How to configure the firewall for VPN PPP connections?

Ed Greshko ed.greshko at greshko.com
Fri Feb 20 21:40:09 UTC 2015


On 02/21/15 04:58, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 7:27 PM, Gordon Messmer
> <gordon.messmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The truth, Gordon, is that after changing the firewall configuration
>>> as described in the referred site, the issue was fixed.
>>
>> Yes, I understand that.  But it sounds like GRE was allowed previously
>> because it was "RELATED" to the pptp TCP connection before a kernel upgrade,
>> but afterward it required a rule to allow it unconditionally (which is bad).
>>
>> I can't test that because I don't have any PPTP servers available, because
>> PPTP is very bad security-wise.
>>
>> It would be useful to remove the rules that you added and verify that the
>> PPTP connection fails.  Then, boot an older kernel which was known to
>> previously work and test the connection.  If it works, then there's a kernel
>> bug that should be reported.
> Thanks, Gordon, for your reply.
>
> If the issue is caused by the kernel, cannot one speculate that is
> deliberated in order to increase security? As Rick has just suggested,
> one can restrict the GRE service to certain IPs, while allowing the
> GRE service globally would leave the computer less secure (as the
> older versions of kernels did, if your suspicion is correct).
>
> Paul

I don't use PPTP either, but it would seem worthwhile to file a bugzilla for completeness.

-- 
If you can't laugh at yourself, others will gladly oblige.


More information about the users mailing list