FIRE-4512 - Empty iptables ruleset

This information is provided as part of the Lynis community project. It is related to Lynis control FIRE-4512 and should be considered as-is and without guarantees. Any advice and commands should be tested before implementing them in production environments.

Control details
CategoryFirewall
Application

Description

Lynis checks for the availability of IPtables, but also if the ruleset is not empty. This might indicate bad configuration or a missing ruleset on the system.

How to solve

Usually this control shows up when the iptables module is loaded, while there no firewall rules loaded. Consider turning off the firewall software completely, or preferably populate it with an appropriate firewall policy.

Additional resources

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About

Lynis is a technical security auditing tool for Unix flavors like Linux, macOS, AIX, Solaris, and *BSD. It is open source software and free to use. Typical usage include system hardening, compliance testing, and vulnerability scanning. The project has an active community, including development via GitHub.

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