## Shorewall 5.0 Features

### Tom Eastep

Copyright © 2001-2016 Thomas M Eastep

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

2026/01/29

## Features

- Uses Netfilter's connection tracking facilities for stateful packet filtering.

- Can be used in a wide range of router/firewall/gateway applications .

  - Completely customizable using configuration files.

  - No limit on the number of network interfaces.

  - Allows you to partition the network into zones and gives you complete control over the connections permitted between each pair of zones.

  - Multiple interfaces per zone and multiple zones per interface permitted.

  - Supports nested and overlapping zones.

- Supports centralized firewall administration.

  - Shorewall installed on a single administrative system. May be a Windows™ PC running Cygwin™ or an Apple MacIntosh™ running OS X.

  - Centrally generated firewall scripts run on the firewalls under control of Shorewall-lite.

- QuickStart Guides (HOWTOs) to help get your first firewall up and running quickly

- A GUI is available via Webmin 1.060 and later (http://www.webmin.com)

- Extensive documentation is available in both Docbook XML and HTML formats.

- Flexible address management/routing support (and you can use all types in the same firewall):

  - Masquerading/SNAT.

  - Port Forwarding (DNAT).

  - One-to-one NAT.

  - Proxy ARP.

  - NETMAP.

  - Multiple ISP support (Multiple Internet Links from the same firewall/gateway)

- Blacklisting of individual IP addresses and subnetworks is supported.

- Operational Support.

  - Commands to start, stop and clear the firewall

  - Supports status monitoring with an audible alarm when an “interesting” packet is detected.

  - Wide variety of informational commands.

- VPN Support.

  - IPsec, GRE, IPIP and OpenVPN Tunnels.

  - PPTP clients and Servers.

- Support for Traffic Control/Shaping.

- Wide support for different GNU/Linux Distributions.

  - RPM and Debian packages available.

  - Includes automated install, upgrade and uninstall facilities for users who can't use or choose not to use the RPM or Debian packages.

  - Included as a standard part of LEAF/Bering (router/firewall on a floppy, CD or compact flash).

- Media Access Control (MAC) Address Verification.

- Traffic Accounting.

- Bridge/Firewall support

- IPv6 Support

- Works with a wide range of Virtualization Solutions:

  - KVM

  - Xen

  - Linux-Vserver

  - OpenVZ

  - VirtualBox

  - LXC

  - Docker (Shorewall 5.0.6 and later)