iptables

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Version: 1.4.21 (Debian in 8)

 

 

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man iptables
IPTABLES(8)                              iptables 1.4.21                              IPTABLES(8)



NAME
       iptables/ip6tables — administration tool for IPv4/IPv6 packet filtering and NAT

SYNOPSIS
       iptables [-t table] {-A|-C|-D} chain rule-specification

       ip6tables [-t table] {-A|-C|-D} chain rule-specification

       iptables [-t table] -I chain [rulenum] rule-specification

       iptables [-t table] -R chain rulenum rule-specification

       iptables [-t table] -D chain rulenum

       iptables [-t table] -S [chain [rulenum]]

       iptables [-t table] {-F|-L|-Z} [chain [rulenum]] [options...]

       iptables [-t table] -N chain

       iptables [-t table] -X [chain]

       iptables [-t table] -P chain target

       iptables [-t table] -E old-chain-name new-chain-name

       rule-specification = [matches...] [target]

       match = -m matchname [per-match-options]

       target = -j targetname [per-target-options]

DESCRIPTION
       Iptables  and  ip6tables  are used to set up, maintain, and inspect the tables of IPv4 and
       IPv6 packet filter rules in the Linux kernel.  Several different tables  may  be  defined.
       Each table contains a number of built-in chains and may also contain user-defined chains.

       Each  chain is a list of rules which can match a set of packets.  Each rule specifies what
       to do with a packet that matches.  This is called a `target', which may be  a  jump  to  a
       user-defined chain in the same table.

TARGETS
       A  firewall  rule  specifies  criteria  for a packet and a target.  If the packet does not
       match, the next rule in the chain is examined; if it does match, then  the  next  rule  is
       specified  by  the value of the target, which can be the name of a user-defined chain, one
       of the targets described in iptables-extensions(8), or one of the special  values  ACCEPT,
       DROP or RETURN.

       ACCEPT  means  to  let  the  packet  through.  DROP means to drop the packet on the floor.
       RETURN means stop traversing this chain and resume at the next rule in the previous (call-
       ing)  chain.  If the end of a built-in chain is reached or a rule in a built-in chain with
       target RETURN is matched, the target specified by the chain policy determines the fate  of
       the packet.

TABLES
       There  are currently five independent tables (which tables are present at any time depends
       on the kernel configuration options and which modules are present).

       -t, --table table
              This option specifies the packet matching table which the  command  should  operate
              on.   If the kernel is configured with automatic module loading, an attempt will be
              made to load the appropriate module for that table if it is not already there.

              The tables are as follows:

              filter:
                  This is the default table (if no -t option is passed). It contains the built-in
                  chains  INPUT  (for  packets  destined  to local sockets), FORWARD (for packets
                  being routed through the box), and OUTPUT (for locally-generated packets).

              nat:
                  This table is consulted when a packet that creates a new connection is  encoun-
                  tered.   It  consists  of  three built-ins: PREROUTING (for altering packets as
                  soon as they come in), OUTPUT (for altering  locally-generated  packets  before
                  routing),  and  POSTROUTING (for altering packets as they are about to go out).
                  IPv6 NAT support is available since kernel 3.7.

              mangle:
                  This table is used for specialized packet alteration.  Until kernel  2.4.17  it
                  had two built-in chains: PREROUTING (for altering incoming packets before rout-
                  ing) and OUTPUT (for altering locally-generated packets before routing).  Since
                  kernel 2.4.18, three other built-in chains are also supported: INPUT (for pack-
                  ets coming into the box itself), FORWARD (for  altering  packets  being  routed
                  through the box), and POSTROUTING (for altering packets as they are about to go
                  out).

              raw:
                  This table is used mainly for configuring exemptions from  connection  tracking
                  in  combination  with  the NOTRACK target.  It registers at the netfilter hooks
                  with higher priority and is thus called before ip_conntrack, or  any  other  IP
                  tables.   It  provides  the  following built-in chains: PREROUTING (for packets
                  arriving via any network interface) OUTPUT (for packets generated by local pro-
                  cesses)

              security:
                  This table is used for Mandatory Access Control (MAC) networking rules, such as
                  those enabled by the SECMARK and CONNSECMARK targets.  Mandatory Access Control
                  is  implemented  by Linux Security Modules such as SELinux.  The security table
                  is called after the filter table, allowing  any  Discretionary  Access  Control
                  (DAC)  rules  in  the filter table to take effect before MAC rules.  This table
                  provides the following built-in chains: INPUT (for packets coming into the  box
                  itself),  OUTPUT  (for  altering locally-generated packets before routing), and
                  FORWARD (for altering packets being routed through the box).

OPTIONS
       The options that are recognized by iptables and ip6tables can be divided into several dif-
       ferent groups.

   COMMANDS
       These  options specify the desired action to perform. Only one of them can be specified on
       the command line unless otherwise stated below. For  long  versions  of  the  command  and
       option  names, you need to use only enough letters to ensure that iptables can differenti-
       ate it from all other options.

       -A, --append chain rule-specification
              Append one or more rules to the end of the selected chain.  When the source  and/or
              destination  names  resolve to more than one address, a rule will be added for each
              possible address combination.

       -C, --check chain rule-specification
              Check whether a rule matching the specification does exist in the  selected  chain.
              This command uses the same logic as -D to find a matching entry, but does not alter
              the existing iptables configuration and uses its exit code to indicate  success  or
              failure.

       -D, --delete chain rule-specification
       -D, --delete chain rulenum
              Delete  one  or more rules from the selected chain.  There are two versions of this
              command: the rule can be specified as a number in the chain (starting at 1 for  the
              first rule) or a rule to match.

       -I, --insert chain [rulenum] rule-specification
              Insert  one  or  more rules in the selected chain as the given rule number.  So, if
              the rule number is 1, the rule or rules are inserted at  the  head  of  the  chain.
              This is also the default if no rule number is specified.

       -R, --replace chain rulenum rule-specification
              Replace  a  rule  in  the  selected  chain.  If the source and/or destination names
              resolve to multiple addresses, the command will fail.  Rules are numbered  starting
              at 1.

       -L, --list [chain]
              List  all  rules  in  the  selected chain.  If no chain is selected, all chains are
              listed. Like every other iptables command, it applies to the specified table  (fil-
              ter is the default), so NAT rules get listed by
               iptables -t nat -n -L
              Please  note  that  it  is  often  used  with the -n option, in order to avoid long
              reverse DNS lookups.  It is legal to specify the -Z (zero) option as well, in which
              case  the  chain(s)  will  be  atomically  listed  and zeroed.  The exact output is
              affected by the other arguments given. The exact rules are suppressed until you use
               iptables -L -v

       -S, --list-rules [chain]
              Print all rules in the selected chain.  If no chain is  selected,  all  chains  are
              printed  like  iptables-save.  Like every other iptables command, it applies to the
              specified table (filter is the default).

       -F, --flush [chain]
              Flush the selected chain (all the chains in the table if none is given).   This  is
              equivalent to deleting all the rules one by one.

       -Z, --zero [chain [rulenum]]
              Zero  the  packet and byte counters in all chains, or only the given chain, or only
              the given rule in a chain. It is legal to specify the -L, --list (list)  option  as
              well, to see the counters immediately before they are cleared. (See above.)

       -N, --new-chain chain
              Create a new user-defined chain by the given name.  There must be no target of that
              name already.

       -X, --delete-chain [chain]
              Delete the optional user-defined chain specified.  There must be no  references  to
              the chain.  If there are, you must delete or replace the referring rules before the
              chain can be deleted.  The chain must be empty, i.e. not contain any rules.  If  no
              argument is given, it will attempt to delete every non-builtin chain in the table.

       -P, --policy chain target
              Set  the policy for the chain to the given target.  See the section TARGETS for the
              legal targets.  Only built-in (non-user-defined) chains can have policies, and nei-
              ther built-in nor user-defined chains can be policy targets.

       -E, --rename-chain old-chain new-chain
              Rename  the  user specified chain to the user supplied name.  This is cosmetic, and
              has no effect on the structure of the table.

       -h     Help.  Give a (currently very brief) description of the command syntax.

   PARAMETERS
       The following parameters make up a rule specification (as used in the add, delete, insert,
       replace and append commands).

       -4, --ipv4
              This option has no effect in iptables and iptables-restore.  If a rule using the -4
              option is inserted with (and only with)  ip6tables-restore,  it  will  be  silently
              ignored. Any other uses will throw an error. This option allows IPv4 and IPv6 rules
              in a single rule file for use with both iptables-restore and ip6tables-restore.

       -6, --ipv6
              If a rule using the -6 option is inserted with (and only with) iptables-restore, it
              will  be  silently  ignored. Any other uses will throw an error. This option allows
              IPv4 and IPv6 rules in a single rule file for use with  both  iptables-restore  and
              ip6tables-restore.  This option has no effect in ip6tables and ip6tables-restore.

       [!] -p, --protocol protocol
              The  protocol of the rule or of the packet to check.  The specified protocol can be
              one of tcp, udp, udplite, icmp, icmpv6,esp, ah, sctp, mh  or  the  special  keyword
              "all",  or it can be a numeric value, representing one of these protocols or a dif-
              ferent one.  A protocol name from /etc/protocols is also allowed.  A  "!"  argument
              before  the protocol inverts the test.  The number zero is equivalent to all. "all"
              will match with all protocols and is taken as default when this option is  omitted.
              Note  that,  in  ip6tables, IPv6 extension headers except esp are not allowed.  esp
              and ipv6-nonext can be used with Kernel version 2.6.11 or later.  The  number  zero
              is  equivalent  to all, which means that you cannot test the protocol field for the
              value 0 directly. To match on a HBH header, even if it were the  last,  you  cannot
              use -p 0, but always need -m hbh.

       [!] -s, --source address[/mask][,...]
              Source  specification.  Address can be either a network name, a hostname, a network
              IP address (with /mask), or a plain IP address. Hostnames  will  be  resolved  once
              only,  before the rule is submitted to the kernel.  Please note that specifying any
              name to be resolved with a remote query such as DNS is a really bad idea.  The mask
              can be either an ipv4 network mask (for iptables) or a plain number, specifying the
              number of 1's at the left side of the network mask.  Thus, an iptables mask  of  24
              is  equivalent  to  255.255.255.0.  A "!" argument before the address specification
              inverts the sense of the address. The flag --src is an alias for this option.  Mul-
              tiple  addresses  can  be  specified,  but this will expand to multiple rules (when
              adding with -A), or will cause multiple rules to be deleted (with -D).

       [!] -d, --destination address[/mask][,...]
              Destination specification.  See the description of  the  -s  (source)  flag  for  a
              detailed description of the syntax.  The flag --dst is an alias for this option.

       -m, --match match
              Specifies  a  match  to use, that is, an extension module that tests for a specific
              property. The set of matches make up the condition under which a target is invoked.
              Matches  are  evaluated  first to last as specified on the command line and work in
              short-circuit fashion, i.e. if one extension yields false, evaluation will stop.

       -j, --jump target
              This specifies the target of the rule; i.e., what to do if the packet  matches  it.
              The target can be a user-defined chain (other than the one this rule is in), one of
              the special builtin targets which decide the fate of the packet immediately, or  an
              extension  (see  EXTENSIONS below).  If this option is omitted in a rule (and -g is
              not used), then matching the rule will have no effect on the packet's fate, but the
              counters on the rule will be incremented.

       -g, --goto chain
              This  specifies  that  the  processing  should  continue in a user specified chain.
              Unlike the --jump option return will not continue  processing  in  this  chain  but
              instead in the chain that called us via --jump.

       [!] -i, --in-interface name
              Name of an interface via which a packet was received (only for packets entering the
              INPUT, FORWARD and PREROUTING chains).  When the "!" argument is  used  before  the
              interface  name,  the sense is inverted.  If the interface name ends in a "+", then
              any interface which begins with this name will match.  If this option  is  omitted,
              any interface name will match.

       [!] -o, --out-interface name
              Name  of  an interface via which a packet is going to be sent (for packets entering
              the FORWARD, OUTPUT and POSTROUTING chains).  When the "!" argument is used  before
              the  interface  name,  the sense is inverted.  If the interface name ends in a "+",
              then any interface which begins with this name will match.  If this option is omit-
              ted, any interface name will match.

       [!] -f, --fragment
              This  means that the rule only refers to second and further IPv4 fragments of frag-
              mented packets.  Since there is no way to tell the source or destination  ports  of
              such  a packet (or ICMP type), such a packet will not match any rules which specify
              them.  When the "!" argument precedes the "-f" flag, the rule will only match  head
              fragments,  or unfragmented packets. This option is IPv4 specific, it is not avail-
              able in ip6tables.

       -c, --set-counters packets bytes
              This enables the administrator to initialize the packet and byte counters of a rule
              (during INSERT, APPEND, REPLACE operations).

   OTHER OPTIONS
       The following additional options can be specified:

       -v, --verbose
              Verbose  output.   This  option makes the list command show the interface name, the
              rule options (if any), and the TOS masks.  The packet and byte  counters  are  also
              listed,  with the suffix 'K', 'M' or 'G' for 1000, 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 mul-
              tipliers respectively (but see the -x flag to change this).  For appending,  inser-
              tion,  deletion  and  replacement,  this causes detailed information on the rule or
              rules to be printed. -v may be specified  multiple  times  to  possibly  emit  more
              detailed debug statements.

       -w, --wait
              Wait  for the xtables lock.  To prevent multiple instances of the program from run-
              ning concurrently, an attempt will be made to obtain an exclusive lock  at  launch.
              By default, the program will exit if the lock cannot be obtained.  This option will
              make the program wait until the exclusive lock can be obtained.

       -n, --numeric
              Numeric output.  IP addresses and port numbers will be printed in  numeric  format.
              By  default,  the program will try to display them as host names, network names, or
              services (whenever applicable).

       -x, --exact
              Expand numbers.  Display the exact value of the packet and byte  counters,  instead
              of  only  the rounded number in K's (multiples of 1000) M's (multiples of 1000K) or
              G's (multiples of 1000M).  This option is only relevant for the -L command.

       --line-numbers
              When listing rules, add line numbers to the beginning of each  rule,  corresponding
              to that rule's position in the chain.

       --modprobe=command
              When adding or inserting rules into a chain, use command to load any necessary mod-
              ules (targets, match extensions, etc).

MATCH AND TARGET EXTENSIONS
       iptables can use extended packet matching and target modules.  A list of these  is  avail-
       able in the iptables-extensions(8) manpage.

DIAGNOSTICS
       Various  error  messages  are  printed  to standard error.  The exit code is 0 for correct
       functioning.  Errors which appear to be caused by invalid or abused command  line  parame-
       ters cause an exit code of 2, and other errors cause an exit code of 1.

BUGS
       Bugs?   What's  this?  ;-)  Well, you might want to have a look at http://bugzilla.netfil-
       ter.org/

COMPATIBILITY WITH IPCHAINS
       This iptables is very similar to ipchains by Rusty Russell.  The main difference  is  that
       the  chains INPUT and OUTPUT are only traversed for packets coming into the local host and
       originating from the local host respectively.  Hence every packet only passes through  one
       of  the  three  chains  (except  loopback  traffic,  which  involves both INPUT and OUTPUT
       chains); previously a forwarded packet would pass through all three.

       The other main difference is that -i refers to the input interface; -o refers to the  out-
       put interface, and both are available for packets entering the FORWARD chain.

       The  various  forms  of NAT have been separated out; iptables is a pure packet filter when
       using the default `filter' table, with optional extension modules.  This  should  simplify
       much  of the previous confusion over the combination of IP masquerading and packet filter-
       ing seen previously.  So the following options are handled differently:
        -j MASQ
        -M -S
        -M -L
       There are several other changes in iptables.

SEE ALSO
       iptables-apply(8), iptables-save(8), iptables-restore(8), iptables-extensions(8),

       The packet-filtering-HOWTO details iptables usage  for  packet  filtering,  the  NAT-HOWTO
       details  NAT,  the  netfilter-extensions-HOWTO  details the extensions that are not in the
       standard distribution, and the netfilter-hacking-HOWTO details the netfilter internals.
       See http://www.netfilter.org/.

AUTHORS
       Rusty Russell originally wrote iptables, in early consultation with Michael Neuling.

       Marc Boucher made Rusty abandon ipnatctl by lobbying for a generic packet selection frame-
       work  in  iptables,  then wrote the mangle table, the owner match, the mark stuff, and ran
       around doing cool stuff everywhere.

       James Morris wrote the TOS target, and tos match.

       Jozsef Kadlecsik wrote the REJECT target.

       Harald Welte wrote the ULOG and NFQUEUE target, the new libiptc, as well as the TTL, DSCP,
       ECN matches and targets.

       The  Netfilter  Core  Team  is:  Marc  Boucher, Martin Josefsson, Yasuyuki Kozakai, Jozsef
       Kadlecsik, Patrick McHardy, James Morris, Pablo Neira Ayuso, Harald Welte and  Rusty  Rus-
       sell.

       Man page originally written by Herve Eychenne <rv (at) wallfire.org>.

VERSION
       This manual page applies to iptables/ip6tables @PACKAGE_AND_VERSION@.



iptables 1.4.21                                                                       IPTABLES(8)

 

 

Help output

iptables --help
iptables v1.4.21

Usage: iptables -[ACD] chain rule-specification [options]
       iptables -I chain [rulenum] rule-specification [options]
       iptables -R chain rulenum rule-specification [options]
       iptables -D chain rulenum [options]
       iptables -[LS] [chain [rulenum]] [options]
       iptables -[FZ] [chain] [options]
       iptables -[NX] chain
       iptables -E old-chain-name new-chain-name
       iptables -P chain target [options]
       iptables -h (print this help information)

Commands:
Either long or short options are allowed.
  --append  -A chain            Append to chain
  --check   -C chain            Check for the existence of a rule
  --delete  -D chain            Delete matching rule from chain
  --delete  -D chain rulenum
                                Delete rule rulenum (1 = first) from chain
  --insert  -I chain [rulenum]
                                Insert in chain as rulenum (default 1=first)
  --replace -R chain rulenum
                                Replace rule rulenum (1 = first) in chain
  --list    -L [chain [rulenum]]
                                List the rules in a chain or all chains
  --list-rules -S [chain [rulenum]]
                                Print the rules in a chain or all chains
  --flush   -F [chain]          Delete all rules in  chain or all chains
  --zero    -Z [chain [rulenum]]
                                Zero counters in chain or all chains
  --new     -N chain            Create a new user-defined chain
  --delete-chain
            -X [chain]          Delete a user-defined chain
  --policy  -P chain target
                                Change policy on chain to target
  --rename-chain
            -E old-chain new-chain
                                Change chain name, (moving any references)
Options:
    --ipv4      -4              Nothing (line is ignored by ip6tables-restore)
    --ipv6      -6              Error (line is ignored by iptables-restore)
[!] --protocol  -p proto        protocol: by number or name, eg. `tcp'
[!] --source    -s address[/mask][...]
                                source specification
[!] --destination -d address[/mask][...]
                                destination specification
[!] --in-interface -i input name[+]
                                network interface name ([+] for wildcard)
 --jump -j target
                                target for rule (may load target extension)
  --goto      -g chain
                              jump to chain with no return
  --match       -m match
                                extended match (may load extension)
  --numeric     -n              numeric output of addresses and ports
[!] --out-interface -o output name[+]
                                network interface name ([+] for wildcard)
  --table       -t table        table to manipulate (default: `filter')
  --verbose     -v              verbose mode
  --wait        -w              wait for the xtables lock
  --line-numbers                print line numbers when listing
  --exact       -x              expand numbers (display exact values)
[!] --fragment  -f              match second or further fragments only
  --modprobe=<command>          try to insert modules using this command
  --set-counters PKTS BYTES     set the counter during insert/append
[!] --version   -V              print package version.

 

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