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Re: blocklistd: How to keep my dynamic IP from getting blocked



At Sat, 3 Apr 2021 12:30:46 +0530, Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost> wrote:
Subject: Re: blocklistd: How to keep my dynamic IP from getting blocked
>
> Between these two: 1. Let blocklistd try to block and let npf overrule vs
> 2. Let blocklistd not block. Isn't the latter more economical?

I would include worrying about the economies of human understanding.

If you have two layers of control were one can say one thing and another
can possibly reverse the first's decision, then perhaps that is more
complex and more difficult to understand, especially during an emergency
debugging session.

However if you have one layer that entirely controls the other (with
respect to whatever features that controlling layer controls), then you
should only have to look in one place and understand one set of
conditions and rules to figure out what is going on.

So if you're going to use blocklistd to manage and control network
abusers, and that's going to be manipulating your firewall rules, then I
would say that you want to manage every aspect of what blocklistd does
at the blocklistd layer.  I.e. make the firewall entirely subservient to
blocklistd w.r.t. what responsibilities you've assigned to blocklistd.


Perhaps as an allegory, when I first started using network level packet
filtering firewalls I already had a long experience with using TCP
Wrappers (i.e. libwrap with /etc/hosts.deny) to control access to
services.  However I continued to use TCP Wrappers as I introduced
firewalling to my servers, and as a result I found that I could rapidly
confuse myself when something didn't behave as expected if I didn't keep
the domains of responsibility between these two access control features
quite well separated.


That all said, there are still a million ways to cut a cake, and not
necessarily any one better than the other, especially if you're just
going to eat the whole thing anyway.  In this example you could even
modify the easily modified back-end blocklistd-helper script to filter
out those actions you don't want it to take, perhaps also controlling it
with yet another configuration file or list, etc., etc., etc.

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost>
Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost>     Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>

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