SonicWALL 5.8.1 Manuale Utente

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Firewall Settings > Flood Protection
738
SonicOS 5.8.1 Administrator Guide
Each watchlist entry contains a value called a hit count. The hit count value increments when 
the device receives the an initial SYN packet from a corresponding device. The hit count 
decrements when the TCP three-way handshake completes. The hit count for any particular 
device generally equals the number of half-open connections pending since the last time the 
device reset the hit count. The device default for resetting a hit count is once a second.
The thresholds for logging, SYN Proxy, and SYN Blacklisting are all compared to the hit count 
values when determining if a log message or state change is necessary. When a SYN Flood 
attack occurs, the number of pending half-open connections from the device forwarding the 
attacking packets increases substantially because of the spoofed connection attempts. When 
you set the attack thresholds correctly, normal traffic flow produces few attack warnings, but 
the same thresholds detect and deflect attacks before they result in serious network 
degradation.
Understanding a TCP Handshake
A typical TCP handshake (simplified) begins with an initiator sending a TCP SYN packet with 
a 32-bit sequence (SEQi) number. The responder then sends a SYN/ACK packet 
acknowledging the received sequence by sending an ACK equal to SEQi+1 and a random, 32-
bit sequence number (SEQr). The responder also maintains state awaiting an ACK from the 
initiator. The initiator’s ACK packet should contain the next sequence (SEQi+1) along with an 
acknowledgment of the sequence it received from the responder (by sending an ACK equal to 
SEQr+1). The exchange looks as follows:
1.
Initiator -> SYN (SEQi=0001234567, ACKi=0) -> Responder
2.
Initiator <- SYN/ACK (SEQr=3987654321, ACKr=0001234568) <- Responder
3.
Initiator -> ACK (SEQi=0001234568, ACKi=3987654322) -> Responder
Because the responder has to maintain state on all half-opened TCP connections, it is possible 
for memory depletion to occur if SYNs come in faster than they can be processed or cleared by 
the responder. A half-opened TCP connection did not transition to an established state through 
the completion of the three-way handshake. When the SonicWALL is between the initiator and 
the responder, it effectively becomes the responder, brokering, or proxying, the TCP 
connection to the actual responder (private host) it is protecting. 
Configuring Layer 3 SYN Flood Protection
To configure SYN Flood Protection features, go to the Layer 3 SYN Flood Protection - SYN 
Proxy portion of the Firewall Settings > Flood Protection window that appears as shown in 
the following figure.