IPTABLES

IPTABLES Examples

1. Delete Existing Rules

Before you start building new set of rules, you might want to clean-up all the default rules, and existing rules. Use the iptables flush command as shown below to do this.

iptables -F

(or)

iptables --flush

2. Set Default Chain Policies

The default chain policy is ACCEPT. Change this to DROP for all INPUT, FORWARD, and OUTPUT chains as shown below.

iptables -P INPUT DROP

iptables -P FORWARD DROP

iptables -P OUTPUT DROP

3. Block a Specific ip-address

Before we proceed further will other examples, if you want to block a specific ip-address, you should do that first as shown below. Change the “x.x.x.x” in the following example to the specific ip-address that you like to block.

BLOCK_THIS_IP="x.x.x.x"

iptables -A INPUT -s "$BLOCK_THIS_IP" -j DROP

You can also use one of the following variations, which blocks only TCP traffic on eth0 connection for this ip-address.

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -s "$BLOCK_THIS_IP" -j DROP

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp -s "$BLOCK_THIS_IP" -j DROP

4. Allow ALL Incoming SSH

The following rules allow ALL incoming ssh connections on eth0 interface.

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --sport 22 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

5. Allow Incoming SSH only from a Sepcific Network

The following rules allow incoming ssh connections only from 192.168.100.X network.

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp -s 192.168.100.0/24 --dport 22 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --sport 22 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

6. Allow Outgoing SSH

The following rules allow outgoing ssh connection. i.e When you ssh from inside to an outside server.

iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --sport 22 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

 

7. Allow Incoming HTTP and HTTPS

The following rules allow all incoming web traffic. i.e HTTP traffic to port 80.

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --sport 80 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

The following rules allow all incoming secure web traffic. i.e HTTPS traffic to port 443.

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 443 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --sport 443 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

8. Allow Ping from Outside to Inside

The following rules allow outside users to be able to ping your servers.

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT

9. Allow Ping from Inside to Outside

The following rules allow you to ping from inside to any of the outside servers.

iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT