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  • v0.1.0-rc.1 eaadbe6a3d
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    Housecarl v0.1.0-rc.1
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    Details
    Pre-Release

    adam released this 2026-10-19 08:03:39 +00:00 | -2 commits to main since this release

    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).
    • 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.
    Downloads