IPTables Masquerading Issue

Discussion in 'Technical' started by johncongdon, Aug 2, 2011.

  1. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    I have setup masquerading dozens of times with no issues.

    I have 2 linux boxes (A=Private, B=Masquerader)

    Here are the checks I have done
    A - Default gateway is B
    B - iptables is wide open with 1 postrouting statement
    iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.73.11 -j SNAT --to-source PUBLIC_IP
    B - IP Forwarding is enabled.

    I can ping from A to B's private address. Cannot go past that.
    If I run iptraf on B, I can see the ping req/reply from A to another IP.

    If I ssh from A to another machine outside the firewall, I can see the connection attempt with netstat -an | grep :22 on the remote machine.

    So the connection are being transmitted out correctly, but not getting returned correctly through SNAT. Any ideas?
     
  2. Mark_NL

    Mark_NL Member

    why do you SNAT?

    for a simple and fast gateway you should do this:

    set net.ipv4.ip_forward to 1 (/etc/sysctl.conf, then run: sysctl -p)
    iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

    eth0 being your external interface (wan connection).

    That's it.
     
  3. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    I have done that as well. Both give me the same results. The SNAT was a last attempt and something that I read was "more secure" than just masquerade.

    Either way, the end result was the same :(
     
  4. Mark_NL

    Mark_NL Member

    If my solution doesn't work, then there is something you haven't told us about your setup.

    A -> B -> C

    you're able to ping C unless "C" is dropping stuff

    A: ping c
    B: tcpdump -i eth0 icmp
    C: tcpdump -i eth0 icmp

    now see what packets go back and forth on B and C
     
  5. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    I wish I was not telling you something. That's why I tried to be very specific in my setup and testing that I have done. I have setup simple masquerading before, should not be this difficult. I also made sure selinux was off, in case that was the issue. I can ping from A to the private side of B, so ping is not being blocked on A.

    I also went back to your suggestion of iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -o eth1 -j MASQUERADE, and I get the same results. :(

    I see the ping request/reply on C (in your example).
    I see the ping request/reply on B ( on both eth0 and eth1 )

    The firewall on A is default open
    Output from B
    Output from C
     
  6. Franz

    Franz Member

    did you configure this on machine B?

    Code:
     echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward 
     
  7. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    Yes, sorry, I thought I included that in my first post, guess not.

    The packets are being forwarded, as you can see, machine C (which is across the Internet, not local) is getting requests and replying.

    Very very strange. I'm wondering if there is some other type of firewall on CentOS that I am unaware of.
     
  8. Mark_NL

    Mark_NL Member

    It looks clear to me that the icmp responses are being send back to A.

    Code:
    11:46:49.528951 IP MachineC > 10.0.73.11: ICMP echo reply, id 36931, seq 1, length 64
    Do the test again, but this time, open up another connection to machine A and start a tcpdump on it and filter icmp. Do you see icmp responses on machine A when you have tcpdump running on it?

    to be sure, run this on machine A and B and show us the results:
    Code:
    iptables-save
     
  9. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    Just received additional information. These are virtual servers. Do you think there is something in a virtual environment that could stop this type of traffic?

    -------Private Network--------
    | |
    | |
    A B
    | |
    ----Public Network 1 ------Public Network 2



    I guess Public Network 1 is a higher cost bandwidth. A and B are virtual servers connected to the same private network.
     
  10. Mark_NL

    Mark_NL Member

    If the physical server is configured properly, then it shouldn't be any problem.
    I've a VM gw as well and other vm's have no problem getting data through it.

    Though the awesome acsii art you just drawn ;) ... i've no idea what it is.

    but back on topic:

    From the tcpdumps you supplied, we've seen traffic going from:

    A -> B -> C -> B

    I'm missing the tcpdump from A when you ping from A to C.
    If the underlying physical host is misconfigured it could be that the pings aren't received on your host A .. but first, show me a tcpdump from A ;)
     
  11. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    ARGH, My ascii art got messed up :(

    In words, A connects to another more expensive pipe. So my client wants to connect to the server through B on a cheaper internet connection.

    Here is the tcpdump from A.

     
  12. Mark_NL

    Mark_NL Member

    ahhhh, so:

    A -> C goes over line B
    C -> A goed over line A

    That could mess things up. Also the tcpdump shows you the replies are not reaching A.
    They do reach B, but B want to send them over another line to A ?

    Though i think i understand your ASCII art now ;-)

    - A and B are both connected to the same internal private network.
    - A is connected to external net 1
    - B is connected to external net 2
    - C is connected somewhere completely different (on the other side of the world f.e.)

    Show me:
    - iptables-save (server A and B)
    - route -n (server A and B)
     
  13. johncongdon

    johncongdon New Member

    I was just informed that the physical machine was put in and worked right away. Turns out there was an ACL in the virtual environment that I had zero control over.

    I'm not crazy... Yipee! :)

    Thanks for trying.
     
  14. Mark_NL

    Mark_NL Member

    aaaaaaaaargl .. i think i just pulled out a pluck of hair from my head ;)
     
  15. pamellayao

    pamellayao New Member

    I have done that as well. Both give me the same results. The SNAT was a last attempt and something that I read was "more secure" than just masquerade.:(
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2011
  16. pamellayao

    pamellayao New Member

    The SNAT was a last attempt and something that I read was "more secure" than just masquerade.:(
     

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