I was one of those who VTCed, and though I can't remember my choice of reason it's clear it wasn't "product recommendation". Here's what I think now.

• Firstly, it's a "please fix my iptables" question that doesn't post the complete ruleset (iptables -L -n -v); those are damned from minute one, in my eyes. While a quick update can rescue such a question, after seven years it seemed unlikely in this case.

• I dislike such questions anyway, as the solution details are often highly specific to the ruleset in question (I miss the old "too narrow" close reason); to make them scale to others, an answer has to be written that becomes a general primer on iptables, and that is too broad / a request for learning materials.

• The question, being unanswerable in its present form (no live ruleset) was still attracting noob-quality "here's what worked for me" answers seven years after it was asked. The author clearly has no intention of cleaning up behind him/herself, so closing it was pretty much a mercy killing in that it stopped any more ill-thought-out answers from being posted.

Without endorsing Womble's attitude to hand-written iptables rulesets (I do those all the time, but then I actually did write the book on it :) I would also like to see the question burninated. But closing it is nearly as good.

I was one of those who VTCed, and though I can't remember my choice of reason it's clear it wasn't "product recommendation". Here's what I think now.

• Firstly, it's a "please fix my iptables" question that doesn't post the complete, live ruleset (iptables -L -n -v); those are damned from minute one, in my eyes. While a quick update can rescue such a question, after seven years it seemed unlikely in this case.

• I dislike such questions anyway, as the solution details are often highly specific to the ruleset in question (I miss the old "too narrow" close reason); to make them scale to others, an answer has to be written that becomes a general primer on iptables, and that is too broad / a request for learning materials.

• The question, being unanswerable in its present form (no live ruleset) was still attracting noob-quality "here's what worked for me" answers seven years after it was asked. The author clearly has no intention of cleaning up behind him/herself, so closing it was pretty much a mercy killing in that it stopped any more ill-thought-out answers from being posted.

Without endorsing Womble's attitude to hand-written iptables rulesets (I do those all the time, but then I actually did write the book on it :) I would also like to see the question burninated. But closing it is nearly as good.