This document was written purely so people can start to grasp the wonderful world of iptables. It was never meant to contain information on specific security bugs in iptables or Netfilter. If you find peculiar bugs or behaviors in iptables or any of the subcomponents, you should contact the Netfilter mailing lists and tell them about the problem and they can tell you if this is a real bug or if it has already been fixed. There are very rarely actual security related bugs found in iptables or Netfilter, however, one or two do slip by once in a while.

Table of Contents
1. Dedication
2. Introduction

2.1. Disclaimer & License
2.2. Prior knowledge
2.3. What Linux can do for you
2.4. Housekeeping notes
2.5. Access, CVS & submitting updates
2.6. Mailing list
2.7. Layout of this document

3. Introduction to iproute2

3.1. Why iproute2?
3.2. iproute2 tour
3.3. Prerequisites
3.4. Exploring your current configuration
3.5. ARP

4. Rules - routing policy database

4.1. Simple source policy routing

Contents:

* Introduction
o BEWARE
* Existing Services
o Netstat Observations
* Host names and IP numbers
o Programming Calls
* Services and Ports
o Programming Calls
* Socket Addressing
* File Descriptors and Sockets
o File Descriptors
o Sockets
* Client Connect
o Client Communication
o Stdio Buffers
* Server Applications
o Server Bind
o Listen and Accept
* Inetd Services
o Inetd Comments
o Whois Daemon
* Running the Daemon
o The Code

This guide provides an overview of many of the tools available for IP network administration of the linux operating system, kernels in the 2.2 and 2.4 series. It covers Ethernet, ARP, IP routing, NAT, and other topics central to the management of IP networks.

Table of Contents
1. Intro
1.1. Audience
1.2. Platform and Compiler
1.3. Official Homepage
1.4. Note for Solaris/SunOS Programmers
1.5. Note for Windows Programmers
1.6. Email Policy
1.7. Mirroring
1.8. Note for Translators
1.9. Copyright and Distribution

2. What is a socket?
2.1. Two Types of Internet Sockets
2.2. Low level Nonsense and Network Theory

3. structs and Data Handling
3.1. Convert the Natives!
3.2. IP Addresses and How to Deal With Them