Rate-limiting in PF

[Dave Horsfall]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2017, Dave Horsfall wrote:

>> is anything added to the table (pfctl -t woodpeckers -T show)
>
> I have lots of them because I've been adding them by hand, but this time 
> I'll hold back and observe, just to be sure.

No, they are not being added; here's an extract from the mail log:

Oct  7 15:21:28 aneurin sm-mta[6908]: v974LI1n006908: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:21:48 aneurin sm-mta[6909]: v974Lcwj006909: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:21:59 aneurin sm-mta[6910]: v974LnTe006910: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:22:13 aneurin sm-mta[6923]: v974M2QU006923: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:22:24 aneurin sm-mta[6924]: v974MGKm006924: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:22:35 aneurin sm-mta[6925]: v974MOQW006925: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:22:45 aneurin sm-mta[6926]: v974MZOZ006926: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:22:56 aneurin sm-mta[6927]: v974MkO2006927: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:23:07 aneurin sm-mta[6928]: v974MvjQ006928: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:23:18 aneurin sm-mta[6930]: v974N7c3006930: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:23:38 aneurin sm-mta[6931]: v974NRZM006931: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4
Oct  7 15:23:49 aneurin sm-mta[6932]: v974NcYF006932: [37.49.224.104] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to IPv4

"pfctl -t woodpeckers -T show | grep 37.49.224.104" is empty.

But wait...

It looks for all the world like they are deliberately stopping after 5/m 
without getting blocked, waiting a bit, then starting up again...  Either 
that, or the block is not "sticking" for some reason.

Hence my question: can anyone state unequivocally that the rate limiting 
does indeed work (pref. with proof) and that I am doing something subtly 
wrong, and if so what is it?

In the meantime, I've enabled logging on the rate-limited packets, to see 
if that sheds a little more light.

If/when confirmed as a PF bug I'll report it accordingly, as I prefer to 
eliminate my own stupidity first :-)

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."