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I have inherited a custom built Linux kernel 2.6.30.9 and am just upgrading the underlying OS from RHEL 5.4 to 5.8 (kernels 2.6.18.164 and 2.6.18.308 respectively).

When booting, the following is displayed: 

unloading iptables modules                   [  OK  ]
Applying iptables firewall rules: modprobe: FATAL: module ip-tables not found.

iptables-restore v1.3.5: iptables-restore unable to initialize 'filter'

Error occurred at line 3
try 'iptables-restore -h' or 'iptables-restore --help' for more information
.                                             [FAILED]

the /etc/iptables file looks like:

# Firewall configuration written by system-config-securitylevel
# Manual customization of this file is not recommended.
*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
:RH-Firewall-1-INPUT - [0:0]
-A INPUT -j RH-Firewall-1-INPUT
-A FORWARD -j RH-Firewall-1-INPUT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type any -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p 50 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p 51 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp --dport 5353 -d 224.0.0.251 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 631 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 631 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
COMMIT

the section of kernel_config

#
# IP: Netfilter Configuration
#
# CONFIG_NF_DEFRAG_IPV4 is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_QUEUE is not set
CONFIG_IP_NF_IPTABLES=y
# CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_ADDRTYPE is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_AH is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_ECN is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TTL is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_FILTER is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_LOG is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_ULOG is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_MANGLE is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TTL is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_RAW is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_SECURITY is not set
# CONFIG_IP_NF_ARPTABLES is not set
# CONFIG_IP_DCCP is not set
# CONFIG_IP_SCTP is not set
# CONFIG_TIPC is not set
# CONFIG_ATM is not set
# CONFIG_BRIDGE is not set
# CONFIG_NET_DSA is not set
# CONFIG_VLAN_8021Q is not set
# CONFIG_DECNET is not set
# CONFIG_LLC2 is not set
# CONFIG_IPX is not set
# CONFIG_ATALK is not set
# CONFIG_X25 is not set
# CONFIG_LAPB is not set
# CONFIG_ECONET is not set
# CONFIG_WAN_ROUTER is not set
# CONFIG_PHONET is not set
CONFIG_NET_SCHED=y

and this is matched in /proc/config.gz

Is there a simple way to bring this to life? Do iptables behave differently when compiled into the kernel compares to compiled as module objects?

share|improve this question
iptables printed iptables-restore unable to initialize 'filter', it's very strange, because filter is built-in in kernel, So you test step by step from first rule by hand not iptables-restore until last rule,it cause you find rule which has problem. – Mohsen Pahlevanzadeh Sep 19 '12 at 13:12
It seems that the NF_FILTER is not set, which means it is not built-in, it may have been compiled separately, but if it wasn't, you need to build it either as a module or by rebuilding the kernel. I would offer to set all netfilter related configurations to module or yes, so you won't have issues like this in the future. – David Kohen Sep 19 '12 at 14:23
Thanks, that seems to have helped. I switched a lot more modules on in the kernel build so I'm not entirely sure which the crucial one was. – DanS Sep 21 '12 at 10:24

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