setting up iptables

[Costas Magkos <kmag@lab.epmhs.gr>]

Hi all,

Can someone give me some best-practices for setting up iptables on a 
Debian system? I'm looking for things like where should the rules be 
placed, what startup script to use [1], good configuration tools [2] and 
so on. URLs are appreciated, I dont mind reading :-)

I'm currently setting up iptables on a single-server enviroment (no 
routing), but since I will be using iptables a lot, general concepts are 
also welcome.

--

[1] When looking around how to set up iptables, I found in 
/etc/default/iptables some discouraging words (apparently from the 
author) about the usage of the iptables init.d script, which can be 
summarized to this: "Do not use it". Why not? And if not, is there any 
other way?

[2] I tried firestarter, seems nice. However, it produces a large 
ruleset with tones of redundant rules and /proc optimizations (for 
instance, the anti-spoof filtering is activated by default). It involves 
too much editing, which I have no problem doing it if someone tells me 
it's worth it.

Thanks in advance,

~kmag

Costas Magkos
Internet Systematics Lab
Athens, Greece