
The iptables file in /etc/sysconfig/iptables is used by the firewall to set the firewall’s settings. Each chain is a list of rules that can match a set of criteria in a packet and then take an action such as to accept, reject, or drop the packet.

Each table contains a number of built-in chains and may also contain user-defined chains.

Iptables uses a set of chained tables to decide what to do with a packet. The Linux kernel operates the actual filtering of packets iptables provides a uniform interface for configuring the kernel’s packet filtering rules.

Iptables is a command line interface used to set up, maintain, and inspect the tables of IP packet filter rules in the Linux kernel.
