Installing iptables

The best way to install it is to use your distributions package manager and then install

Redhat based distributions will use yum

Debian based will use aptitude

Slackware will use slapt

SUSE uses smart or zypper

if you use neither then you can download the source or the prepackaged binary rpm deb or tgz.

once the package installed you can look at your rules by typing:

iptables -L

then you will want to start the service.

Redhat

su to root

su -

then

chconfig iptables on

then

service iptables start

Debian

sudo /etc/init.d/iptables start

now to auto start it at boot

update-rc.d iptables defaults

Slackware

vi /etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables

then create your start up script iptables then make it executable

chmod 750 /etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables

start bind

/etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables start

now make it auto start on boot. then as long as your default run level is 3

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/iptables

if you default run level is something other then 3 just change rc3.d to match your if it 5 then change rc3.d to rc5.d

SUSE

There should be a start up script in /etc/init.d/boot.local make a symbolic link to that in /etc/rc.d/boot.local if its not already there

ln -s /etc/init.d/boot.local/iptables /etc/rc.d/boot.local/iptables

Then start it by typing

/etc/init.d/boot.local/iptables start