>>my remote machines. My question is .... if this connection is marked as >>ESTABLISHED, shouldnt it appear on 'netstat -an' entries ??? I think it >>should, but it's not appearing there ..... No, netstat give you information about sockets created on your box and not about your box acting as a routeur. That's why you don't see things appearing in ip_conntrack if your machine is not or source or destination of the packet. -- Eric Leblond e-mail: eleblond@init-sys.com