CentOS 8.x firewalld basic theory

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Basic Concepts in Firewalld

Zone

The firewalld daemon manages groups of rules using entities called "zones". Zones are basically sets of rules dictating what traffic should be allowed depending on the level of trust you have in the networks your computer is connected to. Network interfaces are assigned a zone to dictate the behavior that the firewall should allow.

drop

The lowest level of trust. All incoming connections are dropped without reply and only outgoing connections are possible.

block

Similar to the above, but instead of simply dropping connections, incoming requests are rejected with an icmp-host-prohibited or icmp6-adm-prohibited message.

public

Represents public, untrusted networks. You don't trust other computers but may allow selected incoming connections on a case-by-case basis.

external

External networks in the event that you are using the firewall as your gateway. It is configured for NAT masquerading so that your internal network remains private but reachable.

internal

The other side of the external zone, used for the internal portion of a gateway. The computers are fairly trustworthy and some additional services are available.

dmz

Used for computers located in a DMZ (isolated computers that will not have access to the rest of your network). Only certain incoming connections are allowed.

work

Used for work machines. Trust most of the computers in the network. A few more services might be allowed.

home

A home environment. It generally implies that you trust most of the other computers and that a few more services will be accepted.

trusted

Trust all of the machines in the network. The most open of the available options and should be used sparingly.

Rule Permanence

In firewalld, rules can be designated as either permanent or immediate. If a rule is added or modified, by default, the behavior of the currently running firewall is modified. At the next boot, the old rules will be reverted.

Most firewall-cmd operations can take the --permanent flag to indicate that the non-ephemeral firewall should be targeted. This will affect the rule set that is reloaded upon boot. This separation means that you can test rules in your active firewall instance and then reload if there are problems. You can also use the --permanent flag to build out an entire set of rules over time that will all be applied at once when the reload command is issued.

Refer:

• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-firewall-using-firewalld-on-centos-7

Article contributed by Pavan Ponamala

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