Ned, Thank you very much for the response. Great example following through on the premise. It sounds like I need to have a better understanding of the traffic patterns on my network to know the optimal order for iptables filtering rules. My brief example - Premise: I want to limit outsiders from interfering with LAN client machines. So, I have the following rules regarding forwarding traffic: -A FORWARD -m state --state INVALID -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,FIN FIN -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,PSH PSH -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,URG URG -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,RST FIN,RST -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,FIN SYN,FIN -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN,RST -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,RST,ACK,FIN,URG -j DROP -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i LAN-NIC -s 10.100.100.0/24 -o INET-NIC -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i INET-NIC -o LAN-NIC -d 10.100.100.0/24 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT But I don't know if this is interfering with, or delaying DNS requests between LAN clients and the DHCP server.