Chapter 11. System Services

Table of Contents

11.1. Protecting the FB6000
11.2. Common settings
11.3. HTTP Server configuration
11.3.1. Access control
11.3.1.1. Trusted addresses
11.3.2. HTTPS access
11.4. Telnet Server configuration
11.4.1. Access control
11.5. DNS configuration
11.5.1. Auto DHCP DNS
11.5.2. Local DNS responses
11.5.3. Blocking DNS names
11.6. NTP configuration
11.7. SNMP configuration

A system service provides general functionality, and runs as a separate concurrent process alongside normal traffic handling.

Table 11.1 lists the services that the FB6000 can provide :-

Table 11.1. List of system services

ServiceFunction
SNMP serverprovides clients with access to management information using the Simple Network Management Protocol
NTP clientautomatically synchronises the FB6000's clock with an NTP time server (usually using an Internet public NTP server)
Telnet serverprovides an administration command-line interface accessed over a network connection
HTTP serverserves the web user-interface files to a user's browser on a client machine
DNSrelays DNS requests from either the FB6000 itself, or client machines to one or more DNS resolvers

Services are configured under the "Setup" category, under the heading "General system services", where there is a single services object (XML element : <services>). The services object doesn't have any attributes itself, all configuration is done via child objects, one per service. If a service object is not present, the service is disabled. Clicking on the Edit link next to the services object will take you to the list of child objects. Where a service object is not present, the table in that section will contain an "Add" link. A maximum of one instance of each service object type can be present.

11.1. Protecting the FB6000

The FB6000 does not have a firewall as such. However, the design of the FB6000 is that it should be able to protect itself sensibly without the need for a separate firewall.

Each service has specific access control settings, and these default to not allowing external access (i.e. traffic not from locally Ethernet connected devices). You can also lock down access to a specific routing table, and restrict the source IP addresses from which connections are accepted.

In the case of the web interface, you can also define trusted IP addresses which are given priority access to the login page even if there is a denial of service attack against the web interface.

Normally connections that aren't accepted are rejected, however there is a setting tcp-stealth in the global system settings which can be used to ignore them instead. This is useful to conceal from potential attackers that there is something capable of responding to TCP at the FireBrick's address.