How do I disable firewall on CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux server version 5.x/6.x running on my HP micro server?

You need to disable the following services to disable firewall under Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS Linux version 4 / 5 / 6. The following commands also works on Fedora or Scientific Linux older version.

Adblock detected 😱

My website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to my visitors. I get it! Ads are annoying but they help keep this website running. It is hard to keep the site running and producing new content when so many people block ads. Please consider donating money to the nixCraft via PayPal/Bitcoin, or become a supporter using Patreon.

Advertisements

RHEL / Centos Linux Disable Firewall Command Line Option

The following two services are used by RHEL / CentOS 6.x:

1. /etc/init.d/iptables – IPv4 iptables firewall service.
2. /etc/init.d/ip6tables – IPv6 iptables firewall service.

You can use the service command to control firewall settings on RHEL or CentOS based systems.

Task: Disable firewall on RHEL

First login as root user either using the su command or sudo command:
su -
OR
sudo -
Type the following command as the root user to disable firewall for IPv4:
# service iptables save
# service iptables stop
# chkconfig iptables off
Sample outputs:

iptables: Flushing firewall rules:                         [  OK  ]
iptables: Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: filter          [  OK  ]
iptables: Unloading modules:                               [  OK  ]

Sample output with verification (see below):

Type the following command as the root user to disable firewall for IPv6 :
# service ip6tables save
# service ip6tables stop
# chkconfig ip6tables off

ip6tables: Flushing firewall rules:                        [  OK  ]
ip6tables: Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: filter         [  OK  ]
ip6tables: Unloading modules:                              [  OK  ]

Disable firewall on CentOS 6

You can also use the following command:
# /etc/init.d/iptables save
# /etc/init.d/iptables stop
# chkconfig iptables off
## IPv6 firewall
# /etc/init.d/ip6tables save
# /etc/init.d/ip6tables stop
# chkconfig ip6tables off

Task: Enable firewall

Type the following command as the root user to enable firewall for IPv4:
# service iptables start
# chkconfig iptables on
Sample outputs:

iptables: Applying firewall rules:                         [  OK  ]

Type the following command as the root user to disable firewall for IPv6 :
# service ip6tables start
# chkconfig ip6tables on

Task: Verify that firewall is disabled

Type the following command as root user to see IPv4 firewall rules:
# /sbin/iptables -L -v -n
OR
# service iptables status
The following output indicates that firewall is not active:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
 pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination         

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
 pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination         

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
 pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination

Type the following command as root user to see IPv6 firewall rules:
# /sbin/ip6tables -L -v -n
OR
# service ip6tables status

Check out related media

This tutorial is also available in a quick video format:

(Video 01: CentOS / Red Hat IPTABLES: Deleting [DROP] and Flushing All Firewall Rules )

Conlusion

You learned how to turn off and disable RHEL and CentOS Linux firewall using the command line options. For more info see the following tutorials:

• CentOS / Redhat Iptables Firewall Configuration Tutorial
• Linux Configure Firewall Using Shorewall Under RHEL / CentOS
• Linux: 20 Iptables Examples For New SysAdmins
• Man pages: service(8)

ADVERTISEMENTS