Settings via init.d lost during runtime

Hi,

I'm using a suse9.1 box with iptables as router/dump for the other machines of mine. custom firewall/nat settings are done by a script that is linked by 'rc3.d'. the script is like

#!/bin/bash
IPTABLES='/usr/sbin/iptables -v'
echo "Starting NoIP Client..." /usr/local/bin/noip2
echo "Done"
[...]
echo "Setting more firewall rules..."
$IPTABLES -I INPUT -p tcp -i ppp0 --dport 1337 -j ACCEPT echo "Done"
[... Executing more tools ...]

now the weird thing is that all tools run by the script are active while the iptables settings are not present when the script finishes . iptables does not give any error msg - the rules are simply ignored/forgotten/whatever.

any idea whats happening?

regards
kkh