On the recordRead 11 Oct 202617 facts
IPFW
Plans and prices
IPFW
Free
FreeBSD firewall utility; no paid plans stated
Read 11 Oct 2026 · man.freebsd.org
On the record
- Availability
- FreeBSD is available free of charge with source code.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Configuration files
- Rules may be read from a file and optionally piped through a preprocessor such as cpp or m4.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Connection alerts
- Yesman.freebsd.org · read 22 Sep 2026
- Filtering
- Rules can filter on IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, addresses and ports, direction, interfaces, IP and TCP header fields, and other packet attributes.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Logging
- Matching packets can be logged to syslog, the ipfw0 pseudo-interface, or a routing socket.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- NAT
- The utility supports in-kernel NAT and stateful or stateless IPv6/IPv4 translation, including NAT64 and CLAT.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Operational caution
- The manual warns that a mismatch between the userland world and kernel can break the ipfw ABI and prevent adding rules, potentially affecting booting.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Outbound control
- advancedman.freebsd.org · read 22 Sep 2026
- Platform
- IPFW is documented as a FreeBSD system utility; the FreeBSD project provides images for supported architectures and cloud vendors.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Project
- FreeBSD is developed and maintained by a large community.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- ipfw is the user interface for controlling the FreeBSD firewall, dummynet traffic shaper and packet scheduler, and in-kernel NAT services.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Rule direction
- bothman.freebsd.org · read 22 Sep 2026
- Rule management
- Rules can be organized into 32 sets that can be enabled, disabled, swapped, or moved for ruleset manipulation.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Stateful firewall
- Rules using keep-state, record-state, limit, or set-limit can create dynamic rules for stateful behavior.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
- Traffic shaping
- The dnctl pipe, queue, and sched commands configure traffic shaping and packet scheduling.man.freebsd.org · read 11 Oct 2026
