DOCA Documentation v1.2

URL Filter

NVIDIA DOCA URL Filter Reference App

This document provides a URL filter implementation on top NVIDIA® BlueField® DPU.

URL filtering limits access by comparing web traffic against a database to prevent users from different threats, malware and accessing harmful sites such as phishing pages.

This kind of content filtering can increase network security and enforce policies on different network resources.

URL filtering is designed to run as "bump-on-the-wire" on the BlueField-2 instance. It intercepts traffic coming from the wire and passes it to the physical function (PF) representor connected to the host.

URL filter utilizes the SFT and RegEx engines which are HW accelerators on BlueField.

system-design-diagram.png

  • User adds a URL using the URL command from the CLI. Available commands:
    • Create database – create DB of URLs to be filtered (also removes old signatures)
    • Filter – add specific URL/URL RegEx pattern to be filtered
    • Commit database [PATH] – compile and load signature database
  • Ingress traffic is identified using the connection tracking module
  • Traffic is scanned against compiled signature DB
  • Post-processing is performed for match decision
  • Matched flows are filtered and traffic is blocked


application-architecture-diagram.png

  1. Signatures are compiled by the DPI compiler and are then loaded to the DPI engine.
  2. Ingress traffic is identified and classified using the stateful table module in the DPDK libs which utilizes the connection tracking hardware offloads. This allows flow classifications to be done at the hardware level and forwarded to a hairpin queue without being processed by the software, which increases performance dramatically.
  3. Traffic is scanned against the DPI engine compiled signature DB.
  4. Post-processing is performed for match decision.
  5. Matched flows are identified and can be offloaded to the hardware to increase performance as not further inspection is needed.
  6. Flow termination is done by the aging timer (set in the SFT to 60 seconds). When a flow is offloaded it cannot be tracked and destroyed.
    Note:

    It is important to note that only sites that support non-encrypted HTTP traffic can be matched against signatures created by the URL filtering as it specifically targets the URI field in the HTTP request.

  1. Parse application argument
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    arg_parser_init();

    1. Initialize the arg parser resources.
    2. Register DOCA general flags.
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      register_url_params();

    3. Register URL filter application flags.
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      arg_parser_start();

    4. Parse DPDK flag and call rte_eal_init() function.
    5. Parse APP flags.
  2. DPDK initialization.
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    dpdk_init();

    1. Initialize SFT.
    2. Initialize DPDK ports, including mempool allocation.
  3. URL filter initialization.
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    url_filter_init();

    1. Init URL filter resources.
    2. Configure RegEx engine.
    3. Configure DPI queues.
  4. Configure DPI packet processing.
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    dpi_worker_lcores_run();

    1. Configure DPI enqueue packets.
    2. Send jobs to RegEx engine.
    3. Configure DPI dequeue packets.
  5. Add URL shell command
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    initiate_cmdline("URL FILTER>>");

    1. Create database.
    2. Filter http.
    3. Commit database.
  6. DPI destroy
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    url_filter_destroy();

    • Stop DPI worker and free DPI resources.

  1. Please refer to the DOCA Installation Guide for details on how to install BlueField related software.

    The URL filtering example binary is located under /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/doca_url_filter.

  2. To re-build the application:
    1. Run:
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      cd /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/src meson /tmp/build ninja -C /tmp/build


      doca_url_filter is created under tmp/build.

    2. The build process depends on the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable to locate the DPDK libraries. If the variable was accidently corrupted, and the build fails, run the following command:
      • For Ubuntu:
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        export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/mellanox/dpdk/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig

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        export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/mellanox/dpdk/lib64/pkgconfig

  3. Pre-run setup.
    1. The URL filter example is based on DPDK libraries. Therefore, the user is required to provide DPDK flags, and allocate huge pages. Run:
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      echo 2048 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages

    2. Make sure the regex engine is active:
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      systemctl status mlx-regex

      If the status is inactive (Active: failed), run:
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      systemctl start mlx-regex


  4. To run the application:
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    Usage: doca_url_filter [DPDK Flags] -- [DOCA Flags] [Program Flags] DOCA Flags: -h, --help Print a help synopsis -l, --log-level Set the log level for the app <CRITICAL=0, DEBUG=4> Program Flags: -p, --print-match Prints FID when matched in DPI engine

    For example:
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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/doca_url_filter -a 0000:03:00.0,class=regex -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.4,sft_en=1 -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.5,sft_en=1 -c3 -- -p


    Note:

    The SFT supports a maximum of 64 queues. Therefore, the application cannot be run with more than 64 cores. To limit the number of cores, run:

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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/doca_url_filter -a 0000:03:00.0,class=regex -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.4,sft_en=1 -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.5,sft_en=1 -l 0-64 -- -p

    This limits the application to 65 cores (core-0 to core-64) with 1 core for the main thread and 64 cores to serve as workers.


    Using a JSON file:
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    doca_url_filter --json [json_file]


    For example:
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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/doca_url_filter --json /root/url_params.json

    Note:

    Sub-functions must be enabled according to the Scalable Function Setup Guide.


    Note:

    The flags -a 0000:03:00.0,class=regex -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.4,sft_en=1 -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.5,sft_en=1 are necessary for proper usage of the application. Modifying them will result in unexpected behavior as only 2 ports are supported. The subfunction number is arbitrary and configurable. The RegEx device, however, is not and must be initiated on port 0.

    For additional information on available flags for DPDK, use -h before the --separator:
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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/doca_url_filter -h


    For additional information on the app, use -h after the -- separator:
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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/doca_url_filter -- -h


    The URL filter is based on user interaction with shell commands. Using the TAB key allows autocompletion while the quit command terminates the application. Other available commands are as follows:
    • create database – removes and creates a new signature database at /tmp/signature.txt so it can be used in the filter command
    • filter http [msg] [regex] – a signature containing the regular expression written is created in the database. When a match is found, a message is printed.
    • commit database [path] – compiles and loads the signatures created by the filter command from the file path provided. The default database is /tmp/signature.txt.
      Note:

      To load a signatures file that was created beforehand, simply run commit database with the desired path to load the file.

Note:

For instructions on running the application on the host, please refer to Running Reference Applications Over Host Guide.


Refer to NVIDIA DOCA Arg Parser User Guide for more information.

Flag Type Short Flag Long Flag/JSON Key Description JSON Content
DPDK Flags a devices Add a PCI device into the list of devices to probe
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"devices": [ {"device": "regex",” id": "0000:03:00.0"}, {"device": "sf", "id": “4”,"sft": true}, {"device": "sf", "id": “5”,"sft": true}, ]

c core-mask Hexadecimal bitmask of cores to run on
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"core-mask": 3

l core-list List of cores to run on
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"core-list": "0-4"

General Flags l log-level Sets the log level for the application:
  • CRITICAL=0
  • ERROR=1
  • WARNING=2
  • INFO=3
  • DEBUG=4
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"log-level": 4

h help Print a help synopsis N/A
Program Flags p print-match Prints FID when matched in DPI engine
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"print-match": true

x86 CLI examples:

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doca_url_filter -a 0000:05:00.0,class=regex -a 05:00.3 -a 05:00.4 -v -- -p


Refer to section "Running DOCA Application on Host" in NVIDIA DOCA Virtual Functions User Guide.

For instructions on running the gRPC application server on the BlueField, refer to .

url-filter-grpc.png

To run the Python client of the gRPC-enabled application:

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./doca_url_filter_gRPC_client.py -d/--debug <server address[:server port]>

For example:

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/opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/bin/grpc/client/doca_url_filter_gRPC_client.py -d 192.168.104.2

The URL filter example supports a container-based deployment.

  1. Refer to the NVIDIA DOCA Container Deployment Guide for details on how to deploy a DOCA Container to the BlueField.
  2. Notice that the container starts at sleeping mode. That is because of the interactive nature of the URL filter example app. To run the example, attach to the running container. Run the following:
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    sudo crictl exec -it <container-id> /bin/bash

    Then refer to the entrypoint.sh script at the root directory for an example of how to run the URL filter.

  3. Application-specific configuration steps can be found on NGC, under the application's container page.

  • /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/src/url_filter.c
  • /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/url_filter/src/grpc/url_filter.proto

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