Connections, "every packet" rules, and a packet tracer

- Connections: the kernel's tracked connections, read and closed over
  ctnetlink (internal/conntrack, raw netlink like the drop log), with
  their NAT and TCP state; closing one makes the rules check its next
  packet again (GET /connections, POST /connections/close; hc
  connections; Traffic → Connections).
- Rules can check every packet (every_packet, --every-packet): before
  established connections are accepted, so a drop or reject also stops
  connections already open. They can't accept.
- A packet tracer (internal/trace): a table of its own, inet
  housecarl-trace, marks the packets a filter picks, `nft monitor trace`
  reports every rule and policy they meet in every table, and the tracer
  names what accepted or dropped them, Housecarl's rules by name (POST,
  GET, DELETE /trace; hc trace; Traffic → Trace). One trace at a time,
  at most 200 packets and 20 a second; the table goes when it ends.

e2e: 157 checks, among them an upload a normal block doesn't stop and an
every-packet one does, and a trace naming the blocking rule.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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abrown38andClaude Opus 5.5 committed 2026-10-19 20:22:34 +01:00
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@@ -93,7 +93,8 @@ These apply to rules, source NAT and redirects.
| `rule_quota_reset` | error | a reset that isn't daily, weekly or monthly; a day with another reset than monthly; a day outside 1-31 |
| `rule_group` | error | a grouping prefix outside 1-32 (IPv4) or 1-128 (IPv6) |
| `rule_traffic_accept` | error | a rule with a quota or a byte rate that accepts: it is checked before established connections are accepted, so it can only drop, reject or log |
| `flowtable_traffic` | warning | a forward rule with a quota or a byte rate while the flowtable is on: it only counts each connection's first packets |
| `rule_every_packet_accept` | error | a rule checked against every packet (`every_packet`) that accepts: it comes before established connections are accepted, so it can only drop, reject or log |
| `flowtable_traffic` | warning | a forward rule checked against every packet (a quota, a byte rate, `every_packet`) while the flowtable is on: it only sees each connection's first packets |
| `reject_with` | error | `tcp-reset` on a rule that matches more than TCP, or with an action other than reject |
| `log_prefix` | error | a log prefix over 100 characters |