Configuring Floodguard, Anti-Spoofing and Fragment Settings
Use the General page under Platform > Security to enable or disable Floodguard (on a PIX 6.3 or FWSM 2.x device), to enable Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (anti-spoofing) on individual interfaces, and to configure IP fragment settings for the device, and for each interface of the device.
Floodguard
Floodguard lets you reclaim firewall resources if the user authentication subsystem runs out of resources. If an inbound or outbound uauth
connection is being attacked or overused, the firewall will actively reclaim TCP user resources.
If the user authentication subsystem is depleted, TCP user resources in different states are reclaimed in the following order, depending on urgency:
1. Timewait
2. LastAck
3. FinWait
4. Embryonic
5. Idle
Floodguard is enabled by default. This option applies only to PIX 6.3 or FWSM 2.x devices.
Anti-spoofing
Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) guards against IP spoofing—a packet using an incorrect source IP address to obscure its true source—by ensuring that all packets have a source IP address that matches the correct source interface according to the routing table.
Normally, the security appliance looks only at the destination address when determining where to forward the packet. Unicast RPF instructs the security appliance to also look at the source address; this is why it is called Reverse Path Forwarding. For any traffic that you want to allow through the security appliance, the security appliance routing table must include a route back to the source address. See RFC 2267 for more information.
With outside traffic, for example, the security appliance can use the default route to satisfy the Unicast RPF protection. If traffic enters from an outside interface, and the source address is not known to the routing table, the security appliance uses the default route to correctly identify the outside interface as the source interface.
If traffic enters the outside interface from an address that is known to the routing table, but is associated with the inside interface, the security appliance drops the packet. Similarly, if traffic enters the inside interface from an unknown source address, the security appliance drops the packet because the matching route (the default route) indicates the outside interface.
Unicast RPF is implemented as follows:
- ICMP packets have no session, so each packet is checked.
- UDP and TCP have sessions, so the initial packet requires a reverse route look-up. Subsequent packets arriving during the session are checked using an existing state maintained as part of the session. Non-initial packets are checked to ensure they arrived on the same interface used by the initial packet.
Fragment Settings
Fragment settings provide management of packet fragmentation and improve compatibility with the Network File System (NFS). By default, the security appliance allows up to 24 fragments per IP packet, and up to 200 fragments awaiting reassembly. You might need to allow fragments on your network if you have an application that routinely fragments packets, such as NFS over UDP. However, if you do not have an application that fragments traffic, we recommend that you do not allow fragments through the security appliance, as fragmented packets are often used as DoS attacks.
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