Imagine you’re the owner of a modern apartment building. You used to have a team of security guards stationed at every entrance — each one trained slightly differently. They did the job, but things often got confusing, rules overlapped, and new updates required constant retraining.
One day, you hire a new security manager — someone smarter, more efficient, and unified in command. This manager replaces the old team but still understands all the rules they used to follow. That manager? nftables.
- nftables is the successor to iptables in Linux, designed to be smarter, cleaner, and more efficient.
- It handles firewalling, network traffic filtering, and packet classification.
- It replaces older tools like iptables, ip6tables, arptables, and ebtables — all rolled into one smart system.
Think of nftables as the modern control room of your Linux network security.
Let’s say your house used to have:
- One guard checking the front door (iptables)
- Another checking the back door (ip6tables)
- A third one for deliveries (arptables)
- And a fourth for Ethernet-level access (ebtables)
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