NPF
—
NetBSD packet filter
NPF
is a layer 3 packet filter, supporting IPv4 and IPv6
as well as layer 4 protocols such as TCP, UDP, and ICMP. It was designed with
a focus on high performance, scalability, and modularity.
NPF
offers the traditional set of features provided by
packet filters. Some key features are:
- Stateful inspection (connection tracking).
- Network address translation (NAT). This includes static (stateless) and
dynamic (stateful) translation, port translation, bi-directional NAT,
etc.
- IPv6-to-IPv6 network prefix translation (NPTv6).
- Tables for efficient IP sets.
- Application Level Gateways (e.g., to support traceroute).
- Use of BPF with just-in-time (JIT) compilation.
- Rule procedures and a framework for
NPF
extensions.
- Traffic normalisation (extension).
- Packet logging (extension).
For a full set of features and their description, see the
NPF
documentation website and other manual
pages.
NPF
was written from scratch in 2009 and is distributed
under the 2-clause BSD license. It first appeared in NetBSD
6.0.
NPF
was designed and implemented by
Mindaugas Rasiukevicius.