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Preparing your Device

Before you can use your device with Mudmap, the device needs to be able to communicate with our servers. This page covers all the requirements for connecting to the server and what you'll need to do on each of your devices.

Thankfully, this process is quite easy and quick to do. Once the firewall is accessible you'll be able to connect to Mudmap.

How it works

tl;dr

Mudmap uses SSH to communicate with your device. Each firewall will need to have SSH publicly facing. The rest of this page describe how to do set this up.

Mudmap installs a package on each firewall which provides programmatic access to functionality typically only reserved for the graphical user interface. The package allows you to conduct your firewall management tasks via Mudmap's user interface. This is achieved through the installed package which provides an Application Programmable Interface (API) for Mudmap to connect to. Using the API, Mudmap is able to make requests over the internet to trigger activity on the end device.

Understandably, we do not want to expose our security devices to the internet over HTTP protocols. This is why Mudmap uses Secure Shell (SSH) as its communication channel. SSH is a mature and convenient way to pass information over the internet with high security confidence. It is also only one layer of Mudmap's security onion. To read more about the inner workings and security in depth approach please read the security page.

SSH setup in pfSense

Firstly, you will need to enable SSH in pfSense. To do that you'll need to do the following:

  • Navigate to System > Advanced, Admin Access tab
  • Check Enable Secure Shell
  • Set SSHd Key Only to Password or Public Key. Mudmap needs to be able to use both modes.
    Why not Public Key Only?

    Only the initial connection and installation of a Mudmap service account requires Password SSH authentication. After your device and Mudmap are connected, you can change this to Public Key Only. In the future, Mudmap will support Public Key for the initial setup but for now you must enable Password SSH.

  • Enter a port number in SSH Port if you want SSH to use a non-default port. Leave it blank for port 22.
    Change SSH port

    Mudmap accepts non-default ports for SSH and highly recommends that you use a custom port instead of the default of 22.

  • It's now recommended that Mudmap's static IP's be granted login protection to prevent sshguard from blacklisting the server. This can cause installation issues. The list of IP addresses are found below.
  • Click Save

It should look something like this. Note the non-default port for illustration purposes.

Preparing your pfSense firewall - SSH
Preparing your pfSense firewall - Login Protection

Netgate docs - SSH

For detailed instructions from the manufacturer, Netgate, click here. Note, their recommendations and why Mudmap needs to deviate from them slightly.

Rules, ports and recommendations

Now that SSH is turned on, we need to make it accessible over the internet. By default, SSH cannot be accessed over a WAN.

It is a good idea to set up firewall rules to limit the scope of allowable connections. This section will show an example of how to create a firewall rule which will grant Mudmap access over SSH to your device.

Creating a rule

To create a rule:

  • On the top navigation bar click Firewall, Rules
  • Select the WAN interface
  • Click Add (the first option with an upwards arrow)

This will drop you into the Firewall > Rules > Edit page.

Most options can be left blank. Change the following:

  • Source select Single host or alias and either add the individual IP for Mudmap's servers, or create a Firewall Alias
  • Destination click This firewall (self)
  • Destination Port Range type the port number you're SSH daemon is listening on inside the Custom fields for both the From and To boxes.
  • Description should be filled out with what this rule is used for, for example, Mudmap Initial SSH Connection via WAN. This way we know, once the device and Mudmap are communicating we can delete or disable this rule.
Static IP

The following IP's need SSH access to your device. These are Mudmaps load balancers. Mudmap does not use any other IP addresses for SSH.

  • 44.233.151.27
  • 35.160.120.126
  • 34.211.200.85
  • 52.33.116.20
  • 52.34.188.175

The IP's can also be found at mudmap.io/ip.txt

Destination

The Destination fields should look similar to the image below.

Preparing your pfSense firewall - SSH Rule destination field

Alias

I recommend creating a simple alias list with Mudmap's static IP's.

Preparing your pfSense firewall - SSH

Ensure that you click Save once complete to register the rule in pfSense.

After saving the rule, pfSense will redirect you back to the firewall rules page and display a green Apply Changes button. Click this to refresh pfSense's rule engine. If you have any Deny All rules make sure your newly created rule is above them. The rule order is sequential from top to bottom on the rule page.

User accounts

To access the firewall you will need the password or SSH key. By default, no users have an associated Authorized SSH Key pinned inside pfSense. Creating a user, or adding an SSH key is outside the scope of this section. However, when Mudmap makes its initial connection and installation of the agent, it will install a service account with its Public SSH key. This ensures the agent can connect to the device without password authentication.

To read up on user accounts for pfSense, please see their documentation on the matter.

SSH concerns and Mudmap alternatives

Typically, you don't want to make your firewall publicly accessible. Unfortunately, in order to integrate with Mudmap, it is a requirement. Mudmap does require (for now) that users offer a password to authenticate on the initial set up. This can be turned off once the device has made its first connection with our servers. However, I point out from Netgate some sage advice regarding those passwords.

If password authentication is active, ensure that all user accounts with shell access have strong passwords that cannot be easily guessed. - Netgate

There are alternatives should you feel too uncomfortable with this. Sadly, none of these will give you the convenience of managing all your firewalls from one location.

For consideration have a look at some of these options if you feel Mudmap is not for you.

Alternatively, get in touch via the contact page if you want to discuss other options such as:

  • Jump or Bastion hosts
  • Alternative methods of communications such UDP punching technologies, and others - ZeroTier, Nebula, and TailScale for instance.