Database Firewall filter

Table of Contents

Overview

The Database Firewall filter is used to block queries that match a set of rules. It can be used to prevent harmful queries from reaching the backend database instances or to limit access to the database based on a more flexible set of rules compared to the traditional GRANT-based privilege system. Currently the filter does not support multi-statements.

Note that the firewall filter should be viewed as a best-effort solution intended for protecting against accidental misuse rather than malicious attacks.

Configuration

The Database Firewall filter only requires minimal configuration in the maxscale.cnf file. The actual rules of the Database Firewall filter are located in a separate text file. The following is an example of a Database Firewall filter configuration in maxscale.cnf.

[DatabaseFirewall]
type=filter
module=dbfwfilter
rules=/home/user/rules.txt

[Firewalled-Routing-Service]
type=service
router=readconnroute
servers=server1
user=myuser
password=mypasswd
filters=DatabaseFirewall

Filter Parameters

The Database Firewall filter has one mandatory parameter, rules.

rules

A path to a file with the rule definitions in it. The file should be readable by the user MariaDB MaxScale is run with. If a relative path is given, the path is interpreted relative to the module configuration directory. The default module configuration directory is /etc/maxscale.modules.d.

action

This parameter is optional and determines what action is taken when a query matches a rule. The value can be either allow, which allows all matching queries to proceed but blocks those that don't match, or block, which blocks all matching queries, or ignore which allows all queries to proceed.

The following statement types will always be allowed through when action is set to allow:

• COM_CHANGE_USER: The user is changed for an active connection
• COM_FIELD_LIST: Alias for the SHOW TABLES; query
• COM_INIT_DB: Alias for USE <db>;
• COM_PING: Server is pinged
• COM_PROCESS_INFO: Alias for SHOW PROCESSLIST;
• COM_PROCESS_KILL: Alias for KILL <id>; query
• COM_QUIT: Client closes connection
• COM_SET_OPTION: Client multi-statements are being configured

You can have both blacklist and whitelist functionality by configuring one filter with action=allow and another one with action=block. You can then use different rule files with each filter, one for blacklisting and another one for whitelisting. After this you only have to add both of these filters to a service in the following way.

[my-firewall-service]
type=service
servers=server1
router=readconnroute
user=maxuser
password=maxpwd
filters=dbfw-whitelist|dbfw-blacklist

[dbfw-whitelist]
type=filter
module=dbfwfilter
action=allow
rules=/home/user/whitelist-rules.txt

[dbfw-blacklist]
type=filter
module=dbfwfilter
action=block
rules=/home/user/blacklist-rules.txt

If a query is blocked, the filter will return an error to the client with the error number 1141 and an SQL state of HY000.

log_match

Log all queries that match a rule. For the any matching mode, the name of the rule that matched is logged and for other matching modes, the name of the last matching rule is logged. In addition to the rule name the matched user and the query itself is logged. The log messages are logged at the notice level.

log_no_match

Log all queries that do not match a rule. The matched user and the query is logged. The log messages are logged at the notice level.

treat_string_as_field

This optional parameter specifies how the database firewall should treat strings. If true, they will be handled as fields, which will cause column blocking rules to match even if ANSI_QUOTES has been enabled and " is used instead of backtick.

treat_string_as_field=false

The default value is true.

Note that this may cause a false positive, if a "true" string contains the name of a column to be blocked.

treat_string_arg_as_field

This optional parameter specifies how the database firewall should treat strings used as arguments to functions. If true, they will be handled as fields, which will cause function column blocking rules to match even even if ANSI_QUOTES has been enabled and " is used instead of backtick.

treat_string_arg_as_field=false

The default value is true.

Note that this may cause a false positive, if a "true" string contains the name of a column to be blocked.

strict

Whether to treat unsupported SQL or multi-statement SQL as an error. This is a boolean parameter and the default value is true.

When disabled, SQL that cannot be fully parsed is allowed to pass if the rules do not cause it to be blocked. This can be used to provide a best-effort mode where uncertainly about the SQL is allowed.

Rule syntax

The rules are defined by using the following syntax:

rule NAME match RULE [at_times VALUE...] [on_queries {select|update|insert|delete|grant|revoke|drop|create|alter|use|load}]

Where NAME is the identifier for this rule and RULE is the mandatory rule definition.

Rules are identified by their name and have mandatory parts and optional parts. You can add comments to the rule files by adding the # character at the beginning of the line. Trailing comments are not supported.

The first step of defining a rule is to start with the keyword rule which identifies this line of text as a rule. The second token is identified as the name of the rule. After that the mandatory token match is required to mark the start of the actual rule definition.

The rule definition must contain exactly one mandatory rule parameter. It can also contain one of each type of optional rule parameter.

Mandatory rule parameters

The Database Firewall filter's rules expect a single mandatory parameter for a rule. You can define multiple rules to cover situations where you would like to apply multiple mandatory rules to a query.

wildcard

This rule blocks all queries that use the wildcard character *.

Example

Use of the wildcard is not allowed:

rule examplerule match wildcard

columns

This rule expects a list of values after the columns keyword. These values are interpreted as column names and if a query targets any of these, it is matched.

Example

Deny name and salary columns:

rule examplerule match columns name salary

function

This rule expects a list of values after the function keyword. These values are interpreted as function names and if a query uses any of these, it is matched. The symbolic comparison operators (<, >, >= etc.) are also considered functions whereas the text versions (NOT, IS, IS NOT etc.) are not considered functions.

Example

Match queries using the sum and count functions:

rule examplerule match function sum count

not_function

This rule expects a list of values after the not_function keyword. These values are interpreted as function names and if a query uses any function other than these, it is matched. The symbolic comparison operators (<, >, >= etc.) are also considered functions whereas the text versions (NOT, IS, IS NOT etc.) are not considered functions.

If the rule is given no values, then the rule will match a query using any function.

Example

Match queries using other functions but the length function:

rule examplerule match not_function length

Match queries using functions:

rule examplerule match not_function

uses_function

This rule expects a list of column names after the keyword. If any of the columns are used with a function, the rule will match. This rule can be used to prevent the use of a column with a function.

Example

Deny function usage with name and address columns:

rule examplerule match uses_function name address

function and columns

This rule combines the function and columns type rules to match if one of the listed columns uses one of the listed functions. The rule expects the function and columns keywords both followed by a list of values.

Example

Deny use of the sum function with name or address columns:

rule examplerule match function sum columns name address

not_function and columns

This rule combines the not_function and columns type rules to match if one of the listed columns is used in conjunction with functions other than the listed ones. The rule expects the not_function and columns keywords both followed by a list of values.

If not_function is not provided with a list of values, then the rule matches if any of the columns is used with any function.

Example

Match if any other function but length is used with the name or address columns:

rule examplerule match not_function length columns name address

Match if any function is used with the _ssn_column:

rule examplerule match not_function columns ssn

regex

This rule blocks all queries matching the regular expression. The regex string expects a PCRE2 syntax regular expression. For more information about PCRE2 syntax, read the PCRE2 documentation. Unlike typical MaxScale regex parameters, the value should be enclosed in single or double quotes, not in /.../. Any compilation options must be included in the pattern itself.

Example

Block selects to accounts:

rule examplerule match regex '.*select.*from.*accounts.*'

limit_queries

This rule has been DEPRECATED. Please use the Throttle Filter instead.

The limit_queries rule expects three parameters. The first parameter is the number of allowed queries during the time period. The second is the time period in seconds and the third is the amount of time in seconds for which the rule is considered active and blocking.

WARNING: Using limit_queries in action=allow is not supported.

Example

Over 50 queries within a window of 5 seconds will block for 100 seconds:

rule examplerule match limit_queries 50 5 100

no_where_clause

This rule inspects the query and blocks it if it has no WHERE clause. For example, this would disallow a DELETE FROM ... query without a WHERE clause. This does not prevent wrongful usage of the WHERE clause e.g. DELETE FROM ... WHERE 1=1.

Example

Queries must have a where clause:

rule examplerule match no_where_clause

Optional rule parameters

Each mandatory rule accepts one or more optional parameters. These are to be defined after the mandatory part of the rule.

at_times

This rule expects a list of time ranges that define the times when the rule in question is active. The time formats are expected to be ISO-8601 compliant and to be separated by a single dash (the - character). For example, to define the active period of a rule to be 5pm to 7pm, you would include at times 17:00:00-19:00:00 in the rule definition. The rule uses local time to check if the rule is active and has a precision of one second.

on_queries

This limits the rule to be active only on certain types of queries. The possible values are:

Multiple values can be combined using the pipe character | e.g. on_queries select|insert|update.

Applying rules to users

The users directive defines the users to which the rule should be applied.

users NAME... match { any | all | strict_all } rules RULE...

The first keyword is users, which identifies this line as a user definition line.

The second component is a list of user names and network addresses in the format user@0.0.0.0. The first part is the user name and the second part is the network address. You can use the % character as the wildcard to enable user name matching from any address or network matching for all users. After the list of users and networks the keyword match is expected. This means that the following user definitions are supported:

• user@host
• user@%
• %@host

Partial wildcards, e.g. user@192.% are not supported.

As MaxScale listens to the IPv6 all address by default, IPv4 addresses will be mapped into the IPv6 space. This means that the IPv4 address 192.168.0.1 will show up in MaxScale as ::ffff:192.168.0.1. Take this into account when defining the users directives.

After this either the keyword any, all or strict_all is expected. This defined how the rules are matched. If any is used when the first rule is matched the query is considered as matched and the rest of the rules are skipped. If instead the all keyword is used all rules must match for the query to be considered as matched. The strict_all is the same as all but it checks the rules from left to right in the order they were listed. If one of these does not match, the rest of the rules are not checked. This could be useful in situations where you would for example combine limit_queries and regex rules. By using strict_all you can have the regex rule first and the limit_queries rule second. This way the rule only matches if the regex rule matches enough times for the limit_queries rule to match.

After the matching part comes the rules keyword after which a list of rule names is expected. This allows reusing of the rules and enables varying levels of query restriction.

If a particular NAME appears on several users lines, then when an actual user matches that name, the rules of each line are checked independently until there is a match for the statement in question. That is, the rules of each users line are treated in an OR fashion with respect to each other.

Module commands

Read Module Commands documentation for details about module commands.

The dbfwfilter supports the following module commands.

rules/reload FILTER [FILE]

Load a new rule file or reload the current rules. New rules are only taken into use if they are successfully loaded and in cases where loading of the rules fail, the old rules remain in use. The FILTER parameter is the filter instance whose rules are reloaded. The FILE argument is an optional path to a rule file and if it is not defined, the current rule file is used.

rules FILTER

Shows the current statistics of the rules. The FILTER parameter is the filter instance to inspect.

Use Cases

Use Case 1 - Prevent rapid execution of specific queries

To prevent the excessive use of a database we want to set a limit on the rate of queries. We only want to apply this limit to certain queries that cause unwanted behaviour. To achieve this we can use a regular expression.

First we define the limit on the rate of queries. The first parameter for the rule sets the number of allowed queries to 10 queries and the second parameter sets the rate of sampling to 5 seconds. If a user executes queries faster than this, any further queries that match the regular expression are blocked for 60 seconds.

rule limit_rate_of_queries match limit_queries 10 5 60
rule query_regex match regex '.*select.*from.*user_data.*'

To apply these rules we combine them into a single rule by adding a users line to the rule file.

users %@% match all rules limit_rate_of_queries query_regex

Use Case 2 - Only allow deletes with a where clause

We have a table which contains all the managers of a company. We want to prevent accidental deletes into this table where the where clause is missing. This poses a problem, we don't want to require all the delete queries to have a where clause. We only want to prevent the data in the managers table from being deleted without a where clause.

To achieve this, we need two rules. The first rule defines that all delete operations must have a where clause. This rule alone does us no good so we need a second one. The second rule blocks all queries that match a regular expression.

rule safe_delete match no_where_clause on_queries delete
rule managers_table match regex '.*from.*managers.*'

When we combine these two rules we get the result we want. To combine these two rules add the following line to the rule file.

users %@% match all rules safe_delete managers_table