hosts_access(4tcp)
hosts_access --
host access control files
Description
The /etc/inet/hosts.allow and
/etc/inet/hosts.deny files are read by the
tcpd(1Mtcp)
server to decide which hosts will or will not be allowed access
to services that are configured in the inetd configuration file,
inetd.conf(4tcp).
These files use a simple access control language that is
based on client (host name/address, user name), and server (process
name, host name/address) patterns.
Extensions to the access control language
are enabled in the supplied version of tcpd.
These extensions were enabled by building tcpd
with PROCESS_OPTIONS defined.
In the following text, daemon is the process name of a
network daemon process, and client is the name and/or address of
a host requesting service. Network daemon process names are specified
in /etc/inet/inetd.conf.
Access control files
The access control software consults two files. The search stops
at the first match in the following steps:
-
Access will be granted when a
(daemon,client) pair matches an entry in
the /etc/inet/hosts.allow file.
-
Otherwise, access will be denied when a
(daemon,client) pair matches an
entry in the /etc/inet/hosts.deny file.
-
Otherwise, access will be granted.
A non-existing access control file is treated as if it were an empty
file. Thus, access control can be turned off by providing no access
control files.
Access control rules
Each access control file consists of zero or more lines of text. These
lines are processed in order of appearance. The search terminates when a
match is found.
A newline character is ignored when it is preceded by a backslash
character. This permits you to break up long lines so that they are
easier to edit.
Blank lines or lines that begin with a `#´ character are ignored.
This permits you to insert comments and whitespace so that the tables
are easier to read.
All other lines should satisfy the following format:
daemon_list : client_list [ : shell_command ]
daemon_list is a list of one or more daemon process names
(argv[0]
values) or wildcards (see below).
client_list is a list
of one or more host names, host addresses, patterns or wildcards (see
below) that will be matched against the client host name or address.
The more complex forms daemon@host
and user@host are explained in
``Server endpoint patterns''
and
``Client username lookup'',
respectively.
List elements should be separated by blanks and/or commas.
With the exception of NIS netgroup lookups, all access control
checks are case insensitive.
Patterns
The access control language implements the following patterns:
-
A string that begins with a ``.'' character.
A host name is matched if
the last components of its name match the specified pattern.
For example, the pattern ``.tue.nl'' matches the host name
``wzv.win.tue.nl''.
-
A string that ends with a ``.'' character.
A host address is matched if
its first numeric fields match the given string.
For example, the
pattern ``131.155.'' matches the address of (almost) every host on the
network 131.155.*.*.
-
A string that begins with an ``@'' character is treated as an
NIS netgroup name. A host name is matched if it is a host
member of the specified netgroup. Netgroup matches are not supported
for daemon process names or for client user names.
-
An expression of the form ``n1.n2.n3.n4/m1.m2.m3.m4'' is interpreted as a
``network_address/netmask'' pair.
A host address is matched if the network address is equal to the
bitwise AND of its address and the netmask. For example, the
pattern ``131.155.72.0/255.255.254.0'' matches every address in the
range ``131.155.72.0'' through ``131.155.73.255''.
Wildcards
The access control language supports the following explicit wildcards:
ALL-
The universal wildcard, always matches.
LOCAL-
Matches any host whose name does not contain a dot character.
UNKNOWN-
Matches any user whose name is unknown, and matches any host whose name
or address are unknown.
This pattern should be used with care as
host names may be unavailable due to temporary name server problems.
A network address will be unavailable when the software cannot figure out
what type of network it is talking to.
KNOWN-
Matches any user whose name is known, and matches any host whose name
and address are known. This pattern should be used with care as
host names may be unavailable due to temporary name server problems.
A network address will be unavailable when the software cannot figure out
what type of network it is talking to.
PARANOID-
Matches any host whose name does not match its address.
As the supplied version of tcpd was
built with PARANOID defined
(default mode), it drops requests from such
clients even before looking at the access control tables.
Operators
The EXCEPT operator is intended for use
in the form:
list_1 EXCEPT list_2
This construct
matches anything that matches list_1 unless it matches
list_2.
The EXCEPT operator can be used in daemon_lists and in
client_lists.
The EXCEPT operator can be nested: if the control
language would permit the use of parentheses,
``a EXCEPT b EXCEPT c''
would be parsed as ``(a EXCEPT (b EXCEPT c))''.
Shell commands
If the first-matched access control rule contains a shell command, that
command is subjected to %letter substitutions (see
``Letter expansions'').
The result is executed by a /bin/sh child process with standard
input, output and error connected to /dev/null.
Specify an ``&'' at the end of the command
if you do not want to wait until it has completed.
Shell commands should not rely on the PATH setting of the
inetd.
Instead, they should use absolute path names, or they should begin with
an explicit PATH=whatever statement.
``Control language extensions''
describes an alternative language
that uses the shell command field in a different and incompatible way.
Letter expansions
The following expansions are available within shell commands:
%a-
The client host address.
%A-
The server host address.
%c-
Client information: user@host, user@address, a host name, or just an
address, depending on how much information is available.
%d-
The daemon process name (
argv[0]
value).
%h-
The client host name or address, if the host name is unavailable.
%H-
The server host name or address, if the host name is unavailable.
%n-
The client host name (or unknown or paranoid).
%N-
The server host name (or unknown or paranoid).
%p-
The daemon process ID.
%s-
Server information: daemon@host, daemon@address, or just a daemon name,
depending on how much information is available.
%u-
The client user name (or unknown).
%%-
Expands to a single ``%'' character.
Characters in ``%'' expansions that may confuse the shell are replaced by
underscores.
Server endpoint patterns
In order to distinguish clients by the network address that they
connect to, use patterns of the form:
process_name@host_pattern : client_list ...
Patterns like these can be used when the machine has different internet
addresses with different internet hostnames. Service providers can use
this facility to offer FTP, GOPHER or WWW
archives with internet names
that may even belong to different organizations. See also the
twist option in
``Control language extensions''.
You can use
ifconfig(1Mtcp),
to define more than one IP address (alias) for a network interface.
The host_pattern obeys the same syntax rules as host names and
addresses in client_list context. Usually, server endpoint information
is available only with connection-oriented services.
Client username lookup
When the client host supports the RFC 931 protocol or one of its
descendants (TAP, IDENT, RFC 1413)
the wrapper programs can retrieve
additional information about the owner of a connection. Client username
information, when available, is logged together with the client host
name, and can be used to match patterns like:
daemon_list : ... user_pattern@host_pattern ...
The daemon wrappers were configured at compile time to perform
rule-driven username lookups.
The above rule would cause username lookup only when both the
daemon_list and the host_pattern match.
A user pattern has the same syntax as a daemon process pattern, so the
same wildcards apply (netgroup membership is not supported). One
should not get carried away with username lookups, though.
Note the following problems that might occur:
-
The client username information cannot be trusted when it is needed
most, that is, when the client system has been compromised. In general,
ALL and (UN)KNOWN
are the only user name patterns that make sense.
-
Username lookups are possible only with TCP-based
services, and only
when the client host runs a suitable daemon; in all other cases the
result is unknown.
-
Username lookups may cause noticeable delays for non-UNIX users.
The default timeout for username lookups is 10 seconds: too short to cope
with slow networks, but long enough to irritate some users.
Selective username lookups can alleviate the last problem. For example,
a rule like:
daemon_list : @pcnetgroup ALL@ALL
This would match members of the pcnetgroup
without doing username lookups,
but it would perform username lookups with all other systems.
Detecting address spoofing attacks
The IDENT (RFC 931)
service can be used to detect host address spoofing attacks where
intruders impersonate trusted hosts and, for example, try to break in
via the remote shell service.
Before accepting a client request, the wrappers can use the IDENT
service to find out if the client really did send the request.
When the client host provides IDENT service,
a negative IDENT lookup
result (the client matches ``UNKNOWN@host'')
is strong evidence of a host spoofing attack.
A positive IDENT lookup result
(the client matches ``KNOWN@host'') is
less trustworthy. It is possible for an intruder to spoof both the
client connection and the IDENT lookup, although doing so is much
harder than spoofing just a client connection. It may also be that
the client's IDENT server is lying.
Note that IDENT lookups do not work with UDP services.
Control language extensions
The extensions to the control language use the following format:
daemon_list : client_list : option : option ...
Zero or more options may be specified, and must be separated by colons (:).
Any ``:'' characters within options should be protected with a backslash.
An option takes the form keyword, keyword value,
or keyword=value.
Options are processed in the specified order. Some options are subjected to
%letter substitutions. For the sake of backwards compatibility with
earlier versions, an ``='' character is permitted between the keyword
and its value.
Logging
The following option keyword controls event logging:
severity severity-
severity facility.severity-
Change the severity level (such as info and notice)
at which the event will be logged. Facility
names (such as mail) are optional.
The severity option can be used
to emphasize or to ignore specific events.
Access control
The following option keywords control access:
allow-
Grant service. This option must appear at the end of a rule.
deny-
Deny service. This option must appear at the end of a rule.
The allow and deny keywords make it possible to keep all
access control rules within a single file such as
hosts.allow.
For example, to permit access from specific hosts only:
ALL: .friendly.domain: ALLOW
ALL: ALL: DENY
To permit access from all hosts except a few trouble makers:
ALL: .bad.domain: DENY
ALL: ALL: ALLOW
Notice the leading dot on the domain name patterns.
Running other commands
The following option keywords allows you to run other commands:
spawn shell_command-
Execute the specified shell command in a child process after
performing any %letter expansions.
The command is executed with stdin, stdout and
stderr connected to the null device, so that it will not
mess up the conversation with the client host. For example, the
following use of spawn
executes the shell command safe_finger -l @%h | mail root
in a background child process
after replacing %h by the name or address of the
remote host.
spawn (/usr/sbin/safe_finger -l @%h | /usr/bin/mail root) &
The example uses the safe_finger command instead of the regular
finger command, to limit possible damage from data sent by the finger
server. The safe_finger command is part of the daemon wrapper
package; it is a wrapper around the regular finger
command that filters the data sent by the remote host.
twist shell_command-
Replace the current process by an instance of the specified shell
command, after performing any %letter expansions.
stdin, stdout and stderr are connected to
the client process. This option must appear at the end of a rule.
This example shows twist being used to
send a customized bounce message to the client instead of
running the real FTP daemon:
in.ftpd : ... : twist /bin/echo 421 Some bounce message
For an alternative way to talk to client processes, see the
description of the banners keyword below.
To run /some/other/in.telnetd without polluting its command-line
array or its process environment:
in.telnetd : ... : twist PATH=/some/other; exec in.telnetd
NOTE:
In case of UDP services, do not twist to commands that use
standard I/O or the
read(2)
and
write(2)
routines to communicate with the client process;
UDP requires other I/O primitives.
Network options
The following option keywords control networking behavior:
keepalive-
Causes the server to periodically send a message to the client. The
connection is considered broken when the client does not respond. The
keepalive option can be useful when users turn off their machine while
it is still connected to a server. The keepalive option is not useful
for datagram (UDP) services.
linger number_of_seconds-
Specifies how long the kernel will try to deliver as-yet undelivered
data after the server process closes a connection.
Username lookup
The following option keyword controls lookup of usernames:
rfc931 [ timeout_in_seconds ]-
Look up the client user name with the RFC 931
(TAP, IDENT, RFC 1413) protocol.
This option is silently ignored in case of services based on
transports other than TCP.
The client system must run a daemon that is compliant with
RFC 931 (IDENT, and so on).
It may cause noticeable delays with connections
from non-UNIX clients.
The timeout period is optional.
If no timeout is specified, the default value is 10 seconds.
Miscellaneous
The following are miscellaneous option keywords:
banners directory-
Look for a file in directory with the same name as the daemon
process (for example in.telnetd for the telnet service), and copy its
contents to the client. Newline characters are replaced by
carriage-return newline, and %letter sequences are expanded.
The tcp wrappers source code distribution provides a sample makefile
(Banners.Makefile) for convenient banner maintenance.
NOTE:
Banners are supported for connection-oriented (TCP) network
services only.
nice [ number ]-
Change the nice value of the process (default 10). Specify a positive
value to spend more CPU resources on other processes.
setenv name value-
Place a (name, value) pair into the process environment.
The value is subjected to %letter expansions
and may contain whitespace (but
leading and trailing blanks are stripped off).
NOTE:
Many network daemons reset their environment before spawning a
login or shell process.
umask mask-
Like the umask command that is built into the shell.
The mask argument should be an octal number.
An mask of 022
would prevent the creation of files with group and world write permission.
user name-
user name.group-
Assume the privileges of the userid name (and group if
required).
The first form is useful with inetd implementations that run
all services with root privilege. The second form is useful for
services that need special group privileges.
Files
/etc/inet/hosts.allow-
(daemon,client) pairs that are granted access.
/etc/inet/hosts.deny-
(daemon,client) pairs that are denied access.
Diagnostics
An error is reported when a syntax error is found in a host access
control rule; when the length of an access control rule exceeds the
capacity of an internal buffer; when an access control rule is not
terminated by a newline character; when the result of %letter
expansion would overflow an internal buffer; when a system call fails
that should not. All problems are reported via the syslog daemon
and service is denied.
References
inetd.conf(4tcp),
tcpd(1Mtcp),
tcpdchk(1Mtcp),
tcpdmatch(1Mtcp)
Notices
If a name server lookup times out, the host name will not be available
to the access control software, even though the host is registered.
Domain name server lookups are case insensitive;
NIS netgroup lookups are case sensitive.
Author
Wietse Venema (wietse@wzv.win.tue.nl)
Department of Mathematics and Computing Science
Eindhoven University of Technology
Den Dolech 2, P.O. Box 513,
5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Examples
The language is flexible enough that different types of access control
policy can be expressed with a minimum of fuss. Although the language
uses two access control tables, the most common policies can be
implemented with one of the tables being trivial or even empty.
When reading the examples below it is important to realize that the
allow table is scanned before the deny table, that the search
terminates when a match is found, and that access is granted when no
match is found at all.
The examples use host and domain names. They can be improved by
including address and/or network/netmask information, to reduce the
impact of temporary name server lookup failures.
Mostly closed
In this case, access is denied by default. Only explicitly authorized
hosts are permitted access.
The default policy (no access) is implemented with a trivial
/etc/inet/hosts.deny file:
ALL: ALL
This denies all service to all hosts, unless they are permitted access
by entries in the allow file.
The explicitly authorized hosts are listed in the
/etc/inet/hosts.allow file:
ALL: LOCAL @some_netgroup
ALL: .foobar.edu EXCEPT terminalserver.foobar.edu
The first rule permits access from hosts in the local domain
(no ``.'' in the host name) and from members of the
some_netgroup netgroup.
The second rule permits access from all hosts in the
foobar.edu domain (notice the leading dot), with the exception of
terminalserver.foobar.edu.
Mostly open
Here, access is granted by default; only explicitly specified hosts are
refused service.
The default policy (access granted) makes the allow file redundant so
that it can be omitted.
The explicitly non-authorized hosts are listed
in the /etc/inet/hosts.deny file:
ALL: some.host.name, .some.domain
ALL EXCEPT in.fingerd: other.host.name, .other.domain
The first rule denies some hosts and domains all services; the second
rule still permits finger requests from other hosts and domains.
Booby traps
The next example permits tftp requests from hosts in the local domain
(notice the leading dot). Requests from any other hosts are denied.
Instead of the requested file, a finger probe is sent to the offending
host. The result is mailed to the superuser.
The /etc/inet/hosts.allow file contains:
in.tftpd: LOCAL .my.domain
The /etc/inet/hosts.deny file contains:
in.tftpd: ALL: spawn (/usr/sbin/safe_finger -l @%h | \
/usr/bin/mail -s %d-%h root) &
The safe_finger command
limits possible damage from data sent
by the remote finger server.
It gives better protection than the
standard finger command.
WARNING:
Do not booby-trap your finger daemon (fingerd),
unless you are prepared to accept infinite finger loops.
On network firewall systems, this trick can be carried even further.
The typical network firewall only provides a limited set of services to
the outer world. All other services can be ``bugged'' just like the above
tftp example. The result is an excellent early-warning system.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004