Shoreline Firewall (Shorewall)

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2008-09-27

Introduction to Shorewall

Glossary
What is Shorewall?
Current Shorewall Releases
Getting Started with Shorewall
Looking for Information?
License

Important Notice to users of Shorewall Multi-ISP Feature -- UPDATED 7 November 2007

Important Notice to users of BRIDGING=Yes

Leaf
OpenWRT
Donations

Glossary

Netfilter - the packet filter facility built into the 2.4 and later Linux kernels.
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.
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).

What is Shorewall?

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 with the help of the iptables utility, Shorewall configures 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.

Shorewall is not a daemon. Once Shorewall has configured Netfilter, it's job is complete and there is no Shorewall code left running in the system. The /sbin/shorewall program can be used at any time to monitor the Netfilter firewall.

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:

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.

To see some of the many things that you can do with Shorewall, see the Shorewall Features page.

Current Shorewall Releases

The current Stable Release version is 4.0.14

Here are the release notes
Here are the known problems and updates.
Read more about the Release here.

The previous Stable Release version is 3.4.8

Here are the release notes
Here are the known problems and updates.

The current Development Release is 4.2.0-RC4.

Here are the release notes
Here are the known problems and updates.

Get them from the download sites

Getting Started with Shorewall

New to Shorewall? Download the current Stable version (see above) then select the QuickStart Guide that most closely matches your environment and follow the step by step instructions.

Looking for Information?

The Documentation Index is a good place to start as is the Site Search in the frame above.

License

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 detail.

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.

Important Notice to Users of Shorewall's Multi-ISP Feature

A bug in Shorewall versions 3.2.0-3.2.10, 3.4.0-3.4.6 and Shorewall-shell 4.0.0-4.0.2 prevents proper handling of PREROUTING marks when HIGH_ROUTE_MARKS=No and the track option is specified. Patches are available to correct this problem:

Shorewall version 3.2.0-3.2.10, 3.4.0-3.4.3: http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/3.2/shorewall-3.2.10/errata/patches/Shorewall/patch-3.2.10-2.diff

Shorewall version 3.4.4-3.4.6: http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/3.4/shorewall-3.4.66/errata/patches/Shorewall/patch-3.4.6-1.diff

Shorewall-shell version 4.0.0-4.0.2: http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.0/shorewall-4.0.2/errata/patches/Shorewall-shell/patch-shell-4.0.2-2.diff

Note that a patch may succeed with an offset when applied to a release other than the one for which it was specifically prepared. For example, when the patch for 3.2.0-3.2.10, 3.4.0-3.4.3 (which was prepared for release 3.2.10) is applied to release 3.4.3, the following is the result:

root@wookie:~# cd /usr/share/shorewall
root@wookie/usr/share/shorewall#: patch < ~/shorewall/tags/3.2.10/Shorewall.updated/patch-3.2.10-2.diff 
patching file compiler
Hunk #1 succeeded at 958 (offset -1669 lines).
root@wookie:/usr/share/shorewall#

Update -- 7 November 2007

A second bug in Shorewall versions 3.2.0-3.2.11, 3.4.0-3.4.7 and 4.0.0-4.0.5 can cause improper handing of PREROUTING and OUTPUT marks when HIGH_ROUTE_MARKS=Yes. Patches are also available to correct this problem:

Shorewall version 3.2.3-3.2.11: http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/3.2/shorewall-3.2.11/errata/patches/Shorewall/patch-3.2.11-1.diff

Shorewall version 3.4.0-3.4.7: http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/3.4/shorewall-3.4.7/errata/patches/Shorewall/patch-3.4.7-1.diff

Shorewall version 4.0.0-4.0.5: http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.0/shorewall-4.0.5/errata/patches/Shorewall-shell/patch-shell-4.0.5-1.diff and http://www1.shorewall.net/pub/shorewall/4.0/shorewall-4.0.5/errata/patches/Shorewall-perl/patch-perl-4.0.5-4.diff.

Important Notice to Users of BRIDGING=Yes

In Linux Kernel version 2.6.20, the Netfilter team changed Physdev Match so that it is no longer capable of supporting BRIDGING=Yes. The solutions available to users are to either:

Switch to using the technique described at http://www.shorewall.net/3.0/NewBridge.html; or
Upgrade to Shorewall 4.0, migrate to using Shorewall-perl, and follow the instructions at http://www1.shorewall.net/bridge-Shorewall-perl.html.

The first approach allows you to switch back and forth between kernels older and newer than 2.6.20. The second approach is a better long-term solution.

Leaf

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.

OpenWRT

OpenWRT is a project which provides open source firmware for Linksys WRT54G wireless routers. Two different Shorewall packages are available for OpenWRT.

Donations

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

Thank You