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Date:   Fri, 9 Oct 2020 10:29:53 +0200
From:   Phil Sutter <phil@nwl.cc>
To:     Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>
Cc:     Arturo Borrero Gonzalez <arturo@netfilter.org>,
        netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [iptables PATCH] iptables-nft: fix basechain policy configuration
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Hi Pablo,

On Thu, Oct 08, 2020 at 07:31:56PM +0200, Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 02, 2020 at 01:44:36PM +0200, Arturo Borrero Gonzalez wrote:
> > From: Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>
> > 
> > Previous to this patch, the basechain policy could not be properly configured if it wasn't
> > explictly set when loading the ruleset, leading to iptables-nft-restore (and ip6tables-nft-restore)
> > trying to send an invalid ruleset to the kernel.
> 
> I have applied this with some amendments to the test file to cover
> the --noflush case. I think this is a real problem there, where you
> can combine to apply incremental updates to the ruleset.

Yes, at least I can imagine people relying upon this behaviour.

> For the --flush case, I still have doubts how to use this feature, not
> sure it is worth the effort to actually fix it.

I even find it unintuitive as it retains state despite flushing. But
that is a significant divergence between legacy and nft:

| # iptables -P FORWARD DROP
| # iptables-restore <<EOF
| *filter
| COMMIT
| EOF
| # iptables-save

With legacy, the output is:

| *filter
| :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
| :FORWARD DROP [0:0]
| :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
| COMMIT

With nft, there's no output at all. What do you think, should we fix
that? If so, which side?

> We can revisit later, you can rewrite this later Phil.

Sure, no problem.

Thanks, Phil