Provided by: firehol-doc_3.1.7+ds-2.1_all 
NAME
firehol-defaults.conf - control variables for FireHOL
SYNOPSIS
Defaults in /etc/firehol/firehol-defaults.conf:
• DEFAULT_INTERFACE_POLICY=“DROP”
• DEFAULT_ROUTER_POLICY=“RETURN”
• UNMATCHED_INPUT_POLICY=“DROP”
• UNMATCHED_OUTPUT_POLICY=“DROP”
• UNMATCHED_FORWARD_POLICY=“DROP”
• FIREHOL_INPUT_ACTIVATION_POLICY=“ACCEPT”
• FIREHOL_OUTPUT_ACTIVATION_POLICY=“ACCEPT”
• FIREHOL_FORWARD_ACTIVATION_POLICY=“ACCEPT”
• FIREHOL_LOG_MODE=“LOG”
• FIREHOL_LOG_LEVEL=see notes
• FIREHOL_LOG_OPTIONS=“–log-level warning”
• FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY=“1/second”
• FIREHOL_LOG_BURST=“5”
• FIREHOL_LOG_PREFIX=“”
• FIREHOL_DROP_INVALID=“0”
• DEFAULT_CLIENT_PORTS=“1000:65535”
• FIREHOL_NAT=“0”
• FIREHOL_ROUTING=“0”
• FIREHOL_AUTOSAVE=see notes
• FIREHOL_AUTOSAVE6=see notes
• FIREHOL_LOAD_KERNEL_MODULES=“1”
• FIREHOL_TRUST_LOOPBACK=“1”
• FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK_FIN=“1”
• FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK_RST=“1”
• FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK=“1”
• FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_RST=“1”
• FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_IPV4_ICMP_TYPE3=“1”
• WAIT_FOR_IFACE=“”
DESCRIPTION
From FireHOL 3 upwards, variables which control FireHOL behaviour are held in a separate
file: /etc/firehol/firehol-defaults.conf.
Some variables can also be set in the main firehol.conf file but that is not recommended,
since they may be used before the main configuration is processed.
FireHOL also sets some variables before processing the configuration file which you can
use as part of your configuration. These are described in firehol.conf(5).
VARIABLES
DEFAULT_INTERFACE_POLICY
This variable controls the default action to be taken on traffic not matched by any
rule within an interface. It can be overridden using firehol-policy(5).
Packets that reach the end of an interface without an action of return or accept
are logged. You can control the frequency of this logging by altering
FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY.
Example:
DEFAULT_INTERFACE_POLICY="REJECT"
DEFAULT_ROUTER_POLICY
This variable controls the default action to be taken on traffic not matched by any
rule within a router. It can be overridden using firehol-policy(5).
Packets that reach the end of a router without an action of return or accept are
logged. You can control the frequency of this logging by altering
FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY.
Example:
DEFAULT_ROUTER_POLICY="REJECT"
UNMATCHED_{INPUT|OUTPUT|FORWARD}_POLICY
These variables control the default action to be taken on traffic not matched by
any interface or router definition that was incoming, outgoing or for forwarding
respectively. Any supported value from firehol-actions(5) may be set.
All packets that reach the end of a chain are logged, regardless of these settings.
You can control the frequency of this logging by altering FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY.
Example:
UNMATCHED_INPUT_POLICY="REJECT"
UNMATCHED_OUTPUT_POLICY="REJECT"
UNMATCHED_FORWARD_POLICY="REJECT"
FIREHOL_{INPUT|OUTPUT|FORWARD}_ACTIVATION_POLICY
These variables control the default action to be taken on traffic during firewall
activation for incoming, outgoing and forwarding respectively. Acceptable values
are ACCEPT, DROP and REJECT.
FireHOL defaults all values to ACCEPT so that your communications continue to work
uninterrupted.
If you wish to prevent connections whilst the new firewall is activating, set these
values to DROP. This is important to do if you are using all or any to match
traffic; connections established during activation will continue even if they would
not be allowed once the firewall is established.
Example:
FIREHOL_INPUT_ACTIVATION_POLICY="DROP"
FIREHOL_OUTPUT_ACTIVATION_POLICY="DROP"
FIREHOL_FORWARD_ACTIVATION_POLICY="DROP"
FIREHOL_LOG_MODE
This variable controls method that FireHOL uses for logging.
Acceptable values are LOG (normal syslog) and ULOG (netfilter ulogd). When ULOG is
selected, FIREHOL_LOG_LEVEL is ignored.
Example:
FIREHOL_LOG_MODE="ULOG"
To see the available options run: /sbin/iptables -j LOG --help or /sbin/iptables -j
ULOG --help
FIREHOL_LOG_LEVEL
This variable controls the level at which events will be logged to syslog.
To avoid packet logs appearing on your console you should ensure klogd only logs
traffic that is more important than that produced by FireHOL.
Use the following option to choose an iptables(8) log level (alpha or numeric)
which is higher than the -c of klogd.
iptables/klogd levels
iptables klogd description
───────────────────────────────────────────────
emerg (0) 0 system is unusable
alert (1) 1 action must be taken
immediately
crit (2) 2 critical conditions
error (3) 3 error conditions
warning (4) 4 warning conditions
notice (5) 5 normal but significant
condition
info (6) 6 informational
debug (7) 7 debug-level messages
Note
The default for klogd is generally to log everything (7 and lower) and the
default level for iptables(4) is to log as warning (4).
FIREHOL_LOG_OPTIONS
This variable controls the way in which events will be logged to syslog.
Example:
FIREHOL_LOG_OPTIONS="--log-level info \
--log-tcp-options --log-ip-options"
To see the available options run: /sbin/iptables -j LOG --help
FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY; FIREHOL_LOG_BURST
These variables control the frequency that each logging rule will write events to
syslog. FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY is set to the maximum average frequency and
FIREHOL_LOG_BURST specifies the maximum initial number.
Example:
FIREHOL_LOG_FREQUENCY="30/minute"
FIREHOL_LOG_BURST="2"
To see the available options run: /sbin/iptables -m limit --help
FIREHOL_LOG_PREFIX
This value is added to the contents of each logged line for easy detection of
FireHOL lines in the system logs. By default it is empty.
Example:
FIREHOL_LOG_PREFIX="FIREHOL:"
FIREHOL_DROP_INVALID
If set to 1, this variable causes FireHOL to drop all packets matched as INVALID in
the iptables(8) connection tracker.
You may be better off using firehol-protection(5) to control matching of INVALID
packets and others on a per-interface and per-router basis.
Note
Care must be taken on IPv6 interfaces, since ICMPv6 packets such as
Neighbour Discovery are not tracked, meaning they are marked as INVALID.
Example:
FIREHOL_DROP_INVALID="1"
DEFAULT_CLIENT_PORTS
This variable controls the port range that is used when a remote client is
specified. For clients on the local host, FireHOL finds the exact client ports by
querying the kernel options.
Example:
DEFAULT_CLIENT_PORTS="0:65535"
FIREHOL_NAT
If set to 1, this variable causes FireHOL to load the NAT kernel modules. If you
make use of the NAT helper commands, the variable will be set to 1 automatically.
Example:
FIREHOL_NAT="1"
FIREHOL_ROUTING
If set to 1, this variable causes FireHOL to enable routing in the kernel. If you
make use of router definitions or certain helper commands the variable will be set
to 1 automatically.
Example:
FIREHOL_ROUTING="1"
FIREHOL_AUTOSAVE; FIREHOL_AUTOSAVE6
These variables specify the file of IPv4/IPv6 rules that will be created when
firehol(1) is called with the save argument.
If the variable is not set, a system-specific value is used which was defined at
configure-time. If no value was chosen then the save fails.
Example:
FIREHOL_AUTOSAVE="/tmp/firehol-saved-ipv4.txt"
FIREHOL_AUTOSAVE6="/tmp/firehol-saved-ipv6.txt"
FIREHOL_LOAD_KERNEL_MODULES
If set to 0, this variable forces FireHOL to not load any kernel modules. It is
needed only if the kernel has modules statically included and in the rare event
that FireHOL cannot access the kernel configuration.
Example:
FIREHOL_LOAD_KERNEL_MODULES="0"
FIREHOL_TRUST_LOOPBACK
If set to 0, the loopback device “lo” will not be trusted and you can write
standard firewall rules for it.
Warning
If you do not set up appropriate rules, local processes will not be able to
communicate with each other which can result in serious breakages.
By default “lo” is trusted and all INPUT and OUTPUT traffic is accepted (forwarding
is not included).
Example:
FIREHOL_TRUST_LOOPBACK="0"
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK_FIN
If set to 1, FireHOL will drop all orphan such packets without logging them.
In busy environments the iptables(8) connection tracker removes connection tracking
list entries as soon as it receives a FIN. This makes the ACK FIN appear as an
invalid packet which will normally be logged by FireHOL.
Example:
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK_FIN="1"
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK_RST
If set to 1, FireHOL will drop all orphan such packets without logging them.
In busy environments the iptables(8) connection tracker removes connection tracking
list entries as soon as it receives a RST. This makes the ACK RST appear as an
invalid packet which will normally be logged by FireHOL.
Example:
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK_RST="1"
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK
If set to 1, FireHOL will drop all orphan such packets without logging them.
In busy environments the iptables(8) connection tracker removes unneeded connection
tracking list entries. This makes ACK packets appear as an invalid packet which
will normally be logged by FireHOL.
Example:
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_ACK="1"
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_RST
If set to 1, FireHOL will drop all orphan such packets without logging them.
In busy environments the iptables(8) connection tracker removes unneeded connection
tracking list entries. This makes RST packets appear as an invalid packet which
will normally be logged by FireHOL.
Example:
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_TCP_RST="1"
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_IPV4_ICMP_TYPE3
If set to 1, FireHOL will drop all orphan ICMP destination unreachable packets
without logging them.
In busy environments the iptables(8) connection tracker removes unneeded connection
tracking list entries. This makes ICMP destination unreachable appear as an
invalid packet which will normally be logged by FireHOL.
Example:
FIREHOL_DROP_ORPHAN_IPV4_ICMP_TYPE3="1"
WAIT_FOR_IFACE
If set to the name of a network device (e.g. eth0), FireHOL will wait until the
device is up (or until 60 seconds have elapsed) before continuing.
A device does not need to be up in order to have firewall rules created for it, so
this option should only be used if you have a specific need to wait (e.g. the
network must be queried to determine the hosts or ports which will be firewalled).
Example:
WAIT_FOR_IFACE="eth0"
SEE ALSO
• firehol(1) - FireHOL program
• firehol.conf(5) - FireHOL configuration
• firehol-nat(5) - nat, snat, dnat, redirect helpers
• firehol-actions(5) - actions for rules
• iptables(8) (http://ipset.netfilter.org/iptables.man.html) - administration tool for
IPv4 firewalls
• ip6tables(8) (http://ipset.netfilter.org/ip6tables.man.html) - administration tool for
IPv6 firewalls
• FireHOL Website (http://firehol.org/)
• FireHOL Online PDF Manual (http://firehol.org/firehol-manual.pdf)
• FireHOL Online Documentation (http://firehol.org/documentation/)
AUTHORS
FireHOL Team.