In this page you find:
The Endian Hotspot Appliance includes many useful services to prevent threats and to monitor the networks and the running daemons, whose activation and set up is explained in this section. In particular, among them, we highlight the antivirus engine, quality of service, and traffic monitoring. The available services appear as items in the sub-menu list on the left-hand side of the screen.
DHCP server - DHCP server for automatic IP assignment.
Dynamic DNS - Client for dynamic DNS providers such as DynDNS (for home / small office use).
Antivirus Engine - configure the antivirus engine used by the HTTP proxy.
Time server - enable and configure the NTP time server, set the time zone, or update the time manually.
Traffic Monitoring - enable or disable traffic monitoring with ntop.
Quality of Service - IP traffic prioritisation.
The DHCP server is used by the clients (both workstations and servers) in the zones controlled by the Endian Hotspot Appliance to receive an IP address (“lease”), which can be either a dynamic or a fixed lease, and communicate with other devices.
The DHCP server page is divided into three tabs, namely Server configuration, Fixed leases, and Dynamic leases.
The DHCP server on an Endian Hotspot Appliance can be enabled on each active zone independently. For each of the zones enabled on the Endian Hotspot Appliance, this page show one checkbox, hence at least the Enable DHCP server on GREEN interface option appears. There are corresponding checkboxes for the ORANGE (if active) and BLUE zone, but the latter is disabled, because the IP assignment on the BLUE zone is managed by the hotspot.
At the bottom of the page, there is a textfield, labelled
Custom configuration lines, that can be used by advanced
users to write custom configuration lines to be added to the
dhcpd.conf file (e.g., custom routes to subnets). An example
is shown in this example.
Warning
The custom configuration lines must follow the syntax of
the /etc/dhcpd.conf file, since they are not checked for
errors and are inserted verbatim in the configuration file. Any
mistake might inhibit the DHCP server from starting correctly!
To customise the DHCP parameter for each zone, tick the checkbox. A
panel labelled Settings will appear: Click on it to expand
it and show the available options:
The range of IP addresses to be supplied to the clients. These addresses have to be within the subnet that has been assigned to the corresponding zone. If some hosts should receive a fixed lease, (see below), make sure their IP addresses are included neither in this range nor in the range of the OpenVPN address pool (see Menubar ‣ VPN ‣ OpenVPN server) to avoid conflicts.
Leaving these two fields blank will use the whole IP range of the zone for dynamic leases.
Tick this checkbox to use fixed leases only. No dynamic lease will be assigned.
The default and the maximum time in minutes before the assignment of each lease expires and the client requests a new lease from the DHCP server.
The default domain name suffix that is passed to the clients and that will be used for local domain searches.
The default gateway that the clients in the zone will used. If left blank, the default gateway is the Endian Hotspot Appliance itself.
The DNS used by the clients. Since the Endian Hotspot Appliance contains a caching DNS server, the default value is the firewall’s own IP address in the respective zone, though a second server or even the primary value can be changed.
Example SRV-1 - PXE boot and dhcpd.conf
configuration.
The customisation of the DHCP server proves useful in different networks configuration.
One common use case is for VoIP telephones that need to retrieve their configuration files from an HTTP server at boot time In this case, the files may also reside on the Endian Hotspot Appliance, so the configuration of the tftp server can be passed as extra lines like the following:
option tftp-server-name "http://192.168.0.15";
option bootfile-name "download/voip/{mac}.html";
Remember to replace 192.168.0.15 with the correct IP address and the download/voip/{mac}.html string with the correct path. Additional information about the available options can be found in the dhcpd(5) man page.
The NTP servers used by the clients, to keep the clocks synchronised. Leave blank to use the Endian Hotspot Appliance’s default NTP server.
The WINS servers used by the clients. This option is only needed for the Microsoft Windows networks that use WINS.
Once done, click on the Save button at the bottom of the page, then on the Apply button in the green callout that will appear to restart the DHCPD server with the new configuration.
It is sometimes necessary or desirable for certain devices to always use the same IP address while still using DHCP, for example servers that provide a service (like, e.g., a VPN server or a code repository) or devices like printers or scanners.
A fixed lease is also called Static IP Address, since a device will always receive the same IP address when requesting a lease from the DHCP server.
This tab contains the list of all the fixed leases defined in the local networks, providing several information about that lease: The device’s MAC Address and the assigned IP address, a remark, and the available actions.
By clicking on the Add a fixed lease link, a static IP address can be assigned to a device. The devices are identified by their MAC addresses.
Note
Assigning a fixed lease from the DHCP server is very different from setting up the IP address manually on a (client) device. Indeed, in the latter case, the device will still contact the DHCP server to receive its address and to announce its presence on the network. When the IP address required by the device has already been assigned, however, a dynamic lease will be given to the device.
The following parameters can be set for fixed leases:
The client’s MAC address.
The IP address that will always be assigned to the client.
An optional description of the device receiving the lease.
By clicking on Advanced options, the panel will expand, to
allow the configuration of three additional options:.
The address of the TFTP server. This and the next two options are useful only in a few cases (see below for an example).
The boot image file name. Option needed only for thin clients or network boot.
The path of the boot image file.
If this checkbox is not ticked, the fixed lease will be stored but
not written down to the file dhcpd.conf.
Below the table, a drop-down menu labelled Choose an action will allow to enable or to disable simultaneously all the fixed leases or all the selected ones.
A use case for a fixed lease.
A use case that shows the usefulness of a fixed lease is the case of thin clients or disk-less workstations on the network that use PXE, i.e., boot the operating system from an image supplied by a networked tftp server. If the tftp server is hosted on the same server with the DHCP, the thin client receives both the lease and the image from the same server. More often, however, the tftp server is hosted on another server on the network, hence the client must be redirected to this server by the DHCP server, an operation that can be done easily adding a fixed lease on the DHCP server for the thin client, adding a next-address and the filename of the image to boot.
Besides the information supplied during the fixed lease creation, the list allow each lease to be enabled or disabled (by ticking the checkbox), edited, or deleted, by clicking on the icons in the Actions column. Editing a lease will open the same form as the creation of a new lease, whereas deleting a lease will immediately remove it from the configuration.
Note
All leases assigned by the DHCP server are stored by default
in the /var/lib/dhcp/dhcpd.leases file. Although the DHCP
daemon takes care of cleaning that file, it may happen that the
file stores leases that have already been expired and are quite
old. This is not a problem and does not interfere with the normal
DHCP server working. A typical entry in that file is:
lease 192.168.58.157 {
starts 2 2013/06/11 13:00:21;
ends 5 2013/06/14 01:00:21;
binding state active;
next binding state free;
hardware ethernet 00:14:22:b1:09:9b;
}
After the DHCP server has been activated, and at least one client has
received a (dynamic) IP address, this tab will feature the list of the
clients, with these additional information: assigned dynamic IP
addresses, the MAC address of the connecting device and its hostname,
the expiry date and time, and the status, which can be either
expired or active.
A DNS server provides a service that allows to resolve the (numeric) IP address of a host, given its hostname, and vice-versa, and works perfectly for hosts with fixed IP address and hostname.
DDNS providers, like DynDNS or no-IP, offer a similar service when the IP addresses is dynamic, which is normally the case when using residential ADSL connections: Any domain name can be registered and associated to a server with a dynamic IP address, which communicates any IP address change to the DDNS provider. To be compatible and to integrate with the root DNS servers, each time IP address changes, the update must then be actively propagated from the DDNS provider.
The Endian Hotspot Appliance includes a dynamic DNS client for 14 different providers and if enabled, it will automatically connect to the dynamic DNS provider to communicate the new IP address whenever it changes.
Note
If no dynamic DNS account has been set up, detailed instruction to register a new one, detailed online helps and howtos are available on the web site of the providers.
This page displays the list of the Dynamic DNS accounts. Indeed, more than one DDNS provider can be used. For each account, the list shows information about the service used, the hostname and domain name registered, if the anonymous proxy and the wildcards features are active, if it is enabled, and the available actions.
New accounts can be created by clicking on the Add a host link, providing the following parameters:
The drop-down menu shows the available DDNS providers.
This option only applies to the no-ip.com provider. The checkbox must be ticked if the Endian Hotspot Appliance is connecting to the Internet through a proxy.
Some dynamic DNS providers allow all the sub-domains of a domain point to the same IP address. This is a situation in which two hosts like www.example.myddns.org and second.example.myddns.org are both located on the same IP address. Ticking this box enables the feature, making all the possible sub-domains redirect on the same IP address. The feature must be configured also in the account on the DDNS provider server, if available.
The hostname and domain as registered with the DDNS provider, for instance “example” and “myddns.org”
The credentials given from dynamic DNS provider to access the service.
Activate this option if the Endian Hotspot Appliance is not directly connected to the Internet, i.e., there is another router or gateway before accessing the Internet. In this case, the service at http://checkip.dyndns.org can be used to find the IP address of the router.
Tick this checkbox to enable the account, which is the default.
Note
The dynamic DNS provider only resolves the domain name and not the associated services. If some service must be accessed from the Internet to the Endian Hotspot Appliance or to some host behind the Endian Hotspot Appliance, it is necessary to set up some port forwarding rules (see Menubar ‣ Firewall ‣ Port forwarding / NAT).
After making a change in the configuration or to immediately update the dynamic DNS for all the defined accounts, click on the Force update button. This proves useful for example when the uplink has been disconnected and the REDIP has changed: When this happens, updating all the DDNS accounts is required, otherwise the services offered via DDNS will be unreachable.
This page allows to configure the Antivirus engine, ClamAV.
The ClamAV antivirus engine settings page consists of two boxes. The first one shows all the available configuration possibilites, in particular its management of archive bombs. The second box on the other hand is showing the current synchronisation status of the signatures.
To avoid DoS attacks, ClamAV is configured to not scan archives with certain attributes, that can be modified here.
Archives larger than this size in MB are not scanned.
value exceeds this number will not be scanned.
Archives containing more than this number of files are not scanned.
Archives whose uncompressed size exceeds the compressed archive size by more than X times, where X is the compression ration specified here, are not scanned. The default value is 1000.
Note
The compression rate for a normal file, depending on the algorithm used, is about between 10 and 15. That is, the uncompressed size of a file is between 10 to 15 times the size of the archive.
What should happen to an archive that is not scanned because it passed the limit set in at least one of the above settings. Choices are Do not scan but pass and Block as virus. In the first case the file is not scanned and passes the control, so that the recipient of the e-mail needs to carefully examine it, while in the second case it is considered as a virus and therefore blocked.
Note
When a file is larger that the size specified in the Max. archive size filed above and the policy here is “Block as virus”, the file is blocked. However, since it is downloaded until the size limit is reached, it may give the impression that the download did not complete successfully. To avoid this behaviour, change either this option or the size above.
It is technically impossible to scan encrypted (i.e., password protected) archives, but they might represent a security risk. To block them, tick this checkbox.
In the ClamAV signature update schedule panel on the right part of the box, another important aspect of running ClamAV can be configured: How often the antivirus signatures are downloaded. Indeed, to keep the system up to date, information about new viruses must be downloaded periodically from a ClamAV server. The default frequency of download is once every hour, but it can be configured shoosing among the four available options (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly). Moving the mouse over the question marks displays the exact time when the updates are performed in each case - the default setting is one minute past the full hour.
This box shows a couple of information about the signatures virus. At the top of the box, a message like “Last signature updated on Sep 16 13:21:28 from db.local.clamav.net which loaded a total of 1040149 signatures.” reports the date and time of the latest download (Sep 16 13:21:28), the server from which the signatures have been downloaded (db.local.clamav.net), and the number of signatures downloaded (1040149).
Below the message, a list shows the types of the signatures downloaded, the time of the last synchronisation, their version, and the time of the last update. The update and synchronisation times may differ if the last synchronisation check did not contain any signature update.
A click on the Update signatures now button performs an immediate update (regardless of scheduled updates, which will continue as before), that might take some time, while a click on the Search the online virus database opens a new browser tab (or window) to ClamAV’s online database, to look for information about a specific virus.
Note
Since the databases of signatures may be updated several times a day from the provider, it is suggested to set the download to a high frequency of updates.
The Endian Hotspot Appliance uses NTP to keep its system time synchronised with time servers on the Internet. The settings available are grouped into two boxes, Use a network time server to automatically synchronise time, and Adjust manually to manually modify the time and date.
A number of time server hosts on the Internet are preconfigured and used by the system, along with the time zone. Available options are the following.
Tick the checkbox to replace the default NTP servers. This might
prove necessary when running a setup that does not allow the
Endian Hotspot Appliance to reach the Internet. Several time servers addresses
can be supplied, one per line, in the small form that will show up;
each of them will be written in the configuration file, as value of
the server option. For better performance, at least two
time server should be provided here.
Hint
Each custom time server can be written as a hostname or
IP address. Entries can be also vendor-specific, like e.g.,
0.endian.pool.ntp.org.
The timezone is normally selected during the initial setup, but it can be changed by choosing a new one from the drop-down menu.
At the bottom of the box, a click on the Save button will restart the NTP daemon, applying the new settings, while an immediate synchronisation can be done by clicking on the Synchronize now button.
The second box gives the possibility to manually change the system time. While this is not recommended, this action proves useful when the system clock is way off and an immediate update of the Endian Hotspot Appliance’s clock to the correct time is needed.
Indeed, automatic synchronisation using time servers is not done instantly, but the clock is slowed down or sped up a bit to recover and align to the correct time. If however the discrepancy between the system clock and the time servers is significantly large, the ntp daemon will not be able to recover. Therefore, manual synchronisation represents the only solution to correct the time.
To manually change the time and date, provide In the textfields that appear in this box the correct Year, Month, Day, Hours, and Minutes, then click on the Set time button.
Do not mind about the seconds: After the manual set up of the time, the ntp daemon will take charge of aligning the system’s time to the time server’s time.
Note
The traffic monitoring service is not available on the Mini appliances, due to their limited available resources.
Traffic monitoring is done by ntopng and can be enabled or disabled by clicking on the main switch on this page. Once traffic monitoring is enabled a link to its administration interface appears in the lower section of the page. No option is available in this page, but in the administration interface, the traffic can be visualised and analysed by host, protocol, local network interface and many other types of information: All these operations can be carried out directly from the Traffic Monitoring module in The Logs and Reports Menu.
The purpose of the QoS module is to prioritise the IP traffic that is flowing through the Endian Hotspot Appliance depending on the service. In other words, the QoS is a convenient way to reserve a given amount of the available bandwidth (both incoming and outgoing) for a given service. Applications that typically need to be prioritised over bulk traffic are interactive services such as SSH or VoIP.
The QoS configuration options are arranged into four tabs: Devices, Classes, Rules and Tagging.
The Device tab is also the starting page for the QoS and is initially empty. Once populated, a table showing a list of all the Quality of Service devices appears and for each device, some parameters and the available actions are displayed.
New QoS devices can be added by clicking on the Add Quality of Service Device link above the list and by configuring a few options.
The network interface that will be used by this device. Choices are among the existent network interfaces, the zones enabled on the system, the uplinks, and the OpenVPN tunnels if defined, and can be selected from a drop-down menu.
The downstream speed of the interface.
The upstream speed of the interface.
Enable the QoS (default) or not.
When editing a device, the same form opens as when adding a new device, in which to modify the current device’s parameters.
For every device added, four items will appear under the Classes tab: Three for high, medium, and low priority, respectively, and one for bulk traffic (see below).
This tab shows a list of all Quality of Service classes that have been created, if any. For each entry, several data are shown. New items can be added by clicking on the Add Quality of Service Class link above the list of classes. The parameters to configure are the same shown in the list:
The name of the Quality of Service class.
The drop down menu allows to choose the Quality of Service device for which the class was created.
Hint
At least one QoS device must have been created before defining a QoS class.
The amount of bandwidth that has been reserved for this class from the device’s overall available bandwidth, either in percentage or in kilobit per second.
The maximum amount of bandwidth this class may use, either in percentage or in kilobit per second.
The priority of the class, from 0 (low) to 10 (high), selected from a dropdown menu
Note
The sum of reserved percentages can not be greater than 100 per device. Moreover, the reserved bandwidth can not be higher than the limit bandwidth.
Classes can be moved up or down the list: Items closer to the top of the list are the first to be processed when the bandwidth does not suffice for all the traffic and the Endian Hotspot Appliance needs to choose which traffic should be prioritised.
The third tab displays a list of the already defined Quality of Service Rules and allows to specify which type of traffic should belong to each of the classes. To add a new Quality of Service rule click on the Add Quality of Service Rule link. In the form that will open, which is very similar to the one used to define firewall rules, several values should be configured. Many drop-down menus are employed here to ease the choices and guide through the configuration.
Choose from the drop-down menu the traffic source, either a Zone or interface, a network, an IP or MAC address. Depending on this choice, different values can be specified: A zone or interface from the available ones from those that will be displayed, or one or more IP addresses, networks, or MAC addresses.
Choose the destination device or traffic class from the drop-down menu.
Write in the text area the target network or IP addresses, which must be reachable from the device or traffic class chosen in the previous option.
These two drop-down menus are used to define the service, protocol, and destination port for the rule (when choosing one of TCP, UDP, or TCP + UDP protocols). Some predefined combinations Service/Protocol/Port exists, like HTTP/TCP/80, <ALL>/TCP+UDP/0:65535, or <ANY>, which is a shortcut for all services, protocols, and ports. Finally, in the Destination port, one or more custom port number can be supplied (this proves useful when some service does not run on a standard port).
Choose from the drop-down menu which tag to use to mark the
traffic: a TOS flag, a DSCP class or a
DSCP value. Depending on the choice, one of the
following options will appear, unless <ANY> is chosen.
By choosing TOS or DSCP class in the previous drop-down menu allows to choose a suitable value for the traffic to match from another drop-down menu.
This filed appears only when DSCP value is chosen in the Type option above. It allows to enter a custom value for DSCP, that will be used to fire the rule when matched.
Tick the checkbox to enable the rule.
A comment to identify the rule.
Note
If there is more than one service in a Quality of Service class, then all these services together will share the reserved bandwidth.
The fourth tab is different from the others as it is used to classify and prioritise traffic. In other words, the traffic can be marked or tagged to allow external devices to handle it accordingly. This is particularly useful in a scenario with limited bandwidth and the uplink device, e.g., a modem, can only prioritise traffic based on TOS or DSCP flags in the packets. When clicking on the Add Quality of Service Rule link the editor opens, which is similar to the one under the Rules tab. These are the available options:
Choose from the drop-down menu the traffic source, either a Zone or
interface, a network or an IP, or a MAC address. Depending on this
choice, different values can be specified: A zone or interface from
the available ones from those that will be displayed, or one or
more IP addresses, networks, or MAC addresses. The default value is
<ANY>, meaning the rule will be applied to all traffic.
Choose from the drop-down menu the traffic destination, either a Zone or interface, a network or an IP. Depending on this choice, different values can be specified: A zone or interface from the available ones from those that will be displayed, or one or more IP addresses or networks.
These two drop-down menus are used to choose the service, protocol, and destination port for the rule (when choosing one of TCP, UDP, or TCP + UDP protocols). Some predefined combinations Service/Protocol/Port exists, like HTTP/TCP/80, <ALL>/TCP+UDP/0:65535, or <ANY>, which is a shortcut for all services, protocols, and ports.
In this textfield one or more custom port numbers can be supplied; this proves useful when some service does not run on a standard port).
Choose from the drop-down menu which tag to use to mark the traffic: a TOS flag, a DSCP class or a DSCP value. Depending on the choice, one of the following three options will appear.
This dropdown appears only when TOS is chosen in the Type option above. It allows to define the TOS flag that will be set in all matching packets.
This dropdown appears when choosing DSCP Class in the Type option above. It allows to define the DSCP class that will be set in all matching packets.
This field appears only when DSCP value is chosen in the Type option above. It allows to enter a custom value for DSCP, that will be set in all matching packets.
Tick the checkbox to enable the rule.
A comment to identify the rule.
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