---
title: Firewall Hardening with firewalld on Fedora Fleet
domain: selfhosting
category: security
tags:
  - firewall
  - firewalld
  - iptables
  - fedora
  - ansible
  - security
  - hardening
status: published
created: 2026-04-18
updated: 2026-04-18T11:13
---
# Firewall Hardening with firewalld on Fedora Fleet

## Overview

Fedora and RHEL-based hosts use `firewalld` as the default firewall manager, backed by `nftables`. Over time, firewall rules accumulate stale entries — decommissioned services, old IP allowances, leftover port forwards — that widen the attack surface silently. This article covers the audit-and-harden pattern for Fedora fleet hosts using Ansible.

> For Ubuntu/Debian hosts, see [ufw-firewall-management](ufw-firewall-management.md).

## The Problem with Accumulated Rules

Rules added manually or by service installers (`firewall-cmd --add-port=...`) don't get cleaned up when services are removed. Common sources of stale rules:

- Monitoring agents (Zabbix, old Netdata exporters)
- Media servers moved to another host (Jellyfin, Plex)
- Development ports left open during testing
- IP-specific allowances for home IPs that have since changed

These stale rules are invisible in day-to-day operation but show up during audits as unnecessary exposure.

## Auditing Current Rules

```bash
# Show all active rules (nftables, what firewalld actually uses)
nft list ruleset

# Show firewalld zones and services
firewall-cmd --list-all-zones

# Show permanent config (what survives reboot)
firewall-cmd --permanent --list-all
```

Cross-reference open ports against running services:

```bash
# What's actually listening?
ss -tlnp

# Match against firewall rules — anything open that has no listener is stale
```

## Ansible Hardening Approach

Rather than patching rules incrementally, the cleanest approach is to **flush and rebuild**: remove all non-essential rules and explicitly whitelist only what the host legitimately serves. This avoids drift and makes the resulting ruleset self-documenting.

The Ansible playbook uses `ansible.posix.firewalld` to manage rules declaratively and a flush task to clear the slate before applying the desired state.

### Pattern: Flush → Rebuild

```yaml
- name: Remove stale firewalld rules
  ansible.posix.firewalld:
    port: "{{ item }}"
    permanent: true
    state: disabled
  loop:
    - 8096/tcp   # Jellyfin — decommissioned
    - 10050/tcp  # Zabbix agent — removed
    - 10051/tcp  # Zabbix server — removed
  ignore_errors: true  # OK if rule doesn't exist

- name: Apply minimal whitelist
  ansible.posix.firewalld:
    port: "{{ item }}"
    permanent: true
    state: enabled
  loop: "{{ allowed_ports }}"
  notify: Reload firewalld
```

Define `allowed_ports` per host in `host_vars/`:

```yaml
# host_vars/majorlab/firewall.yml
allowed_ports:
  - 80/tcp    # Caddy HTTP
  - 443/tcp   # Caddy HTTPS
  - 22/tcp    # SSH (public)
  - 2222/tcp  # SSH (alt)
  - 3478/tcp  # Nextcloud Talk TURN
```

### Tailscale SSH: Restrict to ts-input Zone

For hosts where SSH should only be accessible via Tailscale, move the SSH rule from the public zone to the `ts-input` interface:

```yaml
- name: Remove SSH from public zone
  ansible.posix.firewalld:
    zone: public
    service: ssh
    permanent: true
    state: disabled

- name: Allow SSH on Tailscale interface only
  ansible.posix.firewalld:
    zone: trusted
    interface: tailscale0
    permanent: true
    state: enabled
  notify: Reload firewalld
```

> **Note:** The Tailscale interface is `tailscale0` unless customized. Confirm with `ip link show` before applying.

## Per-Host Hardening Reference

Different host roles need different rule sets. These are the minimal whitelists for common MajorsHouse host types:

| Host Role | Open Ports | Notes |
|-----------|-----------|-------|
| Reverse proxy (Caddy) | 80, 443, 22/2222 | No app ports exposed — Caddy proxies internally |
| Storage/media (Plex) | 32400 (public), 22 (Tailscale-only) | Plex needs public; SSH Tailscale-only |
| Bot/Discord host | 25 (Postfix), 25000 (webUI), 6514 (syslog-TLS) | No inbound SSH needed if Tailscale-only |
| Mail server | 25, 587, 993, 443, 22 | Standard mail ports |

## Default Policy

Set the default zone policy to `DROP` (not `REJECT`) to make the host non-discoverable:

```bash
firewall-cmd --set-default-zone=drop --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload
```

`DROP` silently discards packets; `REJECT` sends an ICMP unreachable back, confirming the host exists.

## Verifying After Apply

```bash
# Confirm active rules match intent
firewall-cmd --list-all

# Spot-check a port that should be closed
nmap -p 10050 <host-ip>
# Expected: filtered (not open, not closed)

# Confirm a port that should be open
nmap -p 443 <host-ip>
# Expected: open
```

## Ansible Handler

```yaml
handlers:
  - name: Reload firewalld
    ansible.builtin.service:
      name: firewalld
      state: reloaded
```

## See Also

- [ufw-firewall-management](ufw-firewall-management.md) — Ubuntu/Debian equivalent
- [ssh-hardening-ansible-fleet](ssh-hardening-ansible-fleet.md)
- [linux-server-hardening-checklist](linux-server-hardening-checklist.md)