PF.CONF(5)

NAME
pf.conf - packet filter configuration file

DESCRIPTION
The pf(4) packet filter modifies, drops or passes packets according to rules or definitions specified in pf.conf.

STATEMENT ORDER
There are eight types of statements in pf.conf:

Macros
    User-defined variables may be defined and used later, simplifying the configuration file. Macros must be defined before they are referenced in pf.conf.

Tables
    Tables provide a mechanism for increasing the performance and flexibility of rules with large numbers of source or destination addresses.

Options
    Options tune the behaviour of the packet filtering engine.

Ethernet Filtering
    Ethernet filtering provides rule-based blocking or passing of Ethernet packets.

Traffic Normalization (e.g. scrub)
    Traffic normalization protects internal machines against inconsistencies in Internet protocols and implementations.

Queueing
    Queueing provides rule-based bandwidth control.

Translation (Various forms of NAT)
    Translation rules specify how addresses are to be mapped or redirected to other addresses.

Packet Filtering
    Packet filtering provides rule-based blocking or passing of packets.

With the exception of macros and tables, the types of statements should be grouped and appear in pf.conf in the order shown above, as this matches the operation of the underlying packet filtering engine. By default pfctl(8) enforces this order (see set require-order below).

Comments can be put anywhere in the file using a hash mark (‘#’), and extend to the end of the current line.

Additional configuration files can be included with the include keyword, for example:

    include "/etc/pf/sub.filter.conf"

MACROS
A macro is defined with a command of the form name=value. The macro name can contain letters, digits, and underscores and cannot be a reserved word (for example, pass, in, or out). Within unquoted arguments, the string $name is later expanded to value. Ranges of network addresses used in macros that will be expanded in lists later on must be quoted with additional simple quotes.

For example,

    ext_if = "kue0"
    all_ifs = "{" $ext_if lo0 "}"
    pass out on $ext_if from any to any
    pass in  on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 25
    usr_lan_range = "'192.0.2.0/24'"
    srv_lan_range = "'198.51.100.0 - 198.51.100.255'"
    nat_ranges = "{" $usr_lan_range $srv_lan_range "}"
    nat on $ext_if from $nat_ranges to any -> ($ext_if)

TABLES
Tables are named structures which can hold a collection of addresses and networks. Lookups against tables in pf(4) are relatively fast, making a single rule with tables much more efficient, in terms of processor usage and memory consumption, than a large number of rules which differ only in IP address (either created explicitly or automatically by rule expansion).

Tables can be used as the source or destination of filter rules, scrub rules or translation rules such as nat or rdr (see below for details on the various rule types). Tables can also be used for the redirect address of nat and rdr and in the routing options of filter rules, but not for bitmask pools.

Tables can be defined with any of the following pfctl(8) mechanisms. As with macros, reserved words may not be used as table names.

manually
    Persistent tables can be manually created with the add or replace option of pfctl(8), before or after the ruleset has been loaded.

pf.conf
    Table definitions can be placed directly in this file, and loaded at the same time as other rules are loaded, atomically. Table definitions inside pf.conf use the table statement, and are especially useful to define non-persistent tables. The contents of a pre-existing table defined without a list of addresses to initialize it is not altered when pf.conf is loaded. A table initialized with the empty list, { }, will be cleared on load.

Tables may be defined with the following attributes:

persist
    The persist flag forces the kernel to keep the table even when no rules refer to it. If the flag is not set, the kernel will automatically remove the table when the last rule referring to it is flushed.

const
    The const flag prevents the user from altering the contents of the table once it has been created. Without that flag, pfctl(8) can be used to add or remove addresses from the table at any time, even when running with securelevel(7) = 2.

counters
    The counters flag enables per-address packet and byte counters which can be displayed with pfctl(8). Note that this feature carries significant memory overhead for large tables.

For example,

    table <private> const { 10/8, 172.16/12, 192.168/16 }
    table <badhosts> persist
    block on fxp0 from { <private>, <badhosts> } to any

creates a table called private, to hold RFC 1918 private network blocks, and a table called badhosts, which is initially empty. A filter rule is set up to block all traffic coming from addresses listed in either table. The private table cannot have its contents changed and the badhosts table will exist even when no active filter rules reference it. Addresses may later be added to the badhosts table, so that traffic from these hosts can be blocked by using

    # pfctl -t badhosts -Tadd 204.92.77.111

A table can also be initialized with an address list specified in one or more external files, using the following syntax:

    table <spam> persist file "/etc/spammers" file "/etc/openrelays"
    block on fxp0 from <spam> to any

The files /etc/spammers and /etc/openrelays list IP addresses, one per line. Any lines beginning with a # are treated as comments and ignored. In addition to being specified by IP address, hosts may also be specified by their hostname. When the resolver is called to add a hostname to a table, all resulting IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are placed into the table. IP addresses can also be entered in a table by specifying a valid interface name, a valid interface group or the self keyword, in which case all addresses assigned to the interface(s) will be added to the table.

OPTIONS
pf(4) may be tuned for various situations using the set command.

set timeout

    interval
        Interval between purging expired states and fragments.
    frag
        Seconds before an unassembled fragment is expired.
    src.track
        Length of time to retain a source tracking entry after the last state expires.

    When a packet matches a stateful connection, the seconds to live for the connection will be updated to that of the proto.modifier which corresponds to the connection state. Each packet which matches this state will reset the TTL. Tuning these values may improve the performance of the firewall at the risk of dropping valid idle connections. Alternatively, these values may be adjusted collectively in a manner suitable for a specific environment using set optimization (see above).

    tcp.first
        The state after the first packet.
    tcp.opening
        The state after the second packet but before both endpoints have acknowledged the connection.
    tcp.tsdiff
        Maximum allowed time difference between RFC 1323 compliant packet timestamps. 30 seconds by default.
    tcp.established
        The fully established state.
    tcp.closing
        The state after the first FIN has been sent.
    tcp.finwait
        The state after both FINs have been exchanged and the connection is closed. Some hosts (notably web servers on Solaris) send TCP packets even after closing the connection. Increasing tcp.finwait (and possibly tcp.closing) can prevent blocking of such packets.
    tcp.closed
        The state after one endpoint sends an RST.

    SCTP timeout are handled similar to TCP, but with its own set of states:

    sctp.first
        The state after the first packet.
    sctp.opening
        The state before the destination host ever sends a packet.
    sctp.established
        The fully established state.
    sctp.closing
        The state after the first SHUTDOWN chunk has been sent.
    sctp.closed
        The state after SHUTDOWN_ACK has been exchanged and the connection is closed.

    ICMP and UDP are handled in a fashion similar to TCP, but with a much more limited set of states:

    udp.first
        The state after the first packet.
    udp.single
        The state if the source host sends more than one packet but the destination host has never sent one back.
    udp.multiple
        The state if both hosts have sent packets.
    icmp.first
        The state after the first packet.
    icmp.error
        The state after an ICMP error came back in response to an ICMP packet.

    Other protocols are handled similarly to UDP:

    other.first
    other.single
    other.multiple

    Timeout values can be reduced adaptively as the number of state table entries grows.

    adaptive.start
        When the number of state entries exceeds this value, adaptive scaling begins. All timeout values are scaled linearly with factor (adaptive.end - number of states) / (adaptive.end - adaptive.start).
    adaptive.end
        When reaching this number of state entries, all timeout values become zero, effectively purging all state entries immediately. This value is used to define the scale factor, it should not actually be reached (set a lower state limit, see below).

    Adaptive timeouts are enabled by default, with an adaptive.start value equal to 60% of the state limit, and an adaptive.end value equal to 120% of the state limit. They can be disabled by setting both adaptive.start and adaptive.end to 0.

    The adaptive timeout values can be defined both globally and for each rule. When used on a per-rule basis, the values relate to the number of states created by the rule, otherwise to the total number of states.

    For example:

        set timeout tcp.first 120
        set timeout tcp.established 86400
        set timeout { adaptive.start 60000, adaptive.end 120000 }
        set limit states 100000

    With 90000 state table entries, the timeout values are scaled to 50% (tcp.first 60, tcp.established 43200).

set loginterface
    Enable collection of packet and byte count statistics for the given interface or interface group. These statistics can be viewed using

        # pfctl -s info

    In this example pf(4) collects statistics on the interface named dc0:

        set loginterface dc0

    One can disable the loginterface using:

        set loginterface none

set limit
    Sets hard limits on the memory pools used by the packet filter. See zone(9) for an explanation of memory pools.

    Limits can be set on the following:

    states
        Set the maximum number of entries in the memory pool used by state table entries (those generated by pass rules which do not specify no state). The default is 100000.

    src-nodes
        Set the maximum number of entries in the memory pool used for tracking source IP addresses (generated by the sticky-address and src.track options). The default is 10000.

    table-entries
        Set the number of addresses that can be stored in tables. The default is 200000.

    anchors
        Set the number of anchors that can exist. The default is 512.

    eth-anchors
        Set the number of anchors that can exist. The default is 512.

    Multiple limits can be combined on a single line:

        set limit { states 20000, frags 2000, src-nodes 2000 }

set ruleset-optimization
    none
        Disable the ruleset optimizer.
    basic
        Enable basic ruleset optimization. This is the default behaviour. Basic ruleset optimization does four things to improve the performance of ruleset evaluations:

        1.  remove duplicate rules
        2.  remove rules that are a subset of another rule
        3.  combine multiple rules into a table when advantageous
        4.  re-order the rules to improve evaluation performance

    profile
        Uses the currently loaded ruleset as a feedback profile to tailor the ordering of quick rules to actual network traffic.

    It is important to note that the ruleset optimizer will modify the ruleset to improve performance. A side effect of the ruleset modification is that per-rule accounting statistics will have different meanings than before. If per-rule accounting is important for billing purposes or whatnot, either the ruleset optimizer should not be used or a label field should be added to all of the accounting rules to act as optimization barriers.

    Optimization can also be set as a command-line argument to pfctl(8), overriding the settings in pf.conf.

set optimization
    Optimize state timeouts for one of the following network environments:

    normal
        A normal network environment. Suitable for almost all networks.
    high-latency
        A high-latency environment (such as a satellite connection).
    satellite
        Alias for high-latency.
    aggressive
        Aggressively expire connections. This can greatly reduce the memory usage of the firewall at the cost of dropping idle connections early.
    conservative
        Extremely conservative settings. Avoid dropping legitimate connections at the expense of greater memory utilization (possibly much greater on a busy network) and slightly increased processor utilization.

    For example:

        set optimization aggressive

set reassemble yes | no [no-df]
    The reassemble option is used to enable or disable the reassembly of fragmented packets, and can be set to yes or no. If no-df is also specified, fragments with the “dont-fragment” bit set are reassembled too, instead of being dropped; the reassembled packet will have the “dont-fragment” bit cleared. The default value is no.

    This option is ignored if there are pre-FreeBSD 14 scrub rules present.

set block-policy
    The block-policy option sets the default behaviour for the packet block action:

    drop
        Packet is silently dropped.
    return
        A TCP RST is returned for blocked TCP packets, an SCTP ABORT chunk is returned for blocked SCTP packets, an ICMP UNREACHABLE is returned for blocked UDP packets, and all other packets are silently dropped.

    The default value is drop.

    For example:

        set block-policy return

set fail-policy
    The fail-policy option sets the behaviour of rules which should pass a packet but were unable to do so. This might happen when a nat or route-to rule uses an empty table as list of targets or if a rule fails to create state or source node. The following block actions are possible:

    drop
        Incoming packet is silently dropped.
    return
        Incoming packet is dropped and TCP RST is returned for TCP packets, an SCTP ABORT chunk is returned for blocked SCTP packets, an ICMP UNREACHABLE is returned for UDP packets, and no response is sent for other packets.

    For example:

        set fail-policy return

set state-policy
    The state-policy option sets the default behaviour for states:

    if-bound
        States are bound to interface.
    floating
        States can match packets on any interfaces (the default).

    For example:

        set state-policy if-bound

set syncookies never | always | adaptive
    When syncookies are active, pf will answer each incoming TCP SYN with a syncookie SYNACK, without allocating any resources. Upon reception of the client's ACK in response to the syncookie SYNACK, pf will evaluate the ruleset and create state if the ruleset permits it, complete the three way handshake with the target host and continue the connection with synproxy in place. This allows pf to be resilient against large synflood attacks which would run the state table against its limits otherwise. Due to the blind answers to every incoming SYN syncookies share the caveats of synproxy, namely seemingly accepting connections that will be dropped later on.

    never
        pf will never send syncookie SYNACKs (the default).
    always
        pf will always send syncookie SYNACKs.
    adaptive
        pf will enable syncookie mode when a given percentage of the state table is used up by half-open TCP connections, as in, those that saw the initial SYN but didn't finish the three way handshake. The thresholds for entering and leaving syncookie mode can be specified using

            set syncookies adaptive (start 25%, end 12%)

set state-defaults
    The state-defaults option sets the state options for states created from rules without an explicit keep state. For example:

        set state-defaults no-sync

set hostid
    The 32-bit hostid identifies this firewall's state table entries to other firewalls in a pfsync(4) failover cluster. By default the hostid is set to a pseudo-random value, however it may be desirable to manually configure it, for example to more easily identify the source of state table entries.

        set hostid 1

    The hostid may be specified in either decimal or hexadecimal.

set require-order
    By default pfctl(8) enforces an ordering of the statement types in the ruleset to: options, normalization, queueing, translation, filtering. Setting this option to no disables this enforcement. There may be non-trivial and non-obvious implications to an out of order ruleset. Consider carefully before disabling the order enforcement.

set fingerprints
    Load fingerprints of known operating systems from the given filename. By default fingerprints of known operating systems are automatically loaded from pf.os(5) in /etc but can be overridden via this option. Setting this option may leave a small period of time where the fingerprints referenced by the currently active ruleset are inconsistent until the new ruleset finishes loading. The default location for fingerprints is /etc/pf.os.

    For example:

        set fingerprints "/etc/pf.os.devel"

set skip on <ifspec>
    List interfaces for which packets should not be filtered. Packets passing in or out on such interfaces are passed as if pf was disabled, i.e. pf does not process them in any way. This can be useful on loopback and other virtual interfaces, when packet filtering is not desired and can have unexpected effects. For example:

        set skip on lo0

set debug
    Set the debug level to one of the following:

    none
        Don't generate debug messages.
    urgent
        Generate debug messages only for serious errors.
    misc
        Generate debug messages for various errors.
    loud
        Generate debug messages for common conditions.

set keepcounters
    Preserve rule counters across rule updates. Usually rule counters are reset to zero on every update of the ruleset. With keepcounters set pf will attempt to find matching rules between old and new rulesets and preserve the rule counters.

ETHERNET FILTERING
pf(4) has the ability to block and pass packets based on attributes of their Ethernet (layer 2) header.

Each time a packet processed by the packet filter comes in on or goes out through an interface, the filter rules are evaluated in sequential order, from first to last. The last matching rule decides what action is taken. If no rule matches the packet, the default action is to pass the packet without creating a state.

The following actions can be used in the filter:

block
    The packet is blocked. Unlike for layer 3 traffic the packet is always silently dropped.

pass
    The packet is passed; no state is created for layer 2 traffic.

  Parameters applicable to layer 2 rules
The rule parameters specify the packets to which a rule applies. A packet always comes in on, or goes out through, one interface. Most parameters are optional. If a parameter is specified, the rule only applies to packets with matching attributes. The matching for some parameters can be inverted with the! operator. Certain parameters can be expressed as lists, in which case pfctl(8) generates all needed rule combinations.

in or out
    This rule applies to incoming or outgoing packets. If neither in nor out are specified, the rule will match packets in both directions.

quick
    If a packet matches a rule which has the quick option set, this rule is considered the last matching rule, and evaluation of subsequent rules is skipped.

on <ifspec>
    This rule applies only to packets coming in on, or going out through, this particular interface or interface group. For more information on interface groups, see the group keyword in ifconfig(8). any will match any existing interface except loopback ones.

bridge-to <interface>
    Packets matching this rule will be sent out of the specified interface without further processing.

proto <protocol>
    This rule applies only to packets of this protocol. Note that Ethernet protocol numbers are different from those used in ip(4) and ip6(4).

    from <source> to <dest> This rule applies only to packets with the specified source and destination MAC addresses.

queue <queue>
    Packets matching this rule will be assigned to the specified queue. See QUEUEING for setup details.

tag <string>
    Packets matching this rule will be tagged with the specified string. The tag acts as an internal marker that can be used to identify these packets later on. This can be used, for example, to provide trust between interfaces and to determine if packets have been processed by translation rules. Tags are "sticky", meaning that the packet will be tagged even if the rule is not the last matching rule. Further matching rules can replace the tag with a new one but will not remove a previously applied tag. A packet is only ever assigned one tag at a time.

tagged <string>
    Used to specify that packets must already be tagged with the given tag in order to match the rule. Inverse tag matching can also be done by specifying the ! operator before the tagged keyword.

TRAFFIC NORMALIZATION
Traffic normalization is a broad umbrella term for aspects of the packet filter which deal with verifying packets, packet fragments, spoofed traffic, and other irregularities.

  Scrub
Scrub involves sanitising packet content in such a way that there are no ambiguities in packet interpretation on the receiving side. It is invoked with the scrub option, added to filter rules.

Parameters are specified enclosed in parentheses. At least one of the following parameters must be specified:

no-df
    Clears the dont-fragment bit from a matching IP packet. Some operating systems are known to generate fragmented packets with the dont-fragment bit set. This is particularly true with NFS. Scrub will drop such fragmented dont-fragment packets unless no-df is specified.

    Unfortunately some operating systems also generate their dont-fragment packets with a zero IP identification field. Clearing the dont-fragment bit on packets with a zero IP ID may cause deleterious results if an upstream router later fragments the packet. Using the random-id modifier (see below) is recommended in combination with the no-df modifier to ensure unique IP identifiers.

min-ttl <number>
    Enforces a minimum TTL for matching IP packets.

max-mss <number>
    Reduces the maximum segment size (MSS) on TCP SYN packets to be no greater than number. This is sometimes required in scenarios where the two endpoints of a TCP connection are not able to carry similar sized packets and the resulting mismatch can lead to packet fragmentation or loss. Note that setting the MSS this way can have undesirable effects, such as interfering with the OS detection features of pf(4).

set-tos <string>
    <number> Enforces a TOS for matching IP packets. TOS may be given as one of critical, inetcontrol, lowdelay, netcontrol, throughput, reliability, or one of the DiffServ Code Points: ef, va, af11 ... af43, cs0 ... cs7; or as either hex or decimal.

random-id
    Replaces the IP identification field with random values to compensate for predictable values generated by many hosts. This option only applies to packets that are not fragmented after the optional fragment reassembly.

reassemble tcp
    Statefully normalizes TCP connections. reassemble tcp performs the following normalizations:

    ttl Neither side of the connection is allowed to reduce their IP TTL. An attacker may send a packet such that it reaches the firewall, affects the firewall state, and expires before reaching the destination host. reassemble tcp will raise the TTL of all packets back up to the highest value seen on the connection.
    timestamp modulation
        Modern TCP stacks will send a timestamp on every TCP packet and echo the other endpoint's timestamp back to them. Many operating systems will merely start the timestamp at zero when first booted, and increment it several times a second. The uptime of the host can be deduced by reading the timestamp and multiplying by a constant. Also observing several different timestamps can be used to count hosts behind a NAT device. And spoofing TCP packets into a connection requires knowing or guessing valid timestamps. Timestamps merely need to be monotonically increasing and not derived off a guessable base time. reassemble tcp will cause scrub to modulate the TCP timestamps with a random number.
    extended PAWS checks
        There is a problem with TCP on long fat pipes, in that a packet might get delayed for longer than it takes the connection to wrap its 32-bit sequence space. In such an occurrence, the old packet would be indistinguishable from a new packet and would be accepted as such. The solution to this is called PAWS: Protection Against Wrapped Sequence numbers. It protects against it by making sure the timestamp on each packet does not go backwards. reassemble tcp also makes sure the timestamp on the packet does not go forward more than the RFC allows. By doing this, pf(4) artificially extends the security of TCP sequence numbers by 10 to 18 bits when the host uses appropriately randomized timestamps, since a blind attacker would have to guess the timestamp as well.

For example,

    match in all scrub (no-df random-id max-mss 1440)

  Scrub ruleset (pre-FreeBSD 14)
In order to maintain compatibility with older releases of FreeBSD scrub rules can also be specified in their own ruleset. In such case they are invoked with the scrub directive. If there are such rules present they determine packet reassembly behaviour. When no such rules are present the option set reassembly takes precedence. The scrub rules can take all parameters specified above for a scrub option of filter rules and 2 more parameters controlling fragment reassembly:

fragment reassemble
    Using scrub rules, fragments can be reassembled by normalization. In this case, fragments are buffered until they form a complete packet, and only the completed packet is passed on to the filter. The advantage is that filter rules have to deal only with complete packets, and can ignore fragments. The drawback of caching fragments is the additional memory cost. This is the default behaviour unless no fragment reassemble is specified.

no fragment reassemble
    Do not reassemble fragments.

For example,

    scrub in on $ext_if all fragment reassemble

The no option prefixed to a scrub rule causes matching packets to remain unscrubbed, much in the same way as drop quick works in the packet filter (see below). This mechanism should be used when it is necessary to exclude specific packets from broader scrub rules.

scrub rules in the scrub ruleset are evaluated for every packet before stateful filtering. This means excessive usage of them will cause performance penalty. scrub reassemble tcp rules must not have the direction (in/out) specified.

QUEUEING with ALTQ
The ALTQ system is currently not available in the GENERIC kernel nor as loadable modules. In order to use the herein after called queueing options one has to use a custom built kernel. Please refer to altq(4) to learn about the related kernel options.

Packets can be assigned to queues for the purpose of bandwidth control. At least two declarations are required to configure queues, and later any packet filtering rule can reference the defined queues by name. During the filtering component of pf.conf, the last referenced queue name is where any packets from pass rules will be queued, while for block rules it specifies where any resulting ICMP or TCP RST packets should be queued. The scheduler defines the algorithm used to decide which packets get delayed, dropped, or sent out immediately. There are three schedulers currently supported.

cbq Class Based Queueing. Queues attached to an interface build a tree, thus each queue can have further child queues. Each queue can have a priority and a bandwidth assigned. Priority mainly controls the time packets take to get sent out, while bandwidth has primarily effects on throughput. cbq achieves both partitioning and sharing of link bandwidth by hierarchically structured classes. Each class has its own queue and is assigned its share of bandwidth. A child class can borrow bandwidth from its parent class as long as excess bandwidth is available (see the option borrow, below).

priq
    Priority Queueing. Queues are flat attached to the interface, thus, queues cannot have further child queues. Each queue has a unique priority assigned, ranging from 0 to 15. Packets in the queue with the highest priority are processed first.

hfsc
    Hierarchical Fair Service Curve. Queues attached to an interface build a tree, thus each queue can have further child queues. Each queue can have a priority and a bandwidth assigned. Priority mainly controls the time packets take to get sent out, while bandwidth primarily affects throughput. hfsc supports both link-sharing and guaranteed real-time services. It employs a service curve based QoS model, and its unique feature is an ability to decouple delay and bandwidth allocation.

The interfaces on which queueing should be activated are declared using the altq on declaration. altq on has the following keywords:

<interface>
    Queueing is enabled on the named interface.

<scheduler>
    Specifies which queueing scheduler to use. Currently supported values are cbq for Class Based Queueing, priq for Priority Queueing and hfsc for the Hierarchical Fair Service Curve scheduler.

bandwidth <bw>
    The maximum bitrate for all queues on an interface may be specified using the bandwidth keyword. The value can be specified as an absolute value or as a percentage of the interface bandwidth. When using an absolute value, the suffixes b, Kb, Mb, and Gb are used to represent bits, kilobits, megabits, and gigabits per second, respectively. The value must not exceed the interface bandwidth. If bandwidth is not specified, the interface bandwidth is used (but take note that some interfaces do not know their bandwidth, or can adapt their bandwidth rates).

qlimit <limit>
    The maximum number of packets held in the queue. The default is 50.

tbrsize <size>
    Adjusts the size, in bytes, of the token bucket regulator. If not specified, heuristics based on the interface bandwidth are used to determine the size.

queue <list>
    Defines a list of subqueues to create on an interface.

In the following example, the interface dc0 should queue up to 5Mbps in four second-level queues using Class Based Queueing. Those four queues will be shown in a later example.

    altq on dc0 cbq bandwidth 5Mb queue { std, http, mail, ssh }

Once interfaces are activated for queueing using the altq directive, a sequence of queue directives may be defined. The name associated with a queue must match a queue defined in the altq directive (e.g. mail), or, except for the priq scheduler, in a parent queue declaration. The following keywords can be used:

on <interface>
    Specifies the interface the queue operates on. If not given, it operates on all matching interfaces.

bandwidth <bw>
    Specifies the maximum bitrate to be processed by the queue. This value must not exceed the value of the parent queue and can be specified as an absolute value or a percentage of the parent queue's bandwidth. If not specified, defaults to 100% of the parent queue's bandwidth. The priq scheduler does not support bandwidth specification.

priority <level>
    Between queues a priority level can be set. For cbq and hfsc, the range is 0 to 7 and for priq, the range is 0 to 15. The default for all is 1. Priq queues with a higher priority are always served first. Cbq and Hfsc queues with a higher priority are preferred in the case of overload.

qlimit <limit>
    The maximum number of packets held in the queue. The default is 50.

The scheduler can get additional parameters with <scheduler> (<parameters>). Parameters are as follows:

default
    Packets not matched by another queue are assigned to this one. Exactly one default queue is required.

red Enable RED (Random Early Detection) on this queue. RED drops packets with a probability proportional to the average queue length.

rio Enables RIO on this queue. RIO is RED with IN/OUT, thus running RED two times more than RIO would achieve the same effect. RIO is currently not supported in the GENERIC kernel.

ecn Enables ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) on this queue. ECN implies RED.

The cbq scheduler supports an additional option:

borrow
    The queue can borrow bandwidth from the parent.

The hfsc scheduler supports some additional options:

realtime <sc>
    The minimum required bandwidth for the queue.

upperlimit <sc>
    The maximum allowed bandwidth for the queue.

linkshare <sc>
    The bandwidth share of a backlogged queue.

<sc> is an acronym for service curve.

The format for service curve specifications is (m1, d, m2). m2 controls the bandwidth assigned to the queue. m1 and d are optional and can be used to control the initial bandwidth assignment. For the first d milliseconds the queue gets the bandwidth given as m1, afterwards the value given in m2.

Furthermore, with cbq and hfsc, child queues can be specified as in an altq declaration, thus building a tree of queues using a part of their parent's bandwidth.

Packets can be assigned to queues based on filter rules by using the queue keyword. Normally only one queue is specified; when a second one is specified it will instead be used for packets which have a TOS of lowdelay and for TCP ACKs with no data payload.

To continue the previous example, the examples below would specify the four referenced queues, plus a few child queues. Interactive ssh(1) sessions get priority over bulk transfers like scp(1) and sftp(1). The queues may then be referenced by filtering rules (see PACKET FILTERING below).

    queue std bandwidth 10% cbq(default)
    queue http bandwidth 60% priority 2 cbq(borrow red) \
          { employees, developers }
    queue  developers bandwidth 75% cbq(borrow)
    queue  employees bandwidth 15%
    queue mail bandwidth 10% priority 0 cbq(borrow ecn)
    queue ssh bandwidth 20% cbq(borrow) { ssh_interactive, ssh_bulk }
    queue  ssh_interactive bandwidth 50% priority 7 cbq(borrow)
    queue  ssh_bulk bandwidth 50% priority 0 cbq(borrow)
    block return out on dc0 inet all queue std
    pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from $developerhosts to any port 80 \
          queue developers
    pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from $employeehosts to any port 80 \
          queue employees
    pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 22 \
          queue(ssh_bulk, ssh_interactive)
    pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 25 \
          queue mail

QUEUEING with dummynet
Queueing can also be done with dummynet(4). Queues and pipes can be created with dnctl(8).

Packets can be assigned to queues and pipes using dnqueue and dnpipe respectively.

Both dnqueue and dnpipe take either a single pipe or queue number or two numbers as arguments. The first pipe or queue number will be used to shape the traffic in the rule direction, the second will be used to shape the traffic in the reverse direction. If the rule does not specify a direction the first packet to create state will be shaped according to the first number, and the response traffic according to the second.

If the dummynet(4) module is not loaded any traffic sent into a queue or pipe will be dropped.

TRANSLATION
Translation options modify either the source or destination address and port of the packets associated with a stateful connection. pf(4) modifies the specified address and/or port in the packet and recalculates IP, TCP, and UDP checksums as necessary.

If specified on a match rule, subsequent rules will see packets as they look after any addresses and ports have been translated. These rules will therefore have to filter based on the translated address and port number.

The state entry created permits pf(4) to keep track of the original address for traffic associated with that state and correctly direct return traffic for that connection.

Various types of translation are possible with pf:

af-to
    Translation between different address families (NAT64) is handled using af-to rules. Because address family translation overrides the routing table, it's only possible to use af-to on inbound rules, and a source address of the resulting translation must always be specified.

    The optional second argument is the host or subnet the original addresses are translated into for the destination. The lowest bits of the original destination address form the host part of the new destination address according to the specified subnet. It is possible to embed a complete IPv4 address into an IPv6 address using a network prefix of /96 or smaller.

    When a destination address is not specified, it is assumed that the host part is 32-bit long. For IPv6 to IPv4 translation this would mean using only the lower 32 bits of the original IPv6 destination address. For IPv4 to IPv6 translation the destination subnet defaults to the subnet of the new IPv6 source address with a prefix length of /96. See RFC 6052 Section 2.2 for details on how the prefix determines the destination address encoding.

    For example, the following rules are identical:

        pass in inet af-to inet6 from 2001:db8::1 to 2001:db8::/96
        pass in inet af-to inet6 from 2001:db8::1

    In the above example the matching IPv4 packets will be modified to have a source address of 2001:db8::1 and a destination address will get prefixed with 2001:db8::/96, e.g. 198.51.100.100 will be translated to 2001:db8::c633:6464.

    In the reverse case the following rules are identical:

        pass in inet6 from any to 64:ff9b::/96 af-to inet \
               from 198.51.100.1 to 0.0.0.0/0
        pass in inet6 from any to 64:ff9b::/96 af-to inet \
               from 198.51.100.1

    The destination IPv4 address is assumed to be embedded inside the original IPv6 destination address, e.g. 64:ff9b::c633:6464 will be translated to 198.51.100.100.

    The current implementation will only extract IPv4 addresses from the IPv6 addresses with a prefix length of /96 and greater.

binat-to
    A binat-to rule specifies a bidirectional mapping between an external IP netblock and an internal IP netblock. It expands to an outbound nat-to rule and an inbound rdr-to rule.

nat-to
    A nat-to option specifies that IP addresses are to be changed as the packet traverses the given interface. This technique allows one or more IP addresses on the translating host to support network traffic for a larger range of machines on an "inside" network. Although in theory any IP address can be used on the inside, it is strongly recommended that one of the address ranges defined by RFC 1918 be used. These netblocks are:

        10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (all of net 10.0.0.0, i.e., 10.0.0.0/8)
        172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (i.e., 172.16.0.0/12)
        192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (i.e., 192.168.0.0/16)

    nat-to is usually applied outbound. If applied inbound, nat-to to a local IP address is not supported.

rdr-to
    The packet is redirected to another destination and possibly a different port. rdr-to can optionally specify port ranges instead of single ports. For instance:

        match in ... port 2000:2999 rdr-to ... port 4000

    redirects ports 2000 to 2999 (inclusive) to port 4000.

        qmatch in ... port 2000:2999 rdr-to ... port 4000:*

    redirects port 2000 to 4000, 2001 to 4001, ..., 2999 to 4999.

rdr-to is usually applied inbound. If applied outbound, rdr-to to a local IP address is not supported. In addition to modifying the address, some translation rules may modify source or destination ports for tcp(4) or udp(4) connections; implicitly in the case of nat-to options and both implicitly and explicitly in the case of rdr-to ones. A rdr-to option may cause the source port to be modified if doing so avoids a conflict with an existing connection. A random source port in the range 50001-65535 is chosen in this case. Port numbers are never translated with a binat-to option.

Note that redirecting external incoming connections to the loopback address, as in

    pass in on egress proto tcp from any to any port smtp \
          rdr-to 127.0.0.1 port spamd

will effectively allow an external host to connect to daemons bound solely to the loopback address, circumventing the traditional blocking of such connections on a real interface. Unless this effect is desired, any of the local non-loopback addresses should be used as redirection target instead, which allows external connections only to daemons bound to this address or not bound to any address.

See TRANSLATION EXAMPLES below.

  NAT ruleset (pre-FreeBSD 15)
In order to maintain compatibility with older releases of FreeBSD NAT rules can also be specified in their own ruleset. A stateful connection is automatically created to track packets matching such a rule as long as they are not blocked by the filtering section of pf.conf. Since translation occurs before filtering the filter engine will see packets as they look after any addresses and ports have been translated. Filter rules will therefore have to filter based on the translated address and port number. Packets that match a translation rule are only automatically passed if the pass modifier is given, otherwise they are still subject to block and pass rules.

The following rules can be defined in the NAT ruleset: binat, nat, and rdr. They have the same effect as binat-to, nat-to and rdr-to options for filter rules.

The no option prefixed to a translation rule causes packets to remain untranslated, much in the same way as drop quick works in the packet filter. If no rule matches the packet it is passed to the filter engine unmodified.

Evaluation order of the translation rules is dependent on the type of the translation rules and of the direction of a packet. binat rules are always evaluated first. Then either the rdr rules are evaluated on an inbound packet or the nat rules on an outbound packet. Rules of the same type are evaluated in the same order in which they appear in the ruleset. The first matching rule decides what action is taken.

Translation rules apply only to packets that pass through the specified interface, and if no interface is specified, translation is applied to packets on all interfaces. For instance, redirecting port 80 on an external interface to an internal web server will only work for connections originating from the outside. Connections to the address of the external interface from local hosts will not be redirected, since such packets do not actually pass through the external interface. Redirections cannot reflect packets back through the interface they arrive on, they can only be redirected to hosts connected to different interfaces or to the firewall itself.

See COMPATIBILITY TRANSLATION EXAMPLES below.

PACKET FILTERING
pf(4) has the ability to block , pass and match packets based on attributes of their layer 3 (see ip(4) and ip6(4)) and layer 4 (see icmp(4), icmp6(4), tcp(4), sctp(4), udp(4)) headers. In addition, packets may also be assigned to queues for the purpose of bandwidth control.

For each packet processed by the packet filter, the filter rules are evaluated in sequential order, from first to last. For block and pass , the last matching rule decides what action is taken. For match , rules are evaluated every time they match; the pass/block state of a packet remains unchanged. If no rule matches the packet, the default action is to pass the packet.

The following actions can be used in the filter:

block
    The packet is blocked. There are a number of ways in which a block rule can behave when blocking a packet. The default behaviour is to drop packets silently, however this can be overridden or made explicit either globally, by setting the block-policy option, or on a per-rule basis with one of the following options:

    drop
        The packet is silently dropped.
    return-rst
        This applies only to tcp(4) packets, and issues a TCP RST which closes the connection.
    return-icmp
    return-icmp6
        This causes ICMP messages to be returned for packets which match the rule. By default this is an ICMP UNREACHABLE message, however this can be overridden by specifying a message as a code or number.
    return
        This causes a TCP RST to be returned for tcp(4) packets, an SCTP ABORT for SCTP and an ICMP UNREACHABLE for UDP and other packets.

    Options returning ICMP packets currently have no effect if pf(4) operates on a if_bridge(4), as the code to support this feature has not yet been implemented.

    The simplest mechanism to block everything by default and only pass packets that match explicit rules is specify a first filter rule of:

        block all

match
    The packet is matched. This mechanism is used to provide fine grained filtering without altering the block/pass state of a packet. match rules differ from block and pass rules in that parameters are set for every rule a packet matches, not only on the last matching rule. For the following parameters, this means that the parameter effectively becomes "sticky" until explicitly overridden: nat-to, binat-to, rdr-to, queue, dnpipe, dnqueue, rtable, scrub

pass
    The packet is passed; state is created unless the no state option is specified.

By default pf(4) filters packets statefully; the first time a packet matches a pass rule, a state entry is created; for subsequent packets the filter checks whether the packet matches any state. If it does, the packet is passed without evaluation of any rules. After the connection is closed or times out, the state entry is automatically removed.

This has several advantages. For TCP connections, comparing a packet to a state involves checking its sequence numbers, as well as TCP timestamps if a scrub reassemble tcp rule applies to the connection. If these values are outside the narrow windows of expected values, the packet is dropped. This prevents spoofing attacks, such as when an attacker sends packets with a fake source address/port but does not know the connection's sequence numbers. Similarly, pf(4) knows how to match ICMP replies to states. For example,

    pass out inet proto icmp all icmp-type echoreq

allows echo requests (such as those created by ping(8)) out statefully, and matches incoming echo replies correctly to states.

Also, looking up states is usually faster than evaluating rules.

Furthermore, correct handling of ICMP error messages is critical to many protocols, particularly TCP. pf(4) matches ICMP error messages to the correct connection, checks them against connection parameters, and passes them if appropriate. For example if an ICMP source quench message referring to a stateful TCP connection arrives, it will be matched to the state and get passed.

Finally, state tracking is required for nat, binat and rdr rules, in order to track address and port translations and reverse the translation on returning packets.

pf(4) will also create state for other protocols which are effectively stateless by nature. UDP packets are matched to states using only host addresses and ports, and other protocols are matched to states using only the host addresses.

If stateless filtering of individual packets is desired, the no state keyword can be used to specify that state will not be created if this is the last matching rule. A number of parameters can also be set to affect how pf(4) handles state tracking. See STATEFUL TRACKING OPTIONS below for further details.

  Parameters
The rule parameters specify the packets to which a rule applies. A packet always comes in on, or goes out through, one interface. Most parameters are optional. If a parameter is specified, the rule only applies to packets with matching attributes. Certain parameters can be expressed as lists, in which case pfctl(8) generates all needed rule combinations.

in or out
    This rule applies to incoming or outgoing packets. If neither in nor out are specified, the rule will match packets in both directions.

log (all | matches | to <interface> | user)
    In addition to any action specified, log the packet. Only the packet that establishes the state is logged, unless the no state option is specified. The logged packets are sent to a pflog(4) interface, by default pflog0; pflog0 is monitored by the pflogd(8) logging daemon which logs to the file /var/log/pflog in pcap(3) binary format.

    The keywords all, matches, to, and user are optional and can be combined using commas, but must be enclosed in parentheses if given.

    Use all to force logging of all packets for a connection. This is not necessary when no state is explicitly specified.

    If matches is specified, it logs the packet on all subsequent matching rules. It is often combined with to <interface> to avoid adding noise to the default log file.

    The keyword user logs the UNIX user ID of the user that owns the socket and the PID of the process that has the socket open where the packet is sourced from or destined to (depending on which socket is local). This is in addition to the normal information logged.

    Only the first packet logged via log (all, user) will have the user credentials logged when using stateful matching.

    To specify a logging interface other than pflog0, use the syntax to <interface>.

quick
    If a packet matches a rule which has the quick option set, this rule is considered the last matching rule, and evaluation of subsequent rules is skipped.

on <interface>
    This rule applies only to packets coming in on, or going out through, this particular interface or interface group. For more information on interface groups, see the group keyword in ifconfig(8). any will match any existing interface except loopback ones.

<af>
    This rule applies only to packets of this address family. Supported values are inet and inet6.

proto <protocol>
    This rule applies only to packets of this protocol. Common protocols are icmp(4), icmp6(4), tcp(4), sctp(4), and udp(4). For a list of all the protocol name to number mappings used by pfctl(8), see the file /etc/protocols.

    from <source> port <source> os <source> to <dest> port <dest> This rule applies only to packets with the specified source and destination addresses and ports.

    Addresses can be specified in CIDR notation (matching netblocks), as symbolic host names, interface names or interface group names, or as any of the following keywords:

    any Any address.
    no-route
        Any address which is not currently routable.
    urpf-failed
        Any source address that fails a unicast reverse path forwarding (URPF) check, i.e. packets coming in on an interface other than that which holds the route back to the packet's source address.
    self
        Expands to all addresses assigned to all interfaces.
    <table>
        Any address that matches the given table.

    Ranges of addresses are specified by using the ‘-’ operator. For instance: “10.1.1.10 - 10.1.1.12” means all addresses from 10.1.1.10 to 10.1.1.12, hence addresses 10.1.1.10, 10.1.1.11, and 10.1.1.12.

    Interface names and interface group names, and self can have modifiers appended:

    :network
        Translates to the network(s) attached to the interface.
    :broadcast
        Translates to the interface's broadcast address(es).
    :peer
        Translates to the point-to-point interface's peer address(es).
    :0  Do not include interface aliases.

    Host names may also have the:0 option appended to restrict the name resolution to the first of each v4 and non-link-local v6 address found.

    Host name resolution and interface to address translation are done at ruleset load-time. When the address of an interface (or host name) changes (under DHCP or PPP, for instance), the ruleset must be reloaded for the change to be reflected in the kernel. Surrounding the interface name (and optional modifiers) in parentheses changes this behaviour. When the interface name is surrounded by parentheses, the rule is automatically updated whenever the interface changes its address. The ruleset does not need to be reloaded. This is especially useful with nat.

    Ports can be specified either by number or by name. For example, port 80 can be specified as www. For a list of all port name to number mappings used by pfctl(8), see the file /etc/services.

    Ports and ranges of ports are specified by using these operators:

        =	(equal)
        !=	(unequal)
        <	(less than)
        <=	(less than or equal)
        >	(greater than)
        >=	(greater than or equal)
        :	(range including boundaries)
        ><	(range excluding boundaries)
        <>	(except range)

    ‘><’, ‘<>’ and ‘’: are binary operators (they take two arguments). For instance:

    port 2000:2004
        means ‘all ports >= 2000 and <= 2004’, hence ports 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

    port 2000 >< 2004
        means ‘all ports > 2000 and < 2004’, hence ports 2001, 2002 and 2003.

    port 2000 <> 2004
        means ‘all ports < 2000 or > 2004’, hence ports 1-1999 and 2005-65535.

    The operating system of the source host can be specified in the case of TCP rules with the OS modifier. See the OPERATING SYSTEM FINGERPRINTING section for more information.

    The host, port and OS specifications are optional, as in the following examples:

        pass in all
        pass in from any to any
        pass in proto tcp from any port < 1024 to any
        pass in proto tcp from any to any port 25
        pass in proto tcp from 10.0.0.0/8 port >= 1024 \
              to ! 10.1.2.3 port != ssh
        pass in proto tcp from any os "OpenBSD"

all This is equivalent to "from any to any".

group <group>
    Similar to user, this rule only applies to packets of sockets owned by the specified group.

user <user>
    This rule only applies to packets of sockets owned by the specified user. For outgoing connections initiated from the firewall, this is the user that opened the connection. For incoming connections to the firewall itself, this is the user that listens on the destination port. For forwarded connections, where the firewall is not a connection endpoint, the user and group are unknown.

    All packets, both outgoing and incoming, of one connection are associated with the same user and group. Only TCP and UDP packets can be associated with users; for other protocols these parameters are ignored.

    User and group refer to the effective (as opposed to the real) IDs, in case the socket is created by a setuid/setgid process. User and group IDs are stored when a socket is created; when a process creates a listening socket as root (for instance, by binding to a privileged port) and subsequently changes to another user ID (to drop privileges), the credentials will remain root.

    User and group IDs can be specified as either numbers or names. The syntax is similar to the one for ports. The value unknown matches packets of forwarded connections. unknown can only be used with the operators = and !=. Other constructs like user unknown are invalid. Forwarded packets with unknown user and group ID match only rules that explicitly compare against unknown with the operators = or !=. For instance user 0 does not match forwarded packets. The following example allows only selected users to open outgoing connections:

        block out proto { tcp, udp } all
        pass  out proto { tcp, udp } all user { < 1000, dhartmei }

    The example below permits users with uid between 1000 and 1500 to open connections:

        block out proto tcp all
        pass  out proto tcp from self user { 999 >< 1501 }

    The ‘’: operator, which works for port number matching, does not work for user and group match.

flags <a>
    /<b> /<b> any This rule only applies to TCP packets that have the flags <a> set out of set <b>. Flags not specified in <b> are ignored. For stateful connections, the default is flags S/SA. To indicate that flags should not be checked at all, specify flags any. The flags are: (F)IN, (S)YN, (R)ST, (P)USH, (A)CK, (U)RG, (E)CE, and C(W)R.

    flags S/S
        Flag SYN is set. The other flags are ignored.

    flags S/SA
        This is the default setting for stateful connections. Out of SYN and ACK, exactly SYN may be set. SYN, SYN+PSH and SYN+RST match, but SYN+ACK, ACK and ACK+RST do not. This is more restrictive than the previous example.

    flags /SFRA
        If the first set is not specified, it defaults to none. All of SYN, FIN, RST and ACK must be unset.

    Because flags S/SA is applied by default (unless no state is specified), only the initial SYN packet of a TCP handshake will create a state for a TCP connection. It is possible to be less restrictive, and allow state creation from intermediate (non-SYN) packets, by specifying flags any. This will cause pf(4) to synchronize to existing connections, for instance if one flushes the state table. However, states created from such intermediate packets may be missing connection details such as the TCP window scaling factor. States which modify the packet flow, such as those affected by af-to, nat, binat or rdr rules, modulate or synproxy state options, or scrubbed with reassemble tcp will also not be recoverable from intermediate packets. Such connections will stall and time out.

icmp-type <type>
    file ... [code <code>]

icmp6-type <type>
    file ... [code <code>] This rule only applies to ICMP or ICMPv6 packets with the specified type and code. Text names for ICMP types and codes are listed in icmp(4) and icmp6(4). This parameter is only valid for rules that cover protocols ICMP or ICMP6. The protocol and the ICMP type indicator ( icmp-type or icmp6-type) must match.

tos <string>
    <number> This rule applies to packets with the specified TOS bits set. TOS may be given as one of critical, inetcontrol, lowdelay, netcontrol, throughput, reliability, or one of the DiffServ Code Points: ef, va, af11 ... af43, cs0 ... cs7; or as either hex or decimal.

    For example, the following rules are identical:

        pass all tos lowdelay
        pass all tos 0x10
        pass all tos 16

allow-opts
    By default, packets with IPv4 options or IPv6 hop-by-hop or destination options header are blocked. When allow-opts is specified for a pass rule, packets that pass the filter based on that rule (last matching) do so even if they contain options. For packets that match state, the rule that initially created the state is used. The implicit pass rule, that is used when a packet does not match any rules, does not allow IP options or option headers. Note that IPv6 packets with type 0 routing headers are always dropped.

label <string>
    Adds a label (name) to the rule, which can be used to identify the rule. For instance, pfctl -s labels shows per-rule statistics for rules that have labels.

    The following macros can be used in labels:

    $if The interface.
    $srcaddr
        The source IP address.
    $dstaddr
        The destination IP address.
    $srcport
        The source port specification.
    $dstport
        The destination port specification.
    $proto
        The protocol name.
    $nr The rule number.

    For example:

        ips = "{ 1.2.3.4, 1.2.3.5 }"
        pass in proto tcp from any to $ips \
              port > 1023 label "$dstaddr:$dstport"

    expands to

        pass in inet proto tcp from any to 1.2.3.4 \
              port > 1023 label "1.2.3.4:>1023"
        pass in inet proto tcp from any to 1.2.3.5 \
              port > 1023 label "1.2.3.5:>1023"

    The macro expansion for the label directive occurs only at configuration file parse time, not during runtime.

ridentifier <number>
    Add an identifier (number) to the rule, which can be used to correlate the rule to pflog entries, even after ruleset updates.

max-pkt-rate number/seconds
    Measure the rate of packets matching the rule and states created by it. When the specified rate is exceeded, the rule stops matching. Only packets in the direction in which the state was created are considered, so that typically requests are counted and replies are not. For example, to pass up to 100 ICMP packets per 10 seconds:

        block in proto icmp
        pass in proto icmp max-pkt-rate 100/10

    When the rate is exceeded, all ICMP is blocked until the rate falls below 100 per 10 seconds again.

max-pkt-size <number>
    Limit each packet to be no more than the specified number of bytes. This includes the IP header, but not any layer 2 header.

once
    Create a one shot rule. The first matching packet marks the rule as expired. Expired rules are skipped and hidden, unless pfctl(8) is used in debug or verbose mode.

queue <queue>
    (<queue>, <queue>) Packets matching this rule will be assigned to the specified queue. If two queues are given, packets which have a TOS of lowdelay and TCP ACKs with no data payload will be assigned to the second one. See QUEUEING for setup details.

    For example:

        pass in proto tcp to port 25 queue mail
        pass in proto tcp to port 22 queue(ssh_bulk, ssh_prio)

set prio priority | (priority, priority)
    Packets matching this rule will be assigned a specific queueing priority. Priorities are assigned as integers 0 through 7. If the packet is transmitted on a vlan(4) interface, the queueing priority will be written as the priority code point in the 802.1Q VLAN header. If two priorities are given, TCP ACKs with no data payload and packets which have a TOS of lowdelay will be assigned to the second one.

    For example:

        pass in proto tcp to port 25 set prio 2
        pass in proto tcp to port 22 set prio (2, 5)

[!]received-on interface
    Only match packets which were received on the specified interface (or interface group). any will match any existing interface except loopback ones.

tag <string>
    Packets matching this rule will be tagged with the specified string. The tag acts as an internal marker that can be used to identify these packets later on. This can be used, for example, to provide trust between interfaces and to determine if packets have been processed by translation rules. Tags are "sticky", meaning that the packet will be tagged even if the rule is not the last matching rule. Further matching rules can replace the tag with a new one but will not remove a previously applied tag. A packet is only ever assigned one tag at a time. Packet tagging can be done during nat, rdr, binat or ether rules in addition to filter rules. Tags take the same macros as labels (see above).

tagged <string>
    Used with filter, translation or scrub rules to specify that packets must already be tagged with the given tag in order to match the rule.

rtable <number>
    Used to select an alternate routing table for the routing lookup. Only effective before the route lookup happened, i.e. when filtering inbound.

divert-to <host>
    port <port> Used to divert(4) packets to the given divert port. Historically OpenBSD pf has another meaning for this, and FreeBSD pf uses this syntax to support divert(4) instead. Hence, host has no meaning and can be set to anything like 127.0.0.1. If a packet is re-injected and does not change direction then it will not be re-diverted.

divert-reply
    It has no meaning in FreeBSD pf.

probability <number>
    A probability attribute can be attached to a rule, with a value set between 0 and 1, bounds not included. In that case, the rule will be honoured using the given probability value only. For example, the following rule will drop 20% of incoming ICMP packets:

        block in proto icmp probability 20%

state limiter name [(limiter options)]
    Use the specified state limiter to restrict the creation of states by this rule. By default if capacity is not available, the packet gets blocked and ruleset evaluation stops. Use no-match option to change default behavior such rule is ignored and ruleset evaluation continues with next rule. See the State Limiters section for more information.

source limiter name [(limiter options)]
    Use the specified source limiter to restrict the creation of states by this rule. By default if capacity is not available, the packet gets blocked and ruleset evaluation stops. Use no-match option to change default behavior such rule is ignored and ruleset evaluation continues with next rule. See the Source Limiters section for more information.

prio <number>
    Only match packets which have the given queueing priority assigned.

ROUTING
If a packet matches a rule with a route option set, the packet filter will route the packet according to the type of route option. When such a rule creates state, the route option is also applied to all packets matching the same connection.

route-to
    The route-to option routes the packet to the specified interface with an address for the next hop. When a route-to rule creates state, only packets that pass in the same direction as the filter rule specifies will be routed in this way. Packets passing in the opposite direction (replies) are not affected and are routed normally.

reply-to
    The reply-to option is similar to route-to, but routes packets that pass in the opposite direction (replies) to the specified interface. Opposite direction is only defined in the context of a state entry, and reply-to is useful only in rules that create state. It can be used on systems with multiple external connections to route all outgoing packets of a connection through the interface the incoming connection arrived through (symmetric routing enforcement).

dup-to
    The dup-to option creates a duplicate of the packet and routes it like route-to. The original packet gets routed as it normally would.

Unlike the kernel's normal forwarding path, the route option forwarding path does not drop broadcast or multicast traffic when the output interface has been overridden by a route option. If a route-to, reply-to, or dup-to rule matches traffic destined to a broadcast address (either the limited broadcast or a subnet-directed broadcast) or to an IPv4/IPv6 multicast address, the packet is forwarded out the specified interface, which may cross broadcast domains.

Rulesets that use route-to, reply-to, or dup-to with a permissive destination (e.g. from any to any) can plug this leak with explicit block out rules on the route option's target interface. To avoid blocking the router's own broadcast or multicast traffic, scope the block rules to forwarded packets with the received-on any qualifier. For example, assuming $wan is the route-to target interface:

    block out quick on $wan inet  from any to 255.255.255.255  received-on any
    block out quick on $wan inet  from any to ($wan:broadcast) received-on any
    block out quick on $wan inet  from any to 224.0.0.0/4      received-on any
    block out quick on $wan inet6 from any to ff00::/8         received-on any

One block-out rule set is needed per interface that may be used as a route option target.

POOL OPTIONS
For nat and rdr rules, (as well as for the route-to, reply-to and dup-to rule options) for which there is a single redirection address which has a subnet mask smaller than 32 for IPv4 or 128 for IPv6 (more than one IP address), a variety of different methods for assigning this address can be used:

bitmask
    The bitmask option applies the network portion of the redirection address to the address to be modified (source with nat, destination with rdr).

random
    The random option selects an address at random within the defined block of addresses.

source-hash
    The source-hash option uses a hash of the source address to determine the redirection address, ensuring that the redirection address is always the same for a given source. An optional key can be specified after this keyword either in hex or as a string; by default pfctl(8) randomly generates a key for source-hash every time the ruleset is reloaded.

round-robin
    The round-robin option loops through the redirection address(es).

    When more than one redirection address is specified, bitmask is not permitted as a pool type.

static-port
    With nat rules, the static-port option prevents pf(4) from modifying the source port on TCP and UDP packets.

map-e-portset <psid-offset>
    / <psid-len> / <psid> With nat rules, the map-e-portset option enables the source port translation of MAP-E (RFC 7597) Customer Edge. In order to make the host act as a MAP-E Customer Edge, setting up a tunneling interface and pass rules for encapsulated packets are required in addition to the map-e-portset nat rule.

    For example:

        nat on $gif_mape_if from $int_if:network to any \
              -> $ipv4_mape_src map-e-portset 6/8/0x34

    sets PSID offset 6, PSID length 8, PSID 0x34.

endpoint-independent
    With nat rules, the endpoint-independent option caues pf(4) to always map connections from a UDP source address and port to the same NAT address and port. This feature implements "full-cone" NAT behavior.

Additionally, options sticky-address and prefer-ipv6-nexthop can be specified to influence how IP addresses selected from pools.

The sticky-address option can be specified to help ensure that multiple connections from the same source are mapped to the same redirection address. This option can be used with the random and round-robin pool options. Note that by default these associations are destroyed as soon as there are no longer states which refer to them; in order to make the mappings last beyond the lifetime of the states, increase the global options with set timeout src.track. See STATEFUL TRACKING OPTIONS for more ways to control the source tracking.

The prefer-ipv6-nexthop option allows for IPv6 addresses to be used as the nexthop for IPv4 packets routed with the route-to rule option. If a table is used with IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, first the IPv6 addresses will be used in round-robin fashion, then IPv4 addresses.

STATE MODULATION
Much of the security derived from TCP is attributable to how well the initial sequence numbers (ISNs) are chosen. Some popular stack implementations choose very poor ISNs and thus are normally susceptible to ISN prediction exploits. By applying a modulate state rule to a TCP connection, pf(4) will create a high quality random sequence number for each connection endpoint.

The modulate state directive implicitly keeps state on the rule and is only applicable to TCP connections.

For instance:

    block all
    pass out proto tcp from any to any modulate state
    pass in  proto tcp from any to any port 25 flags S/SFRA modulate state

Note that modulated connections will not recover when the state table is lost (firewall reboot, flushing the state table, etc...). pf(4) will not be able to infer a connection again after the state table flushes the connection's modulator. When the state is lost, the connection may be left dangling until the respective endpoints time out the connection. It is possible on a fast local network for the endpoints to start an ACK storm while trying to resynchronize after the loss of the modulator. The default flags settings (or a more strict equivalent) should be used on modulate state rules to prevent ACK storms.

Note that alternative methods are available to prevent loss of the state table and allow for firewall failover. See carp(4) and pfsync(4) for further information.

SYN PROXY
By default, pf(4) passes packets that are part of a tcp(4) handshake between the endpoints. The synproxy state option can be used to cause pf(4) itself to complete the handshake with the active endpoint, perform a handshake with the passive endpoint, and then forward packets between the endpoints.

No packets are sent to the passive endpoint before the active endpoint has completed the handshake, hence so-called SYN floods with spoofed source addresses will not reach the passive endpoint, as the sender can't complete the handshake.

The proxy is transparent to both endpoints, they each see a single connection from/to the other endpoint. pf(4) chooses random initial sequence numbers for both handshakes. Once the handshakes are completed, the sequence number modulators (see previous section) are used to translate further packets of the connection. synproxy state includes modulate state.

Rules with synproxy will not work if pf(4) operates on a bridge(4). Also they act on incoming SYN packets only.

Example:

    pass in proto tcp from any to any port www synproxy state

  State Limiters
State limiters provide a mechanism to limit the number of states created, or the rate of state creation, by a set of rules. State limiters are configured and loaded with the main ruleset, but can be used by rules in any anchor. The overall number of states is still subject to the limit set with set limit states, but the number of states created by a subset of rules can be provided by a state limiter.

A state limiter is configured with the following statement:

state limiter name
    Each state limiter is identified by a unique name.

State limiters support the following configuration:

id number
    A unique identifier between 1 and 255. This configuration is required.
limit number
    Specify the maximum number of states. This configuration is required.
rate number/seconds
    Limit the rate at which states can be created over a time interval. The connection rate is an approximation calculated as a moving average.

Pass rules can specify a state limiter using the state limiter name option. If the number of states allowed has hit the limit, the pass rule does not match and ruleset evaluation continues past it.

An example use case for a state limiter is to restrict the number of connections allowed to a service that is accessible via multiple protocols, e.g. a DNS server that can be accessed by both TCP and UDP on port 53, DNS-over-TLS on TCP port 853, and DNS-over-HTTPS on TCP port 443 can be limited to 1000 concurrent connections:

    state limiter "dns-server" id 1 limit 1000
    pass in proto { tcp udp } to port domain state limiter "dns-server"
    pass in proto tcp to port { 853 443 } state limiter "dns-server"

  Source Limiters
Source limiters apply limits on the number of states, or the rate of state creation, for connections coming from a source address or network for a set of rules. Source limiters are configured and loaded with the main ruleset, but can be used by rules in any anchor. The overall number of states is still subject to the limit set with set limit states, but limits on states for a subset of source addresses and rules can be provided with source limiters.

Source address entries in source pools are created on demand, and are used to account for the states created for each source address or network. A source limiter specifies the maximum number of source address entries it will track, and can be configured to mask bits in network prefixes to have source entries cover larger portions of the address space if needed.

A source limiter is configured with the following statement:

source limiter name
    Each source limiter is uniquely identified by the specified name.

Source limiter support the following configuration:

id number
    A unique identifier between 1 and 255. This configuration is required.
entries number
    Specify the maximum number of source address entries. This configuration is required.
limit number
    Specify the maximum number of states for each source address entry. This configuration is required.
rate number/seconds
    Limit the rate at which states can be created by each source address entry over a time interval. The connection rate is an approximation calculated as a moving average.
inet mask prefixlen
    Mask IPv4 source addresses using the prefix length specified with prefixlen when creating an address entry. The default IPv4 prefix length is 32 bits.
inet6 mask prefixlen
    Mask IPv6 source addresses using the prefix length specified with prefixlen when creating an address entry. The default IPv6 prefix length is 128 bits.
table <table> above hwm [below lwm]
    Add the address to the specified table when the number of states goes above the hwm high water mark. The address will be removed from the table when the number of states drops below the lwm low water mark. The default low water mark is 0.

Pass rules can specify a source limiter using the source limiter name option.

An example use for a source limiter is the mitigation of denial of service caused by the exhaustion of firewall resources by network or port scans from outside the network. The states created by any one scanner from any one source address can be limited to avoid impacting other sources. Below, up to 10000 IPv4 hosts and IPv6 /64 networks from the external network are each limited to a maximum of 1000 connections, and are rate limited to creating 100 states over a 10 second interval:

    source limiter "internet" id 1 entries 10000 \
           limit 1000 rate 100/10 \
           inet6 mask 64
    block in on egress
    pass in on egress source limiter "internet"

STATEFUL TRACKING OPTIONS
A number of options related to stateful tracking can be applied on a per-rule basis. keep state, modulate state and synproxy state support these options, and keep state must be specified explicitly to apply options to a rule.

max <number>
    Limits the number of concurrent states the rule may create. When this limit is reached, further packets that would create state are dropped until existing states time out.
no-sync
    Prevent state changes for states created by this rule from appearing on the pfsync(4) interface.
<timeout>
    <seconds> Changes the timeout values used for states created by this rule. For a list of all valid timeout names, see OPTIONS above.
sloppy
    Uses a sloppy TCP connection tracker that does not check sequence numbers at all, which makes insertion and ICMP teardown attacks way easier. This is intended to be used in situations where one does not see all packets of a connection, e.g. in asymmetric routing situations. Cannot be used with modulate or synproxy state.
pflow
    States created by this rule are exported on the pflow(4) interface.
allow-related
    Automatically allow connections related to this one, regardless of rules that might otherwise affect them. This currently only applies to SCTP multihomed connection.

Multiple options can be specified, separated by commas:

    pass in proto tcp from any to any \
          port www keep state \
          (max 100, source-track rule, max-src-nodes 75, \
          max-src-states 3, tcp.established 60, tcp.closing 5)

When the source-track keyword is specified, the number of states per source IP is tracked.

source-track rule
    The maximum number of states created by this rule is limited by the rule's max-src-nodes and max-src-states options. Only state entries created by this particular rule count toward the rule's limits.
source-track global
    The number of states created by all rules that use this option is limited. Each rule can specify different max-src-nodes and max-src-states options, however state entries created by any participating rule count towards each individual rule's limits.

The following limits can be set:

max-src-nodes <number>
    Limits the maximum number of source addresses which can simultaneously have state table entries.
max-src-states <number>
    Limits the maximum number of simultaneous state entries that a single source address can create with this rule.

For stateful TCP connections, limits on established connections (connections which have completed the TCP 3-way handshake) can also be enforced per source IP.

max-src-conn <number>
    Limits the maximum number of simultaneous TCP connections which have completed the 3-way handshake that a single host can make.
max-src-conn-rate <number>
    / <seconds> Limit the rate of new connections over a time interval. The connection rate is an approximation calculated as a moving average.

When one of these limits is reached, further packets that would create state are dropped until existing states time out.

Because the 3-way handshake ensures that the source address is not being spoofed, more aggressive action can be taken based on these limits. With the overload <table> state option, source IP addresses which hit either of the limits on established connections will be added to the named table. This table can be used in the ruleset to block further activity from the offending host, redirect it to a tarpit process, or restrict its bandwidth.

The optional flush keyword kills all states created by the matching rule which originate from the host which exceeds these limits. The global modifier to the flush command kills all states originating from the offending host, regardless of which rule created the state.

For example, the following rules will protect the webserver against hosts making more than 100 connections in 10 seconds. Any host which connects faster than this rate will have its address added to the <bad_hosts> table and have all states originating from it flushed. Any new packets arriving from this host will be dropped unconditionally by the block rule.

    block quick from <bad_hosts>
    pass in on $ext_if proto tcp to $webserver port www keep state \
    	(max-src-conn-rate 100/10, overload <bad_hosts> flush global)

OPERATING SYSTEM FINGERPRINTING
Passive OS Fingerprinting is a mechanism to inspect nuances of a TCP connection's initial SYN packet and guess at the host's operating system. Unfortunately these nuances are easily spoofed by an attacker so the fingerprint is not useful in making security decisions. But the fingerprint is typically accurate enough to make policy decisions upon.

The fingerprints may be specified by operating system class, by version, or by subtype/patchlevel. The class of an operating system is typically the vendor or genre and would be OpenBSD for the pf(4) firewall itself. The version of the oldest available OpenBSD release on the main FTP site would be 2.6 and the fingerprint would be written

    "OpenBSD 2.6"

The subtype of an operating system is typically used to describe the patchlevel if that patch led to changes in the TCP stack behavior. In the case of OpenBSD, the only subtype is for a fingerprint that was normalized by the no-df scrub option and would be specified as

    "OpenBSD 3.3 no-df"

Fingerprints for most popular operating systems are provided by pf.os(5). Once pf(4) is running, a complete list of known operating system fingerprints may be listed by running:

    # pfctl -so

Filter rules can enforce policy at any level of operating system specification assuming a fingerprint is present. Policy could limit traffic to approved operating systems or even ban traffic from hosts that aren't at the latest service pack.

The unknown class can also be used as the fingerprint which will match packets for which no operating system fingerprint is known.

Examples:

    pass  out proto tcp from any os OpenBSD
    block out proto tcp from any os Doors
    block out proto tcp from any os "Doors PT"
    block out proto tcp from any os "Doors PT SP3"
    block out from any os "unknown"
    pass on lo0 proto tcp from any os "OpenBSD 3.3 lo0"

Operating system fingerprinting is limited only to the TCP SYN packet. This means that it will not work on other protocols and will not match a currently established connection.

Caveat: operating system fingerprints are occasionally wrong. There are three problems: an attacker can trivially craft packets to appear as any operating system; an operating system patch could change the stack behavior and no fingerprints will match it until the database is updated; and multiple operating systems may have the same fingerprint.

BLOCKING SPOOFED TRAFFIC
"Spoofing" is the faking of IP addresses, typically for malicious purposes. The antispoof directive expands to a set of filter rules which will block all traffic with a source IP from the network(s) directly connected to the specified interface(s) from entering the system through any other interface.

For example, the line

    antispoof for lo0

expands to

    block drop in on ! lo0 inet from 127.0.0.1/8 to any
    block drop in on ! lo0 inet6 from ::1 to any

For non-loopback interfaces, there are additional rules to block incoming packets with a source IP address identical to the interface's IP(s). For example, assuming the interface wi0 had an IP address of 10.0.0.1 and a netmask of 255.255.255.0, the line

    antispoof for wi0 inet

expands to

    block drop in on ! wi0 inet from 10.0.0.0/24 to any
    block drop in inet from 10.0.0.1 to any

Caveat: Rules created by the antispoof directive interfere with packets sent over loopback interfaces to local addresses. One should pass these explicitly.

FRAGMENT HANDLING
The size of IP datagrams (packets) can be significantly larger than the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the network. In cases when it is necessary or more efficient to send such large packets, the large packet will be fragmented into many smaller packets that will each fit onto the wire. Unfortunately for a firewalling device, only the first logical fragment will contain the necessary header information for the subprotocol that allows pf(4) to filter on things such as TCP ports or to perform NAT.

Besides the use of set reassemble option or scrub rules as described in TRAFFIC NORMALIZATION above, there are three options for handling fragments in the packet filter.

One alternative is to filter individual fragments with filter rules. If no scrub rule applies to a fragment or set reassemble is set to no , it is passed to the filter. Filter rules with matching IP header parameters decide whether the fragment is passed or blocked, in the same way as complete packets are filtered. Without reassembly, fragments can only be filtered based on IP header fields (source/destination address, protocol), since subprotocol header fields are not available (TCP/UDP port numbers, ICMP code/type). The fragment option can be used to restrict filter rules to apply only to fragments, but not complete packets. Filter rules without the fragment option still apply to fragments, if they only specify IP header fields. For instance, the rule

    pass in proto tcp from any to any port 80

never applies to a fragment, even if the fragment is part of a TCP packet with destination port 80, because without reassembly this information is not available for each fragment. This also means that fragments cannot create new or match existing state table entries, which makes stateful filtering and address translation (NAT, redirection) for fragments impossible.

It's also possible to reassemble only certain fragments by specifying source or destination addresses or protocols as parameters in scrub rules.

In most cases, the benefits of reassembly outweigh the additional memory cost, and it's recommended to use set reassemble option or scrub rules with the fragment reassemble modifier to reassemble all fragments.

The memory allocated for fragment caching can be limited using pfctl(8). Once this limit is reached, fragments that would have to be cached are dropped until other entries time out. The timeout value can also be adjusted.

When forwarding reassembled IPv6 packets, pf refragments them with the original maximum fragment size. This allows the sender to determine the optimal fragment size by path MTU discovery.

ANCHORS
Besides the main ruleset, pfctl(8) can load rulesets into anchor attachment points. An anchor is a container that can hold rules, address tables, and other anchors.

An anchor has a name which specifies the path where pfctl(8) can be used to access the anchor to perform operations on it, such as attaching child anchors to it or loading rules into it. Anchors may be nested, with components separated by ‘/’ characters, similar to how file system hierarchies are laid out. The main ruleset is actually the default anchor, so filter and translation rules, for example, may also be contained in any anchor.

An anchor can reference another anchor attachment point using the following kinds of rules:

nat-anchor <name>
    Evaluates the nat rules in the specified anchor.

rdr-anchor <name>
    Evaluates the rdr rules in the specified anchor.

binat-anchor <name>
    Evaluates the binat rules in the specified anchor.

anchor <name>
    Evaluates the filter rules in the specified anchor.

load anchor
    <name> from <file> Loads the rules from the specified file into the anchor name.

When evaluation of the main ruleset reaches an anchor rule, pf(4) will proceed to evaluate all rules specified in that anchor.

Matching filter and translation rules marked with the quick option are final and abort the evaluation of the rules in other anchors and the main ruleset. If the anchor itself is marked with the quick option, ruleset evaluation will terminate when the anchor is exited if the packet is matched by any rule within the anchor.

anchor rules are evaluated relative to the anchor in which they are contained. For example, all anchor rules specified in the main ruleset will reference anchor attachment points underneath the main ruleset, and anchor rules specified in a file loaded from a load anchor rule will be attached under that anchor point.

Rules may be contained in anchor attachment points which do not contain any rules when the main ruleset is loaded, and later such anchors can be manipulated through pfctl(8) without reloading the main ruleset or other anchors. For example,

    ext_if = "kue0"
    block on $ext_if all
    anchor spam
    pass out on $ext_if all
    pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any \
          to $ext_if port smtp

blocks all packets on the external interface by default, then evaluates all rules in the anchor named "spam", and finally passes all outgoing connections and incoming connections to port 25.

    # echo "block in quick from 1.2.3.4 to any" | \
          pfctl -a spam -f -

This loads a single rule into the anchor, which blocks all packets from a specific address.

The anchor can also be populated by adding a load anchor rule after the anchor rule:

    anchor spam
    load anchor spam from "/etc/pf-spam.conf"

When pfctl(8) loads pf.conf, it will also load all the rules from the file /etc/pf-spam.conf into the anchor.

Optionally, anchor rules can specify packet filtering parameters using the same syntax as filter rules. When parameters are used, the anchor rule is only evaluated for matching packets. This allows conditional evaluation of anchors, like:

    block on $ext_if all
    anchor spam proto tcp from any to any port smtp
    pass out on $ext_if all
    pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to $ext_if port smtp

The rules inside anchor spam are only evaluated for tcp packets with destination port 25. Hence,

    # echo "block in quick from 1.2.3.4 to any" | \
          pfctl -a spam -f -

will only block connections from 1.2.3.4 to port 25.

Anchors may end with the asterisk (‘*’) character, which signifies that all anchors attached at that point should be evaluated in the alphabetical ordering of their anchor name. For example,

    anchor "spam/*"

will evaluate each rule in each anchor attached to the spam anchor. Note that it will only evaluate anchors that are directly attached to the spam anchor, and will not descend to evaluate anchors recursively.

Since anchors are evaluated relative to the anchor in which they are contained, there is a mechanism for accessing the parent and ancestor anchors of a given anchor. Similar to file system path name resolution, if the sequence “..” appears as an anchor path component, the parent anchor of the current anchor in the path evaluation at that point will become the new current anchor. As an example, consider the following:

    # echo ' anchor "spam/allowed" ' | pfctl -f -
    # echo -e ' anchor "../banned" \n pass' | \
          pfctl -a spam/allowed -f -

Evaluation of the main ruleset will lead into the spam/allowed anchor, which will evaluate the rules in the spam/banned anchor, if any, before finally evaluating the pass rule.

An anchor rule can also contain a filter ruleset in a brace-delimited block. In that case, no separate loading of rules into the anchor is required. Brace delimited blocks may contain rules or other brace-delimited blocks. When an anchor is populated this way, the anchor name becomes optional.

    anchor "external" on $ext_if {
    	block
    	anchor out {
    		pass proto tcp from any to port { 25, 80, 443 }
    	}
    	pass in proto tcp to any port 22
    }

Since the parser specification for anchor names is a string, any reference to an anchor name containing ‘/’ characters will require double quote (‘"’) characters around the anchor name.

SCTP CONSIDERATIONS
pf(4) supports sctp(4) connections. It can match ports, track state and NAT SCTP traffic. However, it will not alter port numbers during nat or rdr translations. Doing so would break SCTP multihoming.

TRANSLATION EXAMPLES
This example maps incoming requests on port 80 to port 8080, on which a daemon is running (because, for example, it is not run as root, and therefore lacks permission to bind to port 80).

    # use a macro for the interface name, so it can be changed easily
    ext_if = "ne3"
    # map daemon on 8080 to appear to be on 80
    match in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 \
          rdr-to 127.0.0.1 port 8080

If a pass rule is used with the quick modifier, packets matching the translation rule are passed without inspecting subsequent filter rules:

    pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 \
          rdr-to 127.0.0.1 port 8080

In the example below, vlan12 is configured as 192.168.168.1; the machine translates all packets coming from 192.168.168.0/24 to 204.92.77.111 when they are going out any interface except vlan12. This has the net effect of making traffic from the 192.168.168.0/24 network appear as though it is the Internet routable address 204.92.77.111 to nodes behind any interface on the router except for the nodes on vlan12. (Thus, 192.168.168.1 can talk to the 192.168.168.0/24 nodes.)

    match out on ! vlan12 from 192.168.168.0/24 to any nat-to 204.92.77.111

This longer example uses both a NAT and a redirection. The external interface has the address 157.161.48.183. On localhost, we are running ftp-proxy(8), waiting for FTP sessions to be redirected to it. The three mandatory anchors for ftp-proxy(8) are omitted from this example; see the ftp-proxy(8) manpage.

    # NAT
    # Translate outgoing packets' source addresses (any protocol).
    # In this case, any address but the gateway's external address is mapped.
    pass out on $ext_if inet from ! ($ext_if) to any nat-to ($ext_if)
    # NAT PROXYING
    # Map outgoing packets' source port to an assigned proxy port instead of
    # an arbitrary port.
    # In this case, proxy outgoing isakmp with port 500 on the gateway.
    pass out on $ext_if inet proto udp from any port = isakmp to any \
          nat-to ($ext_if) port 500
    # BINAT
    # Translate outgoing packets' source address (any protocol).
    # Translate incoming packets' destination address to an internal machine
    # (bidirectional).
    pass on $ext_if from 10.1.2.150 to any binat-to $ext_if
    # Translate packets arriving on $peer_if addressed to 172.22.16.0/20
    # to the corresponding address in 172.21.16.0/20 (bidirectional).
    pass on $peer_if from 172.21.16.0/20 to any binat-to 172.22.16.0/20
    # RDR
    # Translate incoming packets' destination addresses.
    # As an example, redirect a TCP and UDP port to an internal machine.
    pass in on $ext_if inet proto tcp from any to ($ext_if) port 8080 \
          rdr-to 10.1.2.151 port 22
    pass in on $ext_if inet proto udp from any to ($ext_if) port 8080 \
          rdr-to 10.1.2.151 port 53
    # RDR
    # Translate outgoing ftp control connections to send them to localhost
    # for proxying with ftp-proxy(8) running on port 8021.
    pass in on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 21 \
          rdr-to 127.0.0.1 port 8021

In this example, a NAT gateway is set up to translate internal addresses using a pool of public addresses (192.0.2.16/28) and to redirect incoming web server connections to a group of web servers on the internal network.

    # NAT LOAD BALANCE
    # Translate outgoing packets' source addresses using an address pool.
    # A given source address is always translated to the same pool address by
    # using the source-hash keyword.
    pass out on $ext_if inet from any to any nat-to 192.0.2.16/28 source-hash
    # RDR ROUND ROBIN
    # Translate incoming web server connections to a group of web servers on
    # the internal network.
    pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 \
          rdr-to { 10.1.2.155, 10.1.2.160, 10.1.2.161 } round-robin

COMPATIBILITY TRANSLATION EXAMPLES
In the example below, the machine sits between a fake internal 144.19.74.* network, and a routable external IP of 204.92.77.100. The no nat rule excludes protocol AH from being translated.

    # NAT
    no nat on $ext_if proto ah from 144.19.74.0/24 to any
    nat on $ext_if from 144.19.74.0/24 to any -> 204.92.77.100

In the example below, packets bound for one specific server, as well as those generated by the sysadmins are not proxied; all other connections are.

    # RDR
    no rdr on $int_if proto { tcp, udp } from any to $server port 80
    no rdr on $int_if proto { tcp, udp } from $sysadmins to any port 80
    rdr on $int_if proto { tcp, udp } from any to any port 80 \
          -> 127.0.0.1 port 80

FILTER EXAMPLES

    # The external interface is kue0
    # (157.161.48.183, the only routable address)
    # and the private network is 10.0.0.0/8, for which we are doing NAT.
    # Reassemble incoming traffic
    set reassemble yes
    # use a macro for the interface name, so it can be changed easily
    ext_if = "kue0"
    # block and log everything by default
    block return log on $ext_if all
    # block anything coming from source we have no back routes for
    block in from no-route to any
    # block packets whose ingress interface does not match the one in
    # the route back to their source address
    block in from urpf-failed to any
    # block and log outgoing packets that do not have our address as source,
    # they are either spoofed or something is misconfigured (NAT disabled,
    # for instance), we want to be nice and do not send out garbage.
    block out log quick on $ext_if from ! 157.161.48.183 to any
    # silently drop broadcasts (cable modem noise)
    block in quick on $ext_if from any to 255.255.255.255
    # block and log incoming packets from reserved address space and invalid
    # addresses, they are either spoofed or misconfigured, we cannot reply to
    # them anyway (hence, no return-rst).
    block in log quick on $ext_if from { 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, \
          192.168.0.0/16, 255.255.255.255/32 } to any
    # ICMP
    # pass out/in certain ICMP queries and keep state (ping)
    # state matching is done on host addresses and ICMP id (not type/code),
    # so replies (like 0/0 for 8/0) will match queries
    # ICMP error messages (which always refer to a TCP/UDP packet) are
    # handled by the TCP/UDP states
    pass on $ext_if inet proto icmp all icmp-type 8 code 0
    # UDP
    # pass out all UDP connections and keep state
    pass out on $ext_if proto udp all
    # pass in certain UDP connections and keep state (DNS)
    pass in on $ext_if proto udp from any to any port domain
    # TCP
    # pass out all TCP connections and modulate state
    pass out on $ext_if proto tcp all modulate state
    # pass in certain TCP connections and keep state (SSH, SMTP, DNS, IDENT)
    pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port { ssh, smtp, domain, \
          auth }
    # Do not allow Windows 9x SMTP connections since they are typically
    # a viral worm. Alternately we could limit these OSes to 1 connection each.
    block in on $ext_if proto tcp from any os {"Windows 95", "Windows 98"} \
          to any port smtp
    # IPv6
    # pass in/out all IPv6 traffic: note that we have to enable this in two
    # different ways, on both our physical interface and our tunnel
    pass quick on gif0 inet6
    pass quick on $ext_if proto ipv6
    # Packet Tagging
    # three interfaces: $int_if, $ext_if, and $wifi_if (wireless). NAT is
    # being done on $ext_if for all outgoing packets. tag packets in on
    # $int_if and pass those tagged packets out on $ext_if.  all other
    # outgoing packets (i.e., packets from the wireless network) are only
    # permitted to access port 80.
    pass in on $int_if from any to any tag INTNET
    pass in on $wifi_if from any to any
    block out on $ext_if from any to any
    pass out quick on $ext_if tagged INTNET
    pass out on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80
    # tag incoming packets as they are redirected to spamd(8). use the tag
    # to pass those packets through the packet filter.
    rdr on $ext_if inet proto tcp from <spammers> to port smtp \
    	tag SPAMD -> 127.0.0.1 port spamd
    block in on $ext_if
    pass in on $ext_if inet proto tcp tagged SPAMD

In the example below, a router handling both address families translates an internal IPv4 subnet to IPv6 using the well-known 64:ff9b::/96 prefix:

    pass in on $v4_if inet af-to inet6 from ($v6_if) to 64:ff9b::/96

Paired with the example above, the example below can be used on another router handling both address families to translate back to IPv4:

    pass in on $v6_if inet6 to 64:ff9b::/96 af-to inet from ($v4_if)

GRAMMAR
Syntax for pf.conf in BNF:

    line           = ( option | ether-rule | pf-rule | nat-rule | binat-rule |
                     rdr-rule | antispoof-rule | altq-rule | queue-rule |
                     trans-anchors | anchor-rule | anchor-close | load-anchor |
                     table-rule | include )
    option         = "set" ( [ "timeout" ( timeout | "{" timeout-list "}" ) ] |
                     [ "ruleset-optimization" [ "none" | "basic" | "profile" ]] |
                     [ "optimization" [ "default" | "normal" |
                     "high-latency" | "satellite" |
                     "aggressive" | "conservative" ] ]
                     [ "limit" ( limit-item | "{" limit-list "}" ) ] |
                     [ "loginterface" ( interface-name | "none" ) ] |
                     [ "block-policy" ( "drop" | "return" ) ] |
                     [ "state-policy" ( "if-bound" | "floating" ) ]
                     [ "state-defaults" state-opts ]
                     [ "require-order" ( "yes" | "no" ) ]
                     [ "fingerprints" filename ] |
                     [ "skip on" ifspec ] |
                     [ "debug" ( "none" | "urgent" | "misc" | "loud" ) ]
                     [ "keepcounters" ] )
    ether-rule     = "ether" etheraction [ ( "in" | "out" ) ]
                     [ "quick" ] [ "on" ifspec ] [ "bridge-to" interface-name ]
                     [ etherprotospec ] [ etherhosts ] [ "l3" hosts ]
                     [ etherfilteropt-list ]
    pf-rule        = action [ ( "in" | "out" ) ]
                     [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")"] ] [ "quick" ]
                     [ "on" ifspec ] [ route ] [ af ] [ protospec ]
                     [ hosts ] [ filteropt-list ]
    logopts        = logopt [ "," logopts ]
    logopt         = "all" | "matches" | "user" | "to" interface-name
    etherfilteropt-list = etherfilteropt-list etherfilteropt | etherfilteropt
    etherfilteropt = "tag" string | "tagged" string | "queue" ( string ) |
                     "ridentifier" number | "label" string
    filteropt-list = filteropt-list filteropt | filteropt
    filteropt      = user | group | flags | icmp-type | icmp6-type | "tos" tos |
                     "af-to" af "from" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
                     [ "to" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" ) ] |
                     ( "no" | "keep" | "modulate" | "synproxy" ) "state"
                     [ "(" state-opts ")" ] |
                     "fragment" | "no-df" | "min-ttl" number | "set-tos" tos |
                     "max-mss" number | "random-id" | "reassemble tcp" |
                     fragmentation | "allow-opts" | "once" |
                     "label" string | "tag" string | [ "!" ] "tagged" string |
                     "max-pkt-rate" number "/" seconds |
                     "set prio" ( number | "(" number [ [ "," ] number ] ")" ) |
                     "max-pkt-size" number |
                     "queue" ( string | "(" string [ [ "," ] string ] ")" ) |
                     "rtable" number | "probability" number"%" | "prio" number |
                     "state limiter" name |
                     "state limiter" name "(" limiter-opts ")" |
                     "source limiter" name |
                     "source limiter" name "(" limiter-opts ")" | "prio" number |
                     "dnpipe" ( number | "(" number "," number ")" ) |
                     "dnqueue" ( number | "(" number "," number ")" ) |
                     "ridentifier" number |
                     "binat-to" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
                     [ portspec ] [ pooltype ] |
                     "rdr-to" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
                     [ portspec ] [ pooltype ] |
                     "nat-to" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
                     [ portspec ] [ pooltype ] [ "static-port" ] |
                     [ ! ] "received-on" ( interface-name | interface-group )
    nat-rule       = [ "no" ] "nat" [ "pass" [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")" ] ] ]
                     [ "on" ifspec ] [ af ]
                     [ protospec ] hosts [ "tag" string ] [ "tagged" string ]
                     [ "->" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
                     [ portspec ] [ pooltype ] [ "static-port" ]
                     [ "map-e-portset" number "/" number "/" number ] ]
    binat-rule     = [ "no" ] "binat" [ "pass" [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")" ] ] ]
                     [ "on" interface-name ] [ af ]
                     [ "proto" ( proto-name | proto-number ) ]
                     "from" address [ "/" mask-bits ] "to" ipspec
                     [ "tag" string ] [ "tagged" string ]
                     [ "->" address [ "/" mask-bits ] ]
    rdr-rule       = [ "no" ] "rdr" [ "pass" [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")" ] ] ]
                     [ "on" ifspec ] [ af ]
                     [ protospec ] hosts [ "tag" string ] [ "tagged" string ]
                     [ "->" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
                     [ portspec ] [ pooltype ] ]
    antispoof-rule = "antispoof" [ "log" ] [ "quick" ]
                     "for" ifspec [ af ] [ "label" string ]
                     [ "ridentifier" number ]
    table-rule     = "table" "<" string ">" [ tableopts-list ]
    tableopts-list = tableopts-list tableopts | tableopts
    tableopts      = "persist" | "const" | "counters" | "file" string |
                     "{" [ tableaddr-list ] "}"
    tableaddr-list = tableaddr-list [ "," ] tableaddr-spec | tableaddr-spec
    tableaddr-spec = [ "!" ] tableaddr [ "/" mask-bits ]
    tableaddr      = hostname | ifspec | "self" |
                     ipv4-dotted-quad | ipv6-coloned-hex
    altq-rule      = "altq on" interface-name queueopts-list
                     "queue" subqueue
    queue-rule     = "queue" string [ "on" interface-name ] queueopts-list
                     subqueue
    anchor-rule    = "anchor" [ string ] [ ( "in" | "out" ) ] [ "on" ifspec ]
                     [ af ] [ protospec ] [ hosts ] [ filteropt-list ] [ "{" ]
    anchor-close   = "}"
    trans-anchors  = ( "nat-anchor" | "rdr-anchor" | "binat-anchor" ) string
                     [ "on" ifspec ] [ af ] [ "proto" ] [ protospec ] [ hosts ]
    load-anchor    = "load anchor" string "from" filename
    queueopts-list = queueopts-list queueopts | queueopts
    queueopts      = [ "bandwidth" bandwidth-spec ] |
                     [ "qlimit" number ] | [ "tbrsize" number ] |
                     [ "priority" number ] | [ schedulers ]
    schedulers     = ( cbq-def | priq-def | hfsc-def )
    bandwidth-spec = "number" ( "b" | "Kb" | "Mb" | "Gb" | "%" )
    etheraction    = "pass" | "block"
    action         = "pass" | "match" | "block" [ return ] | [ "no" ] "scrub"
    return         = "drop" | "return" | "return-rst" [ "( ttl" number ")" ] |
                     "return-icmp" [ "(" icmpcode [ [ "," ] icmp6code ] ")" ] |
                     "return-icmp6" [ "(" icmp6code ")" ]
    icmpcode       = ( icmp-code-name | icmp-code-number )
    icmp6code      = ( icmp6-code-name | icmp6-code-number )
    ifspec         = ( [ "!" ] ( interface-name | interface-group ) ) |
                     "{" interface-list "}"
    interface-list = [ "!" ] ( interface-name | interface-group )
                     [ [ "," ] interface-list ]
    route          = ( "route-to" | "reply-to" | "dup-to" )
                     ( routehost | "{" routehost-list "}" )
                     [ pooltype ]
    af             = "inet" | "inet6"
    etherprotospec = "proto" ( proto-number | "{" etherproto-list "}" )
    etherproto-list	= proto-number [ [ "," ] etherproto-list ]
    protospec      = "proto" ( proto-name | proto-number |
                     "{" proto-list "}" )
    proto-list     = ( proto-name | proto-number ) [ [ "," ] proto-list ]
    etherhosts     = "from" macaddress "to" macaddress
    macaddress     = mac | mac "/" masklen | mac "&" mask
    hosts          = "all" |
                     "from" ( "any" | "no-route" | "urpf-failed" | "self" | host |
                     "{" host-list "}" ) [ port ] [ os ]
                     "to"   ( "any" | "no-route" | "self" | host |
                     "{" host-list "}" ) [ port ]
    ipspec         = "any" | host | "{" host-list "}"
    host           = [ "!" ] ( address [ "/" mask-bits ] | "<" string ">" )
    redirhost      = address [ "/" mask-bits ]
    routehost      = "(" interface-name address [ "/" mask-bits ] ")"
    address        = ( interface-name | interface-group |
                     "(" ( interface-name | interface-group ) ")" |
                     hostname | ipv4-dotted-quad | ipv6-coloned-hex )
    host-list      = host [ [ "," ] host-list ]
    redirhost-list = redirhost [ [ "," ] redirhost-list ]
    routehost-list = routehost [ [ "," ] routehost-list ]
    port           = "port" ( unary-op | binary-op | "{" op-list "}" )
    portspec       = "port" ( number | name ) [ ":" ( "*" | number | name ) ]
    os             = "os"  ( os-name | "{" os-list "}" )
    user           = "user" ( unary-op | binary-op | "{" op-list "}" )
    group          = "group" ( unary-op | binary-op | "{" op-list "}" )
    unary-op       = [ "=" | "!=" | "<" | "<=" | ">" | ">=" ]
                     ( name | number )
    binary-op      = number ( "<>" | "><" | ":" ) number
    op-list        = ( unary-op | binary-op ) [ [ "," ] op-list ]
    os-name        = operating-system-name
    os-list        = os-name [ [ "," ] os-list ]
    flags          = "flags" ( [ flag-set ] "/"  flag-set | "any" )
    flag-set       = [ "F" ] [ "S" ] [ "R" ] [ "P" ] [ "A" ] [ "U" ] [ "E" ]
                     [ "W" ]
    icmp-type      = "icmp-type" ( icmp-type-code | "{" icmp-list "}" )
    icmp6-type     = "icmp6-type" ( icmp-type-code | "{" icmp-list "}" )
    icmp-type-code = ( icmp-type-name | icmp-type-number )
                     [ "code" ( icmp-code-name | icmp-code-number ) ]
    icmp-list      = icmp-type-code [ [ "," ] icmp-list ]
    tos            = ( "lowdelay" | "throughput" | "reliability" |
                     [ "0x" ] number )
    state-opts     = state-opt [ [ "," ] state-opts ]
    state-opt      = ( "max" number | "no-sync" | timeout | "sloppy" |
                     "source-track" [ ( "rule" | "global" ) ] |
                     "max-src-nodes" number | "max-src-states" number |
                     "max-src-conn" number |
                     "max-src-conn-rate" number "/" number |
                     "overload" "<" string ">" [ "flush" ] |
                     "if-bound" | "floating" | "pflow" )
    fragmentation  = [ "fragment reassemble" ]
    timeout-list   = timeout [ [ "," ] timeout-list ]
    timeout        = ( "tcp.first" | "tcp.opening" | "tcp.established" |
                     "tcp.closing" | "tcp.finwait" | "tcp.closed" | "tcp.tsdiff" |
                     "sctp.first" | "sctp.opening" | "sctp.established" |
                     "sctp.closing" | "sctp.closed" |
                     "udp.first" | "udp.single" | "udp.multiple" |
                     "icmp.first" | "icmp.error" |
                     "other.first" | "other.single" | "other.multiple" |
                     "frag" | "interval" | "src.track" |
                     "adaptive.start" | "adaptive.end" ) number
    limit-list     = limit-item [ [ "," ] limit-list ]
    limit-item     = ( "states" | "frags" | "src-nodes" ) number
    pooltype       = ( "bitmask" | "random" |
                     "source-hash" [ ( hex-key | string-key ) ] |
                     "round-robin" ) [ sticky-address | prefer-ipv6-nexthop ]
    subqueue       = string | "{" queue-list "}"
    queue-list     = string [ [ "," ] string ]
    cbq-def        = "cbq" [ "(" cbq-opt [ [ "," ] cbq-opt ] ")" ]
    priq-def       = "priq" [ "(" priq-opt [ [ "," ] priq-opt ] ")" ]
    hfsc-def       = "hfsc" [ "(" hfsc-opt [ [ "," ] hfsc-opt ] ")" ]
    cbq-opt        = ( "default" | "borrow" | "red" | "ecn" | "rio" )
    priq-opt       = ( "default" | "red" | "ecn" | "rio" )
    hfsc-opt       = ( "default" | "red" | "ecn" | "rio" |
                     linkshare-sc | realtime-sc | upperlimit-sc )
    linkshare-sc   = "linkshare" sc-spec
    realtime-sc    = "realtime" sc-spec
    upperlimit-sc  = "upperlimit" sc-spec
    sc-spec        = ( bandwidth-spec |
                     "(" bandwidth-spec number bandwidth-spec ")" )
    limiter-opts   = "block" | "no-match"
    include        = "include" filename

FILES
/etc/hosts
    Host name database.
/etc/pf.conf
    Default location of the ruleset file. The file has to be created manually as it is not installed with a standard installation.
/etc/pf.os
    Default location of OS fingerprints.
/etc/protocols
    Protocol name database.
/etc/services
    Service name database.

SEE ALSO
altq(4), carp(4), icmp(4), icmp6(4), ip(4), ip6(4), pf(4), pflow(4), pfsync(4), sctp(4), tcp(4), udp(4), hosts(5), pf.os(5), protocols(5), services(5), ftp-proxy(8), pfctl(8), pflogd(8)

HISTORY
The pf.conf file format first appeared in OpenBSD 3.0.