Port Forwarding – Forward to Application in Network Namespace with VPN

iptablesnetwork-namespacesopenvpnport-forwarding

I was able to set up a network namespace, establish a tunnel with openvpn and start an application that uses this tunnel inside the namespace. So far so good, but this application can be accessed via a web interface and I cant't figure out how to route requests to the web interface inside my LAN.

I followed a guide from @schnouki explaining how to set up a network namespace and run OpenVPN inside of it

ip netns add myvpn
ip netns exec myvpn ip addr add 127.0.0.1/8 dev lo
ip netns exec myvpn ip link set lo up
ip link add vpn0 type veth peer name vpn1
ip link set vpn0 up
ip link set vpn1 netns myvpn up
ip addr add 10.200.200.1/24 dev vpn0
ip netns exec myvpn ip addr add 10.200.200.2/24 dev vpn1
ip netns exec myvpn ip route add default via 10.200.200.1 dev vpn1
iptables -A INPUT \! -i vpn0 -s 10.200.200.0/24 -j DROP
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.200.200.0/24 -o en+ -j MASQUERADE
sysctl -q net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
mkdir -p /etc/netns/myvpn
echo 'nameserver 8.8.8.8' > /etc/netns/myvpn/resolv.conf

After that, I can check my external ip and get different results inside and outside of the namespace, just as intended:

curl -s ipv4.icanhazip.com
<my-isp-ip>
ip netns exec myvpn curl -s ipv4.icanhazip.com
<my-vpn-ip>

The application is started, I'm using deluge for this example. I tried several applications with a web interface to make sure it's not a deluge specific problem.

ip netns exec myvpn sudo -u <my-user> /usr/bin/deluged
ip netns exec myvpn sudo -u <my-user> /usr/bin/deluge-web -f
ps $(ip netns pids myvpn)
 PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
1468 ?        Ss     0:13 openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/myvpn/myvpn.conf
9302 ?        Sl    10:10 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/deluged
9707 ?        S      0:37 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/deluge-web -f

I'm able to access the web interface on port 8112 from within the namespace and from outside if I specify the ip of veth vpn1. 

ip netns exec myvpn curl -Is localhost:8112 | head -1
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
ip netns exec myvpn curl -Is 10.200.200.2:8112 | head -1
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
curl -Is 10.200.200.2:8112 | head -1
HTTP/1.1 200 OK

But I do want to redirect port 8112 from my server to the application in the namespace. The goal is to open a browser on a computer inside my LAN and get the web interface with http://my-server-ip:8112 (my-server-ip being the static ip of the server that instantiated the network interface)

EDIT: I removed my attempts to create iptables rules. What I'm trying to do is explained above and the following commands should output a HTTP 200:

curl -I localhost:8112
curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost port 8112: Connection refused
curl -I <my-server-ip>:8112
curl: (7) Failed to connect to <my-server-ip> port 8112: Connection refused

I tried DNAT and SNAT rules and threw in a MASQUERADE for good measure, but since I don't know what I'm doing, my attempts are futile. Perhaps someone can help me put together this construct.

EDIT: The tcpdump output of tcpdump -nn -q tcp port 8112. Unsurprisingly, the first command returns a HTTP 200 and the second command terminates with a refused connection.

curl -Is 10.200.200.2:8112 | head -1
listening on vpn0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes
IP 10.200.200.1.36208 > 10.200.200.2.8112: tcp 82
IP 10.200.200.2.8112 > 10.200.200.1.36208: tcp 145

curl -Is <my-server-ip>:8112 | head -1
listening on lo, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes
IP <my-server-ip>.58228 > <my-server-ip>.8112: tcp 0
IP <my-server-ip>.8112 > <my-server-ip>.58228: tcp 0

EDIT: @schnouki himself pointed me to a Debian Administration article explaining a generic iptables TCP proxy. Applied to the problem at hand, their script would look like this:

YourIP=<my-server-ip>
YourPort=8112
TargetIP=10.200.200.2
TargetPort=8112

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING --dst $YourIP -p tcp --dport $YourPort -j DNAT \
--to-destination $TargetIP:$TargetPort
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -p tcp --dst $TargetIP --dport $TargetPort -j SNAT \
--to-source $YourIP
iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT --dst $YourIP -p tcp --dport $YourPort -j DNAT \
--to-destination $TargetIP:$TargetPort

Unfortunately, traffic between the veth interfaces seized and nothing else happened. However, @schnouki also suggested the use of socat as a TCP proxy and this is working perfectly.

curl -Is <my-server-ip>:8112 | head -1
IP 10.200.200.1.43384 > 10.200.200.2.8112: tcp 913
IP 10.200.200.2.8112 > 10.200.200.1.43384: tcp 1495

I have yet to understand the strange port shuffling while traffic is traversing through the veth interfaces, but my problem is solved now.

Best Answer

I've always had issues with iptables redirections (probably my fault, I'm pretty sure it's doable). But for a case like yours, it's IMO easier to do it in user-land without iptables.

Basically, you need to have a daemon in your "default" workspace listening on TCP port 8112 and redirecting all traffic to 10.200.200.2 port 8112. So it's a simple TCP proxy.

Here's how to do it with socat: 

socat tcp-listen:8112,reuseaddr,fork tcp-connect:10.200.200.2:8112

(The fork option is needed to avoid socat from stopping after the first proxied connection is closed).

EDIT: added reuseaddr as suggested in the comments.

If you absolutely want to do it with iptables, there's a guide on the Debian Administration site. But I still prefer socat for more advanced stuff -- like proxying IPv4 to IPv6, or stripping SSL to allow old Java programs to connect to secure services...

Beware however that all connections in Deluge will be from your server IP instead of the real client IP. If you want to avoid that, you will need to use a real HTTP reverse proxy that adds the original client IP to the proxied request in a HTTP header.

Related Question