The Cisco IOS XE software examines IP header options on every packet. It supports the IP header options Strict Source Route, Loose Source Route, Record Route, and Time Stamp, which are defined in RFC 791. If the software finds a packet with one of these options enabled, it performs the appropriate action. If it finds a packet with an invalid option, it sends an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) parameter problem message to the source of the packet and discards the packet.

IP provides a provision known as source routing that allows the source IP host to specify a route through the IP network. Source routing is specified as an option in the IP header. If source routing is specified, the software forwards the packet according to the specified source route. IP source routing is employed when you want to force a packet to take a certain route through the network. The default is to perform source routing. IP source routing is rarely used for legitimate purposes in networks. Some older IP implementations do not process source-routed packets properly, and it may be possible to crash devices running these implementations by sending them datagrams with source routing options. Disable IP source routing whenever possible. Disabling IP source routing will cause a Cisco router to never forward an IP packet that carries a source routing option.

Note	From Cisco IOS XE Release 17.1.1, IP source routing is disabled by default.

Originally created for the TCP/IP suite in RFC 792, the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) was designed to report a small set of error conditions. ICMP can also report a wide variety of error conditions and provide feedback and testing capabilities. Each message uses a common format and is sent and received by using the same protocol rules.

ICMP enables IP to perform addressing, datagram packaging, and routing by allowing encapsulated messages to be sent and received between IP devices. These messages are encapsulated in IP datagrams just like any other IP message. When the message is generated, the original IP header is encapsulated in the ICMP message and these two pieces are encapsulated within a new IP header to be returned as an error report to the sending device.

ICMP messages are sent in several situations: when a datagram cannot reach its destination, when the gateway does not have the buffering capacity to forward a datagram, and when the gateway can direct the host to send traffic on a shorter route. To avoid the infinite regress of messages about messages, no ICMP messages are sent about ICMP messages.

ICMP does not make IP reliable or ensure the delivery of datagrams or the return of a control message. Some datagrams may be dropped without any report of their loss. The higher-level protocols that use IP must implement their own reliability procedures if reliable communication is required.

Type 3 error messages are sent when a message cannot be delivered completely to the application at a destination host. Six codes contained in the ICMP header describe the unreachable condition as follows:

• 0—Network unreachable

• 1—Host unreachable

• 2—Protocol unreachable

• 3—Port unreachable

• 4—Fragmentation needed and the “don’t fragment�? (DF) bit is set

• 5—Source route failed

Cisco IOS XE software can suppress the generation of ICMP unreachable destination error messages, which is called rate-limiting. The default is no unreachable messages more often than once every half second. Separate intervals can be configured for code 4 and all other unreachable destination error messages. However, there is no method of displaying how many ICMP messages have not been sent.

The ICMP Unreachable Destination Counters feature provides a method to count and display the unsent Type 3 messages. This feature also provides console logging with error messages when there are periods of excessive rate limiting that would indicate a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against the router.

If the Cisco IOS XE software receives a nonbroadcast packet destined for itself that uses an unknown protocol, it sends an ICMP protocol unreachable message back to the source. Similarly, if the software receives a packet that it is unable to deliver to the final destination because it knows of no route to the destination address, it sends an ICMP host unreachable message to the source. This functionality is enabled by default.

Disable ICMP host unreachable messages whenever possible. ICMP supports IP traffic by relaying information about paths, routes, and network conditions. These messages can be used by an attacker to gain network mapping information.

Because the null interface is a packet sink, packets forwarded there will always be discarded and, unless disabled, will generate host unreachable messages. In that case, if the null interface is being used to block a Denial-of-Service attack, these messages flood the local network with these messages. Disabling these messages prevents this situation. In addition, because all blocked packets are forwarded to the null interface, an attacker receiving host unreachable messages could use those messages to determine Access Control List (ACL) configuration. If the “null 0�? interface is configured on your router, disable ICMP host unreachable messages for discarded packets or packets routed to the null interface.

Occasionally, network devices must know the subnet mask for a particular subnetwork in the internetwork. To obtain this information, such devices can send ICMP mask request messages. ICMP mask reply messages are sent in reply from devices that have the requested information. The Cisco IOS XE software can respond to ICMP mask request messages if this function is enabled.

These messages can be used by an attacker to gain network mapping information.

Routes are sometimes less than optimal. For example, it is possible for the router to be forced to resend a packet through the same interface on which it was received. If the router resends a packet through the same interface on which it was received, the Cisco IOS XE software sends an ICMP redirect message to the originator of the packet telling the originator that the router is on a subnet directly connected to the receiving device, and that it must forward the packet to another system on the same subnet. The software sends an ICMP redirect message to the originator of the packet because the originating host presumably could have sent that packet to the next hop without involving this device at all. The redirect message instructs the sender to remove the receiving device from the route and substitute a specified device representing a more direct path. This functionality is enabled by default.

In a properly functioning IP network, a router will send redirects only to hosts on its own local subnets, no end node will ever send a redirect, and no redirect will ever be traversed more than one network hop. However, an attacker may violate these rules; some attacks are based on this. Disabling ICMP redirects will cause no operational impact to the network, and it eliminates this possible method of attack.

Denial of service has become a growing concern, especially when considering the associated costs of such an attack. DoS attacks can decrease the performance of networked devices, disconnect the devices from the network, and cause system crashes. When network services are unavailable, enterprises and service providers suffer the loss of productivity and sales.

The objective of a DoS attack is to deprive a user or organization access to services or resources. If a Website is compromised by a DoS attack, millions of users could be denied access to the site. DoS attacks do not typically result in intrusion or the illegal theft of information. Instead of providing access to unauthorized users, DoS attacks can cause much aggravation and cost to the target customer by preventing authorized access. Distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks amplify DoS attacks in that a multitude of compromised systems coordinate to flood targets with attack packets, thereby causing denial of service for users of the targeted systems.

A DoS attack occurs when a stream of ICMP echo requests (pings) are broadcast to a destination subnet. The source addresses of these requests are falsified to be the source address of the target. For each request sent by the attacker, many hosts on the subnet will respond flooding the target and wasting bandwidth. The most common DoS attack is called a “smurf” attack, named after an executable program and is in the category of network-level attacks against hosts. DoS attacks can be easily detected when error-message logging of the ICMP Unreachable Destination Counters feature is enabled.

The Cisco IOS XE software supports the IP Path MTU Discovery mechanism, as defined in RFC 1191. IP Path MTU Discovery allows a host to dynamically discover and cope with differences in the maximum allowable maximum transmission unit (MTU) size of the various links along the path. Sometimes a router is unable to forward a datagram because it requires fragmentation (the packet is larger than the MTU you set for the interface with the ip mtu interface configuration command), but the “don’t fragment�? (DF) bit is set. The Cisco IOS XE software sends a message to the sending host, alerting it to the problem. The host will need to fragment packets for the destination so that they fit the smallest packet size of all the links along the path. This technique is shown in the figure below.

IP Path MTU Discovery is useful when a link in a network goes down, forcing the use of another, different MTU-sized link (and different routers). As shown in the figure above, suppose a router is sending IP packets over a network where the MTU in the first router is set to 1500 bytes, but the second router is set to 512 bytes. If the “don’t fragment�? bit of the datagram is set, the datagram would be dropped because the 512-byte router is unable to forward it. All packets larger than 512 bytes are dropped in this case. The second router returns an ICMP destination unreachable message to the source of the datagram with its Code field indicating “Fragmentation needed and DF set.�? To support IP Path MTU Discovery, it would also include the MTU of the next hop network link in the low-order bits of an unused header field.

IP Path MTU Discovery is also useful when a connection is being established and the sender has no information at all about the intervening links. It is always advisable to use the largest MTU that the links will bear; the larger the MTU, the fewer packets the host must send.

Note	IP Path MTU Discovery is a process initiated by end hosts. If an end host does not support IP Path MTU Discovery, the receiving device will have no mechanism to avoid fragmenting datagrams generated by the end host.

If a router that is configured with a small MTU on an outbound interface receives packets from a host that is configured with a large MTU (for example, receiving packets from a Token Ring interface and forwarding them to an outbound Ethernet interface), the router fragments received packets that are larger than the MTU of the outbound interface. Fragmenting packets slows the performance of the router. To keep routers in your network from fragmenting received packets, run IP Path MTU Discovery on all hosts and routers in your network, and always configure the largest possible MTU for each router interface type.

The Show and Clear Commands for IOS Sockets feature introduces the show udp , show sockets , and clear sockets commands. These new commands are useful for monitoring and managing the Cisco IOS Socket library.

In Cisco IOS software, sockets are a per process entity. This means that the maximum number of sockets is per process and all sockets are managed on a per process basis. For example, each Cisco IOS process could have a socket with file descriptor number 1. This is unlike UNIX or other operating systems that have per system file descriptor allocations.

The show and clear commands operate on a per process basis to be consistent with the current functionality. Thus, any action taken by the commands will be applicable only to a particular process at a time as selected by the process ID entered on the CLI.

Many applications have a need for show and clear commands, which primarily aid in debugging. The following scenarios provide examples of when these commands might be useful:

• The application H.323 is using sockets for voice calls. According to the current number of calls, there is still space for more sockets. However, no more sockets can be opened. You can now use the the show sockets command to find out if the socket space is indeed exhausted or if there are unused sockets available.

• An application is waiting for a particular socket event to happen. A UDP segment was seen, but the application never became active. You can use the show udp command to display the list of events being monitored to determine if a UDP socket event is being monitored or if the socket library failed to activate the application.

• An application wants to forcibly close all the sockets for a particular process. You can use the clear sockets command to close both the sockets and the underlying TCP or UDP connection or Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) association.