accept-guard

Service access control (ACL) by wrapping the Linux accept(), recv(), recvfrom(), and recvmsg() system calls, for TCP and UDP.

Example: drop connections from WAN interface for your web server and SNMP agent, without involving weird iptables or nft commands.

The accept guard wrapper allows access to services based on a list of interfaces and ports. It is loaded using the LD_PRELOAD environment variable, controlled by the environment variable ACCEPT_GUARD_ACL

Note: the accept guard is not a replacement for a real firewall. It is a poor man's "good enough" interface filtering mechanism. This is reflected in much of the defaults and fallbacks in the code, e.g., if inbound interface cannot be determined (TCP/UDP), the connection is allowed. This to not prevent AF_UNIX and other types of conmmunication that uses the recv() family of syscalls.

Syntax

<rule>[;<rule>]
where rule obeys:
<interface>:<port>[,<port>]...

• When interface is set to any, access is allowed on all interfaces for the given Internet ports
• First matching rule allows access, i.e., it is expected that the first and only interface entry for the same port

TCP Example

An example script to start mongoose webserver and limit access to port 80 for interface eth2, port 443 for interface eth3 and allow both ports on interface eth4:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_PRELOAD=/lib/access-guard.so
export ACCEPT_GUARD_ACL="eth2:80;eth3:443;eth4:80,443"
exec /usr/sbin/mongoose /etc/mongoose/config

UDP Example

An example script to start Net-SNMP, limiting access to SNMP for interface eth2, and allow both SNMP and SNMP traps on interface eth4:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_PRELOAD=/lib/access-guard.so
export ACCEPT_GUARD_ACL="eth2:161;eth4:161,162"
exec /usr/sbin/snmpd -a -LS0-3d -c /etc/snmpd.conf -p /run/snmpd.pid

Origin

This LD_PRELOAD wrapper was invented, developed, and is now maintained by Westermo Network Technologies AB, Sweden. Please use GitHb for issues and discussions.