Extended IPv4 ACL Drill 2 – Answers

Extended IPv4 ACLs? No problem. Matching packets going towards the client? A little more of a problem. Deciding whether you need to match ARP and OSPF in your ACL? Even more of a problem. This latest drill makes you think about ACL location + direction, syntax, plus those overhead protocols. As usual, check on the post about the requirements first so that this post makes sense.

Ground Rules

Often times, the words that describe the requirements for an ACL can be interpreted in several ways. So, before reading these answers, consider:

• Your answer may be correct per your interpretation of the requirements…
• …while being different from the answer listed here.

On to the answers!

Subnets in Use

All the answers will use the subnets of host A and Server S, so a few words about those first.

First, because the packets that drive this ACL will be flowing towards host A’s subnet, and from server S’s subnet, the source field in the ACL statements should refer to server S’s subnet, and the destination should refer to host A’s subnet.

Second, you just need to do a little math to take the router interface address/mask combo connected to those subnets to convert those numbers to the correct values to put in the ACL. First, to match the subnet of host A, to find the address and wildcard mask to use:

1. R1’s G0/1 interface address/mask is 172.16.1.1/25.
2. To match the subnet, use the subnet ID, calculated as 172.16.1.0.
3. Convert prefix mask /25 to dotted decimal mask 255.255.255.128
4. Subtract it from 255.255.255.255 to get 0.0.0.127
5. Use 0.0.0.127 as the wildcard mask in the ACL statement.

For subnet 3, using the same logic:

1. R3’s G0/1 interface address/mask is 172.16.3.3/27
2. To match the subnet, use the subnet ID, calculated as 172.16.3.0.
3. Convert prefix mask /25 to dotted decimal mask 255.255.255.224
4. Subtract it from 255.255.255.255 to get 0.0.0.31
5. Use 0.0.0.31 as the wildcard mask in the ACL statements.

For reference, the exercise uses the topology in Figure 1:

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Figure 1: Topology Used in the ACL Drill

Answers

Of note for this particular answer:

• The ACL is located on R1, in the direction pointing away from the server. As a result, any matching of well-known ports should be a match of the ACL’s source port number
• Any ACL statement that matches a port number should use either the tcp or udp keywords.
• As an inbound ACL, the ACL will attempt to filter all IPv4 messages. In this case, that means:
  • You need to add statements to permit OSPF packets, because those use IPv4
  • You do NOT need to add statements for ARP, because ARP does not actually use IPv4 (ARP is a separate protocol, and is not encapsulated in IP packets.)

The answers for requirement set 1, for the explicitly identified applications, before getting to the defaults and overhead messages:

ip access-list extended eacl02
  permit tcp 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.31 eq telnet 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.127
  permit tcp 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.31 eq 80 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.127 
  permit tcp 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.31 eq 25 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.127

Partial Answer

Next, for the defaults, the requirement about denying all other TCP and UDP packets, while permitting all other IP packets besides those, might be a bit tricky. The logic intended by the combined requirements is this sequence:

1. Permit packets for apps Telnet, World Wide Web, and SMTP
2. Deny all other TCP and UDP traffic (that wasn’t already permitted)
3. Permit all other IP traffic (that wasn’t already denied)

With that in mind, the following answer adds the matching for all other TCP, then UDP, and then IP.

ip access-list extended eacl02
 permit tcp 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.127 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.31 eq 23 # uses 23 for Telnet
 permit tcp 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.127 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.31 eq 80 # uses 80 for WWW
 permit tcp 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.127 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.31 eq 25 # uses 25 for SMTP
 deny tcp any any
 deny udp any any
 permit ip any any
!
interface serial0/0/0
 ip access-group eacl02 in

Possibly Complete Answers; Adds Matching for TCP, UDP, IP

Finally, regarding OSPF and ARP, to restate, ARP does not use IP, so an IPv4 ACL will never filter an ARP message. However, OSPF uses IP; the OSPF messages are encapsulated directly into IP packets, using IPv4 protocol number 89. And when an OSPF message arrives in R1’s S0/0/0 interface, R1 would consider that packet based on the IPv4 ACL as configured, possibly denying (filtering) the OSPF message/

With the latest configuration, those OSPF packets would be permitted already, due to the ending permit ip any any command at the end of the ACL. However, you could have matched it explicitly in a couple of ways. You could have matched on the common destination IP addresses used by OSPF (224.0.0.5 and 224.0.0.6), or by matching the IPv4 OSPF protocol number by using protocol number 89, or by using the ospf keyword (permit ospf any any).

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Figure 2: OSPF Encapsulation