From: JF Mezei on
I have tried to read up on the IP INSPECT capabilties in IOS.

I can see its usefulness for FTP since it has the smarts to "open new
ports" in the ACLs to allow FTP data transfers between two random ports.

I had been lead to belive that it had intrusion detection capabilities,
(such as blocking an IP for some time after X unsuccesful login
attempts. But I read nothing about it.

Can anyone confirm that it does not have the ability to detect
unsuccesful login attempts and then block that IP for a random amount of
time ?

And if the job falls on the server to detect the invalid login attempts,
would the server then tell the router to block a certain IP address ?
What is the best method to do this ? SNMP ? Or just have a telnet script
that goes in and adds an entry in an ACL ?
From: Igor Mamuzić aka Pseto on
On 21.1.2010 12:28, JF Mezei wrote:
> I have tried to read up on the IP INSPECT capabilties in IOS.
>
> I can see its usefulness for FTP since it has the smarts to "open new
> ports" in the ACLs to allow FTP data transfers between two random ports.
>
> I had been lead to belive that it had intrusion detection capabilities,
> (such as blocking an IP for some time after X unsuccesful login
> attempts. But I read nothing about it.
>
> Can anyone confirm that it does not have the ability to detect
> unsuccesful login attempts and then block that IP for a random amount of
> time ?
>
> And if the job falls on the server to detect the invalid login attempts,
> would the server then tell the router to block a certain IP address ?
> What is the best method to do this ? SNMP ? Or just have a telnet script
> that goes in and adds an entry in an ACL ?
>
Cisco router's ip inspect (CBAC firewall feature) gives router
application firewall capabilities such as letting tcp:25 communication
only if it contains valid SMTP or ESMTP commands or detecting tunneling,
instant messaging, etc. trough port 80, etc etc. Cisco router can detect
unsuccessful authentication attempts to itself and block offending IP
address and also to provide authentication proxy services for remote
hosts. For example you can tell your router to require user to
authenticate them self (trough web browser or telnet) to the router
first and if authentication is successful the router will allow direct
communication with protected server from user's IP address. This can go
a little bit further so you may also authorize users. For example you
can put special downloadable access-lists on your RADIUS server and map
those access-lists to user group (also on RADIUS). Then router can check
if the user exists (authentication) and if exists what access-list to
apply for the group that user belongs. Router will swap source 'any'
keyword with user's host IP address in access-list automatically. Of
course this will not offer you single sign-on on user experience. For
something like this you should use true proxy servers such as Microsoft
ISA (TMG) or for example Blue Coat.

Regards,
Igor