Manual Chapter : Adjusting Global Settings

Applies To:

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F5 DDoS Hybrid Defender

  • 14.0.0
Manual Chapter

Adjusting Global Settings

Overview: Adjusting global settings

DDoS Hybrid Defender™ uses reasonable default settings for the global system settings. Some environments may require adjustments to port numbers, allowed protocols, or thresholds that signal an attack. For example, you may use a different DNS or SIP port number from the one that is configured. In that case, you can change it.

Many of the thresholds indicate the value at which a packet, header, URI, or other setting is considered too large, too small, or not typical. This does not necessarily indicate an attack. It means that the value is unusual enough that you should take a look at what's happening on the system. You may want to change the global settings because the traffic should be allowed and should not cause alarm.

However, note that adjusting these settings should be needed only in rare cases. The changes should be made only by an administrator familiar with the applications, servers, or other network objects that DDoS Hybrid Defender is protecting.

Adjusting global settings

You can adjust global settings on DDoS Hybrid Defender™ if the default values are not right for your environment.
  1. On the Main tab, click DoS Setup > Global .
  2. Review the global settings to see if they are appropriate for your system.
    A reference table or the help describes the settings.
  3. Adjust the value of the setting you want to change.
  4. Click Update.
The global settings are applied at the system level.

Global settings reference table

You need to adjust the global settings only if something is not working correctly. For example, if your systems use a DNS port other than 53.

Flow Eviction Policy

Setting Default Value What It Specifies
Trigger Thresholds High water mark 95%; Low water mark 85% Specifies a high and low water mark that is a percentage of the quota of flows before flow eviction starts (high water mark) and ends (low water mark).
Strategies None Specifies which traffic flows to drop as much as possible:
  • Oldest: Drops the oldest existing flows.
  • Idle: Drops the flows that have been the least busy the longest.
  • Busiest: Drops the flows that have been busiest the longest.
Slow Flow Detection
  • Not enabled
  • Max Slow Flows: 100
  • Slow Threshold: 32
Enables the features and specifies what constitutes slow flows:
  • Max Slow Flows: Specifies the maximum percentage of slow flows allowed on the system.
  • Slow Threshold: Specifies the rate (bytes/sec) below which a flow is considered slow.

Ports & VLANS

Setting Default Value What It Specifies
UDP Port Inclusion/Exclusion List Exclude Specifies UDP ports to analyze for DDoS attacks (Include) or exclude from analysis (Exclude) for all protected objects. One at a time, type the port number, select source and/or destination, and click Add.
DNS Port 53 Specifies which port to use for DNS traffic, if the default of 53 is not correct.
DNS VLAN 0 Specifies which VLAN should receive external DNS responses. The default is 0, all VLANs.
SIP Port 5060 Specifies which port to use for SIP traffic, if the default of 5060 is not correct.

Allowed Protocols & Options

Setting Default Value What It Specifies
Allowed non-Standard IP Protocols Protocol 1 & 2: 255 Specifies the protocol number of one or two IP protocols that the Unknown IP Protocol DoS vector should treat as known (that is, ignored). Note: Though valid values are 0-255, IP protocols 0-142 are already known by the vector so specifying an IP protocol number in that range has no effect on the behavior of the vector.
Allowed non-Standard ICMPv6 Types Type 1 & 2: 158 Specifies one or two additional ICMPv6 message types for the Unknown ICMPv6 Message Type vector to treat as known (that is, ignored). The allowed values are 0-254. However, ICMPv6 message types 0-132, 134, and 135 are already ignored by the vector so specifying one of those message types has no effect on the behavior of the vector.
Allowed non-Standard TCP Options Type 1 & 2: 0 Specifies one or two TCP option types for the Unknown TCP Option Type vector to treat as known (that is, ignored). Though valid values are 0-255, option types 0-5, 8, 19-21, 30, 34, 128, and 254 are allowed and have no effect on the behavior of the vector.

Thresholds

Setting Default Value What It Specifies
IPv6 Single Endpoint Prefix Length 128 Specifies whether a single endpoint in IPv6 is /64 or /128 (or some other prefix).
IPv4 Low TTL 1 Defines the minimum acceptable value for TTL (time to live) in the IPv4 header.
IPv6 Low Hop Count 1 Specifies the minimum acceptable value for IPv6 Hop Count.
Too Large DNS Packet 4096 Specifies the size at which a DNS packet is considered oversized.
Too Large ICMPv4 Packet 1480 Specifies the size at which an ICMPv4 packet is considered oversized.
Too Large ICMPv6 Packet 1460 Specifies the size at which an ICMPv6 packet is considered oversized.
Too Large IPv6 Extension Header 128 Specifies the size at which an IPv6 Extension Header is considered oversized.
Too Many IPv6 Extension Headers 4 Specifies the number of IPv6 Extension Headers that are considered too many.
Too Long SIP URI 1024 Specifies the length at which a SIP URI is considered too long.
Too Small TCP Window Size 0 Specifies the window size that is considered too small.
Too Large TCP SYN Packet 64 Specifies the size at which a TCP SYN packet is considered oversized.

Sending the blacklist to a next-hop router

DDoS Hybrid Defender™ detects bad actors, adding their IP addresses to a blacklist temporarily. You can specify an edge router to which to advertise the blacklist, so it can stop the traffic causing a DoS attack. To advertise to edge routers, you must configure a Blacklist Publisher.
  1. On the Main tab, click DoS Setup > Blacklist Publisher .
  2. Click Add.
  3. From Blacklist Category, select the category for this blacklist publisher.
    You can review the existing blacklist categories and create new ones at DoS Setup > IP Intelligence > Black List Categories
  4. For Publisher Profile, specify one or more publisher profiles to use for this blacklist publisher.
    To create a publisher profile, open the side pane on the right (click <<).
    1. Next to Publisher Profiles, click +.
    2. For Name, type a name for the profile.
    3. From Route Domain, select the route domain for the network segment that applies to this publisher profile.
    4. For Advertisement Method, select the method (BGP or BGP Flowspec) by which you want to advertise blacklisted addresses.
    5. For Advertisement Next-Hop IPv4 or IPv6, type the next hop IPv4 or IPv6 address of the BGP router where you want to advertise blacklisted addresses.
    6. Click Commit to create the publisher profile.
  5. Specify publisher profiles for as many blacklist categories as you need to.
The BGP routers you specified will drop traffic from IP addresses on the blacklist until the blacklist entry is automatically removed.