Strange forwarding problem

[jeffbuttars]

I have firewall setup with two nics.
eth0 is a static ip x.x.x.53 netmask x.x.x.248
eth1 is internal ip 192.168.0.1 netmask 192.168.0.0

I'm using iptables to setup a simple firewall and SNAT

EXTIF=eth0


$IPTABLES -t filter -A FORWARD -i! $EXTIF -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t filter -A FORWARD -i $EXTIF -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t filter -A FORWARD -i $EXTIF -m state --state NEW,INVALID -j DROP
$IPTABLES -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $EXTIF -s 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0 -j SNAT --to-source x.x.x.53


The problem:
On fresh boot the firewall will not forward packets from eth1 to eth0.
From the internal network I can ssh to eth1 on the firewall and restart the internal network
/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart
and then everything will forward through and work like it's supposed to.
Right after boot, before restarting eth1 to make things forward,
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/forwarding
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
are both '1'

I'm running dncpd and it functions just fine.

I'm lost.

[Shan]

Its not a proper fix but assuming you don't find one, you can always add the line