cid 18e2f776d620fe8ee902e446b3d53b740512edd48d2a8c74671eafa43383d735 · original · open access · via openalex
Title: NFtables and IPtables : A Comparison in Latency Authors: Svensson Eidsheim, Jonas Venue: University Library of Skövde (University of Skövde) Year: 2017 Canonical: openalex:https://openalex.org/W7113665456 URL: https://openalex.org/W7113665456 Collector: openalex OA: true ABSTRACT Firewalls are one of the essential tools to secure any network. IPtables has been the defacto firewall in all Linux systems, and the developers behind IPtables are alsoresponsible for its intended replacement, NFtables. Both IPtables and NFtables arefirewalls developed to filter packets. Some services are heavily dependent on lowlatency transport of packets, such as VoIP, cloud gaming, storage area networks andstock trading. This work is aiming to compare the latency between the selectedfirewalls while under generated network load. The network traffic is generated byiPerf and the latency is measured by using ping. The measurement of the latency isdone on ping packets between two dedicated hosts, one on either side of the firewall.The measurement was done on two configurations one with regular forwarding andanother with PAT (Port Address Translation). Both configurations are measured whileunder network load and while not under network load. Each test is repeated ten timesto increase the statistical power behind the conclusion. The results gathered in theexperiment resulted in NFtables being the firewall with overall lower latency bothwhile under network load and not under network load.