.

4.3.3.1. Manually initiating upgrades

Whenever you browse to the main Status page, the FB6000 checks whether there is newer software available, given the current software version in use, and whether alpha releases are allowed. If new software is available, you will be informed of this as shown in Figure 4.2 :-

Figure 4.2. Software upgrade available notification

To see what new software is available, click on the "Upgrade available" link. This will take you to a page that will show Release notes that are applicable given your current software version, and the latest version available. On that page there is an "Upgrade" button which will begin the software upgrade process.

This method is entirely manual, in the sense that the brick itself does not download new software from the FireBrick servers, and responsibilty for loading breakpoint releases as required lies with the user.

In order to do this, you will first need to download the required software image file (which has the file extension .img) from the FB6000 software downloads website onto your PC.

The next step is the same as you would perform when manually-initiating an Internet-based upgrade i.e. you should browse to the main Status page, where, if there is new software is available, you will be informed of this as shown in Figure 4.2.

This step is necessary since the manual upgrade feature currently shares the page used for Internet-based manual upgrades, which is reached by clicking "Upgrade available" link. After clicking this link, you will find the manual upgrade method at the bottom of the page, as shown in Figure 4.3 :-

Figure 4.3. Manual Software upload

A log target is a named destination (initially internal to the FB6000) for log entries - you can set up multiple log targets which you can use to separate out log event messages according to some criteria - for example, you could log all firewalling related log events to a log target specifically for that purpose. This makes it easier to locate events you are looking for, and helps you keep each log target uncluttered with un-related log events - this is particularly important when when you are logging a lot of things very quickly.

A log target is defined using a log top-level object - when using the web User Interface, these objects are in the "Setup" category, under the heading "Log target controls".

Every log entry is put in a buffer in RAM, which only holds a certain number of log entries (typically around 1MB of text) - once the buffer is full, the oldest entries are lost as new ones arrive. Since the buffer is stored in volatile memory (RAM), buffer contents are lost on reboot or power failure.

This buffer can be viewed via the web interface or command line which can show the history in the buffer and then follow the log in real time (even when viewing via a web browser, with some exceptions - see Section 5.6.1).

In some cases it is essential to ensure logged events can be viewed even after a power failure. You can flag a log target to log to the non-volatile Flash memory within the FB6000, where it will remain stored even after a power failure. You should read Section 5.5 before deciding to log events to Flash memory.

Each log target has various attributes and child objects defining what happens to log entries to this target. However, in the simplest case, where you do not require non-volatile storage, or external logging (see Section 5.3), the log object will only need a name attribute, and will have no child objects. In XML this will look something like :-

<log name="my_log"/>

The FB6000 supports sending of log entries across a network to a syslog server. Syslog is described in RFC5424, and the FB6000 includes microsecond resolution time stamps, the hostname (from system settings) and a module name in entries sent via syslog. Syslog logging is very quick as there is no reply, and syslog servers can be easily set up on most operating systems, particularly Unix-like systems such as Linux.

The module name refers to which part of the system caused the log entry, and is also shown in all other types of logging such as web and console.

To enable log messages to be sent to a syslog server, you need to create a syslog object that is a child of the log target (log) object. You must then specify the DNS name or IP address of your syslog server by setting the server attribute on the syslog object. You can also set the facility and/or severity values using these attributes :-

The FB6000 normally uses the 'standard' syslog port number of 514, but if necessary, you can change this by setting the port attribute value.

You can cause logs to be sent by e-mail by creating an email object that is a child of the log target (log) object.

An important aspect of emailed logs is that they have a delay and a hold-off. The delay means that the email is not sent immediately because often a cluster of events happen over a short period and it is sensible to wait for several log lines for an event before e-mailing.

The hold-off period is the time that the FB6000 waits after sending an e-mail, before sending another. Having a hold-off period means you don't get an excessive number of e-mails ; since the logging system is initially storing event messages in RAM, the e-mail that is sent after the hold-off period will contain any messages that were generated during the hold-off period.

The following aspects of the e-mail process can be configured :-

An example of a simple log target with e-mailing is available in a factory reset configuration - the associated XML is shown below, from which you can see that in many cases, you only need to specify the to attribute (the comment attribute is an optional, general comment field) :-

 <log name="fb-support"
      comment="Log target for sending logs to FireBrick support team">
  <email to="crashlog@firebrick.ltd.uk"
         comment="Crash logs emailed to FireBrick Support team"/>
 </log>

      

A profile can be used to stop emails at certain times, and when the email logging is back on an active profile it tries to catch up any entries still in the RAM buffer if possible.

To view a log in the web User Interface, select the "Log" item in the "Status" menu. Then select which log target to view by clicking the appropriate link. You can also view a 'pseudo' log target "All" which shows log event messages sent to any log target.

The web page then continues showing log events on the web page in real time i.e. as they happen.

All log targets can be viewed via the web User Interface, regardless of whether they specify any external logging (or logging to Flash memory).

The command line allows logs to be viewed, and you can select which log target, or all targets. The logging continues on screen until you press a key such as RETURN.

In addition, anything set to log to console shows anyway (see Section 5.1.1.2), unless disabled with the troff command.

The FB6000 has two physical ports and no internal switch. This means that the port group configuration can either be the default where each port is in one group, or where both ports are in a trunked group.

The port group has a trunk setting which defaults to being true. When there are two ports in the port group this is the only option. When only one port, it makes no difference. It is included for compatibility with other models.

The FireBrick supports LACP (Link Aggregation Control Portocol) which is used to coordinate and control trunked port groups by exchanging LACP packets over the links. There is a lacp setting in the individual ethernet port settings which can be used to control LACP's behaviour, as follows:

In the FB6000, an interface is a logical equivalent of a physical Ethernet interface adapter. Each interface normally exists in a distinct broadcast domain, and is associated with at most one port group.

Each port can operate simply as an interface with no VLANs, or can have one or more tagged VLANs which are treated as separate logical interfaces. Using VLAN tags and a VLAN capable switch you can effectively increase the number of physical ports.

Appendix D contains a brief overview of VLANs and the concept of broadcast domains.

Each interface can have one or more subnets definitions associated with it. The ability to specify multiple subnets on an interface can be used where it is necessary to communicate with devices on two different subnets and it is acceptable that the subnets exist in the same broadcast domain. For example, it may not be possible to reassign machine addresses to form a single subnet, but the machines do not require firewalling from each other.

You may also have both IPv4 and IPv6 subnets on an interface where you are also using IPv6 networking.

The primary attributes that define a subnet are the IP address range of the subnet, the IP address of the FB6000 itself on that subnet, and an optional name.

The IP address and address-range are expressed together using CIDR notation - if you are not familiar with this notation, please refer to Appendix A for an overview.

To create or edit subnets, select the Interface category in the top-level icons, then click Edit next to the appropriate interface - under the section headed "IP subnet on the interface", you will see the list of existing subnet child objects (if any), and an "Add" link.

To create a new subnet, click on the Add link to take you to a new subnet object defintion. Tick the ip checkbox, and enter the appropriate CIDR notation.

Editing an existing subnet works similarly - click the Edit link next to the subnet you want to modify.

The FB6000 can act as a DHCP server to dynamically allocate IP addresses to clients. Optionally, the allocation can be accompanied by information such as a list of DNS resolvers that the client should use.

Since the DHCP behaviour needs to be defined for each interface (specifically, each broadcast domain), the behaviour is controlled by one or more dhcp objects, which are children of an interface object.

Address allocations are made from a pool of addresses - the pool is either explicitly defined using the ip attribute, or if ip is not specified, it consists of all addresses on the interface, i.e. from all subnets but excluding network or broadcast addresses, or any addresses that the FB6000 has seen ARP responses for (eg addresses already in use, perhaps through a device configured with a fixed static address).

The XML below shows an example of an explicitly-specified DHCP pool :

  <interface ...>
  ...
    <dhcp name="LAN"
          ip="172.30.16.50-80"
          log="default"/>
  ...
  </interface>

Every allocation made by the DHCP server built-in to the FB6000 is stored in non-volatile memory, and will survive power-cycling and/or rebooting. The allocations can be seen using the "DHCP" item in the "Status" menu, or using the show dhcp CLI command.

If a client does not request renewal of the lease before it expires, the allocation entry will show "expired". Expired entries remain stored, and are used to lease the same IP address again if the same client (as identified by its MAC address) requests an IP address. However, if a new MAC address requests an allocation, and there are no available IPs (excluding expired allocations) in the allocation pool, then the oldest expired allocation IP address is reused for the new client.

  <interface ...>
  ...
    <dhcp name="laptop"
          ip="81.187.96.81"
          mac="0090F59E4F12"
          dns="81.187.42.42 81.187.96.96"
          log="default"/>
  ...
  </interface>

  <interface ...>
  ...
    <dhcp name="VoIP"
        ip="10.20.30.40-50"
        mac="000413 000E08"
	class="*phone*"
        dns="8.8.8.8"
        log="DHCP-Phones"
        comment="VoIP phones"/>
  ...
  </interface>

You can configure the FireBrick to operate as a DHCP/BOOTP Relay agent simply by setting the dhcp-relay in the interface object to the IPv4 address of the remote DHCP server.

If you also configure a DHCP allocation on the same interface, this is checked first, and if there are no suitable allocation pools or IP addresses available then the request is relayed. Normally you would configure either a relay or a pool and not both.

The top level dhcp-relay configuration allows you to configure the FireBrick to be the remote server for a DHCP/BOOTP Relay Agent. The relay attribute allows specific pools to be set up for specific relays. The table and allow allow you to limit the use of the DHCP Remote server to requests from specific sources - note that renewal requests come from the allocated IP, or NAT IP if behind NAT and not necessarily from the relay IP.

The allocation-table attribute allows for this pool of IPs to be placed in a separate table, thus allowing it to be independant from other DHCP allocations on the FireBrick and to allow different overlapping pools for different relay endpoints, which is not uncommon if the endpoints are behind separate NAT routers.

If auto-negotiation is enabled, the FB6000 port will normally advertise that it is capable of either half- or full- duplex operation modes - if you have reason to restrict the operation to either of these modes, you can set the duplex attribute to either half or full. This will cause the port to only advertise the specified mode - if the (auto-negotiate capable) link-partner does not support that mode, the link will fail to establish.

If auto-negotiation is disabled, the duplex attribute simply sets the port's duplex mode.

Each port has options to control the way the yellow and green LEDs are displayed based on the state of the port. The default is yellow for Tx and green for link/activity.

Whenever you define a subnet or one is created dynamically (e.g. by DHCP), an associated route is automatically created for the associated prefix. Packets being routed to a subnet are sent to the Ethernet interface that the subnet is associated with. Traffic routed to the subnet will use ARP or ND to find the final MAC address to send the packet to.

In addition, a subnet definition creates a very specific single IP (a "/32" for IPv4, or a "/128" for IPv6) route for the IP address of the FB6000 itself on that subnet. This is a separate loop-back route which effectively internally routes traffic back into the FB6000 itself - i.e. it never appears externally.

A subnet can also have a gateway specified, either in the config or by DHCP or RA. This gateway is just like creating a route to 0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0 as a specific route configuration. It is mainly associated with the subnet for convenience. If defined by DHCP or RA then, like the rest of the routes created by DHCP or RA, it is removed when the DHCP or RA times out.

Example: <subnet ip="192.168.0.1/24"/> creates a route for destination 192.168.0.0/24 to the interface associated with that subnet. A loop-back route to 192.168.0.1 (the FB6000's own IP address on that subnet) is also created.

Routes can be defined to forward traffic to another IP address, which will typically be another router (often also called a gateway) For such a routing target, the gateway's IP address is then used to determine how to route the traffic, and another routing decision is made. This subsequent routing decision usually identifies an interface or other data link to send the packet via - in more unusual cases, the subsequent routing decision identifies another gateway, so it is possible for the process to be 'recursive' until a 'real' destination is found.

Example: <route ip="0.0.0.0/0" gateway="192.168.0.100"/> creates a default IPv4 route that forwards traffic to 192.168.0.100. The routing for 192.168.0.100 then has to be looked up to find the final target, e.g. it may be to an Ethernet interface, in which case an ARP is done for 192.168.0.100 to find the MAC to send the traffic.

There is logic to ensure that the next-hop is valid - the gateway specified must be routable somewhere and if that is via an Ethernet interface then the endpoint must be answering ARP or ND packets. If not, then the route using the gateway is suppressed and other less specific routes may apply.

It is possible to define two special targets :-

The blackhole and nowhere top-level objects are used to specify prefixes which are routed to these special targets. In the User Interface, these objects can be found under the Routes category icon.

When using BGP you can also define a network which is announced by default, along with any dead-end-community, and treated otherwise the same as nowhere.

The following timing control parameters apply :-

The timeout and recover parameters do not apply to manually set profiles (see Section 8.2.4) and those based on time-of-day (see Section 8.2.2.2).

The tests described in the previous section are used to form an overall test result. Normally this overall result is used to determine the profile state using the mapping Pass > Active and Fail > Inactive. By setting the invert attribute to true, the overall result is inverted (Pass changed to Fail and vice-versa) first before applying the mapping.

You can manually override all tests, and force the profile state using the set attribute - a value of true forces the state to Active, and false forces it to Inactive.

You can also configure the set attribute with a value of control-switch. This causes the profile to be set manually based on a control switch which is not stored in the configuration itself. The switch appears on the home web page allowing it to be turned on or off with one click. It can also be changed from the command line. You can restrict each switch to one or more specific users to define who has control of the switch. This control applies even if the user has no access to make configuration changes as the switch is not part of the config. The switch state is automatically stored in the dynamic peristent data (along with DHCP settings, etc), so survives a power cycle / restart. The control switch uses initial as the initial state when first added to the config, but at start up it picks up the state of the stored state.

These profiles can be used as simple on/off controls for configuration objects. The following shows an example of two fixed-state profiles and one control switch, expressed in XML :-

<profile name="Off" set="false"/>
<profile name="On" set="true"/>
<profile name="IT-Support"
         comment="Allow IT support company access to server"
	 set="control-switch"/>
 

Note that the value of the invert attribute is ignored when manual override is requested. If we add special case switched profiles that are used internally, these will be named starting with fb-, so it is best not to name your own profiles starting fb-. An example of the ACME renewal control profile is given below.

As with many things in the FireBrick it is possible to script access to the control pages. The control profiles are a particularly useful example of this as it allows external scripts to control if a profile is active or inactive.

Obviously security is a concern, and it is possible to create a user allowed access only from some IP addresses, and even allowed NOBODY level access, but listed as a user allowed to set a specific control profile. This then allows a script using a username and password to control the profile from specific machines.

For example, setting a named profile:-

curl --silent --user name:pass 'http://1.2.3.4/profile?set=profilename'

And unsetting a named profile:-

curl --silent --user name:pass 'http://1.2.3.4/profile?unset=profilename'

Several objects in the FB6000's configuration allow you to specify the name of a graph, by setting the value of the graph attribute. This causes the traffic flow that is associated with that object (a firewall rule, an interface, or whatever the attribute is attached to) to be recorded on a graph with the specified name. For connections that have a defined state, such as a PPP link, the graph will also show the link state history. Other information, such as packet loss and latency may also be displayed, depending on whether it can be provided by the type of object you are graphing.

For example, the XML snippet below shows the graph attribute being set on an interface. As soon as you have set a graph attribute (and saved the configuration), a new graph with the specified name will be created.

 <interface name="LAN"
            port="LAN"
            graph="LAN">
       

The graph is viewable directly from the FB6000 via the web User Interface - to view a graph, click the "PNG" or "SVG" item in the "Graphs" menu. This will display all the graphs that are currently configured - it is not currently possible to show a single graph within the web User Interface environment.

It is possible to access the graph data in many ways, using the URL to control what information is shown, labels, and colours, and also allowing graphs to be archived. See Appendix I for more details.

Alternatively, the underlying graph data is available in XML format, again via the FB6000's built-in HTTP server. The XML version of the data can be viewed in the web User Interface by clicking the "XML" item in the "Graphs" menu, and then clicking on the name of the graph you're interested in.

Both directions of traffic flow are recorded, and are colour-coded on the PNG image generated by the FB6000. The directions are labelled "tx" and "rx", but the exact meaning of these will depend on what type of object the graph was referenced from - for example, on a graph for an interface, "tx" will be traffic leaving the FB6000, and "rx" will be traffic arriving at the FB6000.

Each data point on a graph corresponds to a 100 second interval ; where a data point is showing a traffic rate, the rate is an average over that interval. For each named graph, the FB6000 stores data for the last 24 hours.

Once you have graphed a (possibly bi-directional) traffic flow, you can then also define speed restrictions on those flows. These can be simple "Tx" and "Rx" speed limits or more complex settings allowing maximum average speeds over time.

You define the speed controls associated with the graphed traffic flow(s) by creating a shaper top-level object. To create or edit a shaper object in the web User Interface, first click on the "Shape" category icon. To create a new object, click the "Add" link. To edit an existing object, click the appropriate "Edit" link instead.

The shaper object specifies the parameters (primarily traffic rates) to use in the traffic shaping process, and the shaper is associated with the appropriate existing graph by specifying the name attribute of the shaper object to be the same as the name of the graph.

You can define a shaper object and set the speed controls for that shaper, and then define the graph attribute on something, e.g. an interface, to apply that shaper to the interface.

It is also possible, in most cases, to simply set a speed attribute on some object. This creates an un-named shaper (so no graph) which has the specified speed for egress (tx). This is unique to that object unlike named shapers which are shared between all objects using the same named shaper.

It is also possible to set graph and speed attributes to create a named shaper with the specified speed, without having to create a separate shaper object.

If you set a graph attribute without a speed attribute or creating a shaper object then that simply creates a graph without traffic shaping. Multiple objects can share the same graph.

Graphs can sometimes be created automatically and may have speeds applied. For L2TP sessions the circuit ID (which may be overridden by RADIUS auth responses) is used to make a graph for the session.

If defining a shaper using the shaper object there are a number of extra options which allow a long term shaper to be defined. A long term shaper is one that changes the actual speed applied dynamically to ensure a long term usage level that is within a defined setting.

The key parameters for the long term shaper are the target speed (e.g. tx), the minimum speed (e.g. tx-min) and maximum speed (e.g. tx-max). The target speed is the maximum rate that should apply over a long term, but actual speed is set dynamically between min and max rates.

The rate is initially set to the maximum. Actual usage below the target builds up credit. This credit is limited to allow a defined minimum burst time at the maximum rate. So if not used for a while the maximum rate can be used for the minimum burst time. However continued use at more than the target will accumulate over usage.

Once this credit is used up the rate starts to drop. It will drop all the way to the minimum set if necessary.

Once the over usage is cleared, but less usage or usage capped to below the target rate, the rate increases to the target rate.

Once a further credit is accumulated by lower usage than the target, and this is at a level to allow the minimum burst time at maximum rate, the rate increases to the maximum rate again.

Shapers can be shared between FireBricks with a common broadcast domain.

The interface to broadcast and listen on for sharing is set via the share-interface setting in the global cqm options. Once that is configured then setting the share option on a shaper will combine its state with that of other FireBricks when calculating any damping required.

If your ISP negotiates IPv6 on the link, then a default route is set for IPv6 traffic down the line. If the ISP handles ICMPv6 prefix delegation then an IPv6 block will automatically be assigned to your LAN. If not, then you could manually configure the IPv6 prefix the ISP is providing. There are options to control which interfaces get automatic prefix delegations in this way.

Just like for the PPPoE client, the BRAS mode supports baby jumbo frame negotiation to allow full 1500 byte MTU operation (as described earlier).

If an interface is configured to work in PPPoE BRAS mode, then it can accept packets with an additional VLAN tag. This is passed as the NAS_PORT on RADIUS requests relating to the connection. The reply packets have the same VLAN tag added. Where the interface is set up on VLAN 0 (untagged) then the additional VLAN tag is only processed where there is not an interface or ppp setting for that specific VLAN configured.

The FireBrick uses a static configuration to decide if it will accept an incoming L2TP tunnel. This is the Incoming L2TP configuration. An incoming tunnel has very few credentials - the main one being the hostname it sends. This is matched against the remote-hostname (which allows a wildcard, even). You can also match to allow specific RAS IP addresses, as well as the routing table used. The secret needs to be the same on the RAS and LNS.

Once the first match is found, the L2TP tunnel can be accepted. Most of the remaining configuration settings are not related to the tunnel as such, but define the default settings for any session that comes in over the tunnel. These settings can normally be omitted as they will have sensible defaults anyway.

A single tunnel config allows multiple instances of that tunnel to be created. If you are making multiple connections you may want to create different tunnel hostnames to allow fine control of specific features. Alternatively you may want to have one incoming tunnel configuration, even matching any hostname, and set specific session details using RADIUS. As an ISP, you will typically have an incoming tunnel config for each carrier, or possibly service type.

Once the RAS has a tunnel to the LNS it can create a session. The FireBrick acting as the LNS has to decide to accept the session or not, and what settings to use for the session.

The FireBrick acting as an LNS can use a static configuration to accept a session, or use RADIUS. An ISP would typically use RADIUS which allows a separate authentication service to decide if to accept the session and the settings that apply.

The static configuration consists of match settings. These are part of the relevant Incoming L2TP configuration for the tunnel being used. The main criteria is username (which can be wildcard, even), but can also match calling-station-id and called-station-id which would have once been phone numbers, but are typically some sort of circuit ID and service ID in broadband. The password has to be correct, if specified. Making a point to point L2TP link allows all of these to be set on the outgoing connection.

Having found the first match, there are a few settings which can be controlled. This is not the full set of session settings, but most can be set as a default in the Incoming L2TP tunnel configuration if required on a point to point static configuration. The main setting is remote-ppp-ip which defines the IPv4 endpoint for the far end. If this is set then the session is accepted and routing for this IP is negotiated and routed. Additional routes can also be set.

If the remote-ppp-ip is not defined, then relay settings can be defined to allow the session to be relayed down another L2TP tunnel. These include the hostname, IP, and secret to use.

If not static match is made them RADIUS is used. As an ISP it will be unusual to have any static incoming session matching apart from special test cases.

Access can be restricted using allow and local-only controls as with any service. If this allows access, then a user can try and login. However, access can also be restricted on a per user basis to IP addresses and using profiles, which block the login even if the password is correct.

By default, the FB6000 will only allow access from local interfaces. This is locked down by the local-only setting defaulting to true. If you change this, it will allow access from anywhere and you may want to set up IP ranges or groups in the allow setting to control access.

Note that a subnet can be marked as wan to indicate that even though directly connected, it is not considered local. This is mainly for cases where the external interface is a wide DHCP subnet spanning other users of the same ISP, and so should not be considered local.

Additionally, access to the HTTP server can be completely restricted (to all clients) under the control of a profile. This can be used, for example, to allow access only during certain time periods.

There are a number of security related headers with sensible defaults. These can be changed in the config. If you wish to remove a header simply make it an empty string to override the default.

The FireBrick provides a means to access the control pages using HTTPS rather than HTTP. When you first use a FireBrick, if you access using HTTPS to its IP address or my.firebrick.uk you will get a warning about the certificate being self signed. You can bypass the warning or use HTTP as you prefer, though HTTPS (even with a warning) prevents passive snooping, so is preferable. Ideally you want to set up HTTPS properly for your normal access to your FireBrick in the long term.

In most cases, all that is needed to manage HTTPS access it to ensure the FireBrick can be accessed via port 80 on a public IP address using a proper public hostname. Once you have done this, simply add the hostname to the acme-hostname field, and your email address in the acme-terms-agreed-email field, in the system config. This will cause an automatic ACME certificate issue using Let's Encrypt, adding private key pairs for the letsencrypt.org account and the domain and then adding the certificate and any intermediate certificates for HTTPS to work.

ACME is an automated system for the issuing of X.509 certificates for HTTPS (and other) use. The FireBrick can work as an ACME client to obtain certificates and is preset to use Let's Encrypt's free certificate issuing service, and automatically renew certificates. You can change settings to use an alternate ACME server if you prefer though you may have to upload root certificates for the alternate CA. Contact support if you have any issues. Renewal happens automatically, but you can lock down when this happens (e.g. time of day) by setting an acme-profile.

By default access is permitted using HTTP and HTTPS (directing to HTTPS if an ACME certificate has been set up), but you can lock down to HTTP only, HTTPS only, or redirection from HTTP to HTTPS. It is recommended that HTTPS is used for security reasons. FireBrick HTTPS works with all modern browsers (e.g. IE 10 and above, chrome, firefox, safari). It uses TLS1.2 only with TLS1.3 planned when appropriate.

Access control can be restricted in the same way as the HTTP (web) service, including per user access restrictions.

The example XML below shows the telnet service configured this way :-

<telnet allow="10.0.0.0/24 10.1.0.3-98 10.100.100.88 10.99.99.0/24"
          comment="telnet service access restricted by IP address"
          local-only="false"/>

You can configure names such that the FB6000 issues an NXDOMAIN response making it appear that the domain does not exist. This can be done using a wildcard, e.g. you could block *.xxx.

Instead of blocking names, you can also make some names return pre-defined responses. This is usually only used for special cases, and there is a default for my.firebrick.uk which returns the FireBrick's own IP. Faking DNS responses will not always work, and new security measures such as DNSSEC will mean these faked responses will not be accepted.

The FB6000 can also look for specific matching names and IP addresses for forward and reverse DNS that match machines on your LAN. This is done by telling the FireBrick the domain for your local network. Any name that is within that domain which matches a client name of a DHCP allocation that the FireBrick has made will return the IP address assigned by DHCP. This is applied in reverse for reverse DNS mapping an IP address back to a name. You can enable this using the auto-dhcp attribute.

In addition, the DHCP server records the IP of the latest new automatically allocated address on any interface, and you can set auto-dns-new as a name (e.g. new) to be used for this IP address. This is ideal for finding the IP of a newly added device, and is particularly useful when adding new IoT devices one at a time so they can be configured via a web interface, for example. This is only set for a new dynamic IP allocation, not a renewed, or reused IP for same device previously using the IP.

Chapter 16 provides details of how the platform RADIUS service can be used to steer incoming sessions from a carrier for L2TP.

RADIUS is used for authentication and accounting for incoming L2TP connections. Chapter 16 provides details of how RADIUS is used for L2TP. Appendix F provides details of the specific AVPs used with RADIUS for L2TP.

Table 13.1 lists the parameters you can specify to control what gets dumped. The "Parameter name" column shows the exact parameter name to specify when constructing a URL to use with an HTTP client. The "Web-form field" column shows the label of the equivalent field on the user interface form.

The following criteria must be met in order to use the packet dump facility :-

You may optionally specify up to two IP address to be checked for a match in packets on the interface(s) and/or L2TP session(s) specified. If you do not specify any IP addresses, then all packets are returned. If you specify one IP address then all packets containing that IP address (as source or destination) are returned. If you specify two IP addresses then only those packets containing both addresses (each address being either as source or destination) are returned.

IP matching is only performed against ARP, IPv4 or IPv6 headers and not in encapsulated packets or ICMP payloads.

If capturing too much, some packets may be lost.

The capture can collect different types of packets depending on where the capture is performed. All of these are presented as Ethernet frames, with faked Ethernet headers where the packet type is not Ethernet.

The faked protocol header has target MAC of 00:00:00:00:00:00 and source MAC of 00:00:00:00:00:01 for received packets, and these reversed for sent packets.

The snaplen argument specifies the maximum length captured, but this applies at the protocol level. As such PPP packets will have up to the snaplen from the PPP protocol bytes and then have fake PPPoE and Ethernet headers added.

A snaplen value of 0 has special meaning - it causes logging of just IP, TCP, UDP and ICMP headers as well as headers in ICMP error payloads. This is primarily to avoid logging data carried by these protocols.

The web form is accessed by selecting the "Packet dump" item under the "Diagnostics" main-menu item. Set up the dump parameters with reference to Table 13.1 and click the "Dump" button. Your browser will ask you to save a file, which will take time to save as per the timeout requested.

To perform a packet dump using an HTTP client, you first construct an appropriate URL that contains standard HTTP URL form-style parameters from the list shown in Table 13.1. Then you retrieve the dump from the FB6000 using a tool such as curl.

The URL is http://<FB6000 IP address or DNS name>/pcap?parameter_name=value[&parameter_name=value ...]

The URL may include as many parameter name and value pairs as you need to completely specify the dump parameters.

Packet capturing stops if the output stream (HTTP transfer) fails. This is useful if you are unable to determine a suitable timeout period, and would like to run an ongoing capture which you stop manually. This is achieved by specifying a very long duration, and then interrupting execution of the HTTP client using Ctrl+C or similar.

Only one capture can operate at a time. The HTTP access fails if no valid interfaces or sessions etc. are specified or if a capture is currently running.

curl --silent --no-buffer --user name:pass
   'http://1.2.3.4/pcap?interface=LAN&timeout=300&snaplen=1500'
   | /usr/sbin/tcpdump -r - -n -v

A master indicates that it still 'alive' by periodically sending an advertisement multicast packet to the group members. A failure to receive a multicast packet from the master router for a period longer than three times the advertisement interval timer causes the backup routers to assume that the master router is down.

The interval is specified in multiples of 10ms, so a value of 100 represents one second. The default value, if not specified, is one second. If you set lower than one second then VRRP3 is used by default (see below). VRRP2 only does whole seconds, and must have the same interval for all devices. VRRP3 can have different intervals on different devices, but typically you would set them all the same.

The shorter the advertisement interval, the shorter the 'black hole' period, but there will be more (multicast) traffic in the network.

Each device is assigned a priority, which determines which device becomes the master, and which devices remain as backups. The (working) device with the highest priority becomes the master.

If using the real IP of the master, then the master should have priority 255. Otherwise pick priorities from 1 to 254. It is usually sensible to space these out, e.g. using 100 and 200.

A VRRP setting can have a profile. Unlike most profiles, if the profile is off then VRRP continues to work, but works with a priority forced to a low priority (usually 1, but can be configured). This means the VRRP will be backup but this depends on the setting for low-priority and what priority other devices are set to.

VRRP version 2 works with IPv4 addresses only (i.e. does not support IPv6) and whole second advertisement intervals only. The normal interval is one second - since the timeout is three times that, this means the fastest a backup can take over is just over 3 seconds. You should configure all devices in a VRRP group with the same settings (apart from their priority).

VRRP version 3 works in much the same way, but allows the advertisement interval to be any multiple of 10ms (1/100th of a second). The default interval is still 1 second, but it can now be set much faster - so although the timeout is still 3 times the interval, this means the backup could take over in as little as 30ms.

VRRP3 also works with IPv6. Whilst IPv4 and IPv6 VRRP are completely independent, you can configure both at once in a single vrrp object by listing one or more IPv4 addresses and one or more IPv6 addresses.

VRRP3 is used by default for any IPv6 addresses or where an interval of below one second is selected. It can also be specifically set in the config by setting the attribute version3 to the value "true".

The FB6000 series router provides BGP routing capabilities. The aim of the design is to make configuration simple for a small ISP or corporate BGP user - defining key types of BGP peer with pre-set rules to minimise mistakes.

The key features supported are:-

A typical installation may have transit connections from which a complete internet routing table is received, peers which provide their own routes only, internal peers making an IBGP mesh, customers to which transit is provided and customer routes may be accepted. To make this setup simple the <peer> definition contains a type attribute. This allows simple BGP configuration such as:-

<bgp as="12345">
 <peer as="666" name="transit1" type="transit" ip="1.2.3.4"/>
 <peer as="777" name="transit2" type="transit" ip="2.3.4.5 2.3.4.6"/\>
 <peer type="internal" ip="5.6.7.8"/\>
</bgp>

This example has two transit providers, the second of which is actually two peer IP addresses, and one internal connection. Note that the peer AS is optional and unnecessary on internal type as it has to match ours.

The exact elements that apply are defined in the XML/XSD documentation for your software release.

The type attribute controls some of the behaviour of the session and some of the default settings as follows.

Each peer has a set of import and export rules which are applied to routes that are imported or exported from the peer. There are also named bgp-filter which can be used as import-filters or export-filters.

The objects import and export work in exactly the same way, checking the routes imported or exported against a set of rules and then possibly making changes to the attributes of the routes or even choosing to discard the route.

Each of these objects contain:-

The rules are considered in order. The first rule to match all of the matching attributes is used. If no rules match then the default actions from the import/export object are used.

In addition, the top level import/export has a prefix list. If present then this will limit the prefixes processed at a top level, dropping any that do not match the list without even considering the rules.

Specific well known communities are supported natively. Some of these are set automatically based on peer type and can be explicitly removed using the detag action. These rules are automatically checked for exporting routes unless overridden on the peer attributes.

The FireBrick allows black hole routes to be defined using the the blackhole object. Routing for such addresses is simply dropped with no ICMP error. Such routes can be marked for BGP announcement just like any other routes.

It is also possible for L2TP announced routes to be marked as black hole routes using the D filter. If L2TP is marked to BGP announce such routes they are set to be bgp="true" rathed than the bgp setting defined.

In order to ensure that your internal BGP network sees such routes as a black hole, and not simply as a route to the router than has the black hole defined (where the packets will be dropped), you can ensure all black hole routes are announced using a suitable community tag. In many cases an EBGP peer will even allow you to announce black hole routes to them with a suitable community tag.

The top level bgp object includes a blackhole-community attribute which can be set to a tag that is used to mark routes as a black hole within your network. Any route received on a BGP peer within that config object which includes the specified community is treated as a black hole route. It is installed in the BGP routes and propagated as normal but it is internally set as forwarding to nowhere and packets dropped as a black hole.

Each peer object also has a blackhole-community tag. If set then this is added to any black hole routes announced. If not set, then black hole routes are not sent on EBGP links. On IBGP links, if not set, the blackhole-community from the parent bgp is added if present. Black hole routes are always announced on IBGP (subject to normal rules for announcement).

To use this, define a suitable blackhole-community for your network, such as YourAS:666 and set in all bgp objects. For all EBGP peers, set the peer object blackhole-community attribute with the tag they expect for black hole routes.

It is unlikely you would want to announce a black hole route to an EBGP peer without an agreed tag as you will be drawing traffic from them only to be discarded. If you want to do this, you have to specify a blackhole-community to add, but this could simply be your own community tag for black holes.

Sometimes you may want to inject a blackhole route into your network, but not actually blackhole within your network, simply ensuring that the routes propagate via BGP until edge routers where they are announced to transit/peering as blackhole community tagged routes (as above).

For this reason, blackhole route objects can be tagged no-fib which creates the routing in the routing table but does not impact packet forwarding. By defining a greyhole-community on your bgp settings, this will be used for IBGP to pass the route around as a blackhole route but with no-fib set.

This is useful where injecting a black hole is needed, but you want to ensure internal routing to externally blackholed routes.

The top level bgp object includes a dead-end-community attribute which can be set to a tag that is used to mark routes as a dead end within your network. Any route received on a BGP peer within that config object which includes the specified community is treated as a dead end route. It is installed in the BGP routes and propagated as normal but it is internally set as forwarding to nowhere and icmp errors generated (rate limited as usual). Any route installed as network are announced with this community. Note, this is not set automatically on a nowhere route, allowing a route to be announced to get to this FireBrick to be propagated via IBGP.

The effect of this is that your network can include one (or more) source of top level network routes which, within your network, are installed as dead ends at each point. Without this these would be announced to your internal network so traffic is sent to the originating router and it has to handle all dead end traffic. Using this system you can ensure dead end traffic is handled at your borders instead.

The BGP specification is clear that receipt of a path attribute that we understand but is in some way wrong should cause the BGP session to be shut down. This has a problem if the attribute is one that is not known to intermediate routers in the internet which means a bad content is propagated to multiple routers on the internet and they will drop their session. This can cause a major problem in the internet.

To work around this ignore-bad-optional-partial is set to true, by default. The effect is that if a path attribute we understand is wrong, and it is optional, and the router that sent it to us did not understand or check it (partial bit is set), we ignore the specific route rather than dropping the whole BGP session.

The network element defines a prefix that is to be announced by BGP by default, and tagged with any dead-end-community, but otherwise treated the same as a nowhere route.

Subnet and route elements used for normal set-up of internal routing can be announced by BGP using the bgp attribute with the same values as the well known community tags, or with true meaning simply announce with no tags, and false meaning the same as no-advertise.

Many other objects in the configuration which can cause routes to be inserted have a bgp attribute which can be set to control whether the routes are announced, or not.

The FB6000 has an aggressive route feasibility test that confirms not only routability of each next-hop but also that it is answering ARP/ND requests. Whenever a next-hop is infeasible then all routes using that next-hop are removed. When it becomes feasible the routes are re-applied. This goes beyond the normal BGP specification and minimises any risk of announcing a black hole route.

The web control pages have diagnostics allowing routing to be shown, either for a specific target IP (finding the most specific route which applies), or for a specified prefix. This lists the routes that exist in order, and indicates if they are suppressed (e.g. route feasibility has removed the route). There are command line operations to show routing as well.

It is also possible to confirm what routes are imported from or exported to any peer.

The diagnostics also allow ping and traceroute which can be useful to confirm correct routing.

Routes that are rejected during import (either due to hitting the max prefix limit or due to configured filtering) are logged to the debug target on the corresponding peer.

On router shutdown/reboot (e.g. for software load) all established BGP sessions are closed cleanly. Before the sessions are closed all outgoing routes are announced with a lower priority (high MED, low localpref, prefix stuffed) and then a delay allows these to propagate. This is a configurable option per peer and the maximum delay of all active peers is used as the delay. Setting to zero will not do the low priority announcement. A special case of setting this delay to a negative value on a peer causes routes to be specifically withdrawn before the delay rather than announced low priority.

On startup, each peer can be configured with a startup delay which will stop BGP announcments being sent within a period of a reboot. This allows a FireBrick to connect BGP sessions and receive routes before announcing routes to peers. This allows a cleaner startup when used as a pair of BGP routers.

The FireBrick supports RFC5082 standard TTL security. Simply setting ttl-security="1" on the peer settings causes all of the BGP control packets to have a TTL of 255 and expects all received packets to be TTL 255 as well.

You can configure multiple hops as well, setting ttl-security="2" for example still sends TTL 255 but accepts 254 or 255. This works up to 127.

You can also configure a non standard forced TTL mode by setting a negative TTL security (-1 to -128) which forces a specific TTL on sending packets but does not check received packets. For example, setting ttl-security="-1" causes a TTL of 1 on outgoing packets. This simulates the behaviour of some other routers in IBGP mode. Using -2, -3, etc, will simulate the behaviour of such routers in EBGP multi-hop mode. This is non standard as RFCs recommend a much higher TTL and BGP does not require TTLs to be set differently.

Without ttl-security set (or set to 0) the RFC recommended default TTL us used on all sent packets and not checked on received packets.

Once upon a time end users would use a computer and a modem to dial a provider. The provider would have a modem connected to a server and this would allow simple text access to a computer system. This was then used to provide bulletin boards.

This moved on, and providers started to allow direct Internet Protocol (IP) access to end users. The modem would connect and the computer would authenticate and pass IP packets using protocols such as SLIP and PPP. This allowed the computer to authenticate and be allocated an IP address.

Point to Point Protocol (PPP) worked well and is still in use today in broadband access networks. The modem at the provider would connect to the provider's network and the Internet. Typically there would be one device, an Access Concentrator which connected IP on one side and modems on the other. The IPs would be fixed for each modem (so dynamic for the end user as depends which port they hit) and routing could be static to each Access Concentrator.

PPP is quite a simple protocol that allows packets to be marked with their type, but it also provides negotiation protocols for Link Control (LCP), authentication (CHAP and PAP), and IP level negotiations (IPCP and IPV6CP). Once negotiation is complete then IP packets can be passed using PPP.

As networks became more complex a separation of the Access Concentrator into a L2TP Access Concentrator (LAC) which has the modems, and the L2TP Network Server (LNS) was sensible. The LAC accepted the call on the modem and established a Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol (L2TP) connection to the LNS. This allowed PPP to be passed from the end user computer to the LNS. The LNS is responsible for the PPP negotiations and passing IP packets to and from the Internet.

L2TP provides a simple means for PPP packets to be passed over an IP network. It uses a small header and UDP to pass packets between the LAC and LNS.

Sometimes it became sensible for the LAC to decide to which LNS it should connect by some means. A good example is where a carrier with LACs will route connections to wholesale customers' LNSs. This would allow ISPs to make use of providers that have modems. This is actually the way it works on broadband access networks. For example, BT, O2, and TalkTalk have LACs in their network which pass L2TP to their ISP customers.

To achieve this, the LAC does some of the initial PPP negotiations. It handles the LCP and starts the authentication. It then establishes the L2TP connection passing these proxy details on to the LNS. The choice of LNS is done using the username, which is why it has to start the authentication. Typically a realm is included in the user name, using an @ and a string at the end of the username to steer the connection to the right LNS.

In a typical broadband network we don't have dialup modems in the same sense. The modems are jumpered to the phone line at the exchange and are part of an Access Node, usually called a DSLAM or MSAN. This then passes PPP packets on to a Remote Access Server, usually called a BRAS. The link from DSLAM to BRAS is typically PPPoE. The BRAS acts as the LAC and connects to an ISP's LNSs.

PPPoE is PPP over Ethernet. Some access networks use DSL to carry PPP packets directly (PPPoA), and some use the ADSL as an Ethernet Bridge (PPPoE). There are access networks which provide Ethernet by some means to the end user equipment which then communicates via PPPoE to the BRAS. All of these work in much the same way at the BRAS as it sees PPPoE connections.

Typically the BRAS provides the initial proxy negotiation and then establishes an L2TP connection, after which it is no longer involved in any negotiation, but just passes on PPP packets each way.

Remote Access Dial Up Server is a system that allows the authentication decisions and allocation of IP addresses to be passed on to separate servers rather than being configured into the various equipment. RADIUS uses UDP to send a request to a server and send a reply back.

RADIUS is used within carrier networks so that the BRAS can check to where it is to send an L2TP connection. The RADIUS response can contain the tunnel details it needs, including the authentication within L2TP.

RADIUS is also used between a carrier and an ISP. The carrier will send a RADIUS request to the ISP asking the ISP for details of the LNS to which the connection is to be sent. This allows the ISP to steer sessions as they need.

Once the LNS gets the L2TP connection, RADIUS is used to obtain the IP address details to be assigned to the specific connection.

RADIUS is also used for accounting, to provide details of connections in progress and volumes of data transferred.

Appendix F provides details of the specific AVPs used with RADIUS for L2TP.

Once a connection is made to an LNS, the end user is assigned IP addresses. Obviously there is a need to ensure that the IP addresses are routed within the ISPs network to the correct LNS. OSPF and BGP are the main routing protocols used for this (though, back in dialup days, RIP and RIP2 were often used, and were a bit slow). OSPF is not ideal for this as it means the whole OSPF network tracking every connection of every user. The FireBrick supports use of BGP to announce connected IP addresses into an ISPs internal network as connections are made via L2TP.

A carrier will normally have an interlink - this could be a dedicated port on the FB6000 or a VLAN perhaps via a suitable switch. In any case this is an interface in the configuration. Some carriers use a /30 IPv4 interlink per LNS, and some use a larger subnet covering several LNSs.

This interlink is usually used solely for the purpose of a BGP link to the carrier, and all other IPs used by the ISP or carrier are announced via that BGP connection. You may want to configure filters on the BGP connection to limit the prefixes accepted from the carrier or announced to the carrier.

An alternative approach is to configure the interlink interface on a separate routing table. The FB6000 can have separate routing tables which act as completely separate internets. Using a separate table means you do not have to worry about what prefixes are announced on the BGP link as they will only apply to that routing table.

Whilst we would recommend using a BGP connection like this, if the carrier does not handle BGP then you will need static routes. Using a separate routing table can make this much simpler as you can set a default route to the carrier gateway on the interlink subnet.

If using a separate routing table, you have to take care to correctly configure the routing table on the interface, BGP, RADIUS, L2TP and loopback configuration elements.

We recommend using RADIUS session steering with the carrier, if they support it. Session steering means that the carrier sends a RADIUS request to the ISP before connecting each session by L2TP. The reply steers the connection to a specific LNS. The connection details include the target (IP address) which will be one of the FireBrick's address, and a pre-agreed hostname which identifies the tunnel level connection, along with a secret to authentication the connection. Obviously these details have to match what the FireBrick is expecting in its L2TP configuration. Session steering gives a lot of control to the ISP, and is ideal if you operate bonding connections where multiple links need to use the same LNS.

The carrier will typically expect you to have two RADIUS endpoints to which they can send requests. One for master and one for backup. Whilst the FB6000 will answer RADIUS on any of its IP addresses, we know some carriers have issues using the interlink IP addresses. We recommend you create two additional loopback addresses for session steering RADIUS.

These addresses are configured as a BGP announced loopback address. You can use MEDs to steer which IP is on which LNSs. If you have more than two LNSs you can ensure that the same IPs are announced from more than one LNS, and let BGP decide which LNS gets the RADIUS requests. RADIUS is a simple question and answer protocol so it does not matter which LNS gets the request.

The session steering configuration (Platform RADIUS) is very flexible. We suggest you use the same configuration on each LNS so that the replies are consistent regardless of where the request goes. The reply says where to connect the session (as well as hostname and password to use). The reply can be a single LNS or can be more than one reply with a priority tagging if the carrier supports this. The FB6000 can pick an LNS randomly from a set, or pick one based on a hash of the username, part of the username, or circuit ID. This can be useful when multiple lines are in a bonded arrangement where using the same prefix on a username ensures all of the connections are steered to the same LNS for bonding.

If you have a lot of LNSs we recommend an N+1 arrangement. E.g. if you have 4 LNSs you may set your RADIUS session steering to reply with one of three active LNSs as the first choice (perhaps using a hash) and the 4th (backup) LNS as a second choice. This keeps one LNS as a hot standby for failure and also allows maintenance on it, such as s/w updates. You can then change which of the there LNSs are active and either wait for lines to move when they reconnect or clear lines on the new backup LNS. This makes it easy to do rolling upgrades on s/w or other maintenance.

Session steering also allows specific configurations to be based on username, and circuit and so on, so allowing different responses for different carriers and different end users to be customised if necessary. It is also possible to send a copy of the session steering RADIUS to your own RADIUS server for logging.

The FB6000 will accept L2TP connections on any of its IP addresses, but again we recommend allocating a loopback address or using the address from the LAN rather than the interlink address as we know some carriers cannot handle that.

Unlike RADIUS where any request can go to any LNS, the L2TP connections have a state, and so you will want the address to stay with the particular LNS. Do not have a loopback that floats between LNSs via BGP as this would mean existing connections trying to talk to another LNS. It is better for the a failure to cause a clean timeout on the failed LNS and reconnect (via RADIUS session steering) than to have an active session's traffic go to a different LNS where the session IDs could match an existing session (unlikely, but possible).

The L2TP connection is matched to an incoming L2TP configuration. The RADIUS session steering can be used to specify the hostname and password that is sent so that the correct incoming configuration can be matched. This can select the specific RADIUS servers to use at the ISP for authorising the connection (though typically a single set of RADIUS servers is used for all connections). It can also specify defaults for DNS, PPP endpoint addresses and so on.

Once the L2TP connection arrives you can use RADIUS in your own network to control the connection, accepting it or rejecting it, and defining IP addressing, DNS, traffic speeds, routing table, and much more. Appendix F provides details of the specific AVPs used with RADIUS for L2TP.

You would normally have more than one RADIUS server. You can set these in a priority order, for example a set of main servers and a set of backup. The FB6000 will find a config line for RADIUS based on the named RADIUS server in the L2TP incoming configuration, or pick any if this is not set. It checks these in order. Each RADIUS configuration can have multiple servers.

Having picked a set of RADIUS servers to try they are sorted based on their previous response time and reliability. The requests are then sent to servers in order, allowing enough time for a response based on previous performance. There are settings to fine tune these timings. Once a response is received then the L2TP connection can proceed.

The same process is followed for RADIUS accounting. Each config can say if it is used for authentication or accounting or both.