IOS IPS and SDM 2.2.a

Hello everybody!,
I have installed a Cisco 2821 Router with 12.4(4)T IOS version. And SDM V2.2.a. (enteprise service IOS image).
The router have 256MB Ram and 64MB flash memory.
From the SDM Interface cannot upload any .sdf file and cannot edit the signatures and tune de IOS IPS.
Do you know how i can fix that problem?.
Thanks for the answers friends.

Hi,
To add more info, here is the info on defect filed on SDM for RCP issue and workaround suggested.
Symptoms:
Issue 1) Installation of SDM version 2.2a or earlier on a router fails with RCP failure message.
Issue 2) "Load File from PC" feature of File Management dialog in SDM version 2.2a or earlier
fails.
Conditions:
These issues will be encountered for IOS images 12.4(4)T and above.
SDM uses RCP for installation operations. This problem occurs because the fix for CSCdu34824 in
recent Cisco IOS releases has changed RCP behavior. Because of this change, if the RCP client
uses a non-privileged port , the router RCP server does not respond and the above issues occur.
Workaround:
1) For Issue 1 :- Use the copy tftp flash command to copy SDM related files from PC to router.
2) For Issue 2 :- Use the copy tftp flash command to copy the required file from PC to router.

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IOS IPS and VMS and shunning

Installed 12.3.14T2 (advanced security) on 2811 router with new
VMS update to the IDS Management Center (2.1) to support IOS IPS SDEE event monitoring. When I configure a specific signature, there is no option to shun. Only alert, block or reset. Where do you configure the dynamic shuning or "local shun action" that seems to be in all the "new features" of the IOS IPS.
Configuring the signature to block, alert or reset works fine. Just no options to shun. Also the IPS device does not show up in the device list under Monitoring on VMS, even though it shows up as a device in Monitoring Center Device Page.
Maybe this is where the problem may lie.

IOS versions before 12.3(14)T support the following
actions for IOS IPS:
- alarm
- drop (drop just the offending packet)
- reset (reset tcp connection - works for tcp only)
Version 12.3(14)T and later (including 12.4 versions) added support for the "local shunning" through two different actions:
- denyFlowInline
- denyAttackerInline
DenyFlowInline creates an ACL that drops all traffic on that connection for a certain idle-timeout.
DenyAttackerInline creates an ACL that drops all traffic from that source address (including other connections from that source address) for a certain idle-timeout.

IOS IPS and Multicast

Can a router using the IOS IPS also be enabled for multicast? Are there any limitations when doing this?
Thanks,

Yes. you can still use multicast. But IOS IPS does not scan multicast traffic.
Thanks,
-Chris

IOS IPS Restore Deleted Signatures

I have a router with IOS IPS and manage this using SDM.
I have deleted a signature from the router and would now like to re-install it.
Using SDM import feature I have looked for the deleted signature in the 256mb.sdf that I've downloaded from the Cisco website. It doesn't appear in the list of signatures. I've tried the attck-drop.sdf and the local ios sdmips.sdf but the signature is not listed.
does anyone have any idea how I can get it back?
The deleted signature is 4050 UDP Bomb.
Thanks

4050 UDP bomb is a built-in signature within the IOS. Some 100 odd signatures (version dependent) are loaded into the router by default when your IOS has the IDS image. Look under the ATOMIC.UDP signatures for 4050.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122cgcr/fsecur_c/ftrafwl/scfids.htm#wp1000985
You may be able to re-enable your signature using the following command on the CLI.
"no ip audit signature 4050 disable"
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios123/123cgcr/secur_r/sec_d1g.htm#wp1073162

IOS IPS message

hi,
I enabled IOS IPS with SDM v2.4.1, and show following message repeatedly
platform: 2821
IOS：c2800nm-adventerprisek9-mz.124-11.T2.bin
*Jul 25 06:18:22.827: %IPS-3-UNKNOWN_NAME: Unknown name (var xml element - mars-category)
*Jul 25 06:18:22.827: %IPS-3-UNKNOWN_NAME: Unknown name (var xml element - vulnerable-os)
*Jul 25 06:18:22.827: %IPS-3-UNKNOWN_NAME: Unknown name (var xml element - mars-category)
*Jul 25 06:18:22.827: %IPS-3-UNKNOWN_NAME: Unknown name (var xml element - vulnerable-os)
*Jul 25 06:18:22.827: %IPS-3-UNKNOWN_NAME: Unknown name (var xml element - mars-category)
*Jul 25 06:18:22.831: %IPS-3-UNKNOWN_NAME: Unknown name (var xml element - vulnerable-os)
I try it again with CLI , but no message like that.
Q2:
I enabled ios_ips basic, retired false and enabled true , but in SDM--ios_ips--basic many signatures didn't enabled and retired true.
my configuration as follow,
ip ips signature-category
category ios_ips basic
category all
retired true
category ios_ips basic
retired false
enabled true
thanks.

SDM need 12.4(11)T2 or later image to support IOS IPS in 5.x signature format due to some issues in IOS.
For 12.4(11)T1, the best option is to use CLI for now.
Also please refer http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6634/products_white_paper0900aecd805c4ea8.shtml
Thanks,
-Chris

IOS IPS for blocking IM and P2P

Any recommendations on the best way to use IOS IPS to stop P2P and IM?
I set up a 3845 with 12.3(14)T1 to do this by importing signatures from the latest SDF using SDM. I used the attack-drop, and all IM and P2P signatures I could find. I changed them all to drop and reset. I then applied it to the inside interface of a 3845. I also set up nbar with a drop policy for all P2P traffic.
The configuration caused very slow web response time for users, including blocked pages. Removing the IPS filter made everything work properly again. The router also stopped rebooting periodically.
Is there a recommended way to set this up that does not cause slow performance and reboots?

OK, went back and loaded some upgraded software. Now using 12.4.1 Advanced security IOS on the 3845, and SDM 211. The new 256MB.sdf signature file has all the IM and P2P signatures in it already!
After applying the IPS inbound on the serial interface, I changed the UDP signatures action to drop and the TCP to drop/reset.
Everything appears to be working beautifully. Yahoo and MSN messenger get dropped, as well as the peer to peer requests. I am unable to download Bittorrent. Web access is fast, and there is no hesitation by the router in configuring the IPS.
This appears to be a great solution so far.

IOS IPS Signature Updates

Hi,
Is it possible to update signatures for IOS IPS or do we need to update the IOS to get more signatures?
Thanks and rgds
Rajesh

hi,
if you have cisco sdm, then it would be easy to update your IOS IPS signatures. You may need to upgrade IOS of the router only when the ips signature requires you to do it.

IOS IPS - Sig 4050 UDP Bomb apparent false alarms?

Hi,
I'm trying the IOS IPS solution out in a lab environment and I seem to be getting lots of false alarms on sig 4050 - UDP bomb. Looking at the signature description via go/mysdn, and looking at it's configuration on the router via SDM, I can see it is simply looking for small UDP packets. But I don't know what size (The parameter is named ShortUDPLength and it's set to True).
All NTP traffic kicks of this signature. Using Ethereal to capture the NTP exchange, I see that the communication in each direction is a single packet. The layer 2 frame lenght is 90 bytes. The UDP data length is 56 bytes. All of this seems fine. The NTP server is a Cisco router. The NTP client is running on a Windows 2000 workstation.
Also, any TFTP to/from the router with IPS enabled also triggers the alert. Specifically it is the Ack's from the TFTP server that trigger the alert. They are indeed small packets - the UDP data size is only 12 bytes.
Note, this same traffic does not cause alerts from a 5.0 IPS sensor. Looking at the signature definition on the sensor, it doesn't have a parameter named SnortUDPLength. Instead it has a parameter named udp-length-mismatch which is set to true. This doesn't seem to be keying off of a particular data size, but instead conflicting reports in the UDP header compared to the actual packet size.
Any information that anyone could provide to shed light on this subject would be appreciated. Such as:
1) Do you find that IOS IPS sig 4050 false alarms are common?
2) What is the UDP data length that triggers the alert? It has to be bigger than 90 bytes!
3) Does Cisco have any recommendations on what to do with this built in signature?
Thanks,
KEP

On the sensor appliance side, the udp-length-mismatch checks for discrepancies between the ip header length and udp length of the packet. You were dead on, the signature triggers when the UDP length specified is less than the IP length specified. I'm not positive of exactly what the IOS ShortUDPLength parameter is.
You provided some valuable information in that the same traffic doesn't trigger the alerts on the appliance, so we know that this is not the signature, but rather the implementation of it in IOS.
I'm taking a bit of a leap here not knowing what IOS version you are running, but I'm guessing you may be running into CSCeh32935. The title states multicast, but the bug is not limited to just multicast traffic. This affectes some 12.3T releases and early 12.4. Looks like 12.4(2)T or higher has fixes implemented.
Since you're in a lab environment, I'd go ahead and upgrade the IOS on the router and see if that doesn't resolve the issue. If it's still there, open up a TAC case, and they'll be able to recreate the issue and file a new bug if neccessary.

IOS IPS

If the IOS IPS pkg file is 7MB and after I do a copy tftp://xxx/xxx.pkg idconf, where does the file go? I don't see anything on the flash other than the .xml config files.
Any thoughts?

First, please take a look at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6634/products_white_paper0900aecd805c4ea8.shtml.
In summary, the copy command follow the following process:
1. load signature from outside server
2. parse it and read into memory
3. save out to the directory configuration as the ips location, in normal cases, it would be the router flash.
When save the files out, it will save into multiple files in a compressed format, even it has a .xml extension, it is compressed.
Here are the files got saved out:
. -sigdef-typedef.xml
type definition files, defines the engine parameters etc.
. -sigdef-category.xml
signature category file. Just a mapping file map the category to signature IDs
. -sigdef-default.xml
Signature file. Contains all signatures and their parameter definitions
When management by CSM/SDM, it also will save out couple of other files:
. -sigdef-delta.xml
Contains all signature modification information other than the default in sigdef-default.xml
. -seap-delta.xml
Contains all the SEAP configuration changes
. -seap-typedef.xml
SEAP type definition file.
Thanks,
-Chris

IOS IPS 3845 router

The IOS IPS keeps failing. For some reason it sends the alerts to MARS and then all of a sudden the IPS is disabled on the interface. This config. was down through SDM.

CS-MARS also integrates tightly with Cisco's premier security management suite, Cisco Security Manager (CSM). This tight integration maps traffic-related syslog messages to the firewall policies defined in CSM that triggered the event. Policy lookup enables rapid, round-trip analysis for troubleshooting firewall configuration-related network problems, policy configuration errors, and fine-tuning defined policies.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps4077/prod_tech_notes_list.html

Is there a way to automate IOS IPS signature updates without CSM?

I have a growing number of 891 routers running IOS IDS/IPS. My Cisco vendor has stated repeatedly that CSM is the only way to manage signature updates to multiple routers, but I'm finding CSM to be incredibly tedious and slow. It also wants to manage a lot more than just the IPS policies and signatures which causes other problems.
I have about 160 routers deployed now and that will grow to at least 600. I have CSM 3.3.1. I'm told 4.x would make it easier becasue it can be configured to ignore more of the non-IPS bits of the router configs, but the upgrade is a big chunk of money that wouldn't be in the budget until at least 2012.
Is anybody doing this with an expect script or EEM applets or something else? It seems to me that I could manually upload an update to one router and push the resulting XML files to all the other routers a lot easier and faster than I could "discover" a bunch of routers in CSM (and rediscover them every time we make a CLI change), add the routers to a group, apply updates to a sig policy, lather, rinse, repeat..., not to mention troubleshooting the weird errors and completely wron "warnings" that CSM spews.
Thanks in advance!

From IOS version 15.1(1)T, you can configure the IOS IPS to auto update from cisco.com which would help I believe.
Here is the configuration guide for your reference:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/sec_data_plane/configuration/guide/sec_ips5_sig_fs_ue_ps10591_TSD_Products_Configuration_Guide_Chapter.html#wp1138659

Correct procedure to update IOS IPS signatures on 2911 router

What is the correct procedure to update the IOS IPS signatures on an 2911 router?
I know how to download the signatures file (eg. IOS-S556-CLI.pkg) but what is the correct way to install the update?
Thank you in advance!

The IPS signature package comes with a list of pre-enabled signatures, hence Cisco does not recommend enabling a lot more other signatures, especially not every single signature as documented.
The reason why is because the package might include retired/old signatures only for references, and not every single signature is required to protect your environment because you might not have the traffic for some signatures, you might not have some end hosts that are written with specific signatures, therefore, it becomes irrelevant if you enable it.
Typically here is how customer would enable/disable signatures:
- Use the default signature that is enabled by Cisco (the default should fit majority of the customers).
- Monitor it for a couple of months
- Disable those that you don't need, and enable others if you think you require it for specific.

Which interface to apply IOS IPS

Hello,
I have IOS IPS installed on 4 routers on our network at different sites. They are 2911 routers, with 2GB ram and i am using the latest signatures from cisco. Everything is working fine. I have enabled the basic signatures. At the moment the ips policy is only applied to the wan interface and not the lan. So in summary:
interface serial0/0 (wan link)
ip address x.x.x etc
ip ips mypolicy in
ip ips mypolicy out
exit
According to cisco i should not bother applying ip ips mypolicy out on the wan interface (serial0/0) but should have ip ips mypolicy in on the fa0/0
lan interface aswell as the serial0/0 interface.
interface fa0/0 (lan traffic)
NO IPS POLICY IN HERE AT THE MOMENT
anyone got experience on this?
regards
Kevin

Hi Kevin,
I would say that you have done the right thing, since router are limited in memory we should not enable a lot of signatures and also try to limit the scanning to traffic that we actually need to be scanned.
In what you have done any traffic that in entering or leaving the WAN interface will be scanned.
Now if there are more interfaces on your router and you want the traffic between the interfaces to be scanned as well in that case only you should enable IPS on those interfaces.
Most of the times it is not needed.
Regards,
Sachin

Cisco IOS IPS on 2811

Hi,
Is it possible to install NM-CIDS-K9 Intrusion module on a Cisco 2811 and run IPS 5.0 on it ? i.e. with similar functionality to a IPS 4200 series appliance.
From what i understand that you can do the above but the module will only work as IDS and not as in-line IPS (ability to drop packets etc) ?
Are there any routers that can have a Network module running in IPS mode to provide the same functionality as IPS appliance (4200 etc) ?
Is it correct that IOS IPS is only a fraction of the appliance based IPS ?
Regards \\ Naman

I am not really sure if there are any routers that can have a Network module running in IPS mode to provide the same functionality as IPS appliance as such, but the module will only work as IDS and not as in-line IPS

IOS IPS/IDS on a BGP Peering Router?

We have a pair of BP peerings between our network and our upstream service provider. Since the peering points are geographically distributed and we run a "cold potato" routing policy on our network we cannot guarantee symmetric routing for traffic exchanged with our upstream service provider.
Yesterday we followed the bouncing ball through the IPS/IDS setup documentation on a Cisco 2901 running 15.2(4)M3 and acting as a BGP speaking peering router at one of our peering points. Immediately the router started throwing %IPS-6-SEND_TCP_PAK and %IPS-6-TIMEOUT_EVENT messages in the logs. We also observed that some upstream service provider web sites became inaccessible to our users. Turning off IPS/IDS on the 2901 restored connectivity for our users to those web sites.
Three questions:
Do the default Cisco IOS IPS/IDS rules assume that the router will see both sides of each TCP session?
Does the Cisco IOS IPS/IDS TCP stream reassembly assume an attack and send TCP RST frames when it doesn't see both sides of a TCP session?
Should we move the Cisco IPS/IDS functionality from the BGP-speaking routers at peering points to our customer sites, as the customer sites are the only places in our network guaranteed to see both sides of a given TCP session? (We already perform NAT on the customer site routers for that reason.)

Hello Bill,
1) Yes, there are some normalizer functions on some IOS-IPS signatures that will behave like that with this scenarios (Asymetric routing not something good to any kind of security device)
2) Yes, it will close the connections, I will definetly need to look for specific actions regarding that but you could just check the IOS IPS Signature statistics on your router , see which is the one triggering the most and then see the action configured for it (and change it if required)
3) If you cannot change that behavior then it would be safe to tell the router is not a good place to set an IPS or any other kind of firewall configuration unless you set with a weaker security policy (useless from a security standard point of view)
Check my blog at http:laguiadelnetworking.com for further information.
Cheers,
Julio Carvajal Segura

IOS IPS and SDM 2.2.a

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