Documentation

fwdctl has many commands to manage your forwards. Let's dive into them!

Apply

The apply command is used to apply rules from a rules file. Here's a rules file example.

cat << EOF > rules.yml
rules:
  - dport: 2022
    saddr: 192.168.122.43
    sport: 22
    iface: eth1
    proto: tcp
  - dport: 3022
    saddr: 192.168.122.44
    sport: 22
    iface: eth1
    proto: tcp
EOF

Once created, you can easily run:

sudo fwdctl apply --file rules.yml

and apply all the rules listed in the file.

Create

The create command is used to create single rules manually. Let's see an example.

To implement the rule for this scenario, just type the following command:

sudo fwdctl create --destination-port 3000 --source-address 192.168.199.105 --source-port 80

Daemon

The daemon command is used to run fwdctl as service.

When modifications are applied to the rules file, fwdctl is triggered and start to apply changes that have been requested.

To start the daemon, run the following command:

sudo fwdctl daemon start -f rules.yaml

When you want to stop the daemon execution, then type:

sudo fwdctl daemon stop

This will remove all the forwards that have been applied during its execution.

Here's a demo on how to use this command:

Delete

The delete command is used to delete rules using their ID or a file where the rules are listed.

To delete a specific rule (identified with a number), type the following command:

sudo fwdctl delete --id 4

This will remove the rule n. 4, listed from iptables.

To delete a set of rules listed in a rule file, type the following command:

sudo fwdctl delete --file rules.yaml

This will remove the listed rules within the file.

List

The list command is used to list the applied rules.

To list the rules, type the following command:

sudo fwdctl list

The output will look like this:

+--------+-----------+----------+---------------+----------------+---------------+
| NUMBER | INTERFACE | PROTOCOL | EXTERNAL PORT |  INTERNAL IP   | INTERNAL PORT |
+--------+-----------+----------+---------------+----------------+---------------+
|      1 | lo        | tcp      |          2022 | 192.168.122.43 |            22 |
|      2 | lo        | tcp      |          3022 | 192.168.122.44 |           443 |
+--------+-----------+----------+---------------+----------------+---------------+

If you want to use a different view of applied rules, you can choose between different format:

sudo fwdctl list --output json

Generate

The generate command is used to generate the following files:

• systemd service for fwdctl
• rules empty file

To generate a systemd service, type the following command:

fwdctl generate systemd -o fwdctl.service

To generate a fwdctl rules file, instead, type the following command:

fwdctl generate rules -o rules.yml

Version

The version command is used show the version of the program.