iplite: a lightweight packet filter for NuttX

• Eduardo Menezes Moraes ITA http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1409-4103
• Rodrigo Teixeira de Souza ITA https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4263-8892
• Rafael Oliveira da Rocha ITA https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7491-3257
• Lourenço Alves Pereira Jr ITA https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9682-0075

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbseg_estendido.2022.227059

Abstract

The project proposes a lightweight packet filter in a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), aiming to provide an additional security layer to embedded systems, allowing the users to create their security policies through the filtering process of the ingress network packets. The iplite firewall was implemented on NuttX OS based on the best practices of the Linux Netfilter firewall and consists basically of two parts: an application on user space, homonymously called iplite, which serves to provide the user CLI, besides a module on kernel space, netfilterlite, responsible for providing the APIs. As an open-source project, our solution allows the reproducibility of the experiments and the firewall core adaptation to other operating systems.

Keywords: Computing, Open-source, Security, Firewall, Operating System, RTOS, IoT, NuttX

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