# Changelog

All notable changes to Housecarl are documented here. The format follows
[Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/), and versions follow
[Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/).

## [Unreleased]

The first version of Housecarl, a firewall manager for nftables, built
the way Jarl and Steward are.

### Added

- **Zones, address sets and services:** interfaces grouped by what they
  connect to (wildcards like `incusbr*`; external zones face the
  internet); sets of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, prefixes and ranges, mixed;
  ports and ICMP types by name, with twenty built in (docs/rules.md).
- **Rules** in four chains (input, forward, output, and early, before
  connection tracking), in order, matching by zone, address, service,
  family, connection state and status, days and hours, a rate (also per
  source address), and a connection count; accept, drop, reject (ICMP or
  TCP reset) or log. Raw nftables rules for the rest.
- **IPv4 and IPv6 together:** one rule becomes the nftables rules each
  family needs.
- **NAT:** port forwards as one object (DNAT, the forward accept, hairpin
  NAT, and optionally an IPv6 pinhole to a host's own port); source NAT
  (masquerade or an address; NAT66 on request); redirects to the firewall
  (docs/nat.md).
- **Built-ins**, each switchable: loopback, established connections,
  invalid packets, ICMPv6 (RFC 4890), ping from internal zones, DHCPv6
  client replies, antispoofing with your own prefixes, MSS clamping, and
  a flowtable fast path.
- **Changes checked twice and applied atomically:** validation of the
  whole configuration with stable problem codes (docs/validation.md),
  then `nft -c`, then one `nft -f` transaction that replaces Housecarl's
  own table, `inet housecarl`, and nothing else. Dynamic sets' entries
  and the counters carry across.
- **Probation:** a change made over the network rolls itself back unless
  confirmed within two minutes (`hc confirm`, a banner in the web UI);
  changes through the local socket are kept at once; a restart rolls
  back what was pending. No rule is forced to keep SSH or the web UI
  open.
- **At boot:** the confirmed ruleset is loaded by
  `housecarl-ruleset.service` before the network comes up, without
  housecarld. An empty configuration applies nothing.
- **Hits and the log:** packet and byte counters for every rule, NAT rule,
  built-in and policy; packets logged by rules and policies, read from
  netlink log group 4171 (`hc log -f`, the Log page).
- **Dynamic sets** whose entries expire by themselves, changed through
  their own API with tokens that may be limited to one set
  (`sets:write:guests`).
- **Import** of an existing nftables ruleset (`hc import`): rules keep
  their order, defines name the sets, DNAT becomes port forwards, what
  can't be translated stays as raw rules, with notes; `hc takeover`
  deletes the old table, on probation (docs/import.md). DNAT maps and
  verdict maps are expanded into one port forward or rule per element.
- **The `hc` CLI, the REST API and the web UI** (dashboard, rules per
  chain with hits and reordering, NAT, zones, sets, services, the log,
  settings, import, history with undo), with users, roles, scoped API
  tokens, sessions, the audit log, and the web UI's certificate from
  Let's Encrypt through Jarl, as in Steward.
- **Packaging:** Debian packages `housecarl` and `housecarl-cli`, a
  systemd unit whose only privilege is `CAP_NET_ADMIN`, daily backups.
- **The Housecarl logo:** a carved Nordic doorway in Jarl's blue, with a
  simplified version for small sizes, lighter on dark backgrounds; and a
  HOUSECARL wordmark in Jarl's and Steward's angular letters.