Block by URL or hostname instead of IP
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Not in 1.2.3.
In 2.0 you can use hostnames in aliases, and any IP that is given back by DNS as an IP for that hostname will effectively be in that alias.
Though it may not really do what you are after, that would be more useful for outgoing connections to sites you want to block. Incoming connections would rarely be associated with a "url" in that way.
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jimp, how often is that hostname resolved - once at rule creation or at some interval?
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I'd have to check the daemon's source, but it's done periodically. I want to say
every 30 minutes or soIt's 5 minutes, I just checked.If you only want the hostname to be resolved once, there is a trick to using hostnames in aliases on 1.2.3, you can put a dummy IP entry in as the first alias entry, and then a hostname in the second and later entries. It only resolves once, each time the filter is reloaded, but it can work in a pinch.
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That's good to know, makes the feature useful and is what I was hoping for.
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I'd have to check the daemon's source, but it's done periodically. I want to say
every 30 minutes or soIt's 5 minutes, I just checked.I was curious about this so I tested it. I created a dummy dyndns host with the address 192.168.1.1. Then I created a network Firewall Alias called "MyAlias" for that dyndns host. Next, I ran pfctl -T show -t MyAlias, which returned 192.168.1.1
Next, I changed the dyndns host's address to 192.168.1.2. Every few seconds, I ran that pfctl command. It kept returning the original address until about 5 minutes later when it returned 192.168.1.2
I tested this several times and it always took about 5 minutes.
NOTE: there was one instance where it returned both the old address and the new address until the next update 5 minutes later. I have not been able to reproduce this anomaly. I wonder if the anomaly could cause problems with firewall rules?
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NOTE: there was one instance where it returned both the old address and the new address until the next update 5 minutes later. I have not been able to reproduce this anomaly. I wonder if the anomaly could cause problems with firewall rules?
No, the action would simply be taken for both IPs. If a DNS query returns multiple, all returned addresses are put into the table. It's handy for sites like google.com which return a set of IPs.
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I can also confirm that a filter reload causes an immediate update of the alias value, without having to wait 5 minutes. Note also that I've seen that two address anomaly all three times I did a filter reload after changing the dyndns address.
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By the way, this hostname alias feature is nice and could be handy. Thanks pfSense guys!
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Unless I'm doing something wrong, an alias of aliases where the underlying aliases are hostnames does not seem to work. For example, I created Alias1 for one dyndns hostname and and Alias2 for another one. Then I made Alias3, and added Alias1 and Alias2 to it.
Running pfctl -T show -t Alias1 and pfctl -T show -t Alias2 both output the corresponding IP addresses of the hostnames. However, running pfctl -T show -t Alias3 output the message "pfctl: Table does not exist". I double-checked the spelling too.
Is this unsupported? No biggie if it's unsupported.
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Nesting of aliases is supposed to work, not sure if some logic is missing or what. Open a ticket on http://redmine.pfsense.org with your testing and what you found, include the full output of the pfctl commands you ran, and also attach copies of rules.debug.
