nftables For Linux

nftables (also known as nf_tables) is an open source command-line software that provides a next-gen firewalling infrastructure for Linux-based operating systems, implemented directly in the Linux kernel.

nftables’ ultimate goal is to replace the iptables, ip6tables, arp_tables, and ebtables frameworks, by providing a brand-new packet filtering framework, a compatibility layer for iptables/ip6tables, and a new userspace utility.

Key features include support for dictionaries and sets of arbitrary types, meta data types, various protocols, connection tracking, logging, NAT, a format grammar, a netlink API, and much more. It is based on the Netfilter infrastructure.

Among its command-line options, we can mention support for reading input from a specific file or an interactive CLI (Command-line Interface), support for displaying network addresses numerically, support for displaying Internet services, as well as group and users IDs numerically.

It is possible to display protocols numerically, handle output rules, add a specific directory to the paths that will be searched for include files, and to specify a debugging level (netlink, scanner, segtree, eval, mnl, parser, proto-ctx or all).

The program is written entirely in the C programming language and can be easily compiled in any GNU/Linux operating system that has a GCC compiler installed. To install it, download the latest version of nftables from Softpedia or via the official website (see link below), save the archive on your computer, extract its contents and open a terminal emulator.

Use the ‘cd’ command to navigate to the location where the archive’s contents have been extracted and run the ‘./configure && make’ command to optimize the program for your computer architecture/operating system and compile the source code. Lastly, execute the ‘make install’ command with root privileges to install nftables system wide. Use the ‘nft --help’ command to view the usage message.