To my understanding the following will allow any address in the x.x.x.0 block access $IPTABLES -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -s xxx.xxx.xx.0/24 -j ACCEPT $IPTABLES -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -s xxx.xxx.xx.0/24 -j ACCEPT $IPTABLES -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -s xxx.xxx.xx.0/24 -j ACCEPT It of course is not working... my temporary solution : looping through 1-254 not very nice when I need to show someone the current rules. -confused