Shaun Lipscombe wrote:
Yes I'm aware of iptables-save and iptables-restore but in what script is iptables-restore called on system startup/run level change? I grepped /etc/init.d/* for iptables and it found nada. Also is /var/lib/iptables/active still the correct place for the rules?
It isn't a good idea to start your firewall scripts on bootup always because you may want to vary the startup depending on whether you have interfaces come up properly or not. Also you may bring up and down interfaces during run-time which will impact the firewall but the init.d scripts will not be called. The debian README in /usr/share/doc/iptables describes a better method involving actions to take when interface are up'd and down'd.