IBM AIX Packet Filter module

From: Brumbles (brummieat_private)
Date: Mon Oct 25 1999 - 12:45:19 PDT

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    I have tried unsuccessfully to get any response from IBM on the following,
    apparently unless you have a support contract you cant report bugs..
    (well.. you can.. "Program Services", but thats a link to /dev/null
    apparently.)
    
    AixLevel AIX4.3.2
    Packet Filtering Module, in particular the command genfilt does not allow
    the addition of filters with port numbers greater than 32767
    
    genfilt -v 4 -a D -s 0.0.0.0 -m 0.0.0.0 -d 0.0.0.0 -M 0.0.0.0 \
    -c udp -o any -O eq  -P 123 -l n -w I -i all
    
    Works fine... but...
    
    genfilt -v 4 -a D -s 0.0.0.0 -m 0.0.0.0 -d 0.0.0.0 -M 0.0.0.0 -c udp \
    -o any -O eq  -P 32768 -l n -w I -i all
    
    Fails with:
    Bad destination port/ICMP type "32768".
    
    All is well if you use port 32767.
    
    Simply put, the -P (port) parameter will not accept an argument greater
    than 32767.
    
    Obviously there are a lot of things above 32768 that you might want to filter,
    e.g. rstatd. and other RPC programs, and also if I wanted to ensure that
    my users arent opening up any services that sit on high ports, they can
    circumvent any protection I layer on top by starting their service above
    32767!
    
    As the AIX4.3.2 packet filtering module is based upon the commercial IBM
    firewall, I would be very interested to see if this weakness also exists
    in that product.
    
    I believe this opens up a security problem for anyone using the AIX
    filtering that wants to continue using RPC on an internal interface, but
    wishes to present only certain ports to an external side.
    
    Thanks,
    Brum.
    



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