[olug] help with iptables firewall

Luke -Jr luke at dashjr.org
Fri Jul 27 14:47:29 UTC 2007


On Wed, 25 Jul 2007, Dave Hull wrote:
> The recommended best practice is to block ICMP echo requests and
> replies and to block outgoing time exceeded and host unreachable
> messages. Doing this may prevent attackers from firewalking your
> firewall.

Recommended by whom? Blocking ICMP echo is always a bad idea as network 
protocols assume a non-response means the IP address is unused. I can't think 
of any reason to block other ICMP packets either, except as general rudeness. 
ICMP is responsible for keeping networks working sanely, it doesn't have any 
realistic security problems.



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