Linux – How to make iptables rules expire

centosiptableslinux

Someone told me this is possible, but I can't find anything on google or man pages.

I need to ban IPs for a certain amount of time, and then have then unbanned automatically.

Best Answer

If you mean for iptables to completely remove the rule by itself you won't be able to do it, as far as I know. What's the purpose of this? If you need some kind of automatic temporary banning the standard solution is fail2ban.

Alternatively you can use a cron job to remove the rule you're adding, or, better if you want to do it interactively, an at job:

iptables -I INPUT -s 192.168.1.100 -j DROP
echo "iptables -D INPUT -s 192.168.1.100 -j DROP" | at @10pm

Also take a look at the recent module of iptables. This with its --seconds option may be of help, depending on your actual needs. man iptables for more information.

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