How to Configure and Manage the Firewall on CentOS 8

A firewall is a method for monitoring and filtering incoming and outgoing network traffic. It works by defining a set of security rules that determine whether to allow or block specific traffic. A properly configured firewall is one of the most important aspects of overall system security.

CentOS 8 ships with a firewall daemon named firewalld . It is a complete solution with a D-Bus interface that allows you to manage the system’s firewall dynamically.

In this tutorial, we will talk about how to configure and manage the firewall on CentOS 8. We’ll also explain the basic FirewallD concepts.

Prerequisites #

To configure the firewall service, you must be logged as root or user with sudo privileges .

Basic Firewalld Concepts #

firewalld uses the concepts of zones and services. Based on the zones and services you’ll configure, you can control what traffic is allowed or blocked to and from the system.

Firewalld can be configured and managed using the firewall-cmd command-line utility.

In CentOS 8, iptables is replaced by nftables as the default firewall backend for the firewalld daemon.

Firewalld Zones #

Zones are predefined sets of rules that specify the level of trust of the networks your computer is connected to. You can assign network interfaces and sources to a zone.

Below are the zones provided by FirewallD ordered according to the trust level of the zone from untrusted to trusted:

• drop: All incoming connections are dropped without any notification. Only outgoing connections are allowed.
• block: All incoming connections are rejected with an icmp-host-prohibited message for IPv4 and icmp6-adm-prohibited for IPv6n. Only outgoing connections are allowed.
• public: For use in untrusted public areas. You do not trust other computers on the network, but you can allow selected incoming connections.
• external: For use on external networks with NAT masquerading enabled when your system acts as a gateway or router. Only selected incoming connections are allowed.
• internal: For use on internal networks when your system acts as a gateway or router. Other systems on the network are generally trusted. Only selected incoming connections are allowed.
• dmz: Used for computers located in your demilitarized zone that have limited access to the rest of your network. Only selected incoming connections are allowed.
• work: Used for work machines. Other computers on the network are generally trusted. Only selected incoming connections are allowed.
• home: Used for home machines. Other computers on the network are generally trusted. Only selected incoming connections are allowed.
• trusted: All network connections are accepted. Trust all of the computers in the network.

Firewall services #

Firewalld services are predefined rules that apply within a zone and define the necessary settings to allow incoming traffic for a specific service. The services allows you to easily perform several tasks in a single step.

For example, the service can contain definitions about opening ports, forwarding traffic, and more.

Firewalld Runtime and Permanent Settings #

Firewalld uses two separated configuration sets, runtime, and permanent configuration.

The runtime configuration is the actual running configuration and does not persist on reboot. When the firewalld daemon starts, it loads the permanent configuration, which becomes the runtime configuration.

By default, when making changes to the Firewalld configuration using the firewall-cmd utility, the changes are applied to the runtime configuration. To make the changes permanent append the --permanent option to the command.

To apply the changes in both configuration sets, you can use one of the following two methods:

1. Change the runtime configuration and make it permanent:

   sudo firewall-cmd <options>sudo firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent

2. Change the permanent configuration and reload the firewalld daemon:

   sudo firewall-cmd --permanent <options>sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Enabling FirewallD #

On CentOS 8, firewalld is installed and enabled by default. If for some reason it is not installed on your system, you can install and start the daemon by typing:

sudo dnf install firewalldsudo systemctl enable firewalld --now

You can check the status of the firewall service with:

sudo firewall-cmd --state

If the firewall is enabled, the command should print running. Otherwise, you will see not running.

Firewalld Zones #

If you haven’t changed it, the default zone is set to public, and all network interfaces are assigned to this zone.

The default zone is the one that is used for everything that is not explicitly assigned to another zone.

You can see the default zone by typing:

sudo firewall-cmd --get-default-zone

public

To get a list of all available zones, type:

sudo firewall-cmd --get-zones

block dmz drop external home internal public trusted work

To see the active zones and the network interfaces assigned to them:

sudo firewall-cmd --get-active-zones

The output below shows that the interfaces eth0 and eth1 are assigned to the public zone:

public
  interfaces: eth0 eth1

You can print the zone configuration settings with:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-all

public (active)
  target: default
  icmp-block-inversion: no
  interfaces: eth0 eth1
  sources:
  services: ssh dhcpv6-client
  ports:
  protocols:
  masquerade: no
  forward-ports:
  source-ports:
  icmp-blocks:
  rich rules:

From the output above, we can see that the public zone is active and uses the default target, which is REJECT. The output also shows that the zone is used by the eth0 and eth1 interfaces and allows DHCP client and SSH traffic.

If you want to check the configurations of all available zones type:

sudo firewall-cmd --list-all-zones

The command prints a huge list with the settings of all available zone.

Changing the zone target #

The target defines the default behavior of the zone for the incoming traffic that is not specified. It can be set to one of the following options: default, ACCEPT, REJECT, and DROP.

To set the zone’s target, specify the zone with the --zone option and the target with the --set-target option.

For example, to change the public zone’s target to DROP you would run:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --set-target=DROP

Assigning an interface to a different zone #

You can create specific sets of rules for different zones and assign different interfaces to them. This is especially useful when you multiple interfaces on your machine.

To assign an interface to a different zone, specify the zone with the --zone option and the interface with the --change-interface option.

For example, the following command assigns the eth1 interface to the work zone:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=work --change-interface=eth1

Verify the changes by typing:

sudo firewall-cmd --get-active-zones

work
  interfaces: eth1
public
  interfaces: eth0

Changing the Default Zone #

To change the default zone, use the --set-default-zone option followed by the name of the zone you want to make default.

For example, to change the default zone to home you would run the following command:

sudo firewall-cmd --set-default-zone=home

Verify the changes with:

sudo firewall-cmd --get-default-zone

home

Creating new Zones #

Firewalld also allows you to create your own zones. This is handy when you want to create per-application rules.

In the following example we’ll create a new zone named memcached, open the port 11211 and allow access only from the 192.168.100.30 IP address:

1. Create the zone:

   sudo firewall-cmd --new-zone=memcached --permanent

2. Add the rules to the zone:

   sudo firewall-cmd --zone=memcached --add-port=11211/udp --permanentsudo firewall-cmd --zone=memcached --add-port=11211/tcp --permanentsudo firewall-cmd --zone=memcached --add-source=192.168.100.30/32 --permanent

3. Reload the firewalld daemon to activate the changes:

   sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Firewalld Services #

With firewalld you can allow traffic for specific ports and/or sources based on predefined rules called services.

To get a list of all default available services type:

sudo firewall-cmd --get-services

You can find more information about each service by opening the associated .xml file within the /usr/lib/firewalld/services directory. For example, the HTTP service is defined like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<service>
  <short>WWW (HTTP)</short>
  <description>HTTP is the protocol used to serve Web pages. If you plan to make your Web server publicly available, enable this option. This option is not required for viewing pages locally or developing Web pages.</description>
  <port protocol="tcp" port="80"/>
</service>

To allow incoming HTTP traffic (port 80) for interfaces in the public zone, only for the current session (runtime configuration) type:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=http

To verify that the service was added successfully use the --list-services option:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-services

ssh dhcpv6-client http

To keep the port 80 open after a reboot run the same command once again with the --permanent option, or execute:

sudo firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent

Use the --list-services along with the --permanent option to verify your changes:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --list-services

ssh dhcpv6-client http

The syntax for removing service is the same as when adding one. Just use --remove-service instead of the --add-service flag:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --remove-service=http --permanent

The command above removes the http service from the public zone permanent configuration.

Creating a new FirewallD Service #

As we have already mentioned, the default services are stored in the /usr/lib/firewalld/services directory. The easiest way to create a new service is to copy an existing service file to the /etc/firewalld/services directory, which is the location for user-created services and modify the file settings.

For example, to create a service definition for the Plex Media Server, you can use the SSH service file:

sudo cp /usr/lib/firewalld/services/ssh.xml /etc/firewalld/services/plexmediaserver.xml

Open the newly created plexmediaserver.xml file and change the short name and description for the service within the <short> and <description> tags. The most important tag you need to change is the port tag, which defines the port number and protocol you want to open.

In the following example, we are opening ports 1900 UDP and 32400 TCP.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<service version="1.0">
<short>plexmediaserver</short>
<description>Plex is a streaming media server that brings all your video, music and photo collections together and stream them to your devices at anytime and from anywhere.</description>
<port protocol="udp" port="1900"/>
<port protocol="tcp" port="32400"/>
</service>

Save the file and reload the FirewallD service:

sudo firewall-cmd --reload

You can now use the plexmediaserver service in your zones same as any other service.

Opening Ports and Source IPs #

Firewalld also allows you to quickly enable all traffic from a trusted IP address or on a specific port without creating a service definition.

Opening a source IP #

To allow all incoming traffic from a specific IP address (or range), specify the zone with the --zone option and the source IP with the --add-source option.

For example, to allow all incoming traffic from 192.168.1.10 in the public zone, run:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-source=192.168.1.10

Make the new rule persistent:

sudo firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent

Verify the changes using the following command:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-sources

192.168.1.10

The syntax for removing a source IP is the same as when adding one. Just use --remove-source instead of the --add-source option:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --remove-source=192.168.1.10

Opening a source port #

To allow all incoming traffic on a given port, specify the zone with the --zone option and the port and the protocol with the --add-port option.

For example, to open port 8080 in the public zone for the current session you wound run:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8080/tcp

The protocol can be either tcp, udp, sctp, or dccp.

Verify the changes:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-ports

8080

To keep the port open after a reboot, add the rule to the permanent settings by running the same command using the --permanent flag or by executing:

sudo firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent

The syntax for removing a port is the same as when adding a port. Just use --remove-port instead of the --add-port option.

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --remove-port=8080/tcp

Forwarding Ports #

To forward traffic from one port to another port, first enable masquerading for the desired zone using the --add-masquerade option. For example, to enable masquerading for the external zone, type:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=external --add-masquerade

Forward traffic from one port to another on the IP address #

In the following example we are forwarding the traffic from port 80 to port 8080 on the same server:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=external --add-forward-port=port=80:proto=tcp:toport=8080

Forward traffic to another IP address #

In the following example we are forwarding the traffic from port 80 to port 80 on a server with IP 10.10.10.2:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=external --add-forward-port=port=80:proto=tcp:toaddr=10.10.10.2

Forward traffic to another server on a different port #

In the following example we are forwarding the traffic from port 80 to port 8080 on a server with IP 10.10.10.2:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=external --add-forward-port=port=80:proto=tcp:toport=8080:toaddr=10.10.10.2

To make the forward rule persistent, use:

sudo firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent

Conclusion #

You have learned how to configure and manage the firewalld service on your CentOS 8 system.

Make sure to allow all incoming connections that are necessary for the proper functioning of your system, while limiting all unnecessary connections.

If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment below.