ZyWALL 5 User’s Guide
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Chapter 9 Firewalls
If an initiation packet originates on the LAN, this means that someone is trying to make a
connection from the LAN to the Internet. Assuming that this is an acceptable part of the
security policy (as is the case with the default policy), the connection will be allowed. A cache
entry is added which includes connection information such as IP addresses, TCP ports,
sequence numbers, etc.
When the ZyWALL receives any subsequent packet (from the Internet or from the LAN), its
connection information is extracted and checked against the cache. A packet is only allowed to
pass through if it corresponds to a valid connection (that is, if it is a response to a connection
which originated on the LAN).
9.5.4 UDP/ICMP Security
UDP and ICMP do not themselves contain any connection information (such as sequence
numbers). However, at the very minimum, they contain an IP address pair (source and
destination). UDP also contains port pairs, and ICMP has type and code information. All of
this data can be analyzed in order to build "virtual connections" in the cache.
For instance, any UDP packet that originates on the LAN will create a cache entry. Its IP
address and port pairs will be stored. For a short period of time, UDP packets from the WAN
that have matching IP and UDP information will be allowed back in through the firewall.
A similar situation exists for ICMP, except that the ZyWALL is even more restrictive.
Specifically, only outgoing echoes will allow incoming echo replies, outgoing address mask
requests will allow incoming address mask replies, and outgoing timestamp requests will
allow incoming timestamp replies. No other ICMP packets are allowed in through the firewall,
simply because they are too dangerous and contain too little tracking information. For
instance, ICMP redirect packets are never allowed in, since they could be used to reroute
traffic through attacking machines.
9.5.5 Upper Layer Protocols
Some higher layer protocols (such as FTP and RealAudio) utilize multiple network
connections simultaneously. In general terms, they usually have a "control connection" which
is used for sending commands between endpoints, and then "data connections" which are used
for transmitting bulk information.
Consider the FTP protocol. A user on the LAN opens a control connection to a server on the
Internet and requests a file. At this point, the remote server will open a data connection from
the Internet. For FTP to work properly, this connection must be allowed to pass through even
though a connection from the Internet would normally be rejected.
In order to achieve this, the ZyWALL inspects the application-level FTP data. Specifically, it
searches for outgoing "PORT" commands, and when it sees these; it adds a cache entry for the
anticipated data connection. This can be done safely, since the PORT command contains
address and port information, which can be used to uniquely identify the connection.
Summary of Contents for ZyXEL ZyWALL 5
Page 1: ...ZyWALL 5 Internet Security Appliance User s Guide Version 3 64 3 2005 ...
Page 2: ......
Page 26: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 24 ...
Page 44: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 42 ...
Page 86: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 84 Chapter 3 Wizard Setup ...
Page 96: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 94 Chapter 4 LAN Screens ...
Page 102: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 100 Chapter 5 Bridge Screens ...
Page 130: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 128 Chapter 7 WAN Screens Figure 45 WAN PPPoE Encapsulation ...
Page 138: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 136 Chapter 7 WAN Screens Figure 50 Dial Backup Setup ...
Page 144: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 142 Chapter 7 WAN Screens ...
Page 152: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 150 Chapter 8 DMZ Screens ...
Page 179: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide Chapter 10 Firewall Screens 177 Figure 73 My Service Rule Configuration ...
Page 220: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 218 Chapter 13 Introduction to IPSec ...
Page 238: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 236 Chapter 14 VPN Screens Figure 110 VPN Rules IKE Network Policy Edit ...
Page 261: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide Chapter 15 Certificates 259 Figure 122 My Certificate Details ...
Page 280: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 278 Chapter 16 Authentication Server Figure 133 Local User Database ...
Page 317: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide Chapter 19 Bandwidth Management 315 ...
Page 318: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 316 Chapter 19 Bandwidth Management ...
Page 352: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 350 Chapter 21 Remote Management ...
Page 366: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 364 Chapter 23 Logs Screens Figure 188 Log Settings ...
Page 389: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide Chapter 24 Maintenance 387 Figure 210 Restart Screen ...
Page 390: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 388 Chapter 24 Maintenance ...
Page 416: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 414 Chapter 27 WAN and Dial Backup Setup ...
Page 432: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 430 Chapter 30 DMZ Setup ...
Page 492: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 490 Chapter 37 System Information Diagnosis ...
Page 508: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 506 Chapter 38 Firmware and Configuration File Maintenance ...
Page 520: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 518 Chapter 40 Remote Management ...
Page 536: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 534 Chapter 42 Troubleshooting Figure 343 Java Sun ...
Page 564: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 562 Appendix C IP Subnetting ...
Page 570: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 568 Appendix E PPTP ...
Page 571: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 569 ...
Page 572: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 570 ...
Page 590: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 588 Appendix G Triangle Route ...
Page 620: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 618 Appendix J Importing Certificates ...
Page 622: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 620 Appendix K Command Interpreter ...
Page 628: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 626 Appendix L Firewall Commands ...
Page 632: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 630 Appendix M NetBIOS Filter Commands ...
Page 638: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 636 Appendix O Brute Force Password Guessing Protection ...
Page 660: ...ZyWALL 5 User s Guide 658 Appendix Q Log Descriptions ...