Operations at ruleset level

Using native nft syntax

Linux Kernel 3.18 includes some improvements regarding the available operations to manage your ruleset as a whole.

Listing the complete ruleset:

 % nft list ruleset

Listing the ruleset per family:

 % nft list ruleset arp
 % nft list ruleset ip
 % nft list ruleset ip6
 % nft list ruleset bridge
 % nft list ruleset inet

These commands will print all tables/chains/sets/rules of the given family.

In addition, you can also flush (erase, delete, wipe) the complete ruleset:

 % nft flush ruleset

Also per family:

 % nft flush ruleset arp
 % nft flush ruleset ip
 % nft flush ruleset ip6
 % nft flush ruleset bridge
 % nft flush ruleset inet

You can combine these two commands above to backup your ruleset:

 % echo "nft flush ruleset" > backup.nft
 % nft list ruleset >> backup.nft

And load it atomically:

 % nft -f backup.nft

You can also export your ruleset in XML or JSON format.

In this case, you have to issue the 'export' command:

 % nft export xml > ruleset.xml
 % nft export json > ruleset.json

Note that the export operation output all the tables, of all families (ip, ip6, inet, arp, bridge).

We are working now in the 'import' operation for XML and JSON.