Ipchains and IPtables

[killerasp]

Can you have both of them on one machine?

[Golden_Eternity]

ipchains and iptables are for use with different versions of the linux kernel. If you're using 2.2.x, you use ipchains, if you use 2.4.x, you use iptables.

[jkm]

*shrug* compile them both as modules, and you could have ipwadfm support too if you wanted. just probe the modules you want.

[Craig McPherson]

There are two things a person could mean when he says "ipchains" and "iptables".

The first is the actual firewalling software that's built into the kernel itself. The firewall is not a userspace program or command, it's embedded into the kernel. And the kernel could have only one of the two in it at a time. You COULD have your kernel able to use both, using modules, but that would be pretty dumb.

Then there are the actual "ipchains" and "iptables" commands, where are actually userland programs that communicate with the actual firewall in the kernel and feed instructions to it. Naturally, you could have both commands on your system, but you wouldn't want to try running an ipchains script if you're using in iptables firewall, for example. (Well, you could be using a wrapper, but that's a different story.)

Clear enough?