Linux Firewall: Display Status and Rules of Iptables Firewall

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Q. How do I display / list all rules in the selected chain? How do I find out which rules are active? What is blocked and opened with my firewall?

A. To List all rules in the selected chain use the -L option. If no chain is selected, all chains are listed. As every other iptables command, it applies to the specified table. The -n option help to print IP addresses and port numbers in numeric format.

To check the status of your firewall and all rules, enter:
# iptables -L -n
OR
$ sudo iptables -L -n
Output:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         
droplist   all  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0           
droplist   all  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0           
ACCEPT     all  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0           
ACCEPT     all  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0           
ACCEPT     all  --  66.228.118.0/23      0.0.0.0/0           
DROP       all  --  213.240.4.233        0.0.0.0/0           
DROP       all  --  75.126.132.23        0.0.0.0/0           
DROP       all  --  80.58.205.35         0.0.0.0/0    
.....
...
.....
DROP       all  --  91.200.56.0/22       0.0.0.0/0           
LOG        all  --  91.200.72.0/22       0.0.0.0/0           LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `DROP List Block' 
DROP       all  --  91.200.72.0/22       0.0.0.0/0

The –line-numbers option adds line numbers to the beginning of each rule, corresponding to that rule’s position in the chain. The -v 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).
# iptables -L -v -n --line-numbers

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

7 comment

  2. -A FWR -p tcp -m tcp –dport 80 -j ACCEPT

    I can someone tell me what the FWR stands for and/or mean?

    Thanks.

  3. FWR : FireWall Rule, it meens you have to precise the rule you want to setup : INPUT, for ingoing ports, or OUTPUT, for outgoing ports.

  4. iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -i eth0 -j MASQUERADE
    PLs can u tell me what the “-t” stands for?

    1. The -t option specifies the packet matching table which the command should operate on.

  5. This is great.
    I just installed an app where I need to figure out how to change input_ports so that I connect to the app on a NAT-d server.

    All this seems very confusing.

  6. hi how can i add to the firewall and ip adress like that one ACCEPT 66.228.118.0/23

    Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
    target prot opt source destination
    ACCEPT all — 66.228.118.0/23 0.0.0.0/0

    Thanks

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