How To Setup A Firewall with UFW on Ubuntu & Debian

UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) is a frontend command-line utility for managing iptables rules on a Linux system. It provides a user-friendly, easy-to-manage console command as well as a GUI interface for desktop systems. It is designed to provide easy-to-manage firewalls, even if the user does not have many ideas about firewalls. The UFW aims to provide easy (complicated) commands (although it has GUIs available) for users.

This tutorial will help you to set up a firewall with UFW on Ubuntu and Debian Linux systems. Let’s begin with the installation of UFW on your system.

Advertisement

How to Install UFW Firewall

The Ubuntu and other Debian-based systems ship with default UFW installed. In case it is not installed, run the following command to install UFW. If it’s already installed, the command will upgrade UFW to the latest version.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install ufw 

This will install or update UFW firewall packages on your Ubuntu, Debian, or Arch Linux systems.

How to Enable/Disable UFW Firewall

By default, UFW is an inactive state on most of the Debian systems. So use the following command to enable UFW:

Enable UFW

sudo ufw enable 

To disable the UFW, you can use the following command.

Disable UFW

sudo ufw disable 

Check UFW Status

Now make sure UFW is in an active state by executing the following command.

sudo ufw status

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
22                         ALLOW       Anywhere
22 (v6)                    ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

Enable/Disable IPv6

You might be required to use IPv6 with your firewall. Disable IPv6 support if your system is not configured to use IPv6. To do it edit /etc/default/ufw and set IPV6 “yes” or “no”.

IPV6=no

After making changes disable and enable the firewall to apply changes.

sudo ufw disable && sudo ufw enable 

Allow Connections with UFW

Here are some examples of allowing specific ports with the UFW command.

• Allow Specific Ports – To allow a single port, for example allow port 21(FTP), 80(HTTP) and 443(HTTPS).

  sudo ufw allow 21/tcp 
  sudo ufw allow 80/tcp 
  sudo ufw allow 443/tcp 
  

• Allow Specific Services – UFW uses /etc/services files to get port of specific service, So we can allow any service with name instead of defining port. Like ftp (21), http(80).

  sudo ufw allow ftp/tcp 
  sudo ufw allow http/tcp 
  sudo ufw allow https/tcp 
  

• Allow Port Range – We can also allow range of ports in single command like:

  sudo ufw allow 1100-1200/tcp 
  

• Allow Access to Specific IP – To allow connections from specific ip address use following command.

  sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.100 
  

• Allow Access to Subnet – To allow connections from any ip address of subnet use following command.

  sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 
  

• Allow IP to Specific Port – To allow connections from any ip address of subnet use following command.

  sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.100 to any port 22 
  

Deny Rules with UFW

• Deny Specific Ports – To allow a single port, for example allow port 21(FTP), 80(HTTP) and 443(HTTPS).

  sudo ufw deny 21/tcp 
  sudo ufw deny 80/tcp 
  sudo ufw deny 443/tcp 
  

• Deny Port Range – We can also allow range of ports in single command like:

  sudo ufw deny 1100-1200/tcp 
  

• Deny Access to Specific IP – To deny connections from specific ip address use following command.

  sudo ufw deny from 192.168.1.100 
  

• Deny Access to Subnet – To deny connections from any ip address of subnet use following command.

  sudo ufw deny from 192.168.1.0/24 
  

• Deny IP to Specific Port -To deny connections from any ip address of subnet use following command.

  sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.100 to any port 22 
  

Enable or Disable Logging

UFW created logs for all filtered connections in /var/log/ufw.log file. It can be helpful for troubleshooting Use below to enable or disable logging.

Enable logging:

sudo ufw logging on 

Disable logging:

sudo ufw logging off 

Reference: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UncomplicatedFirewall