I recently upgraded the kernel on a server from 2.2.16 to 2.4.32 and have run into a problem. When i try to connect to a SAP server, the connection timeouts. Reverting to the old kernel fixes the problem. However, the key reason for upgrading to the 2.4 kernel was to be able to run iptables. So, even though the connection works under the 2.2.16, I need to be running the 2.4.32. Turning the firewall off (all chains targets set to default ACCEPT policy) does not kill the timeouts - what could be the problem?

I tried comparing the /proc/sys/net/ipv4 contents between the 2 kernels but there are far too many new ones in there especially under the netfilter directory. However, the ones that were common to both had similar values!

Could someone please shed some light for me!

Cheers,
kb.

I had a similar problem when upgrading Slackware 9.0 from kernel 2.4.20 to 2.6.1 (around January 2004). That time, RPM wasn't able to function properly giving out different errors. Still, RPM was required to install Informix Dynamic Server. That time, the following helped:
# export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.0
# rpm .....

That is, try running export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.0 as root before starting up SAP. Maybe that will help.

By the way, could you post the output of the following command:
# iptables -L

One more thing - what distro are you using?