Make CentOS 6.x a port forwarding NAT device

Question

I would like to make CentOS a port forwarding NAT machine using iptables. This is the first time I've tried this and I think i might need a little help.

This is the configuration i'm trying to achieve. I'm trying to make a remote desktop connection through the CentOS machine on port 5500 and have CentOS connect to the server on port 3389.

192.168.21.11 is the client that should connect to port 3389 on 192.168.9.120 by connecting to 192.168.21.10 (CentOS) on port 5500.

• CentOS eth0 is 192.168.9.20/24
• CentOS eth1 is 192.168.21.10/24

What I tried so far:

1. Disabled SELINUX

2. Enabled IPv4 forwarding in /etc/sysctl.conf

   /etc/sysctl.conf
   net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
   

3. Ran the following iptables commands

   iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -d 192.168.21.10 --dport 5500 -j DNAT --to 192.168.9.120:3389
   iptables -A INPUT -i eth1 -p tcp --dport 5500 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
   iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --sport 5500 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
   service iptables save
   

After saving this configuration I was not able to make the remote desktop connection I'm trying to achieve, so is there anything wrong with my iptables rules? Or is there something I might be missing?

Solution

Try to add this rule to your /etc/sysconfig/iptables right after -A PREROUTING -p tcp -d 192.168.21.10 --dport 5500 -j DNAT --to 192.168.9.120:3389

-A POSTROUTING -d 192.168.9.120 -j MASQUERADE

Second check if net.ipv4.ip_forward is set to 1 by executing 'sysctl -a | grep net.ipv4.ip_forward`

If it's still set up on 0 then execute:

sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

Comments

[B14D3]

And where is the QUESTION?

[Andy Arismendi]

Edited to add a question.

[B14D3]

So it's not working :)

[dmourati]

centos.org/docs/4/html/rhel-sg-en-4/s1-firewall-ipt-fwd.html

[user9517]

-I is better than -A in most cases and especially when you don't know the full ruleset.

[Andy Arismendi]

Ah needed the masquerade :) iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -d 192.168.9.120 -j MASQUERADE worked. Also iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE worked. Thanks for the help!