[cod] Game server whitelisting rules

Bobby bobby35ny at gmail.com
Tue Apr 17 16:33:34 EDT 2012


I understand why they wouldn't patch lets say Q3 or Q4 or cod/cod2

But geez, at least patch COD 4, still has a big following and game is still
sold in stores.

-bobby

 

From: Boyd G. Gafford Ph.D. [mailto:drboyd at westportresearch.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 4:02 PM
To: cod at icculus.org
Subject: Re: [cod] Game server whitelisting rules

 

That one's easy, it takes work.

The old Q3 protocol was really designed for a different era, as it is what,
over 10 years old now?  I have often thought it would be nice if they
reworked the protocol to put some light encryption on the packets, or at
least stiffen up the exchange with even some clever identification on each
frame.

But yeah, some of the games that run this protocol are so old that the
companies that sold them really don't care about fixing something that won't
make them hardly any money.

Sad really.

 


On 04/17/2012 02:48 PM, Bobby wrote: 

I have a dumb question, Why wont the game company fix/patch the game to
prevent further attacks?

-Bobby

 

From: Boyd G. Gafford Ph.D. [mailto:drboyd at westportresearch.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 3:35 PM
To: cod at icculus.org
Subject: Re: [cod] Game server whitelisting rules

 

Also, just a quick shout out to Escaped Turkey (escapedturkey.com), who has
been a big help in this whole development process.

The rules have been a collaboration between us for several months now, to
get to the point where the rules are mature enough to withstand so many
different attacks.  Escaped Turkey was one of the first companies to give
ServerArk a try, which led to moving all the ServerArk logic into the kernel
with these custom iptables rules, and to eventually getting the whitelisting
working.

Thanks ET!

:)

__________________________________
Boyd G. Gafford Ph.D.
Manager of Software Development
Westport Research Associates Inc.
7001 Blue Ridge Blvd
Raytown, MO 64133
(816) 358-8990
drboyd at westportresearch.com


On 04/17/2012 10:58 AM, escapedturkey wrote: 

On top of that, using webmin and usermin, I have developed scripts (to
utilize Boyd's scripts) where the user simply clicks on of two buttons, then
within 30 minutes protection is enabled or disabled. There is another script
to display the protection status. This way root runs a script, every 30
minutes, searches to see who has enabled or disabled protection, then adds
or removes the rules to iptables. 

 

For more information on how the scripts work, please see the following:

 

https://www.escapedturkey.com/links/serverprotection

 

I will gladly share these scripts as well. Please drop me an e-mail if you
are interested. The more protection we have for everyone's game servers, the
better the community will be. =)

 

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Boyd G. Gafford Ph.D.
<drboyd at westportresearch.com> wrote:

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am making the dynamic whitelisting
iptables rules I have been testing available to anyone who runs a
Q3-protocol server under Linux and wants to try them out.  These rules were
designed for the most severe of all attacks, and that is attacks where the
source IP is spoofed and is random.  It also works for attacks from a single
IP as well, as well as indirect reflection attacks.

We have 2 commercial server companies using these rules currently in their
production environment, and I am currently working with two more.  I also
have test servers running on several VPS's that I use for development.

So what do the iptables do?  Here's the list:

1) Players have their IP saved automatically at the kernel level when they
join a game server, and then those IPs are used as a filter for other rules.
When they leave the game server the IP is retired after 10 minutes.  (This
is what we call a whitelisted player).  This is the main guts of the
protection, as identifying valid players is important to mitigating attacks.

2) Server query packets like 'getstatus' and 'getinfo' are rate limited to
10/sec to prevent lag when they are used in a DOS attack.  Players that are
whitelisted have their packets allowed (so they can see server status while
in game even during an attack).

3) 'getchallenge' packets (normally used by a player to join the game) are
rate limited to 2/sec, to prevent lag when they are used in a DOS attack.
Players that are whitelisted always have their requests to join the server
processed.  This allows a player who was recently playing the ability to
join the server again, even when the DOSer is trying to lock down the
population on the server by spamming fake players joining.

4) All other packets are rate limited per whitelisted player IP to no more
than 100/second, to prevent lag when a DOSer has stolen a valid player IP
address and is attacking with it in an attempt to break through the
whitelist rules.

5) Attempts to use your game server as a reflector to attack other game
servers is blocked (due to rate limiting in 1-4).

6) Reflection attack packets hitting your server are dropped (again due to
rate limiting in 1-4).

7) A custom packet (not part of the Q3 protocol) can be sent by a player to
break into and join a game that is under 24/7 'getchallenge' attack.  This
is one of the slicker features of the iptables rules, as this 'server
lockdown' DOS attack is now easily breached.


The iptables rules are added dynamically per server IP:PORT pair.  That way
the rules affect nothing but UDP packets to that game server.  No other
types of packets are affected whatsoever.  To make it easy, the rules have
been put into shell scripts.

Example:  Protect the game running on 10.1.2.3 port 28000.

# ./protectgame.sh 10.1.2.3 28000

Example:  Show the iptables rules currently protecting the game running on
10.1.2.3 port 28000.

# ./listgame.sh 10.1.2.3 28000

Example:  Remove the iptables rules protecting the game running on 10.1.2.3
port 28000.

# ./unprotectgame.sh 10.1.2.3 28000

Rather than just send the scripts to the whole list here, I've decided to
ask anyone interested to Email me personally and request it.  If you run a
commercial gaming service (or even your own COD server and agree not to
share it with anyone else), I will be happy to send it to you and help you
understand how to use it in your environment.

Thanks,

  Boyd

 
__________________________________
Boyd G. Gafford Ph.D.
Manager of Software Development
Westport Research Associates Inc.
7001 Blue Ridge Blvd
Raytown, MO 64133
(816) 358-8990 <tel:%28816%29%20358-8990> 
drboyd at westportresearch.com


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