Howto filter rogue DHCP servers on Ubiquiti Networks UniFi access points

June 25, 2015

This short post shows how to filter rogue DHCP servers, which are connected via the WiFi to the network. The UniFi management software allows you to block traffic between 2 clients connected to the same access point. This feature is often called “client isolation”. But for seamless handover to an other access point, all need to be in the same layer 2 network. So an rogue DHCP server can serve clients on an other access point.  This setup filters that traffic.

For this you need to put following lines into a file called config.properties (most likely you need to create the file).

config.system_cfg.1=ebtables.1.cmd=-A FORWARD -i ath* --protocol ipv4 --ip-protocol udp --ip-destination-port 68 -j DROP
config.system_cfg.2=ebtables.2.cmd=-A FORWARD -i ath* --protocol ipv4 --ip-protocol udp --ip-source-port 67 -j DROP
config.system_cfg.3=ebtables.3.cmd=-A FORWARD -i eth0 --protocol ipv4 --ip-protocol udp --ip-destination-port 67 -j DROP

The location of the file depends on the version of your UniFi management software.

  • Version 2: /opt/UniFi/data/config.properties
  • Version 3+: /opt/UniFi/data/sites/the_site/config.properties – to get the site id take a look at this article.

After that change you need to trigger the re-provision on the access points affected. You can do this by enabling and disabling the guest portal(for the entire site) or on a per access point basis, changing TX power one by one, for example.

To verify that the configuration got deployed, log into the access point via ssh and check the ebtables – it should look like this:

BZ.vx.x.x# ebtables -L
Bridge table: filter

Bridge chain: INPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT

Bridge chain: FORWARD, entries: 3, policy: ACCEPT
-p IPv4 -i ath* --ip-proto udp --ip-dport 68 -j DROP
-p IPv4 -i ath* --ip-proto udp --ip-sport 67 -j DROP
-p IPv4 -i eth0 --ip-proto udp --ip-dport 67 -j DROP

Bridge chain: OUTPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT

3 Comments »

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  1. […] This is connected to filtering client 2 client traffic but I’ve seen that some access points block normal unicast traffic but let broadcast through. With such traffic an attacker can provide the target with an wrong IP address, which is often not filtered by the client isolation feature as it is not within the local subnet and so the access points does not think about it as local traffic. More detail on how I filter that traffic can be found here. […]

    Pingback by Tips on how to provide a secure public WiFi hotspot – Part 1 | Robert Penz Blog — December 1, 2015 #

  2. Hello,

    I found your blog very interesting and I am willing a to launch a couple wireless hotpots in my country (Cameroon), to cover the basic need of the internet in public schools. Unfortunately, this is a personal project so I opted for an open source products to minimize the deployment cost. Can you please give me some guidance ? I will appreciate any inputs such as best practices and tools to start with.

    Comment by Hermann Deutcho — August 27, 2016 #

  3. I would go with Mikrotik boards/routers. They have some for price sensitive markets and I believe getting hardware for the open source product will cost the same and you need more time getting it to run and maintain/update.

    Comment by robert — August 28, 2016 #

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