I've installed iptables on a embedded device with linux. I believe the installation was successful because all the other apps are working fine (busybox etc.).I try to run them but i get the following error:root@AlphaEdge:~ iptables -LERROR: No valid subcommand given.Valid subcommands: * iptables-xml * xmlThe only thing i found by googleing was this source code here, which I'm trying to figure out simultaneously while waiting for the answer.
iptables - the meaning of ERROR: No valid subcommand given?
iptables
On my system (Ubuntu 13.04), iptables is a symlink to xtables-multi:martin ~ # ll /sbin/iptableslrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Feb 20  2013 /sbin/iptables -> xtables-multi*All other iptables commands are symlinks too:martin ~ # ll /sbin|grep xtableslrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      13 Feb 20  2013 ip6tables -> xtables-multi*lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      13 Feb 20  2013 ip6tables-restore -> xtables-multi*lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      13 Feb 20  2013 ip6tables-save -> xtables-multi*lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      13 Feb 20  2013 iptables -> xtables-multi*lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      13 Feb 20  2013 iptables-restore -> xtables-multi*lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      13 Feb 20  2013 iptables-save -> xtables-multi*-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     86K Feb 20  2013 xtables-multi*When you call one of these commands, xtables-multi uses the name it has been executed with to figure out which command you want to use. Calling xtables-multi directly (or calling it with a name that it doesn't know) produces the following output on my system:martin ~ # xtables-multi ERROR: No valid subcommand given.Valid subcommands: * iptables * main4 * iptables-save * save4 * iptables-restore * restore4 * iptables-xml * xml * ip6tables * main6 * ip6tables-save * save6 * ip6tables-restore * restore6The explanation therefore has to be that your xtables-multi binary hasn't been compiled with all available subcommands, and so it doesn't know what to do when you call it as iptables. You will probably have to recompile it with the correct options to get the iptables command working.