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<title>Shoreline Firewall (Shorewall)</title>
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Copyright © 2001-2009 Thomas M. Eastep
<p>Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant
Sections, with no Front-Cover, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of
the
license is included in the section entitled <span
style="text-decoration: underline;">"</span><a href="GnuCopyright.htm"
target="_self">GNU Free Documentation License</a>".<br>
</p>
<p>The Shorewall Logo is by Gareth Davies of <a target="_top"
href="http://thusa.co.za">Thusa</a> and is licensed under the Creative
Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of
this
licence, visit <a
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/
</a>or send a
letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San
Francisco,
California 94105, USA.</p>
<p>2009-01-14</p>
<hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;">
<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.4166in;"><a
href="shorewall_index.htm#Releases">Current Shorewall Releases</a><br>
<a href="shorewall_index.htm#GettingStarted">Getting Started with
Shorewall</a><br>
<a href="shorewall_index.htm#Info">Looking for Information?</a><br>
<a href="#Glossary">Glossary</a><br>
<a href="#WhatIs">What is Shorewall?</a><a href="#Info"></a><br>
<a href="#License">License</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;"><a href="Notices.html#Notice"><strong>Important
Notice to
users of Shorewall Multi-ISP Feature</strong></a> -- <strong>UPDATED 7
November 2007</strong></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;"><a href="Notices.html#Notice1"><strong>Important
Notice
to users of BRIDGING=Yes</strong></a><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;"><a href="Notices.html#Kernel2.4"><strong>Important
Notice
to users running Kernel 2.4</strong></a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;"></p>
<h3><a name="Releases"></a>Current Shorewall Releases</h3>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">The <span style="font-weight: bold;">current
Stable Release</span> version is 4.2.4 which contains <a
href="IPv6Support.html">IPv6 support.</a><br>
</p>
<ul style="margin-left: 40px;">
<li>Here are the <a
href="http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.2/shorewall-4.2.4/releasenotes.txt">release
notes</a> <br>
</li>
<li>Here are the <a
href="http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.2/shorewall-4.2.4/known_problems.txt">known
problems</a>.
<p>Read more about the Shorewall <a href="Shorewall-4.html">4.x
releses here</a>.<br>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
The <span style="font-weight: bold;">previous Stable Release</span>
version
is 4.0.14<br>
<ul>
<li>Here are the <a
href="http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.0/shorewall-4.0.14/releasenotes.txt">release
notes</a> <br>
</li>
<li>Here are the <a
href="http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.0/shorewall-4.0.14/known_problems.txt">known
problems</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<p>The <span style="font-weight: bold;">current Development Release</span>
series is 4.3. There is currently no 4.3 code releases.<br>
</p>
<p>Get them from the <a href="download.htm">download sites</a></p>
</div>
<h3><a name="GettingStarted"></a>Getting Started with Shorewall</h3>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">New to Shorewall? Download the current
Stable
version (see above) then select the <a
href="shorewall_quickstart_guide.htm">QuickStart Guide</a> that most
closely
matches your environment and follow the step by step instructions.</p>
<h3><a name="Info"></a>Looking for Information?</h3>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">The <a href="Documentation.html">Documentation
Index</a> is a good place to start as
is the Site Search in the frame above.</p>
<h3><a name="Glossary"></a>Glossary</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://www.netfilter.org/"
target="_top">Netfilter</a> - the packet filter facility built into
the 2.4 and later Linux kernels.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ipchains - the packet filter
facility built into the 2.2 Linux kernels. Also the name of the utility
program used to configure and control that facility. Netfilter can be
used in ipchains compatibility mode.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>iptables - the utility program used to configure and control
Netfilter. The term 'iptables' is often used to refer to the
combination of iptables+Netfilter (with Netfilter not in ipchains
compatibility mode).</p>
</li>
<li>iptables-restore - a utility program that used to configure and
control Netfilter. Unlike iptables, which performs only one operation
per execution, iptables-restore can configure an entire ruleset in one
execution. It takes much less time to configure a firewall using
iptables-restore than it does using iptables.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>Shorewall-shell - the legacy Shorewall rules compiler written in
Bourne Shell. It generates a shell script that uses iptables to
configure the firewall.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>Shorewall-perl - a Shorewall rules compiler written in Perl. It
generates a shell script that uses iptables-restore to configure the
firewall.<br>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="WhatIs"></a>What is Shorewall?</h3>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">The Shoreline Firewall, more commonly
known
as "Shorewall", is a high-level tool for configuring Netfilter. You
describe
your firewall/gateway requirements using entries in a set of
configuration
files. Shorewall reads those configuration files and generates a shell
script. That shell script&nbsp; uses the
iptables or iptables-restore utility to configure Netfilter to match
your
requirements.
Shorewall can be used on a dedicated firewall system, a multi-function
gateway/router/server or on a standalone GNU/Linux system. Shorewall
does not
use Netfilter's ipchains compatibility mode; as a consequence,
Shorewall can
take advantage of Netfilter's connection state tracking capabilities to
create a stateful firewall.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">The current version of
Shorewall can configure both IPv4 and IPv6 firewalls.<br>
&nbsp;<br>
Shorewall is <u>not</u> a daemon. Once Shorewall has configured
Netfilter,
it's job is complete and there is no Shorewall code left running in the
system. The <a href="starting_and_stopping_shorewall.htm">/sbin/shorewall
program can be used at any time to monitor the Netfilter firewall</a>.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">Shorewall is not the easiest to use of
the
available iptables configuration tools but I believe that it is the
most
flexible and powerful. So if you are looking for a simple
point-and-click
set-and-forget Linux firewall solution that requires a minimum of
networking
knowledge, I would encourage you to check out the following
alternatives:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline;"><a
href="http://www.kmyfirewall.org/">kmyfirewall</a></span><br>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.fs-security.com/">Firestarter<br>
</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">On the other hand, if you are looking
for a
Linux firewall solution that can handle complex and fast changing
network
environments then Shorewall is a logical choice.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">To see some of the many things that you
can
do with Shorewall, see the <a href="shorewall_features.htm">Shorewall
Features page</a>.<br>
</p>
<h3><a name="License"></a>License</h3>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html">Version 2 of the GNU
General
Public License</a> as published by the Free Software Foundation.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">This program is distributed in the hope
that
it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU
General Public License for more detail.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">You should have received a copy of the
GNU
General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the
Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301 USA.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.42in;">Permission is granted to copy,
distribute
and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation
License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free
Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover, and with
no
Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
entitled
"GNU Free Documentation License".</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="Leaf"></a>Leaf</h2>
<p><font color="#000080"><a href="http://leaf.sourceforge.net/"
target="_top"><font color="#000080"><img alt="(Leaf Logo)"
src="images/leaflogo.gif" name="Graphic1" align="bottom" border="1"
height="39" width="52"></font></a></font> LEAF is an open source
project which provides a
Firewall/router on a floppy, CD or CF. Several LEAF distributions
including
Bering and Bering-uClibc use Shorewall as their Netfilter configuration
tool.</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="OpenWRT"></a>OpenWRT</h2>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font color="#000000"><a
href="http://openwrt.org/"><font color="#000080"><img
alt="(OpenWRT Logo)" src="images/openwrt.png" name="graphics1"
align="bottom" border="1" height="34" hspace="4" width="91"></font></a></font>OpenWRT
is a
project which provides open source firmware for Linksys WRT54G wireless
routers. Two different Shorewall packages are available for OpenWRT.</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="Donations"></a>Donations</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.alz.org/" target="_top"><font color="#000080"><img
alt="(Alzheimer's Association Logo)" src="images/alz_logo2.gif"
name="Graphic2" align="right" border="1" height="66" width="306"></font></a><a
href="http://www.starlight.org/" target="_top"><font color="#000080"><img
alt="(Starlight Foundation Logo)" src="images/newlog.gif"
name="Graphic3" align="right" border="1" height="108" width="65"></font></a>Shorewall
is free but if you try it and
find it useful, please consider making a donation to the <a
href="http://www.alz.org/" target="_top">Alzheimer's Association</a>
or to
the <a href="http://www.starlight.org/" target="_top">Starlight
Children's
Foundation</a>. <br>
<br>
Thank You</p>
<p align="left"><br>
<br>
</p>
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