= Iptables Information INTRODUCTORY BLURB AND WAFFLE This file is intended to contain information about the 'iptables' program. This is a program which in some way interacts with the Linux Operation System Kernel in order to do various things to tcp/ip packets which arrive at a particular computer. The basic purpose of this program is to attempt to prevent various forms of anti-social Internet behaviour such as hacking, port sniffing and denial of service attacks amongst other things. This file will probably mainly be references to URLs which contain reasonable information about 'iptables' URL LINKS http://iptables-tutorial.frozentux.net/ A tutorial in many formats. It appears reasonably 'advanced' and doesn't have any hand-holding explanations. The quality of the english is not good. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/security/library/s-netip/?t=gr,lnxw914=netIpt A reasonably looking article. Tells how to install iptables. Some good examples of iptables command lines. http://testweb.oofle.com/iptables/index.htm Some basic but short information about iptables http://www.spotswood-computer.net/present/iptables2.html A lengthy, chatty style article. The usual aggressive, apocalyptic attitude but seems to contain valuable info and script snippets. Really not a bad article to start with. Includes some links to other resources. http://www.netfilter.org/ Perhaps the home page for iptables http://www.netfilter.org/documentation/HOWTO//packet-filtering-HOWTO.html A 'howto' about packet filtering http://www.wallfire.org who knows what this is. SOME NOTES iptables does not really seem that hard, although a more detailed knowledge of tcp/ip is possibly required to understand its subtleties. On the Ella Associates American RedHat Linux Server there is some program which is dynamically creating iptable rules in 'real-time'. In other words, if somebody sends unfriendly packets to the Server new iptable rules get added to block that source address. I do not know what program is doing this.