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Date:      30 Nov 2003 06:53:10 -0000
From:      alo@iki.fi.invalid (Antti Louko)
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   ipfw/ipf IP filtering thoughts
Message-ID:  <20031130065310.29349.qmail@alo.louko.com>

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Generally, I like the (Free)BSD way of doing things.  But the IP
filtering modules available for FreeBSD lack one feature when compared
to Linux way (ipchains and iptables).

In ipchains and iptables you have a sequential list of rules, very
much like in ipfw and ipf, but you can have several different lists
which have symbolic names and you can make calls from lists to other
lists based on normal packet criteria.  If the list is exchausted, the
scan returns to the previous list.  This makes it possible to make
filtering decisions much more efficient in complex situation.  You can
for example scan a certain list only for eg. packets going to for
example port 25 and so on.  In FreeBSD, you don't have this
"subroutine call" feature at all and you are limited to only one
sequential list with a "goto".

Any ideas how to proceed.  I think this would be really needed and
widely used if available.


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