You can list iptables rules with rule numbers using the –line-numbers option, but this only works in list (-L) mode. I find it much more convenient to view rules using the output from iptables -S or iptables-save. You can augment the output from these commands with rule numbers with the following awk script: #!/bin/awk -f state == 0 && /^-A/ {state=1; chain=$2; counter=1; printf "\n"} state == 1 && $2 !