xtables-monitor(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLE OUTPUT | LIMITATIONS | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

XTABLES-MONITOR(8)           iptables 1.8.10          XTABLES-MONITOR(8)

NAME         top

       xtables-monitor — show changes to rule set and trace-events

SYNOPSIS         top

       xtables-monitor [-t] [-e] [-4||-6]

DESCRIPTION         top

       xtables-monitor is used to monitor changes to the ruleset or to
       show rule evaluation events for packets tagged using the TRACE
       target.  xtables-monitor will run until the user aborts
       execution, typically by using CTRL-C.

OPTIONS         top

       -e, --event

       Watch for updates to the rule set.
              Updates include creation of new tables, chains and rules
              and the name of the program that caused the rule update.

       -t, --trace
              Watch for trace events generated by packets that have been
              tagged using the TRACE target.

       -4     Restrict output to IPv4.

       -6     Restrict output to IPv6.

EXAMPLE OUTPUT         top

       xtables-monitor --trace

               1 TRACE: 2 fc475095 raw:PREROUTING:rule:0x3:CONTINUE -4
              -t raw -A PREROUTING -p icmp -j TRACE
               2 PACKET: 0 fc475095 IN=lo LL=0x304
              0000000000000000000000000800 SRC=127.0.0.1 DST=127.0.0.1
              LEN=84 TOS=0x0 TTL=64 ID=38349DF
               3 TRACE: 2 fc475095 raw:PREROUTING:return:
               4 TRACE: 2 fc475095 raw:PREROUTING:policy:ACCEPT
               5 TRACE: 2 fc475095 filter:INPUT:return:
               6 TRACE: 2 fc475095 filter:INPUT:policy:DROP
               7 TRACE: 2 0df9d3d8 raw:PREROUTING:rule:0x3:CONTINUE -4
              -t raw -A PREROUTING -p icmp -j TRACE

       The first line shows a packet entering rule set evaluation.  The
       protocol number is shown (AF_INET in this case), then a packet
       identifier number that allows one to correlate messages coming
       from rule set evaluation of this packet.  After this, the rule
       that was matched by the packet is shown.  This is the TRACE rule
       that turns on tracing events for this packet.

       The second line dumps information about the packet. Incoming
       interface and packet headers such as source and destination
       addresses are shown.

       The third line shows that the packet completed traversal of the
       raw table PREROUTING chain, and is returning, followed by use of
       the chain policy to make accept/drop decision (the example shows
       accept being applied).  The fifth line shows that the packet
       leaves the filter INPUT chain, i.e., no rules in the filter
       table's INPUT chain matched the packet.  It then got DROPPED by
       the policy of the INPUT table, as shown by line six.  The last
       line shows another packet arriving -- the packet id is different.

       When using the TRACE target, it is usually a good idea to only
       select packets that are relevant, for example via
       iptables -t raw -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 --syn -m limit --limit 1/s -j TRACE

       xtables-monitor --event
                1 EVENT: nft: NEW table: table filter ip flags 0 use 4
              handle 444
                2 EVENT: # nft: ip filter INPUT use 2 type filter hook
              input prio 0 policy drop packets 0 bytes 0
                3 EVENT: # nft: ip filter FORWARD use 0 type filter hook
              forward prio 0 policy accept packets 0 bytes 0
                4 EVENT: # nft: ip filter OUTPUT use 0 type filter hook
              output prio 0 policy accept packets 0 bytes 0
                5 EVENT: -4 -t filter -N TCP
                6 EVENT: -4 -t filter -A TCP -s 192.168.0.0/16 -p tcp -m
              tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT
                7 EVENT: -4 -t filter -A TCP -p tcp -m multiport
              --dports 80,443 -j ACCEPT
                8 EVENT: -4 -t filter -A INPUT -p tcp -j TCP
                9 EVENT: -4 -t filter -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate
              RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
               10 NEWGEN: GENID=13904 PID=25167 NAME=iptables-nftables-
              restore

       This example shows event monitoring.  Line one shows creation of
       a table (filter in this case), followed by three base hooks
       INPUT, FORWARD and OUTPUT.  The iptables-nftables tools all
       create tables and base chains automatically when needed, so this
       is expected when a table was not yet initialized or when it is
       re-created from scratch by iptables-nftables-restore.  Line five
       shows a new user-defined chain (TCP) being added, followed by
       addition a few rules. the last line shows that a new ruleset
       generation has become active, i.e., the rule set changes are now
       active.  This also lists the process id and the program name.

LIMITATIONS         top

       xtables-monitor only works with rules added using iptables-
       nftables, rules added using iptables-legacy cannot be monitored.

BUGS         top

       Should be reported or by sending email to netfilter-
       devel@vger.kernel.org or by filing a report on
       https://bugzilla.netfilter.org/.

SEE ALSO         top

       iptables(8), xtables(8), nft(8)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the iptables (administer and maintain packet
       filter rules) project.  Information about the project can be
       found at ⟨http://www.netfilter.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see ⟨http://bugzilla.netfilter.org/⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.netfilter.org/iptables⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2023-12-21.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

iptables 1.8.10                                       XTABLES-MONITOR(8)

Pages that refer to this page: iptables-extensions(8)xtables-legacy(8)xtables-nft(8)