«I load ip_tables with modprobe, only to lose it after a reboot» Write the module name into: /etc/modules-load.d/.conf — on most modern systemd distributions (Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, etc.) or /etc/modules on Debian-style systems. OpenRC’s modules-load service reads configuration files from the following locations, in order of precedence /usr/lib/modules-load.d/ /run/modules-load.d/ /etc/modules-load.d/ echo “ip_tables” >/etc/modules-load.d/ip_tables.conf