Linux IP Firewalling Chains, normally called ipchains, is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

to control the

packet filter In computing, a firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted n ...

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

capabilities in the 2.2 series of

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...

s. It superseded ipfirewall (managed by ipfwadm command), but was replaced by

iptables iptables is a user-space utility program that allows a system administrator to configure the IP packet filter rules of the Linux kernel firewall, implemented as different Netfilter modules. The filters are organized in different tables, which ...

in the 2.4 series. Unlike iptables, ipchains is stateless. It is a rewrite of Linux's previous

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version d ...

, ipfirewall. This newer ipchains was required to manage the

s starting with version 2.1.102 (which was a 2.2 development release). Patches are also available to add ipchains to 2.0 and earlier 2.1 series kernels. Improvements include larger maxima for packet

counting Counting is the process of determining the number of elements of a finite set of objects, i.e., determining the size of a set. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a (mental or spoken) counter by a unit for every ele ...

, filtering for fragmented packets and a wider range of protocols, and the ability to match packets based on the inverse of a rule. The ipchains suite also included some shell scripts for easier maintenance and to emulate the behavior of the old ipfwadm command. The ipchains software was superseded by the

system in

2.4 and above.

References

External links

* IPChains HOWTO
on TLDP
an

{{Linux kernel Discontinued software Firewall software Free network-related software Free security software Free software programmed in C Linux kernel features Linux security software