{|cellpadding="15" width="3060%"  |- valign="top" | | <span style="font-family:courier; font-weight:bold">-I</span> | | tells iptables to INSERT this line into the OUTPUT policy. This means it will be the first line in the policy. If we used a <span style="font-family:courier; font-weight:bold">-A</span> switch it would have appended the line and it would be the last line of the policy. If you are writing complex iptables rules where multiple matches can occur, it is important that the lines go in the right order. If you follow the -I with a number, the new rule will be inserted at that location in the chain (for example, <code>-I 3 OUTPUT</code> will insert the rule into the 3rd position in the OUTPUT chain, moving the existing rules down as necessary (the old rule #3 will become the new rule #4, for example)

|width="10%" |means drop the packet – make it disappear - and do not continue processing rules. '''REJECT''' is similar, but causes an error packet to be sent back to the source host. '''ACCEPT''' causes the packet to be processed. '''LOG''' causes an entry to be made in the system logs showing that the packet was processed. Note that the LOG target is the only one that does not stop rule-checking in the chain - so you can log a packet with one rule, and then use a later rule in the chain to DROP, REJECT, or ACCEPT it