The options that are recognized by iptables and ip6tables can be
divided into several different groups.
COMMANDS
These options specify the desired action to perform. Only one of
them can be specified on the command line unless otherwise stated
below. For long versions of the command and option names, you
need to use only enough letters to ensure that iptables can
differentiate it from all other options.
-A, --append chain rule-specification
Append one or more rules to the end of the selected chain.
When the source and/or destination names resolve to more
than one address, a rule will be added for each possible
address combination.
-C, --check chain rule-specification
Check whether a rule matching the specification does exist
in the selected chain. This command uses the same logic as
-D to find a matching entry, but does not alter the
existing iptables configuration and uses its exit code to
indicate success or failure.
-D, --delete chain rule-specification
-D, --delete chain rulenum
Delete one or more rules from the selected chain. There
are two versions of this command: the rule can be
specified as a number in the chain (starting at 1 for the
first rule) or a rule to match.
-I, --insert chain [rulenum] rule-specification
Insert one or more rules in the selected chain as the
given rule number. So, if the rule number is 1, the rule
or rules are inserted at the head of the chain. This is
also the default if no rule number is specified.
-R, --replace chain rulenum rule-specification
Replace a rule in the selected chain. If the source
and/or destination names resolve to multiple addresses,
the command will fail. Rules are numbered starting at 1.
-L, --list [chain]
List all rules in the selected chain. If no chain is
selected, all chains are listed. Like every other iptables
command, it applies to the specified table (filter is the
default), so NAT rules get listed by
iptables -t nat -n -L
Please note that it is often used with the -n option, in
order to avoid long reverse DNS lookups. It is legal to
specify the -Z (zero) option as well, in which case the
chain(s) will be atomically listed and zeroed. The exact
output is affected by the other arguments given. The exact
rules are suppressed until you use
iptables -L -v
or iptables-save(8).
-S, --list-rules [chain]
Print all rules in the selected chain. If no chain is
selected, all chains are printed like iptables-save. Like
every other iptables command, it applies to the specified
table (filter is the default).
-F, --flush [chain]
Flush the selected chain (all the chains in the table if
none is given). This is equivalent to deleting all the
rules one by one.
-Z, --zero [chain [rulenum]]
Zero the packet and byte counters in all chains, or only
the given chain, or only the given rule in a chain. It is
legal to specify the -L, --list (list) option as well, to
see the counters immediately before they are cleared. (See
above.)
-N, --new-chain chain
Create a new user-defined chain by the given name. There
must be no target of that name already.
-X, --delete-chain [chain]
Delete the optional user-defined chain specified. There
must be no references to the chain. If there are, you
must delete or replace the referring rules before the
chain can be deleted. The chain must be empty, i.e. not
contain any rules. If no argument is given, it will
attempt to delete every non-builtin chain in the table.
-P, --policy chain target
Set the policy for the built-in (non-user-defined) chain
to the given target. The policy target must be either
ACCEPT or DROP.
-E, --rename-chain old-chain new-chain
Rename the user specified chain to the user supplied name.
This is cosmetic, and has no effect on the structure of
the table.
-h Help. Give a (currently very brief) description of the
command syntax.
PARAMETERS
The following parameters make up a rule specification (as used in
the add, delete, insert, replace and append commands).
-4, --ipv4
This option has no effect in iptables and iptables-
restore. If a rule using the -4 option is inserted with
(and only with) ip6tables-restore, it will be silently
ignored. Any other uses will throw an error. This option
allows IPv4 and IPv6 rules in a single rule file for use
with both iptables-restore and ip6tables-restore.
-6, --ipv6
If a rule using the -6 option is inserted with (and only
with) iptables-restore, it will be silently ignored. Any
other uses will throw an error. This option allows IPv4
and IPv6 rules in a single rule file for use with both
iptables-restore and ip6tables-restore. This option has
no effect in ip6tables and ip6tables-restore.
[!] -p, --protocol protocol
The protocol of the rule or of the packet to check. The
specified protocol can be one of tcp, udp, udplite, icmp,
icmpv6,esp, ah, sctp, mh or the special keyword "all", or
it can be a numeric value, representing one of these
protocols or a different one. A protocol name from
/etc/protocols is also allowed. A "!" argument before the
protocol inverts the test. The number zero is equivalent
to all. "all" will match with all protocols and is taken
as default when this option is omitted. Note that, in
ip6tables, IPv6 extension headers except esp are not
allowed. esp and ipv6-nonext can be used with Kernel
version 2.6.11 or later. The number zero is equivalent to
all, which means that you cannot test the protocol field
for the value 0 directly. To match on a HBH header, even
if it were the last, you cannot use -p 0, but always need
-m hbh.
[!] -s, --source address[/mask][,...]
Source specification. Address can be either a network
name, a hostname, a network IP address (with /mask), or a
plain IP address. Hostnames will be resolved once only,
before the rule is submitted to the kernel. Please note
that specifying any name to be resolved with a remote
query such as DNS is a really bad idea. The mask can be
either an ipv4 network mask (for iptables) or a plain
number, specifying the number of 1's at the left side of
the network mask. Thus, an iptables mask of 24 is
equivalent to 255.255.255.0. A "!" argument before the
address specification inverts the sense of the address.
The flag --src is an alias for this option. Multiple
addresses can be specified, but this will expand to
multiple rules (when adding with -A), or will cause
multiple rules to be deleted (with -D).
[!] -d, --destination address[/mask][,...]
Destination specification. See the description of the -s
(source) flag for a detailed description of the syntax.
The flag --dst is an alias for this option.
-m, --match match
Specifies a match to use, that is, an extension module
that tests for a specific property. The set of matches
make up the condition under which a target is invoked.
Matches are evaluated first to last as specified on the
command line and work in short-circuit fashion, i.e. if
one extension yields false, evaluation will stop.
-j, --jump target
This specifies the target of the rule; i.e., what to do if
the packet matches it. The target can be a user-defined
chain (other than the one this rule is in), one of the
special builtin targets which decide the fate of the
packet immediately, or an extension (see EXTENSIONS
below). If this option is omitted in a rule (and -g is
not used), then matching the rule will have no effect on
the packet's fate, but the counters on the rule will be
incremented.
-g, --goto chain
This specifies that the processing should continue in a
user specified chain. Unlike the --jump option return will
not continue processing in this chain but instead in the
chain that called us via --jump.
[!] -i, --in-interface name
Name of an interface via which a packet was received (only
for packets entering the INPUT, FORWARD and PREROUTING
chains). When the "!" argument is used before the
interface name, the sense is inverted. If the interface
name ends in a "+", then any interface which begins with
this name will match. If this option is omitted, any
interface name will match.
[!] -o, --out-interface name
Name of an interface via which a packet is going to be
sent (for packets entering the FORWARD, OUTPUT and
POSTROUTING chains). When the "!" argument is used before
the interface name, the sense is inverted. If the
interface name ends in a "+", then any interface which
begins with this name will match. If this option is
omitted, any interface name will match.
[!] -f, --fragment
This means that the rule only refers to second and further
IPv4 fragments of fragmented packets. Since there is no
way to tell the source or destination ports of such a
packet (or ICMP type), such a packet will not match any
rules which specify them. When the "!" argument precedes
the "-f" flag, the rule will only match head fragments, or
unfragmented packets. This option is IPv4 specific, it is
not available in ip6tables.
-c, --set-counters packets bytes
This enables the administrator to initialize the packet
and byte counters of a rule (during INSERT, APPEND,
REPLACE operations).
OTHER OPTIONS
The following additional options can be specified:
-v, --verbose
Verbose output. This 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). For appending, insertion, deletion
and replacement, this causes detailed information on the
rule or rules to be printed. -v may be specified multiple
times to possibly emit more detailed debug statements.
-w, --wait [seconds]
Wait for the xtables lock. To prevent multiple instances
of the program from running concurrently, an attempt will
be made to obtain an exclusive lock at launch. By
default, the program will exit if the lock cannot be
obtained. This option will make the program wait
(indefinitely or for optional seconds) until the exclusive
lock can be obtained.
-W, --wait-interval microseconds
Interval to wait per each iteration. When running latency
sensitive applications, waiting for the xtables lock for
extended durations may not be acceptable. This option will
make each iteration take the amount of time specified. The
default interval is 1 second. This option only works with
-w.
-n, --numeric
Numeric output. IP addresses and port numbers will be
printed in numeric format. By default, the program will
try to display them as host names, network names, or
services (whenever applicable).
-x, --exact
Expand numbers. Display the exact value of the packet and
byte counters, instead of only the rounded number in K's
(multiples of 1000) M's (multiples of 1000K) or G's
(multiples of 1000M). This option is only relevant for
the -L command.
--line-numbers
When listing rules, add line numbers to the beginning of
each rule, corresponding to that rule's position in the
chain.
--modprobe=command
When adding or inserting rules into a chain, use command
to load any necessary modules (targets, match extensions,
etc).
