How to enable ip masquerading/forwarding on CentOS 7

Question

I want to enable IP masquerading/forwarding on CentOS 7 , but when I specify net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1 in /etc/sysctl.conf , it doesn’t work. Can any one help with this problem?

Joseph Drane · Answer

What?I google searched and this was the first result. I wanted to add a comment here on my “opinion” of how to implement this. Why?So when reading the file /etc/sysctl.conf, it seems we have a few options (none are wrong because they all work) listed out. One area not mentioned, which in my opinion, I like more, is where it says: To override # only specific settings, add a file with a lexically later # name in /etc/sysctl.d/ and put new settings there. How?So after running sudo -s I then ran echo "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1" > /etc/sysctl.d/100-sysctl.conf.Why did I choose to name the file 100-sysctl.conf? Because there was a file in there that was 99-sysctl.conf VerifyYou can run sudo sysctl -a | grep ip_forward or without sudo sysctl -a | grep ip_forward to verify it’s there. I would suggest doing a sudo reboot now and then running this sysctl command to verify the setting sticks after reboot. Future State : Started a gist for this that covers ipv6 too : https://gist.github.com/josephdrane/cd6cf46d32c3932c9fb663b4cac105a6 Would love to have contributors on there or stars if you found this useful! Thanks!

Andrew SB · Answer

To enable IP forwarding, uncomment this line in /etc/sysctl.conf $ cat /etc/sysctl.conf | grep ip_forward #net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

rhel7user · Answer

/usr/lib/… path usually for packages,daemon,services that you install or exist when you installed your os . Relevant config also may exist in /etc/… /etc/… path is the place where you as a administrator should be configuring for ip forwarding you should not be touching any file on /usr/lib/…same goes for firewalld, systemd for them /etc/firewalld/… or /etc/systemd/… you can directly edit the good ol /etc/sysctl.conf or preferably /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf the 99-sysctl.conf is symbolic link to the /etc/sysctl.conf upon reboot or sysctl -p allows the systemd-sysctl service read the link/nonlink files if they exist if not read sysctl.conf and make necessary entry in /usr/lib/… and/or load your defined or other variables that there exist and ofcourse giving you ip forwarding for this scenario. in simple al custom goes in /etc/ you should not be editing /usr/lib/sysctl.d/50-default.conf you can edit /etc/sysctl.confor /etc/sysctl.d/ 99-sysctl.confor /etc/sysctl.d/<numberdigits and nameappropriatelyaccordingtoyourpurpose>.conf tthe last one is user created it dont have to be a linked file. systemd-sysctl will load the values

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How to enable ip masquerading/forwarding on CentOS 7

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How to enable ip masquerading/forwarding on CentOS 7