Linux Security Cookbook

2.19. Saving a Firewall Configuration

Problem

You want to save your firewall configuration.

Solution

Save your settings:

For iptables :

# iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables

For ipchains:

# ipchains-save > /etc/sysconfig/ipchains

The destination filename is up to you, but some Linux distributions (notably Red Hat) refer to the files we used, inside their associated /etc/init.d scripts.

Discussion

ipchains-save and iptables-save print your firewall rules in a text format, readable by ipchains-restore and iptables-restore, respectively. [Recipe 2.20]

Tip

Our recipes using iptables-save, iptables-restore, ipchains-save, and ipchains-restore will work for both Red Hat and SuSE. However, SuSE by default takes a different approach. Instead of saving and restoring rules, SuSE builds rules from variables set in /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2.

See Also

iptables-save(8), ipchains-save(8), iptables(8), ipchains(8).