What is Nftables?

Nftables succeeds iptables, ip6tables, arptables, and ebtables with a single framework. Key improvements include a unified syntax for IPv4/IPv6, atomic rule replacement (update entire rulesets without flickering), built-in set/map data structures for efficient matching, better performance through a virtual machine that processes rules, and a cleaner rule syntax using the nft command. Nftables uses tables, chains, and rules similar to iptables but with more flexibility. It supports named sets, concatenations, and stateful packet tracking. Most modern Linux distributions ship with nftables as the default backend.