Create table in iptables

I want to create a custom table using iptables so that I can add my custom chains in it. But I doesn't see any option to do that. I tried to search for it but didnt found anything. Please Help.

2 Answers

I think you are looking for creating a chain, not a table.

 -N, --new-chain chain Create a new user-defined chain by the given name. There must be no target of that name already.

Example (-t filter is implied):

iptables -N Services
iptables -A INPUT -j Services
iptables -A Services -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

Tables can be selected with the -t option:

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

And if you are using iptables-restore, the above two rules can be combined to:

*nat
-A POSTROUTING -j MASQUERADE
COMMIT
*filter
:Services -
-A INPUT -j Services
-A Services -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
COMMIT

Creating a table is done at the kernel level; normally there is no need to create a new one unless one is adding to the kernel's TCP/IP capabilities.

What you likely want to do is create a new chain in one of the existing tables, which is done with the -N flag.