[SLUG] IRC Connection problems

[Gavin Baker]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:32:17 -0000
"Adams, Jamie" <Jamie.Adams at homegroup.org.uk> wrote:

> > Cheers Gavin,  Worked a treat.
> > 
> > Thanks for your input also, Jamie.  But I must say you have no idea
> > how relieved I am, not to start buggering about with firewalls at
> > the moment. It's completely uncharted territory for me, and the
> > thought of it scares with silly!
> [Jamie said ....] 
 
> I also know very little about firewalls. Though I understand that this
> is something I should be at least a little familiar with. Maybe this
> can be an item at one of the next meetings? Anyone know enough about
> this subject to give us a little guided tour?

I would be happy to do this.

I think it would be more useful to do a guided tour of basic TCP/IP
networking
first though. We can't talk about firewalls without mentioning ports,
sockets, 
TCP, UDP, ICMP, and TCP flags like SYN/ACK/PSH/RST/FIN.

None of these are in any way difficult to understand, but are vital to
understanding firewall's. Maybe something like:

Part 1 : TCP/IP Network basics.
Part 2 : Firewalls & Linux (using iptables)
Part 3 : Firewalls++ (stateful firewalls, NAT etc)

would be the best way to cover this.

Understanding Part 1 would mean we could also talk about traffic
shaping, queuing, policing etc, if anyone wanted to cover these pretty
advanced networking features in the future.

What ya think?

> Oh, and happy new year and all that..!
 
Happy Gnu Year! (sorry, couldn't resist :)

Gav