• SonicOS 8 Rules and Policies
• Overview
  • Working with SonicOS
  • SonicOS Workflow
  • How to Use the SonicOS Administration Guides
  • Guide Conventions
• Access Rules
  • Setting Firewall Access Rules
    • About Connection Limiting
    • Using Bandwidth Management with Access Rules
      • Enabling Bandwidth Management on an Access Rule
    • Creating Access Rules
    • Configuring Access Rules for IPv6
      • About Stateful Packet Inspection Default Access Rules
    • Enabling and Disabling Access Rules
    • Editing Access Rules
    • Deleting Access Rules
    • Restoring Access Rules to Default Settings
    • Displaying Access Rules
      • By Zones
      • By Column
    • Displaying Access Rule Traffic Statistics
    • Configuring Access Rules for NAT64
    • Configuring Access Rules for a Zone
    • Access Rules for DNS Proxy
    • User Priority for Access Rules
  • Access Rule Configuration Examples
    • Enabling Ping
    • Blocking LAN Access for Specific Services
    • Allowing WAN Primary IP Access from the LAN Zone
• NAT Rules
  • About NAT in SonicOS
  • About NAT Load Balancing
    • Determining the NAT LB Method to Use
    • Caveats
    • How Load Balancing Algorithms are Applied
    • Sticky IP Algorithm Examples
      • Example One - Mapping to a Network
      • Example Two - Mapping to an IP Address Range
  • About NAT64
    • Use of Pref64::/n
  • About FQDN-based NAT
  • About Source MAC Address Override
  • Viewing NAT Policy Entries
    • Changing the Display
    • Filtering the Display
    • Displaying Information about Policies
  • Adding or Editing NAT or NAT64 Rule Policies
  • Deleting NAT Policies
  • Creating NAT Rule Policies: Examples
    • Creating a One-to-One NAT Policy for Inbound Traffic
    • Creating a One-to-One NAT Policy for Outbound Traffic
    • Inbound Port Address Translation via One-to-One NAT Policy
    • Inbound Port Address Translation via WAN IP Address
    • Creating a Many-to-One NAT Policy
    • Creating a Many-to-Many NAT Policy
    • Creating a One-to-Many NAT Load Balancing Policy
    • Creating a NAT Load Balancing Policy for Two Web Servers
    • Creating a WAN-to-WAN Access Rule for a NAT64 Policy
    • DNS Doctoring
• Routing
  • About Routing
    • About Metrics and Administrative Distance
      • About Metrics
      • About Administrative Distance
    • Route Advertisement
    • ECMP Routing
    • Policy-based Routing
    • Policy-based TOS Routing
    • PBR Metric-based Priority
    • Policy-based Routing and IPv6
    • OSPF and RIP Advanced Routing Services
      • About Routing Services
        • Protocol Type
        • Maximum Hops
        • Split-Horizon
        • Poison Reverse
        • Routing Table Updates
        • Subnet Sizes Supported
        • Autonomous System Topologies
      • OSPF Terms
    • Drop Tunnel Interface
    • App-based Routing
  • Rules and Policies > Routing Rules
    • Configuring Routing Rules
      • Adding Static Routes
      • Probe-Enabled Policy-based Routing Configuration
• DNS Rules
  • Creating DNS Filtering Profiles
  • Configuring DNS Filtering
    • Creating DNS Policy Rules
      • Editing DNS Policies
      • Deleting DNS Policies
    • Configuring Global DNS Filtering Settings
    • Configuring DNS Filtering Custom Domains
  • Viewing DNS Rules Information
    • Viewing DNS Rules Using the Dashboard
    • Viewing DNS Filtering Reports
• Content Filter Rules
  • About Content Filtering Rules (CFS)
    • About Content Filter Rules
    • About UUIDs for CFS Policies
    • About Content Filter Action Objects
    • How CFS Works
  • Configuring CFS Policies
    • About the Content Filter Rule Table
      • Searching the Content Filter Rule Table
    • Adding a Content Filter Rule
    • Editing a Content Filter Rule
    • Deleting Content Filter Rules
• App Rules
  • About App Rules
    • What are App Rules?
      • About App Rules Policies
      • About App Rules Capabilities
    • Benefits of App Rules
    • How Does Application Control Work?
    • About App Rules Policy Creation
    • Licensing App Rules and App Control
    • Terminology
  • Rules and Policies > App Rules
    • Configuring an App Rules Policy
  • Verifying App Rules Configuration
    • Useful Tools
      • Wireshark
      • Hex Editor
  • App Rules Use Cases
    • Creating a Regular Expression in a Match Object
    • Policy-based Application Rules
    • Logging Application Signature-based Policies
    • Compliance Enforcement
    • Server Protection
    • Hosted Email Environments
    • Email Control
    • Web Browser Control
    • HTTP Post Control
    • Forbidden File Type Control
    • ActiveX Control
    • FTP Control
      • Blocking Outbound Proprietary Files Over FTP
      • Blocking Outbound UTF-8 / UTF-16 Encoded Files
      • Blocking FTP Commands
    • Bandwidth Management
    • Bypass DPI
    • Custom Signature
    • Reverse Shell Exploit Prevention
      • Generating the Network Activity
      • Capturing and Exporting the Payload to a Text File Using Wireshark
      • Creating a Match Object
      • Defining the Policy
• Endpoint Rules
• SonicWall Support
  • About This Document

Custom Signature

You can create a custom match object that matches any part of a packet if you want to control traffic that does not have a predefined object type in App Rules. This allows you to create a custom signature for any network protocol.

For instance, you can create a custom signature to match HTTP GET request packets. You might use this if you want to prevent Web browsing from your local area network.

To determine a unique identifier for a HTTP GET packet, you can use the Wireshark network protocol analyzer to view the packet header. For more information about using Wireshark, see Wireshark. In Wireshark, capture some packets that include the traffic you are interested in. In this case, you want to capture a HTTP GET request packet. You can use any Web browser to generate the HTTP GET request. HTTP GET Request Packet in Wireshark shows an HTTP GET request packet displayed by Wireshark.

HTTP GET Request Packet in Wireshark

To create a custom signature for a network protocol

1. In the top pane of Wireshark, scroll down to find the HTTP GET packet

2. Click on that line.

   The packet is displayed in the two lower panes. For a SYN packet, the center pane provides a human-readable interpretation of the packet header, and the actual header bytes are displayed in hexadecimal in the lower pane.

3. In the center pane, expand the Hypertext Transfer Protocol section to see the packet payload.

4. Find the identifier that you want to reference in App Rules. In this case, the identifier is the GET command in the first three bytes.

5. Click on the identifier to highlight the corresponding bytes in the lower pane.

6. You can determine the offset and the depth of the highlighted bytes in the lower pane.

   • Offset indicates which byte in the packet to start matching against.
   • Depth indicates the last byte to match.

   Using an offset allows very specific matching and minimizes false positives. Decimal numbers are used rather than hexadecimal to calculate offset and depth.

   When you calculate offset and depth, the first byte in the packet is counted as number one (not zero).

   Offset and depth associated with a custom match object are calculated starting from the packet payload (the beginning of the TCP or UDP payload). In this case, the offset is 1 and the depth is 3.

7. Create a custom match object that uses this information.

   

8. In the Match Object Settings dialog, type a descriptive name for the object in the Object Name field.

9. Select Custom Object from the Match Object Type drop-down menu.

10. Select Enable Settings.

11. In the Offset field, type 1 (the starting byte of the identifier).

12. In the Depth text box, type 3 (the last byte of the identifier).

13. You can leave the Payload Size set to the default. The Payload Size is used to indicate the amount of data in the packet, but in this case we are only concerned with the packet header.

14. For Input Representation, click Hexadecimal.

15. In the Content text box, type the bytes as shown by Wireshark: 474554. Do not use spaces in hexadecimal content.

16. Use this match object in an App Rules policy.

    

    1. In the Add App Rule dialog, type a descriptive Policy Name.

    2. Select HTTP Client for the Policy Type.

    3. In the Match Object Included drop-down menu, select the match object that you just defined.

    4. Select a custom action or a default action such as Reset/Drop from the Action Object drop-down menu.

    5. For the Connection Side, select Client Side.

    6. You can also modify other settings. For more information about creating a policy, see Configuring an App Rules Policy.