|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|
|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | TARGETS | TABLES | OPTIONS | LOCK FILE | MATCH AND TARGET EXTENSIONS | DIAGNOSTICS | BUGS | COMPATIBILITY WITH IPCHAINS | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS | VERSION | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
IPTABLES(8) iptables 1.8.11 IPTABLES(8)
iptables/ip6tables — administration tool for IPv4/IPv6 packet
filtering and NAT
iptables [-t table] {-A|-C|-D|-V} chain rule-specification
ip6tables [-t table] {-A|-C|-D|-V} 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 policy
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]
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.
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 (calling) 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.
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 encountered. It consists of four
built-ins: PREROUTING (for altering packets as soon as
they come in), INPUT (for altering packets destined for
local sockets), 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
routing) and OUTPUT (for altering locally-generated
packets before routing). Since kernel 2.4.18, three
other built-in chains are also supported: INPUT (for
packets 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) and OUTPUT (for
packets generated by local processes).
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).
The options that are recognized by iptables and ip6tables can be
divided into several different 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
differentiate 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 (filter 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
or iptables-save(8).
-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 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 delete all empty chains in the table.
Empty builtin chains can only be deleted with iptables-nft.
-P, --policy chain target
Set the policy for the built-in (non-user-defined) chain to
the given target. The policy target must be either ACCEPT
or DROP.
-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 different 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. Multiple 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 MATCH AND TARGET
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 with 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 omitted, any
interface name will match.
[!] -f, --fragment
This means that the rule only refers to second and further
IPv4 fragments of fragmented 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 available 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 multipliers respectively (but see the -x flag
to change this). For appending, insertion, 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: Specified
twice, iptables-legacy will dump table info and entries in
libiptc, iptables-nft dumps rules in netlink (VM code)
presentation. Specified three times, iptables-nft will
also dump any netlink messages sent to kernel.
-V, --version
Show program version and the kernel API used.
-w, --wait [seconds]
Wait for the xtables lock. To prevent multiple instances
of the program from running 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 (indefinitely or for
optional seconds) 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 modules (targets, match extensions,
etc).
--compat (nft-variants only)
When creating a rule, attach compatibility data to the
rule's userdata section for use as aid in parsing the rule
by an older version of the program. The old version
obviously needs to support this, though. Specifying this
option a second time instructs the program to default to
the rule's compatibility data when parsing, which is mostly
useful for debugging or testing purposes.
The XTABLES_COMPAT environment variable can be used to
override the default setting. The expected value is a
natural number representing the number of times --compat
was specified.
iptables uses the /run/xtables.lock file to take an exclusive lock
at launch.
The XTABLES_LOCKFILE environment variable can be used to override
the default setting.
iptables can use extended packet matching and target modules. A
list of these is available in the iptables-extensions(8) manpage.
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 parameters cause an exit
code of 2. Errors which indicate an incompatibility between kernel
and user space cause an exit code of 3. Errors which indicate a
resource problem, such as a busy lock, failing memory allocation
or error messages from kernel cause an exit code of 4. Finally,
other errors cause an exit code of 1.
Bugs? What's this? ;-) Well, you might want to have a look at
https://bugzilla.netfilter.org/ iptables will exit immediately
with an error code of 111 if it finds that it was called as a
setuid-to-root program. iptables cannot be used safely in this
manner because it trusts the shared libraries (matches, targets)
loaded at run time, the search path can be set using environment
variables.
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 output 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 avoid much of the
confusion over the combination of IP masquerading and packet
filtering seen previously. So the following options are handled
differently:
-j MASQ
-M -S
-M -L
There are several other changes in iptables.
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 https://www.netfilter.org/ .
Rusty Russell originally wrote iptables, in early consultation
with Michael Neuling.
Marc Boucher made Rusty abandon ipnatctl by lobbying for a generic
packet selection framework 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: Jozsef Kadlecsik, Pablo Neira Ayuso,
Eric Leblond, Florian Westphal and Arturo Borrero Gonzalez.
Emeritus Core Team members are: Marc Boucher, Martin Josefsson,
Yasuyuki Kozakai, James Morris, Harald Welte and Rusty Russell.
Man page originally written by Herve Eychenne <rv@wallfire.org>.
This manual page applies to iptables/ip6tables 1.8.11.
This page is part of the iptables (administer and maintain packet
filter rules) project. Information about the project can be found
at ⟨http://www.netfilter.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this
manual page, see ⟨http://bugzilla.netfilter.org/⟩. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.netfilter.org/iptables⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-07-22.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
iptables 1.8.11 IPTABLES(8)
Pages that refer to this page: iptables-xml(1), proc_pid_net(5), systemd.socket(5), cgroups(7), network_namespaces(7), arptables-nft(8), ebtables-nft(8), flowtop(8), ifconfig(8), ip-link(8), iptables-apply(8), iptables-restore(8), iptables-save(8), mountd(8), netstat(8), ovs-ctl(8), statd(8), tc-bpf(8), tc-fw(8), tc-mqprio(8), wg-quick(8), xtables-monitor(8), xtables-nft(8), xtables-translate(8)
|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|