Firewall

NVIDIA DOCA Firewall Application Guide

This document provides an example of firewall implementation on top of NVIDIA® BlueField® DPU.

1. Introduction

A firewall application is a network security application that leverages the DPU's hardware capability to monitor incoming and outgoing network traffic and allow or block packets based on a set of preconfigured rules.

The firewall application is based on DOCA Flow gRPC, used for remote programming of the DPU's hardware. The firewall can operate in two modes:

Static mode – the firewall application gets 5-tuple traffic from the user with a JSON file for packets to be dropped. The packets that do not match any of the 5-tuple are forwarded by a hairpin pipe.
Interactive mode – the user can add rules from the command line in real time to execute different firewall rules

2. System Design

The firewall application is designed to run on the host and to use DOCA Flow gRPC client to send instructions to a server that runs on the BlueField DPU instance. The DPU intercepts ingress traffic from the wire and either drops it or forwards it to the egress port using a hairpin. The decision is made using traffic classification.

3. Application Architecture

The firewall runs on top of DOCA Flow gRPC to classify packets.

3.1. Static Mode

The firewall application builds 4 pipes for each port: One control pipe, two drop pipes, and a hairpin pipe.
The drop pipes match only 5-tuple traffic with specific source and destination IPs and source and destination ports.
- One of the drop pipes matches TCP traffic and the other matches UDP
- The hairpin pipe matches every packet (no misses)
- The control pipe serves as a root pipe and has two entries: The first entry forwards the TCP traffic to the TCP drop pipe, and the second entry forwards UDP traffic to the UDP drop pipe
- The hairpin pipe serves as a forwarding miss component to the drop pipes. Therefore, every received packet is checked first against the drop pipes. If there is a match, then it is dropped, otherwise, it is forwarded to the hairpin pipe and is then matched.

3.2. Interactive Mode

Running in interactive mode initializes 2 ports, and the user then configures the pipes and entries.

When adding a pipe or an entry, one must run commands to create the relevant structs beforehand
Optional parameters must be specified by the user in the command line. Otherwise, NULL is used.
After a pipe or an entry is created successfully, the relevant ID is printed for future use

Available commands:

create pipe port_id=[port_id][,<optional_parameters>] Available optional parameters:
- name=<pipe-name>
- root_enable=[1|0]
- monitor=[1|0]
- match_mask=[1|0]
- fwd=[1|0]
- fwd_miss=[1|0]
- type=[basic|control]
add entry pipe_id=<pipe_id>,pipe_queue=<pipe_queue>[,<optional_parameters>] Available optional parameters:
- monitor=[1|0]
- fwd=[1|0]
add control_pipe entry priority=<priority>,pipe_id=<pipe_id>,pipe_queue=<pipe_queue>[,<optional_parameters>] Available optional parameters:
- match_mask=[1|0]
- fwd=[1|0]
destroy pipe port_id=[port_id],pipe_id=<pipe_id>
rm entry pipe_queue=<pipe_queue>,entry_id=[entry_id]
port pipes flush port_id=[port_id]
port pipes dump port_id=[port_id],file=[file_name]
query entry_id=[entry_id]

create [struct] [field=value,…]

Struct options: pipe_match, entry_match, match_mask, actions, monitor, fwd, fwd_miss

Match struct fields:

Fields	Field Options
flags
out_src_mac
out_dst_mac
out_eth_type
out_vlan_id
out_src_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
out_src_ip_addr
out_dst_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
out_dst_ip_addr
out_l4_type	tcp, udp, gre
out_tcp_flags	FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, ACK, URG, ECE, CWR
out_src_port
out_dst_port
tun_type
vxlan-tun_id
gre_key
gtp_teid
in_src_mac
in_dst_mac
in_eth_type
in_vlan_id
in_src_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
in_src_ip_addr
in_dst_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
in_dst_ip_addr
in_l4_type	tcp, udp
in_tcp_flags	FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, ACK, URG, ECE, CWR
in_src_port
in_dst_port

Actions struct fields:

Fields	Field Options
decap	true, false
mod_src_mac
mod_dst_mac
mod_src_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
mod_src_ip_addr
mod_dst_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
mod_dst_ip_addr
mod_src_port
mod_dst_port
dec_ttl	true, false
has_encap	true, false
encap_src_mac
encap_dst_mac
encap_src_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
encap_src_ip_addr
encap_dst_ip_type	ipv4, ipv6
encap_dst_ip_addr
encap_tup_type	vxlan, gtpu, `gre`
encap_vxlan-tun_id
encap_gre_key
encap_gtp_teid

FWD struct fields:

Fields	Field Options
type	rss, port, pipe, drop
rss_flags
rss_queues
num_of_queues
rss_mark
port_id
next_pipe_id

Monitor struct fields:
- flags
- id
- cir
- cbs
- aging

The following is an example for creating a pipe and adding an entry:

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            create pipe_match out_l4_type=udp,out_src_ip_type=ipv4,out_src_ip_addr=0xffffffff,out_dst_ip_type=ipv4,out_dst_ip_addr=0xffffffff
create fwd type=drop
create fwd_miss type=pipe,next_pipe_id=1
create pipe port_id=0,name=drop,root_enable=1,fwd=1,fwd_miss=1
create pipe succeed with pipe id: 2
create entry_match out_src_ip_type=ipv4,out_src_ip_addr=10.1.20.208,out_dst_ip_type=ipv4,out_dst_ip_addr=10.1.3.216
add entry pipe_id=2,pipe_queue=0
add entry succeed with entry id: 0

4. DOCA Libraries

This application leverages the DOCA Flow library.

5. Configuration Flow

Firewall cleanup.

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            firewall_ports_destroy();

Destroy all DOCA Flow resources.

Arg parser destroy.

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            doca_argp_destroy();

6. Running the Application

Refer to the following documents:
- NVIDIA DOCA Installation Guide for Linux for details on how to install BlueField-related software.
- NVIDIA DOCA Troubleshooting Guide for any issue you may encounter with the installation, compilation, or execution of DOCA applications.
- NVIDIA DOCA Applications Overview for additional compilation instructions and development tips regarding the DOCA applications.
The firewall example binary is located under /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/firewall/bin/doca_firewall.

Note:

Before building the application, make sure that gRPC support is enabled. Set the enable_grpc_support flag in /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/meson_option.txt to true.

To build all the applications together, run:
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```
            
            cd /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/
meson build 
ninja -C build
        
```

To build only the firewall application:

Edit the following flags in /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/meson_option.txt:
- Set enable_all_applications to false
- Set enable_firewall to true
Run the commands in step 2.

Note:

doca_firewall will be created under ./build/firewall/src/.

Application usage:

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            Usage: doca_firewall [DOCA Flags] [Program Flags]
DOCA Flags:
 -h, --help                         Print a help synopsis
 -v, --version                      Print program version information
 -l, --log-level                    Set the log level for the program <CRITICAL=20, ERROR=30, WARNING=40, INFO=50, DEBUG=60>
 --grpc-address ip_address[:port]   Set the IP address for the grpc server
 
Program Flags:    
 -m, --mode                         Set running mode {static, interactive}
 -r, --firewall-rules <path>        Path to the JSON file with 5-tuple rules when running with static mode

Note:

For additional information on the app use -h:

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            /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/firewall/bin/doca_firewall -h

Running the application on the host:

For instructions on running the DOCA Flow gRPC server on the BlueField, refer to NVIDIA DOCA gRPC Infrastructure User Guide.

CLI example for running the app in interactive mode:

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            /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/firewall/bin/doca_firewall --grpc-address 192.168.101.2 -l 50 -m interactive

CLI example for running the app in static mode:

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            /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/firewall/bin/doca_firewall --grpc-address 192.168.101.2 -l 50 -m static -d firewall_rules.json

To run doca_firewall using a JSON file:

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            doca_firewall --json [json_file]

For example:

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            cd /opt/mellanox/doca/applications/firewall/bin
./doca_firewall --json firewall_params.json

7. Arg Parser DOCA Flags

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

Flag Type	Short Flag	Long Flag/JSON Key	Description	JSON Content
General Flags	l	log-level	Set the log level for the application: CRITICAL=20 ERROR=30 WARNING=40 INFO=50 DEBUG=60	Copy Copied! `"log-level": 60`
	v	version	Print program version information	N/A
	h	help	Print a help synopsis	N/A
	-	grpc-address	Set the IP address for the gRPC server	Copy Copied! `"grpc-address": "0.0.0.0"`
Program Flags	m	mode	Set running mode {`static` or `interactive`} Note: This flag is mandatory.	Copy Copied! `"mode": "interactive"`
Program Flags	r	firewall-rules	Path to JSON rules file	Copy Copied! `"firewall-rules": "firewall_rules.json"`

8. References

/opt/mellanox/doca/applications/firewall/src/firewall.c

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