Chapter 19. Security Enhancements

Each of the core OpenStack Platform services contains firewall rules in their respective composable service templates. This automatically creates a default set of firewall rules for each overcloud node.

The overcloud Heat templates contain a set of parameters to help with additional firewall management:

If ManageFirewall is set to true, you can create additional firewall rules on deployment. Set the tripleo::firewall::firewall_rules hieradata using a configuration hook (see Section 4.5, “Puppet: Customizing Hieradata for Roles”) in an environment file for your overcloud. This hieradata is a hash containing the firewall rule names and their respective parameters as keys, all of which are optional:

The following example demonstrates the syntax of the firewall rule format:

ExtraConfig:
  tripleo::firewall::firewall_rules:
    '300 allow custom application 1':
      port: 999
      proto: udp
      action: accept
    '301 allow custom application 2':
      port: 8081
      proto: tcp
      action: accept

This applies two additional firewall rules to all nodes through ExtraConfig.

The director provides a default read-only SNMP configuration for your overcloud. It is advisable to change the SNMP strings to mitigate the risk of unauthorized users learning about your network devices.

Set the following hieradata using the ExtraConfig hook in an environment file for your overcloud:

SNMP traditional access control settings

For example:

parameter_defaults:
  ExtraConfig:
    snmp::ro_community: mysecurestring
    snmp::ro_community6: myv6securestring

This changes the read-only SNMP community string on all nodes.

SNMP view-based access control settings (VACM)

For example:

parameter_defaults:
  ExtraConfig:
    snmp::com2sec: mysecurestring
    snmp::com2sec6: myv6securestring

This changes the read-only SNMP community string on all nodes.

For more information, see the snmpd.conf man page.

If you enabled SSL/TLS in the overcloud (see Chapter 14, Enabling SSL/TLS on Overcloud Public Endpoints), you might want to harden the SSL/TLS ciphers and rules used with the HAProxy configuration. This helps avoid SSL/TLS vulnerabilities, such as the POODLE vulnerability.

Set the following hieradata using the ExtraConfig hook in an environment file for your overcloud:

For example, you might aim to use the following cipher and rules:

Create an environment file with the following content:

parameter_defaults:
  ExtraConfig:
    tripleo::haproxy::ssl_cipher_suite: ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
    tripleo::haproxy::ssl_options: no-sslv3 no-tls-tickets

Include this environment file with your overcloud creation.

You can configure security groups to use the Open vSwitch (OVS) firewall driver in Red Hat OpenStack Platform director. The NeutronOVSFirewallDriver parameter allows you to specify which firewall driver to use:

The openvswitch firewall driver includes higher performance and reduces the number of interfaces and bridges used to connect guests to the project network.

Configure the NeutronOVSFirewallDriver parameter in the network-environment.yaml file:

NeutronOVSFirewallDriver: openvswitch

The overcloud image automatically contains hardened security for the root user. For example, each deployed overcloud node automatically disables direct SSH access to the root user. You can still access the root user on overcloud nodes through the following method:

The method uses the first boot configuration hook (see Section 4.1, “First Boot: Customizing First Boot Configuration”). Place the following content in an environment file:

resource_registry:
  OS::TripleO::NodeUserData: /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/firstboot/userdata_root_password.yaml

parameter_defaults:
  NodeRootPassword: "p@55w0rd!"

Note the following:

Include this environment file with the openstack overcloud deploy command when creating your overcloud.