Abstract: Small, optimized sequences of binary 6-tuples representing filter rules achieve very fast IP packet filtering. Filtering IP packets received from a caller at the physical interface to an operating system kernel is accomplished by processing FILTER rule statements entered by a user in a rules file to generate 6-tuple filtering rules, each of the 6-tuple filtering rules including an operator index; resolving relative and symbolic indexes in these 6-tuples filtering rules to form resolved filtering rules and loading the resolved filtering rules to the operating system kernel; and interpreting the resolved filtering rules for each IP packet received at the physical interface.