Configure ALG access on NSX DFW

NSX distributed firewall rules can apply to services or protocols. As well as protocols, Abiquo supports Application Services with Application Level Gateway (ALG) access.

NSX provides an extensive list of protocols and the administrator can configure them for use in the platform and Abiquo will display them as protocols in the firewall rules.

To configure the ALG feature:

Enable the protocols using Abiquo configuration properties
By default the following protocols are enabled: FTP, SMB, ORACLE_TMS, MS_RPC_TCP, SUN_RPC_TCP
# Allowed firewall protocols to use services applications (aka ALG (Application Level Gateway)) # Collections separated using # delimiter abiquo.nsx.firewall.applicationprotocols = FTP#SMB#ORACLE_TNS#MS_RPC_TCP#SUN_RPC_TCP
To add more protocols, on the Abiquo server edit the abiquo.properties file and add the appropriate protocol names (see Listing application protocols below)
In Abiquo 4.7.x, specify the protocol mappings in the UI. To do this, edit the client-config-custom.json (for more information, see Configure Abiquo UI ).
Always set a "port" value of "0" for application services. Any other value will cause a validation error in the plugin

For example, to add the default Applications in the UI, add the following lines at the top of configure protocols (above "Own TCP rule"):
"config.protocols" : [ {"value":"NSX - FTP", "protocol":"FTP", "port":0 }, {"value":"NSX - SMB", "protocol":"SMB", "port":0 }, {"value":"NSX - ORACLE_TNS", "protocol":"ORACLE_TNS", "port":0 }, {"value":"NSX - MS_RPC_TCP", "protocol":"MS_RPC_TCP", "port":0 }, {"value":"NSX - SUN_RPC_TCP", "protocol":"SUN_RPC_TCP", "port":0 }, {"value":"Own TCP rule", ....
When users create a firewall rule, they can now select the service.
Users can set a "Port range" value of "0" only for application services. Any other value will cause a validation error in the plugin

Screenshot: Edit firewall rules

Edit firewall rules

Listing application protocols

To obtain a full list of application protocols, send the following request to the NSX:

curl -k -v -uadmin:password -XGET "https://myNsx.example.com/api/2.0/services/application/scope/globalroot-0"

This request returns an XML file and you can use the names of the applications to configure the applications in the platform.