Firewall objects Chapter 9 - Firewall

Depending on which of these protocol categories is choose another set of specifications will can also be defined.

TCP/UDP/SCTP

This is the most commonly used service protocol category. Once this category has been selected the other
available options to choose are an address, either IP or FQDN, and the protocol and port number.

The protocol will be TCP, UDP or SCTP.

ICMP or ICMP6

When ICMP or ICMP6 is chosen the available options are the ICMP Type and its code.

IP

When IP is the chosen protocol type the addition option is the Protocol Number.

TCP

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core or fundamental protocols of the Internet. It is part of the
Transport Layer of the OSI Model. It is designed to provide reliable delivery of data from a program on one device
on the network or Internet to another program on another device on the network or Internet. TCP achieves its
reliability because it is a connection based protocol. TCP is stream-oriented. It transports streams of data reliably
and in order.

TCP establishes a prior connection link between the hosts before sending data. This is often referred to as the
handshake. Once the link is established the protocol uses checks to verify that the data transmitted. If an error
check fails the data is retransmitted. This makes sure that the data is getting to the destination error free and in
the correct order so that it can be put back together into a form that is identical to the way they were sent.

TCP is configured more for reliability than for speed and because of this TCP will likely be slower than a
connectionless protocol such as UDP. This is why TCP is generally not used for real time applications such as
voice communication or online gaming.

Some of the applications that use TCP are:

l World Wide Web (HTTP and HTTPS)

l Email (SMTP, POP3, IMAP4)
l Remote administration (RDP)
l File transfer (FTP)

UDP

User Datagram Protocol (UDP) like TCP is one of the core protocols of the Internet and part of the Transport
Layer of the OSI Model. UDP is designed more for speed than reliability and is generally used for different
applications than TCP. UDP sends messages, referred to as datagrams across the network or Internet to other
hosts without establishing a prior communication link. In other words, there is no handshake.

UDP is an unreliable service as the datagrams can arrive out of order, duplicated or go missing without any
mechanism to verify them. UDP works on the assumption that any error checking is done by the application or is
not necessary for the function of the application. This way it avoids the overhead that is required to verify the
integrity of the data.

970 FortiOS Handbook for FortiOS 5.2.12

Fortinet Technologies Inc.