PfBlocker

tommyboy180

Version 1.3 problems.

Error: Ipblocklist .txt feature does not work. I have to use .gz file type on txt lists. My recommendation is to remove the URL format option.
Reason: All clear text lists will correctly work regardless of extension. If the list is compressed then it must use .gz as the extension.
Fix: Therefore we can remove the user selection and treat every URL as .gz regardless of extension.

Error: If no interfaces are selected then the package will not process
Reason: pfctl is looking for an interface in the rule syntax (“pass in quick on $LAN )”
Fix: IP-blocklist uses “any” as the default interface. I highly recommend using “any” as the default interface. We can at least have it as an option in the selection box. I get the best results using “any” in ipblocklist and countryblock.

Error: switching inbound and outbound interfaces stops pfblocker from running correctly after saving settings
Reason: unknown
Fix: unknown
Note: After changing interfaces on the fly and saving the settings the rules entry for pfblock are removed from rules.debug even though the table is still defined. Even after a filter reload the package still isn’t working

Error: Selecting loopback as an interface causes rules to be removed from rules.debug
Reason: unknown
Fix: unknown

Error: After blocking a specific IP with action “Deny Outbound” with ipblocklist feature I’m still able to ping
Reason: I’m not exactly sure, but I didn’t have this behavior in ipblocklist
Fix: unknown

Also I figured out fetch.
Problem: When adding dynamic links like http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=bt_ads&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gz the package tries to download the file.
Reason: Fetch breaks because of the & symbols. So since the begging of IPblocklist we’ve always had to use direct URLs.
Fix: Parse the URL in “”. Sofetch http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=bt_ads&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gzwill break but```
fetch –o FILENAME http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=bt_ads&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gz

You will have to assign a file name to each file otherwise the default filename will be something like “?list=bt_ads&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gz”

I haven’t had the time to find sample code changes for the above problems. I’m still looking deeper into the reason why some of those errors occur.

marcelloc

Erros fixed :

table reload is now forced after each config change
fix wrong php function to get clear text lists from url

Not erros:
When you choose no interfaces, pfBlocker creates only Aliases for any custom rules you want.
some examples:

block only smtp from top spammers
Block everything except inbound 80

Many thanks to tommyboy180.

NOTE:
These fixes solves almost all erros tommyboy180 found in 1.3
pfctrl was not reloading tables so almost all tests failed.
while doing new tests, check diagnostics -> tables updates.
I've did same tests after fix and seems to be ok for me.

how to apply? reinstall package.

johnnybe

Congratulations marcelloc and tommyboy180!
Very well done.

Just a note:
A better brief description in the Package Manager, and probably the most important: a Package Info link with more details.
Does it blocks MSN, Facebook, Orkut and this or that even behind a transparent Proxy or not?

marcelloc

If you have social networks ip ranges on a url, it will work on transparent proxies.

If you have squid on same pfsense you have to create a custom floating rule for this.

AhnHEL

Trying out your new pfblocker, awesome idea to combine packages.

I've added about 13 iblocklist lists in gz format and I'm getting this error on save.

php: /pkg_edit.php: New alert found: pfBlockerInbound alias table is too large. Reduce Inbound list or increase "Firewall Maximum Table Entries" value to at least 818134 in "system - advanced - Firewall/NAT".

I have 4 gigs RAM and my current Table Entries Size is 100000 so i raised it to 1000000. Enabled pfblocker and hit save and then got this

php: : There were error(s) loading the rules: /tmp/rules.debug:18: cannot define table pfBlockerInbound: Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file: pf rules not loaded - The line in question reads [18]: table <pfblockerinbound> persist file "/var/db/aliastables/pfBlockerInbound.txt"
Oct 30 02:11:29 	php: : New alert found: There were error(s) loading the rules: /tmp/rules.debug:18: cannot define table pfBlockerInbound: Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file: pf rules not loaded The line in question reads [18]: table <pfblockerinbound> persist file "/var/db/aliastables/pfBlockerInbound.txt"
Oct 30 02:11:26 	php: : The command '/sbin/pfctl -o basic -f /tmp/rules.debug' returned exit code '1', the output was '/tmp/rules.debug:18: cannot define table pfBlockerInbound: Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file: pf rules not loaded'</pfblockerinbound></pfblockerinbound>

Neither IPblocklist nor countryblock were installed when i installed pfblocker. Memory usage is at 19%.

Line 18 in /tmp/rules.debug

table <pfblockerinbound> persist file "/var/db/aliastables/pfBlockerInbound.txt"</pfblockerinbound>

marcelloc

Did you tried to reaply pfBlocker config, after increasing Firewall Maximum Table Entries to 1000000?

It seems that your change in "Firewall Maximum Table Entries" value did not take effect.

Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file error is exactly what happens when "Firewall Maximum Table Entries" is lower then applied table size.

EDIT
Last package update was about 08 hours ago without version changing, so try to reinstall package to be sure you are on latest version.

dhatz

I'm looking forward to trying the new package, when you'll add configurable update frequency.

I'm currently using a couple of shell scripts, to add pf tables of unwanted IPs to pfsense, e.g.

http://www.spamhaus.org/drop/drop.lasso
DROP (Don't Route Or Peer) is an advisory "drop all traffic" list, consisting of stolen 'hijacked' netblocks and netblocks controlled entirely by professional spammers. DROP is a tiny subset of the SBL designed for use by firewalls and routing equipment.

http://feeds.dshield.org/top10-2.txt
DShield's current Most Active Attacking IPs
(Same data as is used on DShield.org Top 10 Most Wanted.)
0 = IP Address, 1 = Resolved domain of IP Address

which are both updated on a daily basis.

marcelloc

I'm looking forward to trying the new package, when you'll add configurable update frequency.

Maybe today.

I'll also check ips without netmask to be able to include dshield.org lists compatibility.

AhnHEL

@marcelloc:

Did you tried to reaply pfBlocker config, after increasing Firewall Maximum Table Entries to 1000000?

It seems that your change in "Firewall Maximum Table Entries" value did not take effect.

Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file error is exactly what happens when "Firewall Maximum Table Entries" is lower then applied table size.

EDIT
Last package update was about 08 hours ago without version changing, so try to reinstall package to be sure you are on latest version.

Double checked Maximum Table Entries in /System/Advanced/Firewall-NAT, uninstalled and reinstalled package, even rebooted box, still same error. Only other packages running are Snort, Unbound and Cron.

tommyboy180

@dhatz:

I'm looking forward to trying the new package, when you'll add configurable update frequency.

I'm currently using a couple of shell scripts, to add pf tables of unwanted IPs to pfsense, e.g.

http://www.spamhaus.org/drop/drop.lasso
DROP (Don't Route Or Peer) is an advisory "drop all traffic" list, consisting of stolen 'hijacked' netblocks and netblocks controlled entirely by professional spammers. DROP is a tiny subset of the SBL designed for use by firewalls and routing equipment.

http://feeds.dshield.org/top10-2.txt
DShield's current Most Active Attacking IPs
(Same data as is used on DShield.org Top 10 Most Wanted.)
0 = IP Address, 1 = Resolved domain of IP Address

which are both updated on a daily basis.

iblocklist.com has a the DROP list from spamhaus.org URL: http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=sh_drop&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gz

iblocklist.com also has the dshield list from Bluetack URL: http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=bt_dshield&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gz

iblocklist.com has many lists in p2p format.

marcelloc

@onhel:

Double checked Maximum Table Entries in /System/Advanced/Firewall-NAT, uninstalled and reinstalled package, even rebooted box, still same error. Only other packages running are Snort, Unbound and Cron.

send me your lists in PM. I'll try on my vm.

dhatz

Great, I look forward to it.

Actually, I think pfsense would benefit from an enhanced aliastable feature, that would maintain (collect data, process, store) IP ranges of interest as text files in CIDR-notation fomat in /var/db/aliastables and load them into pf tables.

Those would include the usual IP black-list sources (e.g. Spamhaus' drop.lasso, DShield etc), country IP ranges (though I personally don't favor the practice of blocking entire countries) but also IP ranges of popular sites (Amazon EC2, Facebook, Google, Hotmail, SAP) to be black-listed or white-listed.

I think it's a feature that will be increasingly asked for, as more companies move to SaaS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service provider

In fact I recently suggested it Feature #1901: Maintain IP range tables for popular Internet sites having that in mind.

marcelloc

@dhatz:

Great, I look forward to it.

Actually, I think pfsense would benefit from an enhanced aliastable feature, that would maintain (collect data, process, store) IP ranges of interest as text files in CIDR-notation fomat in /var/db/aliastables and load them into pf tables.

Those would include the usual IP black-list sources (e.g. Spamhaus' drop.lasso, DShield etc), country IP ranges (though I personally don't favor the practice of blocking entire countries) but also IP ranges of popular sites (Amazon EC2, Facebook, Google, Hotmail, SAP) to be black-listed or white-listed.

I think it's a feature that will be increasingly asked for, as more companies move to SaaS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service provider

In fact I recently suggested it Feature #1901: Maintain IP range tables for popular Internet sites having that in mind.

Isn't this the main feature of pfBlocker lists??

tommyboy180

@marcelloc:

Isn't this the main feature of pfBlocker lists??

Yup. Exactly.

dhatz,
iblocklist.com has all those lists you asked for and more. p2p is a widely used format and is incredibly popular across many websites.

@dhatz:

…Actually, I think pfsense would benefit from an enhanced aliastable feature, that would maintain (collect data, process, store) IP ranges of interest as text files in CIDR-notation fomat in /var/db/aliastables and load them into pf tables….

That is exactly what is working in pfblocker right now!

@dhatz:

….Those would include the usual IP black-list sources (e.g. Spamhaus' drop.lasso, DShield etc), country IP ranges (though I personally don't favor the practice of blocking entire countries) but also IP ranges of popular sites (Amazon EC2, Facebook, Google, Hotmail, SAP) to be black-listed or white-listed….

That is exactly what the ipblocklist feature does in pfblocker. Your lists just have to follow p2p format which iblocklist.com has for the lists that you want!

pfblocker gives users more power when it comes to blocking IP ranges (country sources and list sources), whitelisting IP ranges (country sources and list sources), whitelisting popular IPs of sites like Google, Hotmail, etc, and are updated frequently by the list maintainer.
pfblocker already does everything that you are asking for!

dhatz

Well, I haven't tried it yet, but given the name pfBlocker I assumed it was mainly about blocking :D

PS: How "safe" is list.iblocklist.com as a source (site security, DNS hijacking, GPG signing etc) ?

tommyboy180

@dhatz:

Well, I haven't tried it yet, but given the name pfBlocker I assumed it was mainly about blocking :D

lol, so you're asking for features without even testing the software? Thanks.

marcelloc

@dhatz:

Well, I haven't tried it yet, but given the name pfBlocker I assumed it was mainly about blocking :D

PS: How "safe" is list.iblocklist.com as a source (site security, DNS hijacking, GPG signing etc) ?

I will follow Johnnybe suggestion and increase pfBlocker description for better understanding.

AhnHEL

@marcelloc:

send me your lists in PM. I'll try on my vm.

PM sent, thank you.

johnnybe

@marcelloc:

@dhatz:

Well, I haven't tried it yet, but given the name pfBlocker I assumed it was mainly about blocking :D

PS: How "safe" is list.iblocklist.com as a source (site security, DNS hijacking, GPG signing etc) ?

I will follow Johnnybe suggestion and increase pfBlocker description for better understanding.

Sounds good. Do it… do it. Thanks. ;D

marcelloc

php: : There were error(s) loading the rules: /tmp/rules.debug:18: cannot define table pfBlockerInbound: Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file: pf rules not loaded - The line in question reads [18]: table <pfblockerinbound> persist file "/var/db/aliastables/pfBlockerInbound.txt"
Oct 30 02:11:29 	php: : New alert found: There were error(s) loading the rules: /tmp/rules.debug:18: cannot define table pfBlockerInbound: Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file: pf rules not loaded The line in question reads [18]: table <pfblockerinbound> persist file "/var/db/aliastables/pfBlockerInbound.txt"
Oct 30 02:11:26 	php: : The command '/sbin/pfctl -o basic -f /tmp/rules.debug' returned exit code '1', the output was '/tmp/rules.debug:18: cannot define table pfBlockerInbound: Cannot allocate memory pfctl: Syntax error in config file: pf rules not loaded'</pfblockerinbound></pfblockerinbound>

~~I seems to be a table hard limit. Even when setting Firewall Maximum Table Entries higher then 900000, pfctl fails to apply tables larger then this value.~~

EDIT:

There is no hard limit.
I found two issues:

pfsense Firewall Maximum Table Entries option may require to be 2x table size applied. I'm checking this.
To increase a table in pfctl, you must kill it to free old table used and create a new one. patch applied to pfBlocker

pfBlocker 0.1.4 will include these fixes.