ZBF - Your Network, Secured and Simplified

Signed-off-by: Joachim Wiberg <[email protected]>

Author: troglobit

_posts/2025-10-29-zone-based-firewall.md

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+---
+title: Introduction to Zone-Based Firewall
+author: troglobit
+date: 2025-10-29 08:10:00 +0100
+categories: [howto]
+tags: [firewall, networking, security, zbf]
+---
+
+As of Infix v25.10, a zone-based firewall (ZBF) built on [firewalld][2]
+is included.  Exposing the most relevant functionality for your network
+security.  Rather than managing rules on a per-interface basis, zones
+group interfaces by trust level and policies control traffic flow
+between zones.
+
+![](/assets/img/fw-concept.svg){: #fig1 width="600" }
+_**Figure 1**: Zone-based firewall concept._
+
+### The Zone Concept
+
+A zone defines a level of trust for network connections.  All interfaces or
+networks assigned to a zone inherit that trust level.  For example, you might
+have a trusted LAN zone for your internal network and an untrusted WAN zone
+for the Internet connection.
+
+Each zone has an action that determines what happens to traffic from that
+zone destined for the local host:
+
+- `accept`: Allow all traffic to the host
+- `reject`: Deny traffic, send rejection response
+- `drop`: Silently discard traffic
+
+When the action is set to `reject` or `drop`, you can explicitly allow
+specific services like SSH or DHCP.
+
+### A Simple Example
+
+Let's set up a basic home router with two zones: a trusted LAN and an
+untrusted WAN.  We'll start by creating the zones and assigning interfaces
+to them.
+
+```console
+admin@router:/> configure
+admin@router:/config/> edit firewall
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set zone lan action accept
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set zone lan interface eth0
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set zone wan action drop
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set zone wan interface eth1
+```
+
+At this point, the LAN zone trusts all traffic to the host, while the WAN
+zone drops everything by default.  However, we need to allow certain services
+from the WAN side, like DHCPv6 for address assignment:
+
+```console
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set zone wan service dhcpv6-client
+```
+
+Now we need a policy to allow LAN devices to access the Internet through
+the WAN interface.  Policies control traffic flow between zones:
+
+```console
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set policy lan-wan ingress lan
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set policy lan-wan egress wan
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set policy lan-wan action accept
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set policy lan-wan masquerade true
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> leave
+```
+
+The `masquerade` option enables source NAT, replacing the source IP address
+of LAN clients with the router's WAN address.
+
+Notice that we didn't create a policy for WAN to LAN traffic.  By default,
+all inter-zone traffic is blocked unless explicitly allowed by a policy.
+Return traffic from established connections is automatically permitted
+through connection tracking.
+
+### Traffic Flow Types
+
+The firewall handles three types of traffic:
+
+**Host-destined traffic**: Traffic to the router itself, like SSH or web
+management.  This is controlled by the zone's action and service list.
+
+**Intra-zone traffic**: Traffic between interfaces in the same zone, such
+as LAN devices talking to each other.  This is not forwarded by default and
+requires a policy where both ingress and egress are set to the same zone.
+
+**Inter-zone traffic**: Traffic between different zones, like LAN to WAN.
+This requires an explicit policy and is blocked by default.
+
+![](/assets/img/fw-zones.svg){: #fig2 width="600" }
+_**Figure 2**: Traffic flow between zones._
+
+### The Default Zone
+
+Infix requires a default zone as a safety mechanism.  Any interface not
+explicitly assigned to a zone automatically joins the default zone.  This
+prevents accidentally leaving an interface unprotected.
+
+To set a zone as the default:
+
+```console
+admin@router:/config/firewall/> set zone wan default true
+```
+
+### Beyond the Basics
+
+The firewall supports additional features for more complex scenarios:
+
+**Port forwarding**: DNAT rules to expose services in a DMZ to the Internet.
+Traffic can be forwarded to a different IP address and port than the original
+destination.
+
+**Custom filters**: Additional rules can be inserted at specific points in
+the netfilter pipeline for advanced filtering needs.
+
+**Network-based zones**: Instead of assigning interfaces, zones can match
+specific IP networks for forwarding traffic.
+
+For detailed configuration examples, including DMZ setups and port forwarding,
+see the [firewall documentation][1].
+
+[1]: https://kernelkit.org/infix/latest/firewall/
+[2]: https://firewalld.org