IPTables-libiptc version 0.51
=============================

This package provides a Perl interface to the netfilter/iptables
C-library libiptc.

Advantages of this module: Many rule changes can be done very
fast. Several rule changes is committed atomically.

This module is heavily inspired by the CPAN module IPTables-IPv4.  The
CPAN module IPTables-IPv4 could not be used because it has not been
kept up-to-date, with the newest iptables extensions.  This is a
result of the module design, as it contains every extension and thus
needs to port them individually.

This package has another approach, it links with the systems
libiptc.so and libxtables.so library and depend on dynamic loading of
iptables extensions available on the system.

This design limits us to only export the libiptc chain manipulation
functions.  All rule manipulations are done through the iptables.c
"do_command" function.  As iptables.c is not made as a library, the
package unfortunately needs to maintain/contain this C file. This
unfortunately also means that we need to keep up-to-date with
iptables.c API changes (but significantly less work that keeping in
sync with every extension module).


DEPENDENCIES

This module requires these other modules and libraries:

 iptables
 xtables.h
 libiptc.so
 libxtables.so

The iptables version installed on your system is auto-detected during
generation of the Makefile.PL file.  This sets the IPTABLES_VERSION
variable as it needs to match the .so extentions available on you
system.

This release focus on supporting iptables above version 1.4.3.2
and up-to iptables version 1.4.10.

The default fallback IPTABLES_VERSION is currently set to version 1.4.4.

If you need support for iptables versions 1.4.1 and 1.4.2, we
recommend using version 0.18 of this module IPTables::libiptc.


BUGS

Significant API changes when into 1.4.3, and thus older versions cannot
be kept backward binary compatible with this release.


INSTALLATION

Notice this module depends on iptables dynamic loadable libraries,
thus it needs to know the path to them (default assumes they are
located in /lib/xtables).  The iptables path for dynamic loading
(where the lib{ip,x}t_*.so files are located) can be altered by setting
the variable XTABLES_LIBDIR while calling make.  This can also be
changed later at runtime setting the environment variable
XTABLES_LIBDIR.

To install this module type the following:

   perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/usr/local/
   make XTABLES_LIBDIR=/usr/local/libexec/xtables
   sudo make test
   make install PREFIX=/usr/local/stow/IPTables-libiptc-0.51

   cd /usr/local/stow/
   stow IPTables-libiptc-0.51


COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Copyright (C) 2006-2011 by Jesper Dangaard Brouer <hawk@cpan.org>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.