SmoothWall Firewall Review 495
Daniel Goscomb, one of the lead developers of Smoothwall, responds:
In our opinion this article is extremely badly researched and written. Furthermore it shows a lack of knowledge on the author's part.
The main concern he has is that of people being able to log in to the firewall and read configuration files. This point is irrelevant as there is only a single user that can access the shell, root. This also removes the need of shadow password files, if you have access to the machine to get the passwd file, you are already in as root anyhow.
Secondly he complains of plain text passwords for the ppp passwords. This is not our doing. The passwords are stored in this format as pppd requires them to be in plain text in the two files. He also mentions that the permissions of these files are wrong. If he looked a little more closely he would have seen that they are in fact symlinks to the 2 real files, which do have the proper permissions on them.
He also mentions the same "problem" with the shared keys system in FreeSWAN. Again, they are stored like this as FreeSWAN requires them in this format to read them.
As to the part about user authentification of the CGI scripts. This is completely irrelevant. There is no authentication in the CGI scripts. The authentication is done via .htaccess files, and has no interaction with the CGI at all, other than when you change the passwords.
I also find it disturbing that the author gave us no room for comment in his article, nor did i see anything to suggest he had even asked us about these so called "problems". We would have been happy to answer any questions he had.
Sincerely,
Daniel Goscomb.
Smoothwall is Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's secure, featurefull and easy to configure - what more could you want?
running CGI's as root ? great idea huh (Score:3, Interesting)
Journalistic integrity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Smoothwall is Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultimately, though, this is a very interesting notation by Daniel:
>"...nor did i see anything to suggest he had even asked us about these so called "problems"."
In the review, the reviewer actually states:
>"My concrete indications of security problems within SmoothWall found sheer disinterest with Richard Morrell, developer and project initiator. "That doesn't matter" was about the politest of all comments comment (sic)."
The reviewer apparently did attempt to have a dialogue with one of the developers, and was rebuffed (apparently impolitely.) I have had a similar experience with at least one SmoothWall developer behaving somewhat less than tactfully.
If the reviewer is wrong about the security issues, the development team may feel justified in treating him thusly -- At the same time, I sincerely hope that the development team keeps a reasonably open ear in case a legitimate bug is discovered.
Re:Smoothwall Sucks. (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:sharethenet (Score:2, Interesting)
True. I have a 486/33Mhz acting as a router for 5 computers, and at 250 kb/s download using cable-modem the cpu usage is around 15-20% only.
Using adsl and pppoe though used to get much worse performance, the cpu being used at 95-100% for 100kb/s download.
Re:No room for comments? (Score:2, Interesting)
>"...nor did i see anything to suggest he had even asked us about these so called "problems"."
In the review, the reviewer actually states:
>"My concrete indications of security problems within SmoothWall found sheer disinterest with Richard Morrell, developer and project initiator. "That doesn't matter" was about the politest of all comments comment (sic)."
The reviewer apparently did attempt to have a dialogue with one of the developers, and was rebuffed (apparently impolitely.) I have had a similar experience with at least one SmoothWall developer behaving somewhat less than tactfully.
Attitude Problems with Smoothwall Developers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:sharethenet (Score:2, Interesting)
You go to BBIagent.net's page, and then proceed to answer a few questions about the machine you'll be using as the gateway (nic cards for WAN,LAN etc). Also, it has a built in proxy DNS and built in DHCP serving, so it can replace any firewall you have.
The only extra support I'd like to see is a dial-up option (I have a dial-up line I dial into to make sure the links are up etc, and would like to run it on this same box)... But, it has basic QOS, Port Forwarding, and access controls!
What more can you ask for than free?
Re:Attitude Problems with Smoothwall Developers (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Response (Score:2, Interesting)
(not to be rude myself, but it's clear that the technical points the review makes aren't true, and it'd be nice if the social points were also disproved)
Why not plaintext passwords? (Score:1, Interesting)
Adam decides to change one of the passwords. Adam loads the password file in vi, makes the change, exits, and walks away from his console, happy.
Bill, a guest-class user who wants higher-level access for nerfarious purposes, creates a file in
Well, when Adam saved the password file and closed, vi did the following: It created a new file containing the revised information, then deleted the old file, and finally renamed the new file to match the original file. The space allocated by the original file was released to be reused. When Bill allocated space for his temp file, he happened to get the same space the original file used -- and its contents.
Bill identifies the file fragment as having belonged to a password file. While one password was changed, there may be others which haven't; or the format of the password used may allow Bill to make some educated guesses about Adam's new one.
While this form of attack isn't always successful, password data can be exploited; and the more passwords on the system that aren't encrypted, the more likely one may be discovered. In other words: Routinely encrypt passwords!
Re:Smoothwall is GREAT (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Smoothwall & GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
However the version I looked at (0.9.9) includes a java ssh terminal (MindTerm [appgate.org]) that is a commerial product that is "Free for non commerial personal use and may be included with other products so long as the different license is drawn attention to" to paraphrase this [appgate.org] license agreement. I saw no sign of this.
I am posting this anonymously and I haven't rasied this elsewhere as the attitude of the developers to these sorts of questions is well known and I don't really have the time for that.
How this applies to their commerial support offerings I'm not sure either.
Re:The smoothwall team is full of GREAT IDEAs.. (Score:1, Interesting)
HUH ? one buffer overflow and the firewall gets OWNED. REMOTELY.
Re:Reveiwers have to listen... (Score:1, Interesting)
Both of you are as good/bad as me, the Anonymous Coward:
hellcore (User #549684 Info)
HiltonT (User #549696 Info)
In other words: Two fresh acounts which probably represent the same person and are created just to post at +1. Show some logs.
It's not the first time... (Score:4, Interesting)
In most of these cases, c't is right. I think we can expect an exploit very soon... ;-)
Re:The smoothwall team is full of GREAT IDEAs.. (Score:1, Interesting)
It has no external access to the machine.
My smoothwall experiance (it was bad) (Score:5, Interesting)
smoothwall.org.txt [widomaker.com] and smoothwall.org2.txt [widomaker.com]
Makes you wonder how these guys really act to customers.
My Experience with Smoothwall's Richard (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple days later, after having installed Smoothwall and found it to be almost-but-not-quite-right, I popped on and asked a pretty simple question. Why wasn't there a copy of any compilation tools present, or any other services that someone on a small, personal network might like?
The response was pretty terse. "It's a firewall." Repeated inquiries resulted in various forms of the same answer. Now I understand that a firewall has one main purpose, but the -attitude- I got from the developers was really too much. I figured, after being booted from the channel, I'd email Richard and hope that a cooler, more corporate head might reside at the leadership of the Smoothwall project.
Unfortunately, I could -not- have been further from the truth. The situation escalated with Richard harassing me VIA email for several days, after repeated requests of mine not to email me any longer. He continued, his crude insults became -threats-, and it took three days for the matter to settle.
I am currently an assistant administrator at a small college using Linux as a gateway/NAS solution that's desperately in need of updating. Smoothwall might have once been a contender for this, but definitely not now.
I have posted a rather extensive website airing the entire situation with Richard, my own warts and all, at my Smoothwall site [wctc.org] for the perusal of anyone interested. Sure, I might have made a mistake or two, but I don't feel anything I may have said justified what I recieved.
Anyone else have similar experiences?
Re:The smoothwall team is full of GREAT IDEAs.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:My Experience with Smoothwall's Richard (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Smoothwall & GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
I went beyond that. I didn't just write GPL code as a hobby. I bet my family's well being on open source when I took a job with Sendmail, Inc. Unfortunately, Sendmail was forced into massive layoffs, and at the worst time economically. It took four months to find another tech job. It doesn't matter that I am good at what I do. There were a hundred other guys interviewing for the same job who were just as good or who wanted a lot less money.
Your precious GPL doesn't pay my rent or buy clothes for my daughter. If I had a choice between unemployment and Microsoft, then what the hell, "start me up".
Re:sharethenet (Score:2, Interesting)
It's also why setting up a bootable CDROM is in many cases the way to go.
Keep your logfiles on the HD. Nothing else really needs to be there.
Of course, I don't do this. But I'm only protecting a few home computers. If I had an organization... I'd burn a CDR and boot firewalls from it. Just leave it in the drive. Good luck hacking that.
My own damned reveiw.... (dammit!) (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Smoothwall is Great! (Score:2, Interesting)
If my, and many of my friend's, experiences of Richard Morrell are any indication, the reviewer got off lightly with "That doesn't matter". There's not even an expletive in there. I'm sure many other users here would back me up on this: Richard Morrell is like RMS but without the charm or patience. Smoothwall, however, is very good stuff. It runs excellently on a battered old 486 and is the ideal solution if you are looking to share a DSL/Cable connection, at any level from a simple home LAN to a hosted domain
Re:My smoothwall experiance (it was bad) (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider: if I donated money or purchased the product outright, project members might begin treating me with respect and patience -- but that respect and patience would have been purchased, rather than genuine. I assume that the boorish behavior would have continued behind my back. Equally possible is the chance that the boorish behavior would have continued to my face.
Ultimately, it was this thought that led to me voiding a donation check I had written to the project. I voided the check two days after installing SmoothWall, a few hours after writing the check, and half an hour after being insulted by Richard Morrell on the users mailing list.
Re:No more comments on Morrell, please! Try IPCop! (Score:3, Interesting)
You might be interested in what Mr Morrell has to say about IPcop...
Re:My Experience with Smoothwall's Richard (Score:2, Interesting)
I find him to be arrogant, overbearing, thoughtless, anal, and childish.
Okay, -almost- entirely unlike you. But then, you are not making threats and false accusations of illegal acts against a person who has offered you neither insult nor any offense whatsoever. You aren't trying to abuse the law and the trust of a corporation to attack an innocent man. And you aren't posting pointless, silly, ad hominem slander.
Oh, wait. You are posting pointless, silly, ad hominem slander.
I guess you're not that different after all.
Re:My Experience with Smoothwall's Richard (Score:2, Interesting)
I was reading this article's comments with just cursory interest until I came across this post. I headed to your website and read the whole exchange.
Frankly, I think you are totally in the right here. The IRC exchange was typical, from what I've seen, for IRC. You even provided help to other customers of the company. I was absolutely astounded to read the reply(ies) you received to the email you sent the 'president' of this company. I cannot believe that anyone in charge of a company (or any company public or private) providing a product could be so daft. After reading through the other comments, I can also see this is not an isolated incident.
Well, one thing is for sure: this could be the most secure firewall ever , but after reading this and other exchanges with the people who make it, I'm not even going to bother trying it.
Re:Excuses (Score:4, Interesting)
Mainly, NAT can be persuaded to become bidirectional with relative ease. That is, you can trick it into giving access to machines behind the firewall. This is especially easy if there are servers behind the firewall.
The explanation on how is technical in the extreme, and while I mostly understand it, I don't trust myself to explain it correctly; I'll recommend the Zwicky book again, [amazon.com] perhaps I should put it in my sigfile. :) If you're broke, go find your local university's library. Any decent uni library and many crappy ones will have at least the first edition of Zwicky.
The simple answer, though: SOCKS4/5 is a server, and NAT is a router solution. Routers route packets around the 'net. They are designed to pass them back and forth. Servers, on the other hand, just receive packets, process them, and decide what to do with them.
I talked about this a bit more in a BSD thread just earlier today: go here [slashdot.org] to see my other comment.
Now, don't get me wrong; NAT is much better than just having an open connection. But it will usually pass ICMP packets, and that's an enormous security hole. Dumb network admins usually deal with it by blocking all ICMP packets, which of course breaks a whole pile of things. The better solution is to just not ever route packets from the 'net past the firewall. They should all be caught at the firewall and fed through some kind of proxy before they ever touch the inside. That can only be done if you give up NAT.
Saga of a Network Installation with SmoothWall (Score:5, Interesting)
I and a buddy recently completed a network installation for a small business. They had about 25 PC's in a 100-year-old wood-frame office building with asbetos everywhere and wanted these people to be able to utilize the Internet for such tasks as tracking packages via web sites, etc. They wanted to reduce costs by eliminating some 6 dialup accounts and free up phone lines for voice. They were less than a quarter mile from the local telco POP. So, they tried ADSL on one PC and consistently got about 1.5 Mbps down and about half that up. They loved it.
They asked me as an independent consultant what they should do to get the access to the other PC's. We looked at wiring the building, but due to the structural nightmare of the building, we decided that for their needs we could go with 802.11b. We dropped several CAT5e lines to three locations in the building: the computer room, where their mission-critical apps run on an AS400, and two access point mounts we set up.
We set up a SmoothWall box as their NAT since the evil ISP would only give us one static IP. It looked a lot better than FreeSCO. It was painless, absolutely painless to configure. But it had a shortcomming: it did not support PPPoE, which was necessary for the ADSL drop. Schucks! So we double-NATed using a little Linksys NAT/switch thingy to actually negotiate the PPP for us. We thought this would be nice because if someone were trying to hack in, they would have to circumvent 2 NAT's. We also thought it would have no significant impact on throughput. Big mistake (read on). Regardless, the NAT solution could remain in place should they ever want to add a stateful packet inspection firewall or something like that, or switch to better broadband, or even wire the building.
We spent almost an entire afternoon trying to configure the blasted access points. They were DLink 1000AP's. I followed DLink's instructions to the letter. I have a little beef with DLink about requiring a Windows machine to configure the things, but I can overlook that. I installed the configuration software on my laptop and was ready-to-rumble. The software failed repeatedly to detect the access point using a DLink branded 802.11b client device (USB DWL120). So I tried step two, isolating the AP's on an Ethernet segment. They failed detection again. So I fed the software MAC addresses manually. This failed. I was using only one machine with a known-to-work crossover patch cable. What the *(!@?
We eventually tried swtiching PC's, and then we noticed that the typeface DLink used to print the MAC addresses on their AP's made 5's look like 6's because the ink ran too much. I was really pissed. Upon getting the conf software to work on a desktop, I went back to my laptop to try again. It flat out wouldn't work with either of my 3Com CC10BT PCMCIA cards in different machines. Don't know why to this day; DLink couldn't help me on that one. But it did work on a desktop wit a 3Com 3c509b.
So, we got the access points set up and clients on all the PCs. We set up WEP encryption and tried to hack around a little to get in without the keys. We made sure we altered the default network ID and set good hard-to-guess passwords. It was like butta, for just one day.
Next weekend, we came back and hooked up more PC's. We went up to say 18 from 12. This is where we started having problems.
We used MAC address control on the APs as we promised the company we would. But after hours and hours of trial and error, we discovered that after adding more than 17 MAC addresses to the control list on one AP, the AP would spontaneously loose all of its configuration data. This worked this way on both AP's. DLink was not helpful. We would later RMA one of these and the replacement would do the same. So, we ended up having to have control lists that were local instead of network-wide. This defeated the roaming feature of 802.11b entirely (although nobody has a laptop there right now, I don't like it one bit). It also causes more difficulty in configuring the damn things. My friend, who is an Apple Campus Rep, haunts me to this day with suggestions of buying their AirPort brand equipment and says it would work better. Anyway, we choose DLink 'cause it was a hell of a lot cheaper than Orinoco.
We saved the company lotsa money on their dial-up. Next, we moved their web pages in house on a Red Hat box on a DMZ. DMZ wasn't all that in SmoothWall at the time (no hole poking), but it did what we needed it to. We moved their primary DNS to publicdns.org and set up MX records, the whole works. Set up a sendmail box. Set them up with PHPGroupWare. And, we encouraged them to make donations to the various projects which provided them with these fine products and services. I felt all warm and fuzzy. I had turned them into a free-software shop on commodity hardware and it all worked.
After a while, I started getting phone calls from them saying their web pages were only accessible to some clients. I looked into this. I left myself a way to get in (a port forwarded to a pc with sshd, I had permission to do this), and so I hopped on in and looked around. I became acutely aware that my ssh sessions were being dropped very frequently. I kept getting some sort of error from my ssh client during sessions.
We went back down to isolate the problem. We kept removing pieces of hardware from the network to figure out what the &*^% was going on, but found nothing. Then we learned SmoothWall had added support for PPPoE. We scrapped the Linksys, and we had no more dropped TCP sessions. It was freaky . I have seen the same problem affect two other people who used port forwarding since then with Linksys boxes (I help folks out on Mandrake Expert). SmoothWall had also added better DMZ support. I just have to say the system works beautifully.
Other issues we encountered in the project were users compromising security by using AOL clients. AOL clients create VPNs which in theory could allow hackers to circumvent your company's security. Don't let your users do this.
Oh, I almost forgot, the AS400. Up until we set them up with a network, they were using this shitty twinax serial network to talk to their AS400. It was expensive. It required shitty ISA adapters to be installed in every PC. It almost made me puke.
At the start of the project in our proposal we told them that they should use encrypt everything, even internally, and that that was just common sense. We told them they could put the AS400 on the LAN and use ssh instead of those card-and-twinax interfaces. I even verified this with my fiancee's dad, an old-AS400-fart himself, before I promised them this. WE WERE WRONG.
IBM told us they COULD NOT RUN SSHD WITHOUT BUYING A NEW MACHINE. That is such a load of crap, but we, having no experience with AS400's, could do nothing about it. The IBM man convinced them to run telnet. We told them we would take no responsibility for that. End-of-story.
Hope this has been an informative venting session for all of you. Please note that there was some relevant content in here, and that SmoothWall solved some of my problems, and I think it is a great product.
I have a serious question... (Score:1, Interesting)
If you agree, vote with upward moderation.
BSD Based firewalls (Score:3, Interesting)
-John
Re:actually, shadow passwords should be used (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC this does implement shadow passwords as well as the SCSI support I needed and a web interface. There is also a Java encrypted terminal connection, which allows you to login securely from a browser. This is really handy for tweaking the config files without needing a screen and keyboard connected to the host.
There were two areas which needed a little manual tweaking - dhcpd.conf and lilo.conf. Once these had been fixed everything worked a treat, it even handled the VPN connection to my office seamlessly. So, nine out of ten for Mandrake SNF from me.
Keith.
Re:Smoothwall & GPL (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:sharethenet (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't the point. The problem is that whatever exploit the script-kiddie used to root your box is going to still be there, no matter how many times you hit the big red button and reboot.
You need to know what happened, so you can patch the hole.
Re:Smoothwall & GPL (Score:2, Interesting)
Welcome to #smoothwall
free support if you haven't donated.
http://redirect.smoothwall.org/donate
I guess it's not free support if you donate then so it's basically an unsupported GPL'd product. That's fine but too bad the author is a fucking putz. He reminds me of DJB or Theo from OpenBSD. They're all pompous arrogant primadonnas.
Re:Replying to the reply (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, as was pointed out on uk.comp.os.linux,
anyone who thinks that
/^\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+$/
is a correct way to match an IP address in a cgi-bin script shouldn't be let near a firewall.
No shadow passwords?
systems I've ever seen (is Smoothwall different?
I doubt it). That's why you need shadow passwords.
Remember the old
trick? Having seen the quality of the cgi scripts
in smoothwall, do you want to promise that there's
nothing similar in there?
Authentication != verifying CGI data (Score:1, Interesting)
From the review:
From Daniel Goscomb's reply: