And now I've re-read the section about what "observe layer 7" actually
does so I am almost certainly talking rubish....


On 7 March 2012 21:29, Malcolm Turnbull <malc...@loadbalancer.org> wrote:
> Jonathan,
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong but:
>
> The httpchk is sourced from HAProxy as an application level health
> check so how can it be effected by a client request?
> If a client gets a 404 then HAProxy doesn't really care (it just
> passes on the 404).
>
> I am quite often very wrong though.. :-).
>
>
>
>
> On 7 March 2012 14:40, Jonathan Matthews <cont...@jpluscplusm.com> wrote:
>> Hi all -
>>
>> It seems to me that there's a trivial DoS available whenever "observe
>> layer7" is enabled if, as I'm imagining, the set of acceptable
>> response codes for "observe layer7" is derived from those configured
>> for the "httpchk".
>> Please could someone suggest either what I'm assuming wrongly, or how
>> to mitigate against this.
>>
>> I need to run with the defaults: a health check must not respond with
>> a 4xx or 5xx. This is to guard against a back-end server bombing (5xx)
>> or someone making a deployment-time error and either removing the
>> health check code (404) or perhaps removing the host header
>> configuration from the origin server (400). Don't say that last one
>> won't happen - it just did ;-)
>>
>> If I do run in this mode, then (what I perceive as) the lack of
>> configurability around the acceptable response codes for "observe
>> layer7" means that anyone can DoS me: just repeatedly hit a
>> non-existent page and force a 404 to be served, thereby taking my
>> back-end servers out, one by one.
>>
>> What am I missing? Is there a way to say "httpchk must not be 4xx or
>> 5xx; observe-layer7 only catches 5xx"?
>>
>> I'm aware of "observe layer4", of course. This is unhelpful in this
>> scenario, as we're vhosting to a single IP on the origin servers. It
>> will only guard against the entire HTTPd dying - not a specific vhost
>> having problems.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>> Cheers,
>> Jonathan
>>
>> PS Thanks to all involved for HAProxy - an awesome bit of kit :-)
>> --
>> Jonathan Matthews
>> London, UK
>> http://www.jpluscplusm.com/contact.html
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Malcolm Turnbull.
>
> Loadbalancer.org Ltd.
> Phone: +44 (0)870 443 8779
> http://www.loadbalancer.org/



-- 
Regards,

Malcolm Turnbull.

Loadbalancer.org Ltd.
Phone: +44 (0)870 443 8779
http://www.loadbalancer.org/

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