Mangling packet headers

Mangle packet header fields

Since nft v0.6 nftables supports stateless payload mangling. Note that if you mangle packet fields that are included in the layer 4 checksum pseudoheader, then you require a Linux kernel version >= 4.10.

To mangle packet header fields you should create a rule to match the packet, match the desired header field and set a new value to it:

% nft add table mangle
% nft add chain mangle forward {type filter hook forward priority 0\;}
% nft add rule mangle forward tcp dport 8080 tcp dport set 80

The commands above create a table named mangle, a chain named forward, see Netfilter hooks, and a rule to mangle the destination port of packets over TCP from 8080 to 80. Keep in mind the interactions with conntrack, flows with mangled traffic must be untracked.

For more information about packet headers to mangle check manpage nft(8), Matching packet header fields and Quick reference-nftables in 10 minutes.