A Comparison of iptables Automation Tools

From Security Focus: A Comparison of iptables Automation Tools. It's a bit dated (mentions kernel 2.4 as being the newest Linux kernel), but much of it still seems applicable.

This article will offer a brief overview of the means of configuring iptables and will offer a brief review of some tools that have been developed to automate the configuration of iptables. This discussion will look at IP firewalling code in Linux kernel and its configuration via various interfaces such as GUIs or scripts (written in shell scripting language, Perl or special configuration language). Such interfaces are, in my opinion, intended to simplify the iptables configuration, make it more intuitive and reduce the chances of system administrator error.