firewall source tag does not see new droplets?

February 15, 2018 1.1k views
Firewall Ubuntu 16.04
F5eee4d2e80f4f00a9b5dfef4c6a6655c6a25d10
By:
grahamh

For example:

If I have droplets B1, B2 and B3, all tagged "B", and a droplet A1 with the firewall rule "allow HTTP from tag:B", A1 receives HTTP traffic from B1, B2 and B3. All OK so far.

But if I then create B4, tagged "B", A1 does not accept traffic from it, unless I remove "B" from the firewall rule and re-add it.

This would seem to be problematic when adding new droplets that need to consume a secured internal service.

Is this expected behaviour? I can use the API to add a rule for each new droplet, but that seem like a pity.

Cheers,
Graham.

2 comments
  • hashibuto October 8, 2018

    I was going to report this issue but after reading it seems you're all experiencing the same problem as I am. Core issue is that there is a noticeable delay between API creation of a new droplet (with tag), and firewall adding said droplet (by tag) to the firewall. As a result, I'm unable to communicate with new droplets. I'm not sure if this is accurate or not, but it seems as though after I browse the UI in the firewalls section, the droplet becomes listed, though I'm unsure as to whether or not this is purely coincidence.

  • hashibuto October 8, 2018

    An update to this post, I've had success applying the tag to the newly created droplet in a separate call to the "tags" API after the droplet is in the active state. It seems the firewall doesn't pick up the droplet only if the tag is included in the droplet creation body. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the unavailability of the droplet at the time of creation.

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4 Answers
leeo May 14, 2018

i'm having the same exact problem and it is definitely not the expected behavior.

in addition, new when you add a droplet to your firewall by using tags and then assign that tag to a new droplet, the firewall will not apply to the newly tagged droplet as it should.

conversely, destroying a droplet that has been tagged for a firewall will not remove that droplet from the firewall and you will be left with orphan droplets when you view the firewall. i believe what is actually happening here is that the firewalls and rules that you set up are being assigned their various droplets only at the time that the firewall or firewall rule is saved.

see: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-digitalocean-cloud-firewalls]

where it says:

Any Droplet or Load Balancer already tagged will be allowed to establish a connection, and new or existing Droplets will be allowed as soon as they are tagged.

i'll open a case.

An Introduction To DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls
by Melissa Anderson
DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls, available in all regions at no charge, provide a network-based, stateful firewall service for your DigitalOcean Droplets. They block all traffic that isn't expressly permitted by a rule. They're designed to be easy to configure, quick to apply, and automation-friendly. In this guide, we'll explore how to create and manage DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls.
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  • leeo May 14, 2018

    Update: They are aware of the problem and are working on it.

    Below is the fast response which I have received in regard to this matter:

    ---snip---
    DigitalOcean Support
    6:09 PM (14 minutes ago)
    to lee
    Hello there, and thank you for contacting DigitalOcean!

    Sorry about the issue you are experiencing.

    We are aware of the issue and our engineers are working towards resolving it asap. Since you already know the workaround for this which is to remove and re-add the tag, I request you to continue doing that until we fix the issue. We will update you as soon as we hear an update from engineering.

    Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns and we'll be more than happy to assist!

    We’re always here for you!

    Regards,
    Karnik
    Platform Support Advocate
    Don't forget to check out our fantastic community articles!
    https://www.digitalocean.com/community
    ---snip---

Hoverbear March 21, 2018

Also experiencing this.

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ralph471e081b3590cf66eb2ea April 13, 2018

Having the same problem here, did you contacted support?

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grahamh April 13, 2018

I haven't pursued this issue since I posted it here. For now, I've just worked around it (there is no work around that's as nice as "it just working", which is what I hoped tagged rules would do).

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