1.\" 2.\" blackhole - drop refused TCP or UDP connects 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 13.\" 14.\" $FreeBSD$ 15.Dd August 17, 1999 16.Dt BLACKHOLE 4 17.Os 18.Sh NAME 19.Nm blackhole 20.Nd a 21.Xr sysctl 8 22MIB for manipulating behaviour in respect of refused TCP or UDP connection 23attempts 24.Sh SYNOPSIS 25.Cd sysctl net.inet.tcp.blackhole[=[0 | 1 | 2]] 26.Cd sysctl net.inet.udp.blackhole[=[0 | 1]] 27.Sh DESCRIPTION 28The 29.Nm 30.Xr sysctl 8 31MIB is used to control system behaviour when connection requests 32are received on TCP or UDP ports where there is no socket listening. 33.Pp 34Normal behaviour, when a TCP SYN segment is received on a port where 35there is no socket accepting connections, is for the system to return 36a RST segment, and drop the connection. The connecting system will 37see this as a "Connection reset by peer". By setting the TCP blackhole 38MIB to a numeric value of one, the incoming SYN segment 39is merely dropped, and no RST is sent, making the system appear 40as a blackhole. By setting the MIB value to two, any segment arriving 41on a closed port is dropped without returning a RST. This provides 42some degree of protection against stealth port scans. 43.Pp 44In the UDP instance, enabling blackhole behaviour turns off the sending 45of an ICMP port unreachable message in response to a UDP datagram which 46arrives on a port where there is no socket listening. It must be noted 47that this behaviour will prevent remote systems from running 48.Xr traceroute 8 49to a system. 50.Pp 51The blackhole behaviour is useful to slow down anyone who is port scanning 52a system, attempting to detect vulnerable services on a system. 53It could potentially also slow down someone who is attempting a denial 54of service attack. 55.Sh WARNING 56The TCP and UDP blackhole features should not be regarded as a replacement 57for 58.Xr ipfw 8 59as a tool for firewalling a system. In order to create a highly 60secure system, 61.Xr ipfw 8 62should be used for protection, not the blackhole feature. 63.Pp 64This mechanism is not a substitute for securing a system. 65It should be used together with other security mechanisms. 66.Sh SEE ALSO 67.Xr ip 4 , 68.Xr tcp 4 , 69.Xr udp 4 , 70.Xr ipfw 8 , 71.Xr sysctl 8 72.Sh AUTHORS 73.An Geoffrey M. Rehmet 74.Sh HISTORY 75The TCP and UDP 76.Nm 77MIBs 78first appeared in 79.Fx 4.0 . 80