Shorewall 1.3 - "iptables made easy"

What is it?

The Shoreline Firewall, more commonly known as "Shorewall",  is a Netfilter (iptables) based firewall that can be used on a dedicated firewall system, a multi-function gateway/router/server or on a standalone GNU/Linux system.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.

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 details.

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., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Copyright 2001, 2002 Thomas M. Eastep

  Jacques Nilo and Eric Wolzak have a LEAF distribution called Bering that features Shorewall-1.3.3 and Kernel-2.4.18. You can find their work at: http://leaf.sourceforge.net/devel/jnilo

News

9/16/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.8 

In this version:

  • A NEWNOTSYN option has been added to shorewall.conf. This option determines whether Shorewall accepts TCP packets which are not part of an established connection and that are not 'SYN' packets (SYN flag on and ACK flag off).
  • The need for the 'multi' option to communicate between zones za and zb on the same interface is removed in the case where the chain 'za2zb' and/or 'zb2za' exists. 'za2zb' will exist if:
    • There is a policy for za to zb; or
    • There is at least one rule for za to zb.
  • The /etc/shorewall/blacklist file now contains three columns. In addition to the SUBNET/ADDRESS column, there are optional PROTOCOL and PORT columns to block only certain applications from the blacklisted addresses.

9/11/2002 - Debian 1.3.7c Packages Available

Apt-get sources listed at http://security.dsi.unimi.it/~lorenzo/debian.html.

9/2/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.7c

This is a role up of a fix for "DNAT" rules where the source zone is $FW (fw).

8/26/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.7b

This is a role up of the "shorewall refresh" bug fix and the change which reverses the order of "dhcp" and "norfc1918" checking.

8/26/2002 - French FTP Mirror is Operational

ftp://france.shorewall.net/pub/mirrors/shorewall is now available.

8/25/2002 - Shorewall Mirror in France

Thanks to a Shorewall user in Paris, the Shorewall web site is now mirrored at http://france.shorewall.net.

8/25/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.7a Debian Packages Available

Lorenzo Martignoni reports that the packages for version 1.3.7a are available at http://security.dsi.unimi.it/~lorenzo/debian.html.

8/22/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.7 Wins a Brown Paper Bag Award for its Author -- Shorewall 1.3.7a released

1.3.7a corrects problems occurring in rules file processing when starting Shorewall 1.3.7.

8/22/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.7 Released

Features in this release include:

  • The 'icmp.def' file is now empty! The rules in that file were required in ipchains firewalls but are not required in Shorewall. Users who have ALLOWRELATED=No in shorewall.conf should see the Upgrade Issues.
  • A 'FORWARDPING' option has been added to shorewall.conf. The effect of setting this variable to Yes is the same as the effect of adding an ACCEPT rule for ICMP echo-request in /etc/shorewall/icmpdef. Users who have such a rule in icmpdef are encouraged to switch to FORWARDPING=Yes.
  • The loopback CLASS A Network (127.0.0.0/8) has been added to the rfc1918 file.
  • Shorewall now works with iptables 1.2.7.
  • The documentation and Web site no longer use FrontPage themes.

I would like to thank John Distler for his valuable input regarding TCP SYN and ICMP treatment in Shorewall. That input has led to marked improvement in Shorewall in the last two releases.

8/13/2002 - Documentation in the CVS Repository

The Shorewall-docs project now contains just the HTML and image files - the Frontpage files have been removed.

8/7/2002 - STABLE branch added to CVS Repository

This branch will only be updated after I release a new version of Shorewall so you can always update from this branch to get the latest stable tree.

8/7/2002 - Upgrade Issues section added to the Errata Page

Now there is one place to go to look for issues involved with upgrading to recent versions of Shorewall.

8/7/2002 - Shorewall 1.3.6

This is primarily a bug-fix rollup with a couple of new features:

More News

Donations

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Shorewall is free but if you try it and find it useful, please consider making a donation to Starlight Children's Foundation. Thanks!

Updated 9/16/2002 - Tom Eastep