Lines 85 & 86 of FreeBSD-5.2.1 /etc/defaults rc.conf says: ipfilter_rules="/etc/ipf.rules" # rules definition file for ipfilter, see # /usr/src/contrib/ipfilter/rules for examples I see no examples there but find many under /usr/share/examples/ipfilter Possibly applies to 4.9 too. Thanks again for great documentation. -- John.