Failure modes: NAT vs SPI

Jay Ashworth jra at baylink.com
Thu Feb 3 19:09:52 UTC 2011


----- Original Message -----
> From: "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com>

> On Feb 3, 2011, at 8:29 AM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> > This is the crux of the argument I've been trying, rather ineptly,
> > to make: when it breaks, *which way does it fail*. NAT fails safe,
> > generally.
> >
> So does any decent stateful inspection firewall. That's why your
> argument doesn't hold water.

Perhaps we disagree on the definition of "decent".

An SPI Firewall is code, running on a router.  It drops packets which should
not otherwise be routed by the base routing code running on that router,
which knows how to reach the internal network's addresses, and packets are
sent to it from the Net-at-large.

In the NAT4 case, those internal addresses are unknown to the NAL, and the
NAT code, as configured by the person operating the edge router, is the only
way for packets to get into the LAN; if the NAT code falls over on the router,
then packets cannot get in, since the outside world *cannot get packets to
that router with addresses which it will further route inbound*.

That's the expansion of "fails safe".

Let us now examine the alternate case.

In this case, that original SPI case I mentioned above, we're assuming 
routable addresses behind that firewall -- that is, the NAL *does* know
how to aim packets at a *specific host inside my LAN*.

Those packets get to my edge router, and the SPI firewall drops the 
appropriate packets before they're actually handed to the routing core,
and sent inwards.

If the firewall code fails or is inadvertanly turned off, what happens?

Why, the router does what it's designed for, it routes.  Those external 
packets.  In, to my hosts.  With no firewall in the way.

Sorry to have to show my work, but that's my work: please explain how
you feel that those two situations do *not* make NAT safer in the edge
case where an SPI firewall fails in such a fashion as not to drop the
packets asked of it?

All that's necessary to cause that failure is to say "turn it off", whereas
causing a comparable failure on the NAT side requires *defining specific new
rules that target specific internal hosts by IP address*, which is a 
much more complex task, which effectively cannot be accomplished by 
accident, unlike accidentally disabling a firewall.

Cheers,
-- jra




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