Linux 3.13 is out bringing, among other things, the first official release of nftables. nftables is the project that aims to replace the existing {ip,ip6,arp,eb}tables framework aka iptables. nftables version in Linux 3.13 is not yet complete. Some important features are missing and will be introduced in the following Linux versions. It is already usable in most cases but a complete support (read nftables at a better level than iptables) should be available in Linux 3.15.
nftables comes with a new command line tool named nft. nft is the successor of iptables and derivatives (ip6tables, arptables). And it has a completely different syntax. Yes, if you are used to iptables, that’s a shock. But there is a compatibility layer that allow you to use iptables even if filtering is done with nftables in kernel.
Read more at Eric Leblond’s blog.
