Re: Changes in iptables-legacy

Jeremy Sowden <[email protected]> Tue, 18 Nov 2025 11:45:55 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.security.firewalls.netfilter.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On 2025-11-18, at 12:31:15 +0100, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
> I'm still using iptables; my scripts work well... call me lazy.  I 
> didn't expect behavior changes.  Instead, when I upgraded to the last 
> Devuan release, equivalent to Debian Trixie, I got iptables v1.8.11 
> (legacy).
> 
> One of the scripts had a daily call like so:
> 
>     iptables -L -Z -vnx
> 
> The new version resulted in an error:
> 
>     iptables v1.8.11 (legacy): Illegal option `--numeric' with this command
>     Try `iptables -h' or 'iptables --help' for more information.
> 
> Is this a Debian quirk or is it found in the official source?
> 
> By simply removing -Z, the above command works and its output is
> properly digested by my legacy Perl code.  However, I'd be curious to
> know why this change was made.  I hope it's not a subtle way to push
> people to migrate...

It's a bug in 1.8.11.  The Netfilter team have fixed it.

J.

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