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Firewall Filters for EX Series Switches Overview

Firewall filters provide rules that define whether to permit, deny, or forward packets that are transiting an interface on a Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switch from a source address to a destination address. You configure firewall filters to determine whether to permit, deny, or forward traffic before it enters or exits a port, VLAN, or Layer 3 (routed) interface to which the firewall filter is applied. To apply a firewall filter, you must first configure the filter and then apply it to an port, VLAN, or Layer 3 interface.

You can apply firewall filters to network interfaces, aggregated Ethernet interfaces (also known as link aggregation groups (LAGs)), loopback interfaces, management interfaces, virtual management Ethernet interfaces (VMEs), and routed VLAN interfaces (RVIs). For information on EX Series switches that support a firewall filter on these interfaces, see EX Series Switch Software Features Overview.

An ingress firewall filter is a filter that is applied to packets that are entering a network. An egress firewall filter is a filter that is applied to packets that are exiting a network. You can configure firewall filters to subject packets to filtering, class-of-service (CoS) marking (grouping similar types of traffic together, and treating each type of traffic as a class with its own level of service priority), and traffic policing (controlling the maximum rate of traffic sent or received on an interface).

Note:

Policers on network port, layer 2 and layer 3, or IRB interfaces do not police host-bound traffic. But if you want to prevent DDoS attacks, then you can create a firewall filter on the lo0 that protects the routing engine.

Firewall Filter Types

The following firewall filter types are supported for EX Series switches:

  • Port (Layer 2) firewall filter—Port firewall filters apply to Layer 2 switch ports. You can apply port firewall filters in both ingress and egress directions on a physical port.

  • VLAN firewall filter—VLAN firewall filters provide access control for packets that enter a VLAN, are bridged within a VLAN, or leave a VLAN. You can apply VLAN firewall filters in both ingress and egress directions on a VLAN. VLAN firewall filters are applied to all packets that are forwarded to or forwarded from the VLAN.

  • Router (Layer 3) firewall filter—You can apply a router firewall filter in both ingress and egress directions on Layer 3 (routed) interfaces and routed VLAN interfaces (RVIs). You can apply a router firewall filter in the ingress direction on the loopback interface (lo0) also. Firewall filters configured on loopback interfaces are applied only to packets that are sent to the Routing Engine CPU for further processing.

You can apply port, VLAN, or router firewall filters to both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic on these switches:

  • EX2200 switch

  • EX3300 switch

  • EX3200 switch

  • EX4200 switch

  • EX4300 switch

  • EX4400 switch

  • EX4500 switch

  • EX4550 switch

  • EX6200 switch

  • EX8200 switch

For information on firewall filters supported on different switches, see Platform Support for Firewall Filter Match Conditions, Actions, and Action Modifiers on EX Series Switches.

Firewall Filter Components

In a firewall filter, you first define the family address type (ethernet-switching, inet, or inet6), and then you define one or more terms that specify the filtering criteria (specified as terms with match conditions) and the action (specified as actions or action modifiers) to take if a match occurs.

The maximum number of terms allowed per firewall filter for EX Series switches is:

  • 512 for EX2200 switches

  • 1436 for EX3300 switches

    Note:

    On EX3300 switches, if you add and delete filters with a large number of terms (on the order of 1000 or more) in the same commit operation, not all the filters are installed. You must add filters in one commit operation, and delete filters in a separate commit operation.

  • 7,042 for EX3200 and EX4200 switches—as allocated by the dynamic allocation of ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) for firewall filters.

  • On EX4300 switches, the following maximum number of terms are supported for ingress and egress traffic, for firewall filers configured on a port, VLAN and Layer 3 interface:

    • For ingress traffic:

      • 3500 terms for firewall filters configured on a port

      • 3500 terms for firewall filters configured on a VLAN

      • 7000 terms for firewall filters configured on Layer 3 interfaces for IPv4 traffic

      • 3500 terms for firewall filters configured on Layer 3 interfaces for IPv6 traffic

    • For EX4300-MP devices, ingress support is the same as the above with the following exception:

      • 3072 terms for firewall filters configured on Layer 3 interfaces for IPv4 traffic

    • For egress traffic:

      • 512 terms for firewall filters configured on a port

      • 256 terms for firewall filters configured on a VLAN

      • 512 terms for firewall filters configured on Layer 3 interfaces for IPv4 traffic

      • 512 terms for firewall filters configured on Layer 3 interfaces for IPv6 traffic

    Note:

    You can configure the maximum number of terms only when you configure one type of firewall filter (port, VLAN, or router (Layer 3) firewall filter) on the switch, and when storm control is not enabled on any interface in the switch.

  • For EX4400 switches, the following maximum number of terms are supported for ingress and egress traffic, for firewall filters configured on a port, VLAN and layer 3 interfaces.

    • For ingress traffic:

      • 2048 terms for firewall filters configured on a port.

      • 2048 terms for firewall filters configured on a VLAN.

      • 2048 terms for firewall filters configured on layer 3 interfaces.

    • For egress traffic:

      • 1024 terms for firewall filters configured on a port.

      • 512 terms for firewall filters configured on a VLAN.

      • 1024 terms for firewall filters configured on layer 3 interfaces.

  • 1200 for EX4500 and EX4550 switches

  • 1400 for EX6200 switches

  • 32,768 for EX8200 switches

Note:

The on-demand dynamic allocation of the shared space TCAM in EX8200 switches is achieved by assigning free space blocks to firewall filters. Firewall filters are categorized into two different pools. Port and VLAN filters are pooled together (the memory threshold for this pool is 22K) while router firewall filters are pooled separately (the threshold for this pool is 32K). The assignment happens based on the filter pool type. Free space blocks can be shared only among the firewall filters belonging to the same filter pool type. An error message is generated when you try to configure a firewall filter beyond the TCAM threshold.

Each term consists of the following components:

  • Match conditions—Specify the values or fields that the packet must contain. You can define various match conditions, including the IP source address field, IP destination address field, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) source port field, IP protocol field, Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packet type, TCP flags, and interfaces.

  • Action—Specifies what to do if a packet matches the match conditions. Possible actions are to accept or discard the packet or to send the packet to a specific virtual routing interface. In addition, packets can be counted to collect statistical information. If no action is specified for a term, the default action is to accept the packet.

  • Action modifier—Specifies one or more actions for the switch if a packet matches the match conditions. You can specify action modifiers such as count, mirror, rate limit, and classify packets.

Firewall Filter Processing

The order of the terms within a firewall filter configuration is important. Packets are tested against each term in the order in which the terms are listed in the firewall filter configuration. For information on how firewall filters process packets, see Understanding How Firewall Filters Are Evaluated.