Hi, Two questions: 1) I understand the basics of the iptables command but I am having trouble grasping how the various "scripts" go together. I have a CentOS (Red Hat) box set up and there is an init script /etc/init.d/iptables. There is also a support script /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config. I know also that 'service iptables save' saves a ruleset file of the current ruleset inside /etc/sysconfig/iptables. My question is therefore "Where do I place my main (and documented) ruleset file?". I envision a file solely containing a multitude of iptables commands but many files I find on the net contain other commands as well. 2) I have inherited an iptables firewall and I'm trying to grok its ruleset. Here are the beginning lines of the output of 'cat /etc/sysconfig/iptables': *filter :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :log_and_drop - [0:0] :service_chain - [0:0] [0:0] -A INPUT -d 127.0.0.1 -j ACCEPT [0:0] -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.1 -j ACCEPT [0:0] -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT [0:0] -A INPUT -j service_chain [0:0] -A log_and_drop -j LOG --log-prefix "FWSERVER (Blocked Connection)" [0:0] -A log_and_drop -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-port-unreachable [0:0] -A service_chain -p icmp -j ACCEPT [0:0] -A service_chain -p icmp -j log_and_drop . . . { many more '[0:0] -A service_chain' lines } COMMIT My question here is how is the last rule ever matched? If ICMP is seen it will be accepted and the evaluation stops. What is the meaning of this line? My guess is that it is there to log and then block unwanted traffic (via the log_and_drop chain) but I do not see how it works. The ruleset is full of these line patterns. Peter __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com