How can I use iptables on centos 7?

I installed CentOS 7 with minimal configuration (os + dev tools). I am trying to open 80 port for httpd service, but something wrong with my iptables service ... what's wrong with it? What am I doing wrong?

# ifconfig/sbin/service iptables save
bash: ifconfig/sbin/service: No such file or directory


# /sbin/service iptables save
The service command supports only basic LSB actions (start, stop, restart, try-restart, reload, force-reload, status). For other actions, please try to use systemctl.

# sudo service iptables status
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl status  iptables.service
iptables.service
   Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)
   Active: inactive (dead)

# /sbin/service iptables save
The service command supports only basic LSB actions (start, stop, restart, try-restart, reload, force-reload, status). For other actions, please try to use systemctl.

# sudo service iptables start
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start  iptables.service
Failed to issue method call: Unit iptables.service failed to load: No such file or directory.

With RHEL 7 / CentOS 7, firewalld was introduced to manage iptables. IMHO, firewalld is more suited for workstations than for server environments.

It is possible to go back to a more classic iptables setup. First, stop and mask the firewalld service:

systemctl stop firewalld
systemctl mask firewalld

Then, install the iptables-services package:

yum install iptables-services

Enable the service at boot-time:

systemctl enable iptables

Managing the service

systemctl [stop|start|restart] iptables

Saving your firewall rules can be done as follows:

service iptables save

or

/usr/libexec/iptables/iptables.init save

RHEL and CentOS 7 use firewall-cmd instead of iptables. You should use that kind of command:

# add ssh port as permanent opened port
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=22/tcp --permanent

Then, you can reload rules to be sure that everything is ok

firewall-cmd --reload

This is better than using iptable-save, espacially if you plan to use lxc or docker containers. Launching docker services will add some rules that iptable-save command will prompt. If you save the result, you will have a lot of rules that should NOT be saved. Because docker containers can change them ip addresses at next reboot.

Firewall-cmd with permanent option is better for that.

Check "man firewall-cmd" or check the official firewalld docs to see options. There are a lot of options to check zones, configuration, how it works... man page is really complete.

I strongly recommand to not use iptables-service since Centos 7

Try the following command iptables-save.

I had the problem that rebooting wouldn't start iptables.

This fixed it:

yum install iptables-services
systemctl mask firewalld
systemctl enable iptables
systemctl enable ip6tables
systemctl stop firewalld
systemctl start iptables
systemctl start ip6tables

I modified the /etc/sysconfig/ip6tables-config file changing:

IP6TABLES_SAVE_ON_STOP="no"

To:

IP6TABLES_SAVE_ON_STOP="yes"

And this:

IP6TABLES_SAVE_ON_RESTART="no"

To:

IP6TABLES_SAVE_ON_RESTART="yes"

This seemed to save the changes I made using the iptables commands through a reboot.

Put the IPtables configuration in the traditional file and it will be loaded after boot:

/etc/sysconfig/iptables

Last month I tried to configure iptables on a LXC VM container, but every time after reboot the iptables configuration was not automatically loaded.

The only way for me to get it working was by running the following command:

> yum -y install iptables-services; systemctl disable firewalld; systemctl mask firewalld; service iptables restart; service iptables save

And to add, you should also be able to do the same for ip6tables after running the systemctl mask firewalld command:

    systemctl start ip6tables.service
    systemctl enable ip6tables.service

If you do so, and you're using fail2ban, you will need to enable the proper filters/actions:

Put the following lines in /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/sshd.local

[ssh-iptables]
enabled  = true
filter   = sshd
action   = iptables[name=SSH, port=ssh, protocol=tcp]
logpath  = /var/log/secure
maxretry = 5
bantime = 86400

Enable and start fail2ban:

systemctl enable fail2ban
systemctl start fail2ban

Reference: http://blog.iopsl.com/fail2ban-on-centos-7-to-protect-ssh-part-ii/