iptables won't start today

[Chuck Campbell]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 01:51:26PM -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
<snip>
> 
> Did you try "modprobe ip_tables" to see if the module will load?  There

yep,
modprobe: Can't locate module ip_tables

> are several iptables modules involved...the one that everything's
> whining about is iptable_filter.o.  I don't have your kernel, but my
> iptable_filter.o is 3488 bytes long (.2174nptl, i686), yours may be
> be slightly different.
> 
> Try "ls /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip*" and
> verify that the modules are there.

nope, clearly a problem...
ls: /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2174.nptlBOOT/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip*: No such file or directory


in fact, ls /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2174.nptlBOOT/kernel/net/
8021q  bluetooth  edp2  sunrpc

no ipv4 directory at all...

> 
> If either fail, try reinstalling the latest iptables RPMs.  That can
> be done by "rpm -Uvh --force iptables-1.2.9-1.0.i386.rpm" and, if you
> want, the source, development, ipV6 and debug versions which you seem
> to have installed.

I did this instead (every time I use --force, I seem to break something):
rpm -Fvh iptables-1.2.9-1.0.i386.rpm 
warning: iptables-1.2.9-1.0.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4f2a6fd2

next I did rpm -qa | grep iptable
iptables-debuginfo-1.2.9-1.0
iptables-devel-1.2.9-1.0
iptables-1.2.9-1.0
iptables-ipv6-1.2.9-1.0

rpm thinks they are loaded, but the above ls commands don't find anything.  
do I need to resort to the rpm -Uvh --force?

I did it -  rpm -Uvh --force iptables-1.2.9-1.0.i386.rpm
warning: iptables-1.2.9-1.0.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4f2a6fd2
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:iptables               ########################################### [100%]

got some action there!

tried this again ls /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip*
ls: /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2174.nptlBOOT/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip*: No such file or directory

Now, color me baffled...
what next?

-chuck