Hi, I guess syncookies wasn't enough and the SYNPROXY target is a relatively new addition to netfilter. If I remember correctly this has been a part of BSD PF for quite some time and is pretty easy to get up and working. I recently tried to set this up on one of my gateways considering that it's just one less uncovered means for somebody to be a dick that I have to deal with in the future. But, after spending some time researching and asking on Freenode I have been unable to determine whether or not it works, or even makes any sense. I'm starting to think it's a moot point. pastie.org/private/gjsypxkpjs8kuev0tlbxrw#22 (iptables rules, plenty of things to pick at but please try to focus on the subject of synproxy for the purpose of this e-mail.) based on the following table I want to say its not working because it seems to never change: http://pastie.org/private/xwct5opbb0aajcko2tnpw more info on /proc/stat/synproxy: http://www.spinics.net/lists/netdev/msg264350.html My only guess is that you can't do this at all with NAT because it relies on conntrack or maybe it will only work with SNAT? I don't understand this well enough to say; are proper firewall rules really a science that need to be understood that far in depth? Why is this not documented? This tutorial seems to indicate that you could use this with a NAT'd network: http://www.academia.edu/6773989/Homemade_DDoS_Protection_Using_IPTables_SYNP... I really would like to come to some closure on this subject. Whether it needs to be done right or not done at all, I'm tired of it looming over me. I really want to believe I should do the very best to have all mitigation techniques already in place, but I'm having a hard time understanding why this is next to impossible to figure out if it's so important. #netfilter on freenode is next to no help, the mailing list seems to be unavailable.... the things people are saying about how I should "just switch" back to using pf seem like a drastic solution when people in #netfilter are so content (yet many of them have never heard of synproxy before.) Any thoughts on this are appreciated, -Paige