speed & scheduling of iptables filtering...

[Patrick Schaaf]

> i mean the firewall box responding to packets more quickly.  i want to 
> minimize the delay required for packets to get through the firewall.

Why do you want to do that? What are your quantitative requirements,
where do your measurements indicate that unacceptable latency
is introduced by the firewall box, what is the relative impact
of the firewall box compared to the whole path you are interested in?

> is there anything in iptables that affects how quickly packets get
> through the firewall,

Apart from the complexity of the sequential rules that YOU write:
no, not much. Most is in device drivers, and the general network stack.

regards
  Patrick