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xivix
Asked: 2012-08-22 10:23:43 +0800 CST

Modify iptables firewall via web page

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I need for support personnel to be able to open firewall holes via the web. I know this is a permissions nightmare but I have to do it. I have gotten as far as creating a perl program which can do it, but when I run an iptables-restore command from a perl script run from apache through the web I get,

 FATAL: Module ip_tables not found. ... 
 iptables-restore v1.4.3.1: 
 iptables-restore: unable to initialize table 'filter' ...

I use iptables all the time on this box but apparently without needing the ip_tables module. If I run the same script from the console as root there is no problem. Any help is appreciated.

linux

2 Answers

  1. I would deploy WebMin for this.

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  2. Best Answer

    I would suggest running the perl script using lighthttpd or something similar that will be setup to run as root rather then apache, and also listen on a non-standard port like 12345.

    Here is a howto on configurating lighthttpd with perl: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/lighttpd-howto-setup-cgi-bin-access-for-perl-programs.html

    Also don't forget to comment out server.username and server.groupname in lighthttpd.

    To get the security a little better would be good to introduce at least http authentication and limit the IP's that can access this port.

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