How to Open Port 80 & 443 in FirewallD

FirewallD is a tool used in many Linux systems to manage network traffic. It acts as an easy interface for iptables, which is a more complex underlying system that controls how data flows in and out of your computer. FirewallD offers both command line and graphical interfaces to make managing these rules simpler.

This guide will teach you how to open ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) using FirewallD. By the end, you will know how to allow and remove these ports temporarily and permanently, and how to check which ports are open.

Open Port 80 & 443 in FirewallD

With FirewallD, you can allow or deny ports either temporarily or permanently. Temporary rules will disappear when you restart your system, but permanent rules will stay even after a reboot.

To allow incoming traffic on TCP ports 80 and 443 temporarily, use these commands:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp 
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=443/tcp 

To make these rules permanent, add the --permanent option to the commands:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp 
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=443/tcp 

After setting the permanent rules, you need to reload FirewallD to apply the changes:

sudo firewall-cmd --reload 

View Updated Firewall Rules

Once you have added the rules, you can check them using the following command. This will list all the ports that are currently open:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --list-ports 

Output:

Remove Rules from FirewallD

If you decide that you no longer need these ports open, you can remove them with these commands:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --remove-port=80/tcp 
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --remove-port=443/tcp 

Next, run the following command to apply the changes:

sudo firewall-cmd --reload 

Conclusion

This guide showed you how to open ports 80 and 443 using FirewallD on a Linux system. You learned how to set these rules temporarily and permanently, check which ports are open, and remove the rules if needed. By mastering these steps, you can better control the flow of data to and from your computer, enhancing both its security and functionality.