iptable

administration tool for IPv4 net filtering and NAT.

iptable is used to setup, maintain, inspect the tables of IPv4 packet filter rules in linux kernel.

several different tables may be defined.

each table contains a number of chains(build-in and user-defined).

each chain is a list of rule which can match a set of packets.

each rule specifies what to do with a packet that match. (target) 

target:

a firewall rule specifies a criteria for a packet and a target.

if the packet does not match, the next rule in the chain is examined.

if the packet does match, the next rule is specified by  the value of target, which can be the name of a user-defined chain or one of the value ACCEPT, DROP, RETURN,QUEUE. 

ACCEPT：let the packet through.

DROP: drop the packet on the floor.

QUEUE: pass the packet to the user space.

RETURN: stop traversing this chain and resume the next rule of previous call.

tables:

-t, --tables 

    filter: this is default tables. it contains the build-in chains as follows:

INPUT: for packets destined to local socket.

  FORWARD: for packets being routed through the box.

OUTPUT: for locally-generated packets.

    nat:  the table is consult when a packet that create a new connection is encounter. it consist of three chains:

PREROUTING: for altering packets as soon as they come in.

OUTPUT: for altering locally-generated packets before routing.

POSTROUTING: for altering packets as they are about to go out.

    mangle: this table is used for specialize packet alteration.

PREROUTING: for altering packets before routing.

OUTPUT: for altering locally-generated packet before routing.

INPUT: for packet coming into box itself

FORWARD: for packet being routed through the box.

POSTROUTING: for packets as they are about to go out.

    raw:

commands:    

   

-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.

-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

-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 chain to the given target. See the section  TARGETS for the legal targets. Only built-in (non-user-defined) chains can have policies, and neither built-in nor user-defined chains can be policy targets.

-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

parameter:

[ !]  -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, esp, ah, sctp or 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. Protocol all will match with all protocols and is taken as default when this option is omitted.

[ !]  -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 a network mask or a plain number, specifying the number of 1's at the left side of the network mask. Thus, a 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 willexpand 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.

-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 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.

-c,  --set-counters  packets bytes

This enables the administrator to initialize the packet and byte counters of a rule (during INSERT, APPEND, REPLACE operations).

refer to:

http://linux.die.net/man/8/iptables