Enable ipfw in ubuntu . Unable to find loader.conf

Question

I am trying to enable the ipfw utility in my ubuntu 12.04 . I am following the procedure as given in the manual pages .

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/hardy/man4/ipfw.4.html

But I am unable to find the loader.conf file as mentioned. I tried system wide search using

sudo find / -name loader.conf

No results . Any idea on the path of the file .

Best Yash

Scabble

Why are you using ipfw? I think that is very old technology. I would recommend iptables, or one of the tools to configure iptables, as here wiki.ubuntu.com/UncomplicatedFirewall . – Rustproof

thanks... I am using iptables now. – Scabble

Answer 1

IPFW is developed primarily for BSD systems, and I wouldn't recommend using it for Linux systems when there are options like iptables. In modern Ubuntu distributions the package is not longer included or supported.

Having said that disclaimer:

loader.conf refers specifically to /boot/loader.conf, which in BSD systems is the place to declare kernel modules to load at boot time. Your Linux systems won't have this. In Ubuntu, the location for these to be declared is in /etc/modules. In this file simply add a new line containing "ipfw" and reboot. As long as you've already installed ipfw (and its kernel module), you'll be good to go.

Canterbury

What is supposed to happen in this case? manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/en/man4/vge.4freebsd.html . The instructions request to add if_vge_load="YES" to that file. Is it valid to just write it into /etc/modules? – Enslave