# FireHOL

A firewall for humans...

Repository: https://github.com/firehol/firehol
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/firehol
Language: Shell
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: firewall, qos, linux, iptables, tc, ipset, synproxy, balancer
Last push: 2026-03-31T00:33:21+00:00
Link (homepage): https://iplists.firehol.org

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 56/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 74, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4734, "days_push": 156, "days_rel": 536, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1603, forks 192 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:09.908484+00:00)

## What it is
FireHOL is a Linux firewall management tool built on iptables/ipsets, paired with a repository of IP blocklists dynamically updated via the update-ipsets.sh script. It aggregates threat intelligence feeds (attacks, malware, command-and-control, abuse sources) into ipsets usable directly in firewall rules.

## Use cases
- block known malicious IPs at my firewall
- automatically update IP blocklists on a Linux server
- protect my server from attackers and botnets
- use threat intelligence feeds with iptables
- manage iptables firewall rules with a simple config
- block spam and brute-force source IPs

## When to choose
- you run Linux servers and want curated, auto-updating IP blocklists in netfilter
- you want a declarative firewall configuration on top of iptables/ipsets
- you need to aggregate many threat feeds into performant ipsets

## When to avoid
- you need a firewall solution for non-Linux platforms
- you want an application-layer or proxy-based WAF rather than IP-level filtering
- you require a GUI-managed firewall

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: security, networking, developer-tools, cli
- domain: security, networking, self-hosted, developer-tools
- platform: cli, self-hosted
- tags: firewall, ipset, blocklist, iptables, netfilter, threat-intelligence, shell, linux

## Member repositories
- firehol/firehol (main) score 56
- firehol/blocklist-ipsets (plugin) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:09.908484+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:25:09.159201+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/firehol/firehol (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:09.908484+00:00, sha 2f6f02ec0936)
  - homepage: https://iplists.firehol.org (fetched 2026-08-29T09:19:11.450504+00:00, sha 92daf37bd5ec)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.