From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Haris Koutsouris Subject: netfilter vs iptables naming confusion Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 13:17:48 +0200 Sender: netfilter-devel-admin@lists.netfilter.org Message-ID: <3FD45DDC.9030901@epmhs.gr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: To: netfilter-devel@lists.netfilter.org Errors-To: netfilter-devel-admin@lists.netfilter.org List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Id: netfilter-devel.vger.kernel.org Dear All, I am not a netfilter hacker but i need your insight, i hope you can help me out. I am a co-author of an upcoming book concerning Honeynets. In this book we need to refer to the netfilter/iptables functionality and we try to provide a 2 page introduction for the readers just to get them going. One of the book reviewers felt we where missusing the term iptables and we should use netfilter instead. Since i value the reviewer's view but i also felt strong on my point i would be obliged if you can shed some light on this problem. Well i really don't intened to confuse any of our readers so i depend on you to make it clear. Next follows my understanding on what netfilter and iptables are, Please comment. Netfilter is a set of hooks in the networking code of the linux kernel that allows another piece of code (kernel module) to register for access to the packets that pass through these points. Several iptables kernel modules (e.g ip_tables, iptable_mangle,ipt_conntrack, ipt_LOG) implement the firewalling functionality and in addition the user space utility iptables is used as a user interface to the iptables functionality. If I am correct, then the Netfilter code though its a great idea it shouldn't be that big percentage of the firewalling code. Thus, i fill that we can name the whole thing IPTables provided we add a footnote stating the existance of Netfilter and provide enough references for the user to explore the whole magic of netfilter/iptables. A final question are the kernel modules named iptables modules or netfilter modules????? A raw grep in the archives of the netfilter users mailing list revealed the following: grep "iptables modules" user-netfilter.mbox | wc -l 84 references grep "netfilter modules" user-netfilter.mbox | wc -l 68 references The same search on the developers list revealed: "iptables modules" 37 references "netfilter modules" 99 references Thank you for your advice. Yours Haris Koutsouris