[libvirt] ideas for custom iptables rules for libvirt networks.

Daniel P. Berrange berrange at redhat.com
Tue Apr 26 15:10:53 UTC 2016


On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 11:06:23AM -0400, Laine Stump wrote:
> On 04/26/2016 04:15 AM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> >On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 01:48:49PM -0400, Laine Stump wrote:
> >>We still periodically get requests to allow custom iptables rules for
> >>libvirt virtual networks (or, more commonly, a mode where libvirt simply
> >>leaves iptables alone, not adding or removing anything), and it's been a
> >>nagging item on my to-do list for a very long time. The problem is that,
> >>although the amount of code required to support *any* solution is very
> >>small, it's one of those things without a single obvious "only" way to do
> >>it. Anyway, I'm going to take one more stab at it.
> >>
> >>
> >>First, some background points:
> >>
> >>* For <forward mode='nat'> libvirt's iptables rules are essential to the
> >>operation of the forwarding, so we shouldn't mess with that.
> >>
> >>* For [no forward mode], libvirt's iptables rules are a part of what keeps
> >>the network isolated from the rest of the network, so we shouldn't mess with
> >>that either.
> >>
> >>* For <forward mode='route'> we currently allow all outgoing and incoming as
> >>long as it is to/from the IP address range defined for the network.
> >>
> >>So we really want something that can be used only for <forward mode='route'>
> >>
> >>I can see 3 different possibilities:
> >>
> >>1) a new forward mode which is just like 'route', but doesn't add any
> >>iptables rules. (what to call it though? "filterless-route"? Too long and
> >>ugly :-/)
> >I'd suggest this and just call it mode='bare' or mode='open', to avoid
> >implying any specific semantics about the connectivity.
> 
> Thinking about this more, I'm having disturbing memories of trying to
> combine multiple knobs into a single attribute in the past, only to have it
> backfire later (I can't recall anything specific though) - for example
> although I say right now that there's no reason to skip adding rules for
> isolated or nat networks, we may come up with a valid use case in the
> future. For that reason, I think it may be safer to add:
> 
>    <forward mode='route' filter='none'/>
> 
> (or "manual" as Cole suggested). That way it's still obvious from mode that
> the traffic will be routed to other networks, and it will be possible to use
> the filter attribute for other modes (or add other filter settings even for
> mode='route') in the future. (Validation would be added to make sure that
> the filter attribute isn't set for any mode other than route). Does that
> make sense?

I don't think this is actually encoding multiple things in one
tunable. The only thing that the existing 'mode' attribute does
is to influence what iptables rules get created by libvirt.
ie the route vs nat distinction is only visible at the iptables
level. So from that POV, your 'filter' attribute is really adding
a new attribute to control the same functionality.

Also, we're doing this so that users can create their own iptables
rules without interference from libvirt. We've no idea what the
user might do with their iptables rulkes - they may well create a
setup that looks the same as mode=nat would for all we know. So
IMHO it wouldbe misleading to label it 'mode=route' + 'filter=none'
because we don't even know if the user's setup will allow routing
outside of the network

Regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: http://berrange.com      -o-    http://www.flickr.com/photos/dberrange/ :|
|: http://libvirt.org              -o-             http://virt-manager.org :|
|: http://autobuild.org       -o-         http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ :|
|: http://entangle-photo.org       -o-       http://live.gnome.org/gtk-vnc :|




More information about the libvir-list mailing list