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L7-filter Supported Protocols

Below is the list of supported protocols. Note that most of the protocols are listed as needing more testing. We need your help (yes, you!) to do this. Simply reporting on how patterns are working for you is helpful. The easiest way to do this is to follow the links by patterns you use. On the wiki, post your results in the l7-filter section of each page. You can also post to l7-filter-developers(@)lists(.)sf(.)net (you must subscribe first).

To help add support for more protocols, see the Pattern Writing HOWTO.

Key to symbols

Quality

The "quality" gives a rough idea of how well the pattern works. This is a conglomerate measure of several things, including (1) how well the protocol is understood (2) how much the pattern has been tested (3) in what variety of situations the pattern has been tested and (4) what fraction of identifiable traffic is identified correctly. For details, read the pattern file or the protocol's wiki entry.

• Great: Works.
• Good: Works as far as we know.
• Ok: Probably works.
• Marginal: Might work, might not.
• Poor: Probably doesn't work.

Speed

The protocol package includes a tool for testing pattern performance. It tests them against 122 samples of actual network data (as of the 2009-05-19 release) 100,000 times each. The following times are for a 2 GHz Opteron.

The first speed shown for a pattern in the tables below is the speed when used in the kernel (with the old V8 regular expression library). The second is the speed when used in userspace (with the modern GNU library). Note that the userspace version has a smaller spread of speeds. That is, its slowest patterns are faster and its fastest patterns are slower than the kernel version.

• Very fast: 0.8–3 seconds.
• Fast: 3–10 seconds.
• Not so fast: 10–100 seconds.
• Slow: >100 seconds (worst as of this writing was 1750s for the kernel library and 100s for the userspace library).

Other notes

• Overmatching pattern: It is either hard or impossible to write a pattern for this protocol that reliably matches only the intended protocol. In other words, use of this pattern is likely to yield false positives, so you should probably only use it in conjunction with other matches, such as port or IP number. See the comments in the pattern file and/or wiki for specifics.
• Undermatching pattern: It is either hard or impossible to write a pattern for this protocol that matches all connections. For example, in a P2P protocol, it may only be able to match search requests, but not file transfers in. (However, P2P protocol patterns are not considered to undermatch as long as they match downloads.) See the comments in the pattern file and/or wiki for specifics.
• Superset: This pattern matches traffic which is a superset of the traffic that some other patterns match. If it is ahead of one of these patterns in your iptables rules, the other patterns will never match. See the pattern file for which other patterns are involved.
• Subset: This pattern matches traffic which is a subset of the traffic matched by some other pattern.

Groups

Protocols are marked as being in one or more "groups". Some groups refer to what sort of purpose each protocol has. These allow front-ends to treat a set of protocols in the same way without requiring the user to select (or know about) each individual protocol. For instance, an application could have a checkbox for "VoIP" rather than one for Skype, one for H.323, etc..

Other groups indicate whether a protocol is documented in an IETF RFC, whether it is standardized by any official body, a non-standard but used primarily by open source programs, or proprietary. Among other things, this is supposed to give some idea of how volatile these protocols are likely to be. IETF standards are highly unlikely to change behavior and break l7-filter's patterns suddenly. (Although if programs misimplement them, anything can happen.) Open source non-standardized protocols are somewhat more likely to change abruptly, but changes are likely to be publically documented and, of course, the source code can be read to learn about them as a last resort. Proprietary protocols can change at any time without warning. The nature of the changes may be a closely kept secret.

Not all groups that exist in the pattern files have icons shown on this page. Also, just because a protocol is not listed as being in a group does not mean that it is specifically excluded from that group. For instance, not every protocol without "secure" is insecure. We invite you to make the groups more complete by sending corrections/additions to our mailing list.

• P2P
• VoIP
• Streaming video
• Streaming audio
• Chat
• Game
• Document retrieval
• Networking
• Mail
• File
• Printer
• Remote access
• Time synchronization
• Version control
• Monitoring
• Secure
• Obsolete
• IETF proposed standard
• IETF draft standard
• IETF standard
•  Non-standards track RFC'd
• Other standard
• Open source
• Proprietary

Protocols

The pattern name is what you must use when issuing l7-filter commands. The names below link to the pattern files. Select column headings to sort.

wiki	name	speed	quality	group	notes	description
	applejuice					Apple Juice - P2P filesharing - http://www.applejuicenet.de
	dns					DNS - Domain Name System - RFC 1035
	ftp					FTP - File Transfer Protocol - RFC 959
	gkrellm					Gkrellm - a system monitor - http://gkrellm.net
	hddtemp					hddtemp - Hard drive temperature reporting
	http					HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol - RFC 2616
	imap					IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol (A common e-mail protocol)
	irc					IRC - Internet Relay Chat - RFC 1459
	pop3					POP3 - Post Office Protocol version 3 (popular e-mail protocol) - RFC 1939
	smtp					SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol - RFC 2821 (See also RFC 1869)
	ssh					SSH - Secure SHell
	vnc					VNC - Virtual Network Computing. Also known as RFB - Remote Frame Buffer
	aim					AIM - AOL instant messenger (OSCAR and TOC)
	aimwebcontent					AIM web content - ads/news content downloaded by AOL Instant Messenger
	ares					Ares - P2P filesharing - http://aresgalaxy.sf.net
	armagetron					Armagetron Advanced - open source Tron/snake based multiplayer game
	biff					Biff - new mail notification
	bittorrent					Bittorrent - P2P filesharing / publishing tool - http://www.bittorrent.com
	chikka					Chikka - SMS service which can be used without phones - http://chikka.com
	cimd					Computer Interface to Message Distribution, an SMSC protocol by Nokia
	counterstrike-source					Counterstrike (using the new "Source" engine) - network game
	cvs					CVS - Concurrent Versions System
	dayofdefeat-source					Day of Defeat: Source - game (Half-Life 2 mod) - http://www.valvesoftware.com
	dhcp					DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - RFC 1541
	directconnect					Direct Connect - P2P filesharing - http://www.neo-modus.com
	doom3					Doom 3 - computer game
	edonkey					eDonkey2000 - P2P filesharing - http://edonkey2000.com and others
	fasttrack					FastTrack - P2P filesharing (Kazaa, Morpheus, iMesh, Grokster, etc)
	finger					Finger - User information server - RFC 1288
	gnucleuslan					GnucleusLAN - LAN-only P2P filesharing
	gnutella					Gnutella - P2P filesharing
	gopher					Gopher - A precursor to HTTP - RFC 1436
	halflife2-deathmatch					Half-Life 2 Deathmatch - popular computer game
	ident					Ident - Identification Protocol - RFC 1413
	ipp					IP printing - a new standard for UNIX printing - RFC 2911
	jabber					Jabber (XMPP) - open instant messenger protocol - RFC 3920 - http://jabber.org
	mohaa					Medal of Honor Allied Assault - an Electronic Arts game
	msn-filetransfer					MSN (Micosoft Network) Messenger file transfers (MSNFTP and MSNSLP)
	msnmessenger					MSN Messenger - Microsoft Network chat client
	napster					Napster - P2P filesharing
	nbns					NBNS - NetBIOS name service
	ncp					NCP - Novell Core Protocol
	nntp					NNTP - Network News Transfer Protocol - RFCs 977 and 2980
	ntp					(S)NTP - (Simple) Network Time Protocol - RFCs 1305 and 2030
	openft					OpenFT - P2P filesharing (implemented in giFT library)
	qq					Tencent QQ Protocol - Chinese instant messenger protocol - http://www.qq.com
	quake-halflife					Half Life 1 engine games (HL 1, Quake 2/3/World, Counterstrike 1.6, etc.)
	replaytv-ivs					ReplayTV Internet Video Sharing - Digital Video Recorder - http://replaytv.com
	rtsp					RTSP - Real Time Streaming Protocol - http://www.rtsp.org - RFC 2326
	shoutcast					Shoutcast and Icecast - streaming audio
	sip					SIP - Session Initiation Protocol - Internet telephony - RFC 3261, 3265, etc.
	smb					Samba/SMB - Server Message Block - Microsoft Windows filesharing
	snmp					SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol - RFC 1157
	socks					SOCKS Version 5 - Firewall traversal protocol - RFC 1928
	soribada					Soribada - A Korean P2P filesharing program/protocol - http://www.soribada.com
	soulseek					Soulseek - P2P filesharing - http://slsknet.org
	ssdp					SSDP - Simple Service Discovery Protocol - easy discovery of network devices
	ssl					SSL and TLS - Secure Socket Layer / Transport Layer Security - RFC 2246
	teamfortress2					Team Fortress 2 - network game - http://www.valvesoftware.com
	teamspeak					TeamSpeak - VoIP application - http://goteamspeak.com
	telnet					Telnet - Insecure remote login - RFC 854
	tor					Tor - The Onion Router - used for anonymization - http://tor.eff.org
	tsp					TSP - Berkely UNIX Time Synchronization Protocol
	validcertssl					Valid certificate SSL
	ventrilo					Ventrilo - VoIP - http://ventrilo.com
	whois					Whois - query/response system, usually used for domain name info - RFC 3912
	x11					X Windows Version 11 - Networked GUI system used in most Unices
	xunlei					Xunlei - Chinese P2P filesharing - http://xunlei.com
	yahoo					Yahoo messenger - an instant messenger protocol - http://yahoo.com
	100bao					100bao - a Chinese P2P protocol/program - http://www.100bao.com
	battlefield1942					Battlefield 1942 - An EA game
	battlefield2					Battlefield 2 - An EA game.
	battlefield2142					Battlefield 2142 - An EA game.
	bgp					BGP - Border Gateway Protocol - RFC 1771
	ciscovpn					Cisco VPN - VPN client software to a Cisco VPN server
	dazhihui					Dazhihui - stock analysis and trading; Chinese - http://www.gw.com.cn
	h323					H.323 - Voice over IP.
	http-rtsp					RTSP tunneled within HTTP
	imesh					iMesh - the native protocol of iMesh, a P2P application - http://imesh.com
	kugoo					KuGoo - a Chinese P2P program - http://www.kugoo.com
	lpd					LPD - Line Printer Daemon Protocol (old-style UNIX printing) - RFC 1179
	poco					POCO and PP365 - Chinese P2P filesharing - http://pp365.com http://poco.cn
	pplive					PPLive - Chinese P2P streaming video - http://pplive.com
	radmin					Famatech Remote Administrator - remote desktop for MS Windows
	rdp					RDP - Remote Desktop Protocol (used in Windows Terminal Services)
	rlogin					rlogin - remote login - RFC 1282
	rtp					RTP - Real-time Transport Protocol - RFC 3550
	runesofmagic					Runes of Magic - game - http://www.runesofmagic.com
	skypeout					Skype to phone - UDP voice call (program to POTS phone) - http://skype.com
	skypetoskype					Skype to Skype - UDP voice call (program to program) - http://skype.com
	stun					STUN - Simple Traversal of UDP Through NAT - RFC 3489
	subversion					Subversion - a version control system
	thecircle					The Circle - P2P application - http://thecircle.org.au
	tonghuashun					Tonghuashun - stock analysis and trading; Chinese - http://www.10jqka.com.cn
	uucp					UUCP - Unix to Unix Copy
	worldofwarcraft					World of Warcraft - popular network game - http://blizzard.com/
	zmaap					ZMAAP - Zeroconf Multicast Address Allocation Protocol
	citrix					Citrix ICA - proprietary remote desktop application - http://citrix.com
	goboogy					GoBoogy - a Korean P2P protocol
	guildwars					Guild Wars - online game - http://guildwars.com
	hotline					Hotline - An old P2P filesharing protocol
	live365					live365 - An Internet radio site - http://live365.com
	mute					MUTE - P2P filesharing - http://mute-net.sourceforge.net
	netbios					NetBIOS - Network Basic Input Output System
	pcanywhere					pcAnywhere - Symantec remote access program
	quake1					Quake 1 - A popular computer game.
	subspace					Subspace - 2D asteroids-style space game - http://sscentral.com
	tesla					Tesla Advanced Communication - P2P filesharing (?)
	tftp					TFTP - Trivial File Transfer Protocol - used for bootstrapping - RFC 1350
	xboxlive					XBox Live - Console gaming
	freenet					Freenet - Anonymous information retrieval - http://freenetproject.org
	liveforspeed					Live For Speed - A racing game.

Extra

These patterns were judged to be of lesser general interest than those above.

wiki	name	speed	quality	group	notes	description
	gtalk					GTalk, a Jabber (XMPP) client
	http-dap					HTTP by Download Accelerator Plus - http://www.speedbit.com
	http-freshdownload					HTTP by Fresh Download - http://www.freshdevices.com
	http-itunes					HTTP - iTunes (Apple's music program)
	httpaudio					HTTP - Audio over HyperText Transfer Protocol (RFC 2616)
	httpcachehit					HTTP - Proxy Cache hit for HyperText Transfer Protocol (RFC 2616)
	httpcachemiss					HTTP - Proxy Cache miss for HyperText Transfer Protocol (RFC 2616)
	httpvideo					HTTP - Video over HyperText Transfer Protocol (RFC 2616)
	quicktime					Quicktime HTTP
	snmp-mon					SNMP Monitoring - Simple Network Management Protocol (RFC1157)
	snmp-trap					SNMP Traps - Simple Network Management Protocol (RFC1157)
	audiogalaxy					Audiogalaxy - (defunct) Peer to Peer filesharing
	pressplay					pressplay - A legal music distribution site - http://pressplay.com

File Types

This category of patterns is for file types. This sort of matching is not the focus of l7-filter, but it can be done in some cases. It requires some extra set up, so read the File Types README.

wiki	name	speed	quality	group	notes	description
	exe					Executable - Microsoft PE file format.
	flash					Flash - Macromedia Flash.
	gif					GIF - Popular Image format.
	html					(X)HTML - (Extensible) Hypertext Markup Language - http://w3.org
	mp3					MP3 - Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer III
	pdf					PDF - Portable Document Format - Postscript-like format by Adobe
	perl					Perl - A scripting language by Larry Wall.
	png					PNG - Portable Network Graphics, a popular image format
	postscript					Postscript - Printing Language
	rar					RAR - The WinRAR archive format
	rpm					RPM - Redhat Package Management packages
	rtf					RTF - Rich Text Format - an open document format
	tar					Tar - tape archive. Standard UNIX file archiver, not just for tapes.
	zip					ZIP - (PK|Win)Zip archive format
	jpeg					JPEG - Joint Picture Expert Group image format.
	ogg					Ogg - Ogg Vorbis music format (not any ogg file, just vorbis)

Malware

This category is for worms, viruses, and anything else that uses the network to bother us. It doesn't appear that there is much demand for this functionality, but in case it interests you, this is a proof-of-concept. Malware README.

wiki	name	speed	quality	group	notes	description
	code_red					Code Red - a worm that attacks Microsoft IIS web servers
	nimda					Nimda - a worm that attacks Microsoft IIS web servers, and MORE!

Computer code associated with l7-filter, such as these the protocol definitions, is licensed under the GNU GPLv2.