This is a bug-fix release. It improves stablility of the policy importer
on 64-bit platforms, supports import of iptables policies that use TCPMSS
target, fixes problems with built-in RCS on windows when user does not
have administrator's rights and comes with nearly 100% Brazilian Portugese
translation
Unfortunate bug introduced in 2.1.15 that broke generated firewall script
for iptables in case option "use iptables-restore" was on is fixed in this
release. Additional checks were added to the generated script for iptables
to improve error detection and make sure the GUI properly detects when it
terminates with error. Support for load balancing with PF was also added.
Changes since 2.1.7 are:
Version 2.1.10
Improvements and bug fixes in the GUI
* fixed bug #1661140: "built-in installer broken in 2.1.9 for PF".
Installer incorrectly set name for files it copied to the firewall if
generated configuration consisted of several files. Affected platforms
are PF and ipfilter because normally for these platforms compiler
generates two files.
* fixed bug #1659832: "No compile with QT without STL support"
* a workaround for the bug 1629461: "Policy tabs do not scroll @ window
extent on OSX". The tab widget used to show policy, nat, routing and
policy branch rulesets does not switch to a "folded" mode on Mac OS X
when it needs to show more tabs that fit in the window. Since I can't
figure out a way to force it to do that, I am dropping "Policy/" from
the tab titles for branches to make them shorter. This will help users
with policies with many branches, however it does not solve the
problem because as they keep adding branches, at some point they won't
fit in the window again.
* added an item "Where used" to the context menu associated with objects
in rules
Version 2.1.9
Improvements and bug fixes in the GUI
* New feature: new operation "Tools/Find Conflicting Objects in Two Data
Files". This operation inspects two data files (either .fwb or .fwl)
and finds conflicting objects. Conflicting objects have the same
internal ID but different attributes. Two data files can not be
merged, or one imported into another, if they contain such objects.
This operation also helps identify changes made to objects in two
copies of the same data file. This operation does not find objects
present in one file but not in the other, such objects present no
problem for merge or import operations. This operation works with two
external files, neither of which needs to be opened in the program.
Currently opened data file is not affected by this operation and
objects in the tree do not change. In the process of this operation
user is presented with series of dialogs showing conflicting objects
side by side. In the end the program can generate report and write it
to a text file.
* installOptionsDialog was too large and did not fit on some laptop
screens. Doing tricks to make sure the dialog properly resized after
unused GUI elements are hidden.
* bug #1629521: "can't delete empty chain/policy tab"
* bug #1619842: "prolog "script editor" opens behind other windows"
* bug #1620206: "RuleOptions' "Apply" button greyed-out until menu
selection"
* bug 1619930: "Prolog tab's ScriptEditor's import fails to overwrite"
* bug #1617501:"Install fails after compile". The GUI got confused when
user enter full path to the policy file in the "Output file name"
input field in the "Compiler" tab of firewall object dialog. Making
sure we always strip directory path from the file name if user
specified full path for the policy file in the "Output file name"
input field in the "Compiler" tab of firewall object dialog. Need to
strip path when macro "%FWSCRIPT%" is substituted in installation
scriptlets and in some other places.
* "Apply" and "Close" buttons in the objct editor panel should be of
fixed size horizontally
* bug #1624577: "group window doesn't stay open on multiple-adds". Using
special flag to tell ObjectTreeView that it should ignore
MouseReleaseEvent it gets after d&d operation, so it wont switch
object in the editor panel. Note the bug triggered only on Mac OS X.
* bug (no num.): GUI used show fanthom 'Policy', 'NAT' and 'Routing'
tabs when user deleted objects from the Deleted Objects library,
provided some of these objects were previously deleted firewalls.
* bug #1620284: "conflict when adding library to Preferences/Libraries".
When the user tried to add a library to the list in
Preferemces/Libraries when a data file with the same object library
was loaded, the GUI detected the conflict and showed error dialog.
* bug #1650369: "[patch] please add support for GNU/kFreeBSD". Applied
patch to make code compile on kFreeBSD.
Compiler for iptables
* bug #1623338: "Can not disable rules in a branch". Compiler for
iptables ignored flag 'disabled' on rules in a branch.
* bug #1623113: 'connlimit fails in compiled "address table" rules'
Module connlimit can only be used in iptables rules matching TCP
services. Such iptables commands have "-p tcp" and/or "-m tcp"
options. If a rule in fwbuilder uses TCP Service and connlimit option
and has multiple objects in src and dst, optimizer used to split it to
minimize matches. It however preserved connlimit option in all
subrules, even though some of them did not have TCP service after the
split. This lead to generation of incorrect iptables commands.
* bug #1620925: "compile-time AddressTable object with empty file".
Compile-time AddressTable object that uses file with no addresses
should be treated as an empty group according to the "Ignore empty
groups" option.
* bug #1618381: "CLASSIFY/MARK are non-terminating". This bug report in
fact reported several problems.
* For action Branch with option to add branching rule to the mangle
table: we now generate rules in PREROUTING, POSTROUTING, INPUT,
OUTPUT and FORWARD chains. This is because some targets can only
work in PREROUTING or POSTROUTING chains but we do not know what
rules will user put in the branch. So we need to branch in all
chains
* For rules in mangle table with direction set to Inbound or
Outbound force chain to PREROUTING or POSTROUTING respectively
early. This eliminates duplicates such as the same rule in
PREROUTING and INPUT chains. Also since most (all?) targets that
require mangle table go into either PREROUTING or POSTROUTING
chains, it should be enough to use these two chains.
* Non-terminating rules shadow each other "backwards", that is more
general rule shadows other rules _above_ it. Added flag 'reverse'
to the method find_more_general_rule and added new rule processor
DetectShadowingForNonTerminatingRules that finds such cases of
'reverse' shadowing. Using it for rules in the mangle table for
iptables.
* Adding iptables rule with target ACCEPT to emulate terminating
behavior for Tag and Classify actions. Emulation is controlled by
a global option in the "Compiler" tab of the firewall properties
dialog (default is "off"). This means emulation can be turned on
and off for all rules that might require it at once. It is
impossible to mix such rules with terminating and
non-termninating behavior. The reason for this is that shadowing
detection algorithm can only work with either terminating or
non-terminating rules, not with the mix.
* bug #1628989: "run-time-loaded rules don't accept ";" as line comment"
* bug #1632054: "Runtime AddressObjects FAIL to load if "Name:" contains
"."". Compiler checks if the name of the run-time AddressTable object
contains characters that have special meaning in sheel and relaces
them with '_' when it generates the name of the temporary shell
variable.
* bug (no num.): data files used for run-time AddressTable objects can
have empty lines, the script should skip them.
Firewall Builder Release Notes
Version 2.1.8
Installation
Optinon poll ran on the fwbuilder-discussion mailing list showed that
majority of users are not interested in ability to install and run both
fwbuilder 2.0 and 2.1 on the same machine at the same time. Hence we are
reverting to the old naming schema without suffix '21' for the binaries
and man pages in this release.
Improvements and bug fixes in the GUI
* The user can search for objects using regular expressions matching
their names or attributes.
* Fixed bug #1592130: "Policy Chaining Issues". The GUI should properly
display nested branch rulesets. The user can create policy branches
within other branches.
All compilers
* Fixed bug #1590746 "problem with using "DNS Names" objects on MS
Windows". Compiler failed to convert DNSName objects set to resolve at
compile time into IP addresses.
Compiler for iptables
* fixed bug #1593221: "iptables filtering bridge problem - PHYSDEV: no
physdev opti..." Some times rules were generated with "-m physdev" but
witout "--physdev-in" or "--physdev-out" options.
Compiler for Cisco PIX
* fixed a bug (no num, support req. #1604103: "fwb_pix policy compiler
dies when SNMP or NTP hosts defined". Compiler did not print error
message when it could not find an interface with network zone matching
IP address of NTP or SNMP server (it just printed the address without
explanation of what went wrong)
* Experimental utility fwb_pix_diff has been added to the package. This
utility takes two PIX configurations on the command line and produces
the 'diff' that consists of a set of commands that should bring the
firewall from the state defined by the first config to the state
defined by the second. Only PIX 7.0 is supported. This utility will be
incorporated into policy installer in the future to make policy
updates simpler and faster, especially when small changes are made to
the large set of access lists and nat rules.
Changes since the 2.0.12 release:
Improvements and changes in the GUI
* The GUI works much faster with very large object trees.
* "Where used" menu item to quickly find and show all groups and
firewall rules that reference given object. Confirmation dialog
shown when an object is deleted also shows all groups and rules
that use it.
* Built-in installer can now save a copy of .fwb file to the firewall.
* Compile/install dialog is now an independent window instead of a modal
dialog, this means the user can look at the policy and objects while
compilation and/or installation is going on.
* Network discovery driud is back, ported from fwbuilder 1.0. As before,
it supports reading object definitions from a file in /etc/hosts
format, can read DNS zone and also can crawl the network using SNMP
queries.
* Startup splash window has been removed.
* Keeping track of dependencies between objects. Firewalls that refer
to an object that is modified are marked with bold font.
* Added bulk compile and install operations.
* All object dialogs have been converted into built-in panels that
appear in the right hand part of the main window.
* Improvements in "Find" function: administrator can now drag an object
into a well in the find dialog panel to make it search for this
particular object.
* The "Find and replace" operation has been implemented.
New object types, new rule types and rule elements, new actions and other new
features
* AddressTable This object resolves to a set of IP addresses defined in
an external file.
* DNSName: This object resolves a host name to the IP address using
DNS. Object can be confgiured to do so at compile time or run time.
* TagService: This object matches tags set by action Tag.
* Interface objects can now be marked as bridge ports.
* Support for routing rules has been implemented.
* Global policy and interface policies have been merged. Each policy
rule now has rule element "Interface".
* Policy rules can have the following new actions:
* Queue: This action passes the packet to user space process for
inspection.
* Custom: This action allows administrator to define arbitrary
piece of code to be used in place of an action.
* Branch: This action is used to create a branch in the rule set.
* Tag: This action associates internal tag with the packet.
* Classify: This action allows the firewall to define QoS class
for the packet that matches the rule.
* Route: This action makes the firewall to route the packet that
matches the rule through an interface or a gateway specified in
the parameters of the action.
* Firewall object now has an attribute "inactive" excluding it from
bulk compiles and installs.
Compiler for iptables
* Support for address tables loaded from external files at compile or
run time.
* Support user defined chains with predefined names (using special
action )
* Support for CLASSIFY, MARK, CONNMARK, QUEUE, ROUTE targets
* Support for physdev module for bridging firewalls
* additional optimization of rules in INPUT and OUTPUT chain: now
removing firewall object from src or dst to simplify rule if it uses
OUTPUT or INPUT chain.
* support for modules connlimit and hashlimit.
Compiler for PF
* Support for load balancing rules
* Support for tag and route options
* Support for address ranges and network objects in TSrc in NAT rules
* Support for pool types in NAT rules ('bitmask', 'random',
'source-hash', 'round-robin'), as well as 'static-port' option.
* Supprot for anchors (by way of a special action)
* Support for tables with predefined names (using AddressTable object)
* Support for packet 'tagging' (by way of a special action and service
object TagService)
Compiler for ipfilter
* Support for PPTP and IRC proxies
* Support for route option
API
* internal object ID is augumented with process ID of the program that
creates an object.
* fwbedit
Fwbedit can now create objects and repair broken object database.
