iptables basic concepts

["Alejandro Cabrera Obed" <sisdis@tournet.com.ar>]

Hi everybody !!!
I have seen a pair of iptables scripts in order to learn the technique and I
noted that there's no a unique order in the construction of the ruleset. I'm
new at this matter so I have to ask you this 2 short questions:

1) What option is the best: at first I set the default policies in the
chains and later I flush all the existing firewall rules or viceversa ???

2) Is it a good practice to start the iptables firewalling rules from the
rc.local script or is it better from the /etc/init.d/iptables script ??? (I
use RH 9 and I start iptables from rc.local)

Thanks a lot, byeeeee

Alejandro