iptables-xml(1) — Linux manual page

IPTABLES-XML(1)              iptables 1.8.11              IPTABLES-XML(1)

NAME         top

       iptables-xml — Convert iptables-save format to XML

SYNOPSIS         top

       iptables-xml [-c] [-v]

DESCRIPTION         top

       iptables-xml is used to convert the output of iptables-save into
       an easily manipulatable XML format to STDOUT.  Use I/O-redirection
       provided by your shell to write to a file.

       -c, --combine
              combine consecutive rules with the same matches but
              different targets. iptables does not currently support more
              than one target per match, so this simulates that by
              collecting the targets from consecutive iptables rules into
              one action tag, but only when the rule matches are
              identical. Terminating actions like RETURN, DROP, ACCEPT
              and QUEUE are not combined with subsequent targets.

       -v, --verbose
              Output xml comments containing the iptables line from which
              the XML is derived

       iptables-xml does a mechanistic conversion to a very expressive
       xml format; the only semantic considerations are for -g and -j
       targets in order to discriminate between <call> <goto> and <nane-
       of-target> as it helps xml processing scripts if they can tell the
       difference between a target like SNAT and another chain.

       Some sample output is:

       <iptables-rules>
         <table name="mangle">
           <chain name="PREROUTING" policy="ACCEPT" packet-count="63436"
       byte-count="7137573">
             <rule>
              <conditions>
               <match>
                 <p>tcp</p>
               </match>
               <tcp>
                 <sport>8443</sport>
               </tcp>
              </conditions>
              <actions>
               <call>
                 <check_ip/>
               </call>
               <ACCEPT/>
              </actions>
             </rule>
           </chain>
         </table> </iptables-rules>

       Conversion from XML to iptables-save format may be done using the
       iptables.xslt script and xsltproc, or a custom program using
       libxsltproc or similar; in this fashion:

       xsltproc iptables.xslt my-iptables.xml | iptables-restore

BUGS         top

       None known as of iptables-1.3.7 release

AUTHOR         top

       Sam Liddicott <[email protected]>

SEE ALSO         top

       iptables-save(8), iptables-restore(8), iptables(8)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the iptables (administer and maintain packet
       filter rules) project.  Information about the project can be found
       at ⟨http://www.netfilter.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, see ⟨http://bugzilla.netfilter.org/⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.netfilter.org/iptables⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-07-22.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       [email protected]

iptables 1.8.11                                           IPTABLES-XML(1)

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