Shadow mode: Housecarl beside the firewall in force, changing nothing

shadow.enabled in housecarl.yaml loads Housecarl's ruleset so that it
blocks, rejects and translates nothing: drops and rejects count and
accept (an accept only ends Housecarl's chain), policies accept and log
what they would drop, NAT only counts, MSS clamping and the flowtable
are left out, and raw rules that do more than accept, drop or reject are
left out with a warning. Comments mark what would happen ([would drop]).
Filter chains run after the other firewall's (+10) or before (-10); NAT
chains always first. Every change is checked by nftables in both forms.
No probation; takeovers and closing connections are refused. The boot
fallback filters nothing. internal/tablewatch puts the table back after
a flush ruleset. Mode in status, healthz, whoami, the web UI, the log
and the tracer; hc ruleset --enforcing. docs/shadow.md.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
abrown38andClaude Opus 5.5 committed 2026-10-20 18:11:01 +01:00
1 parent 1e6c085ef9
commit de075edd5d
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package render
import (
"regexp"
"strings"
"testing"
"housecarl/internal/model"
)
// TestShadow: in shadow mode nothing in the ruleset drops, rejects,
// translates or changes a packet, and what would is counted and marked.
func TestShadow(t *testing.T) {
st := router()
st.Rules = append(st.Rules,
&model.Rule{ID: 950, Chain: model.ChainInput, Position: 99, Raw: `tcp dport 9999 counter reject with tcp reset comment "old"`},
&model.Rule{ID: 951, Chain: model.ChainForward, Position: 99, Raw: "meta mark set 0x1 accept"})
st.Settings.OutputPolicy = model.PolicyDrop
text := Render(st, Options{Shadow: true}).Text
// What acts on packets: verdicts, NAT, changes, the flowtable.
acts := regexp.MustCompile(`(?m)(\b(drop|reject|dnat|snat|masquerade|redirect)\b|maxseg size set|flow add|flowtable|policy drop)[^"\n]*$`)
for _, l := range strings.Split(text, "\n") {
code, _, _ := strings.Cut(l, "comment ")
code = strings.ReplaceAll(code, "ct status dnat", "") // a match
if strings.HasPrefix(strings.TrimSpace(l), "#") {
continue
}
if m := acts.FindString(code); m != "" && !strings.Contains(code, "log prefix") {
t.Errorf("acts on packets in shadow mode: %s", l)
}
}
for _, want := range []string{
"type filter hook input priority filter + 10; policy accept;",
"type filter hook prerouting priority raw + 10; policy accept;",
"type nat hook prerouting priority dstnat - 10; policy accept;",
"type nat hook postrouting priority srcnat - 10; policy accept;",
`ct state invalid counter accept comment "hc:b-invalid [would drop]"`,
`counter comment "hc:p-input [would drop]"`,
`counter comment "hc:p-output [would drop]"`,
`log prefix "hc output policy drop: "`,
`[would reject]`,
`[would dnat] jellyfin`,
`[would masquerade]`,
`[would redirect]`,
`tcp dport 9999 counter accept comment "[would reject] old"`,
"# left out in shadow mode: meta mark set 0x1 accept",
"# Shadow mode:",
} {
if !strings.Contains(text, want) {
t.Errorf("no %q in\n%s", want, text)
}
}
before := Render(st, Options{Shadow: true, ShadowBefore: true}).Text
for _, want := range []string{"priority filter - 10;", "priority raw - 10;", "priority dstnat - 10;"} {
if !strings.Contains(before, want) {
t.Errorf("before: no %q", want)
}
}
// Enforcing is unchanged by it.
if strings.Contains(Render(st, Options{}).Text, "would") {
t.Error("shadow markers when enforcing")
}
if got := ShadowLeftOut(st); len(got) != 1 || got[0].ID != 951 {
t.Errorf("left out: %v", got)
}
}
func TestShadowRaw(t *testing.T) {
cases := []struct{ in, out string }{
{"meta skuid 0 counter accept", "meta skuid 0 counter accept"},
{"tcp dport 22 drop", `tcp dport 22 accept comment "[would drop]"`},
{`tcp dport 22 counter drop comment "no ssh"`, `tcp dport 22 counter accept comment "[would drop] no ssh"`},
{"ip saddr 10.0.0.1 reject with icmpx type admin-prohibited", `ip saddr 10.0.0.1 accept comment "[would reject]"`},
{"tcp dport 22 reject with tcp reset", `tcp dport 22 accept comment "[would reject]"`},
{`log prefix "drop me: " group 5 accept`, `log prefix "drop me: " group 5 accept`},
{"ip saddr { 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2 } counter", "ip saddr { 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2 } counter"},
{"tcp dport vmap { 22 : drop, 80 : accept }", ""},
{"meta mark set 1", ""},
{"ip daddr 1.2.3.4 dnat ip to 10.0.0.1", ""},
{"tcp dport 22 jump other", ""},
{"drop accept", ""},
{"meta nftrace set 1", ""},
{"ct state new notrack", ""},
}
for _, c := range cases {
out, ok := ShadowRaw(c.in)
if ok != (c.out != "") || out != c.out {
t.Errorf("%q: got %q %v, want %q", c.in, out, ok, c.out)
}
}
}