Oops, a little error in my last posting. Do NOT use the RETURN target on the default chain. The RETURN target (obviously) returns the packets to the chain that sent it there. If used in the main chain, it is the same as falling back to the default behaviour of the chain and will hopefully be denied. Therefore, a direction to a chain must be done. iptables -N count_in iptables -A count_in -j RETURN iptables -N count_out iptables -A count_out -j RETURN iptables -A FORWARD -s 192.168.0.4 -j count_in iptables -A FORWARD -d 192.168.0.4 -j count_out will do the trick. Bjørn