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lib64nids-devel-1.23-4mdv2010.0.x86_64.rpm


                             ====================
                                 libnids-1.23
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	In order to verify reliability of libnids, a number of tests were 
conducted. A small applications were composed, which displayed on stdout data 
received from libnids (contents of IP packets or data exchanged in TCP 
connections). Test packets were sent to a host running Linux 2.0.36. As we 
will see, libnids accurately emulated behaviour of the target host. 
	As mentioned in README, libnids resisted all attack implemented by
fragrouter 1.3. The following tests were conducted with custom tools.

1. IP defragmentation
Libnids was put to the following tests:
a) sending overlapping and/or duplicate IP fragments. All possible combinations 
   of fragments positions in the final packet were tried. 
b) sending multiple fragments with the flag "no more fragments"
c) sending a fragmented packet, pause for 30+epsilon second, then sending
   remaining fragments. If epsilon has been greater than zero, Linux
   discarded the first fragment (and ICMP message of type TIME_EXCEEDED was
   generated). In the other case, defragmentation succeeded.
d) two fragments F1 and F2 of a packet P with header id X were build. A packet
   P' with header id X, but contents different to P was build as well.
   Finally, packets F1, P', F2 were sent (in the mentioned order).  
e) as a last test, resource managing was abused. Linux 2.0.x queues fragments
   until they consume 256 KB of kernel memory, than some of queued fragments 
   are discarded so that less than 192 KB of kernel memory is consumed. A
   helper program, sendtcpfrag, was built. It accepts two command line
   parameters, x and y. Sendtcpfrag builds a certain TCP packet, which is
   than split into two fragments, named A and B. Next x random IP fragments
   carrying 8 data bytes are sent, than fragment A, than y random IP fragments    
   carrying 8 data bytes are sent, finally fragment B.
   If all sent packets consume less than 256 KB of kernel memory, no packet
   is dropped, and the target host will assemble packets A and B. Otherwise,
   packet A can be dropped.
   After execution of
   # ./sendtcpfrag 650 61
   target host received a TCP segment. The situation looked similarly when
   second parameter was less than 61. After execution of
   # ./sendtcpfrag 650 62
   target host received no TCP segments. As we can see, 650+1+61 was the
   threshold number of packets, which could be queued.
   In the last test, libnids had to be fed a correct value of parameter
   sk_buff_size (see more on libnids parameters in file API).

Libnids passed all above tests.

2) TCP segments assembly
Libnids was put to the following tests:
a) sending overlapping and/or duplicate segments. All possible
   combinations of segments sequence numbers precedence were tried.
b) sending segments with sequence numbers ahead of expected values (test of
   segments queuing)
c) sending segments [partially] out of connection window
d) sending segments carrying invalid TCP flags
e) sending segments carrying SYN flags after the sockets reached ESTABLISHED
   state
f) sending segments carrying urgent data
g) closing of previously established TCP connection with a RST segment, then
   setting up another connection with the same tuple (saddr, daddr, sport,
   dport), but different sequence numbers
h) sending segments with incorrect IP or TCP checksum
i) sequence numbers wrap
j) initializing a TCP connection with a segment carrying not only SYN flag
k) resource managing. Linux queues TCP segments which fit in the connection
   window until kernel memory used for this purpose reaches SK_RMEM_MAX
   (typically 64 KB). Queuing uses lots of auxiliary data structures;
   therefore Linux can discard TCP segments, which belong to the connection
   window.
   Another tool was written, tcpqueue. It sends a flow of TCP segments
   carrying 1 byte of data. Segments have got consecutive, decreasing
   sequence numbers (so they're sent in reversed order than any OS do). 
   Tcpqueue accepts two command line parameters: S - the last segment sequence
   number, and N - number of segments to be sent. If S is the expected 
   sequence number of the connection and N is not big, all sent segments are 
   queued, then after the arrival of the last segments data from all segments 
   is passed to the application. If N is large, some of segments will be 
   discarded.
   After execution of
   # ./tcpqueue 2 283
   (connection was set up with initial sequence number equal 1) application
   (namely netcat) run on the target host received all 283 bytes of data.
   After execution of
   # ./tcpqueue 285 284
   application received data from the last segment only. As we can see,
   Linux queues up to 283 one-byte TCP segments, though it announces window
   close to 32768.
   Analogically to the last IP fragmentation test, libnids had to be fed a 
   correct value of parameter sk_buff_size.
Libnids passed all above tests, with one exception of test f. However, it is
due to a bug in Linux kernel, not libnids. In certain conditions, a byte of
urgent data can be included in normal data flow. Kernel developers were
notified, perhaps the bug will be squashed soon. 

3. Additionally, libnids handles properly ICMP Destination Unreachable
packets. Source routed IP packets are discarded.