The FreeBSD Diary

IP Filter 3.4.1 has been recently released.  The installation instructions for FreeBSD 4 are slightly different, but it is basically the same process as before. was released today.  This article merely documents that fact and describes how I installed it under FreeBSD 3.3-release.  These instructions should work for all subsequent versions of IP Filter.  If they do not, please add your comments.

Instructions for disabling ipfw/natd are also available here.

The main webpage for IP Filter is http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~avalon/.   And one of the best how-to guides for IP Filter is at http://www.obfuscation.org/ipf/.

I obtained the tar ball from ftp://coombs.anu.edu.au/pub/net/ip-filter/.   I issued the following commands:

cd /usr/ports/net
fetch ftp://coombs.anu.edu.au/pub/net/ip-filter/ip_fil3.4.1.tar.gz
tar xvfz ip_fil3.4.1.tar.gz

To use ipf, you first compile ipf, and then create a new kernel which includes the ipf options.  In addition, I always use ipnat in conjunction with ipf.  In order for ipnat to work, you must include the kernel options for ipnat.  Be sure to do this before you recompile the kernel to include ipf.

To compile ipf 3.4.1, follow the instructions included with the tarball.   Here's what they look like:

# cd /usr/ports/net/ip_fil3.3.4/
# more FreeBSD-3/INST.FreeBSD-3
To build a kernel with the IP filter, follow these steps:

   1. do "make freebsd3"

[if you are installing under FreeBSD 4.*, you should type "make freebsd4" instead]

   2. do "make install-bsd"
      (probably has to be done as root)

   3. run "FreeBSD-3/kinstall" as root

[actually, I didn't do this, I did "FreeBSD-4.0/kinstall" instead]

   4. build a new kernel

   5. install the new kernel

   6. If not using DEVFS, create devices for IP Filter as follows:
                mknod /dev/ipl c 79 0
                mknod /dev/ipnat c 79 1
                mknod /dev/ipstate c 79 2
                mknod /dev/ipauth c 79 3

   7. reboot

Darren Reed
darrenr@pobox.com

I did not do step 6.

For step 4, see the Configuring the FreeBSD Kernel section in the FreeBSD handbook.   Pay special attention to the section on Building and Installing a Custom Kernel.

If you have included the IPFILTER_DEFAULT_BLOCK kernel option (which defaults ipf so it blocks everything by default), you may encounter this during the kernel config.   Ignore the warning.

# config -r DUCKY 
DUCKY:34: unknown option "IPFILTER_DEFAULT_BLOCK"
Don't forget to do a ``make depend''
Kernel build directory is ../../compile/DUCKY