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I made a bootable USB to try another linux distribution. When the OS was booted up, I checked iptables and it was all ACCEPT. I suppose it's not safe to use with working internet connection. I may be overcautious but what do other overcautious people do in such a case?

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  • You can configure your protection before you use the internet, but you will need to redo this on each boot.
    – AFH
    Commented Jan 6, 2019 at 20:26

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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If ufw's installed & ready to go, it might just take a 

sudo ufw enable

to get it up & running.

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  • In this case, it was really all to do. Sorry, I wrote my own answer after considering which precautions I'd take.
    – Andra
    Commented Jan 7, 2019 at 18:05
  • No problem, if this (or any) answers were useful, then feel free to give them an upvote, and select one as correct (even if it's your own, though you don't get any rep points for selecting your own)
    – Xen2050
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 2:04
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It depends on the Linux distro. Mostly they are without root password and sometimes without sshd, so no one will be able to login to this OS. For longer work with such a system you should take care of its security, and always if you install any Internet services (FTP, Samba, sshd, apache2 etc.). If you are behind a router with a firewall and there are no redirected ports you should sleep safe.

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Were you to create your alternate Linux distro LiveUSB with Persistence, you would be able to configure it and keep the configuration between reboots using the dedicated storage space in the Persistance LiveUSB. Instructions vary according to your distro, but Ubuntu-derived distros have instructions here and there are generalized multi-distro instructions here.

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My plan to proceed was as follows (in this case, ubuntu):

  1. download appropriate ufw package and put it on an accessible partition (or a usb disk)
  2. unplug the ethernet cable
  3. put the hardware WiFi switch in off position
  4. load the OS from the USB stick
  5. get ufw to work:
    5.1. run sudo ufw enable in terminal
    if I don't get "Firewall is active and enabled on system startup", then:
    5.2. install ufw using the package from (1)
  6. run sudo iptables -L to be sure it is by default DROP for input and forward
  7. plug in the cable / switch on wifi
  8. repeat all this when booting anew
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