I think the function you're referring to is called "DNS doctoring" by
Cisco, and "DNS NAT" by Checkpoint. A vendor recently insisted we
implement it here in a case in which a domain controller resided at the
far side of a Checkpoint firewall performing NAT. We declined.

It is a poorly documented feature, but from what I could find I
concluded that:

1) It is a global setting that affects all interfaces on all firewalls
managed by your central Checkpoint SmartCenter server. It's set 
with a switch "fw_dns_xlation" in objects_5_0.C. When enabled, all 
DNS packets across all interfaces will be examined for payloads 
with an IP address matching an existing NAT rule.

2) No logging occurs when a DNS packet payload is doctored. This makes
troubleshooting difficult.

3) DNS doctoring incurs some unknown amount of firewall processing and
network latency overhead.

I think you are correct that it doesn't support zone transfers. It also
only works with static NAT, and only for DNS over UDP.

Because it's so poorly documented, I don't fully trust my conclusions.
If anyone has direct experience, please correct me.

Dan Lynch, CISSP
Information Technology Analyst
County of Placer
Auburn, CA



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mailing list for discussion of Firewall-1 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf 
> Of Peter Olsson
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 3:41 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [FW-1] Can Checkpoint firewall handle DNS through NAT?
> 
> Our tests indicate that Checkpoint firewall has no support 
> whatsoever for DNS through NAT. Not for zone transfers and 
> not even for A records.
> Is this true, or am I missing something?
> 
> An internal DNS server, with a static adress translation in 
> the firewall, gives its internal IP number in responses to 
> AXFR and A queries from external hosts.
> 
> I searched documentation and support but find nothing on the subject.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -- 
> Peter Olsson                    [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Scanned by Check Point Total Security Gateway.
> 
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