The most important part of the network security model is the system firewall.

The platform uses a dynamic firewall which does not open a fixed set of ports but adapts to the applications installed, only allowing such traffic as the specific set of running services require.

If an application is stopped, it's ports are automatically closed. This creates a default-blacklist firewall which pinholes only those ports required for the operation of the specific setup in use.

The firewall is one of the very first services the platform brings up and among the very last it shuts down in order maximize the network security.

Where possible, the firewall will also rate limit connections to services to prevent abuse (see the section: Prevention of DOS attacks for more details).

The following external network ports are in use and need to be opened on the firewall for communication between cluster nodes:

Additionally, the Application node interacts with external Cisco equipment (e.g. UCM, CUCx) and will require additional firewall ports to be opened.

The platform installs a self-signed certificate for the web-frontend by default. This provides encryption of the web-traffic but does not provide users with valid authentication that the server is correct or protect against man-in-the-middle attacks.

For this reason we strongly advise customers to obtain a trusted CA-signed certificate and install it on the server.  Once a signed, trusted certificate is obtained (this should be a single-file concatenated certificate suitable for the NginX server) copy it to the platform using scp and then install the file into the server using:

web cert add <filename>

Only one certificate file can be installed on the platform. For more details on NginX compatible certificates see the relevant nginx documentation here: http:/​/​wiki.nginx.org/​HttpSslModule

Please note the importance of ensuring that SSL certificates generated match the assigned network name of the platform.

If a Web Certificate is due to expire, a notice will display on the status display 30 days before the expiration:

platform@development:~$ help

host: AS01, role: webproxy,application,database, LOAD: 3.85
date: 2014-08-28 11:24:22 +00:00, up: 6 days, 3:03
network: 172.29.42.100, ntp: 196.26.5.10
HEALTH: NOT MONITORED
database: 20Gb
application: up
WEB CERT EXPIRES AT: 2014-09-26 11:30:02

mail - local mail management       keys - ssh/sftp credentials
network - network management       backup - manage backups
voss - voss management tools       log - manage system logs
database - database management     notify - notifications control
schedule - scheduling commands     diag - system diagnostic tools
system - system administration     snmp - snmp configuration
user - manage users                cluster - cluster management
drives - manage disk drives        web - web server management
app - manage applications          template - template pack creator

If a Web Certificate has expired, the notice on the status displays:

WEB CERT EXPIRED AT: 2014-09-26 11:30:02

Once the certificate is expired, the system can be used as normal, but the certificate will be expired and for non self-signed certificates (like a Godaddy or Thawte certificates), the data will no longer be properly encrypted.