[CentOS] Adding comments to /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Sun Apr 24 07:04:30 UTC 2011
Alexander Farber <alexander.farber at gmail.com>

Hello,

I'm a user (and big fan) of CentOS 5.6 and in my /etc/sysconfig/iptables
there are few blocking rules for some annoying visitors of my website
(I run a card game there since many years and some people are "special"):

*filter
:INPUT DROP [0:0]
:FORWARD DROP [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [294:35064]
-A INPUT -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s xx.xx.xx.0/24 -j DROP
-A INPUT -s xx.xx.xx.0/24 -j DROP
-A INPUT -s xx.xx.xx.0/24 -j DROP
-A INPUT -s xx.xx.xx.0/24 -j DROP
-A INPUT -s xx.xx.xx.0/24 -j DROP
-A INPUT -s xx.xx.0.0/16 -j DROP
-A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type any -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp -m multiport --dports
80,8080,443 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 22 \
  --tcp-flags FIN,SYN,RST,ACK SYN -m limit --limit 1/min --limit-burst
2 -j ACCEPT
COMMIT

My problem is that I often don't remember
why and when a blocking rule had been added.

Is there a way to add comments to the iptables file?
A hash mark # does not seem to work.

If comments not possible, please share few tricks -
how do YOU usually use iptables on CentOS,
i.e. there is "sudo service iptables save",
but I've yet to discover its usefulness

Regards
Alex