For modern distros, the nft package includes an alternative binary that takes the place of /sbin/iptables and translates the input to an nft compatible format.

For modern distros, the nft package includes an alternative binary that takes the place of /sbin/iptables and translates the input to an nft compatible format. As far as the kernel is concerned, iptables is still iptables. Old iptables can be accessed by calling the iptables-legacy binary which will auto load the old iptables ko.