[Lancaster] Firewall distros..

[Ken Hough]

On Wednesday 18 November 2009 22:58:26 Wayne Ward wrote:
> Hi guys im just putting a firewall in for a local company im using
> smoothwall 3 express
> nice and easy install and a not to complicated gui - i did play around with
> ipcop at first and it worked
> but when i went to put it into place it failed like three times? so im
> going to try the smoothwall install tomorrow
> anybody else used and linux firewall distros that are worth a mention..
> I used to just build a gentoo box and build a iptables script and add some
> other packages snort etc but
> dont have time to manage it as much.

Hi Wayne!

I can understand why you would use a separate firewall box on a professional 
level. I'm afraid that I take the easy ways out and use built-in firewalls 
and various setup utilities. I've never played directly with iptables.

Under SUSE Linux, YAST does a pretty good job of modifying/setting up the 
built-in firewall. I've recently set up a spare box running Debian Lenny that 
will eventually provide a headless server box. For this, I use guarddog to do 
a similar job. Simple!

BTW: Have any of you guys used www.grc.com to test your firewall setups? GRC 
are obvously out to sell software, but provide a free on line service 
(ie "Shields Up") that can test any firewall that is presented to the 
Internet. The objective is to get a report to the effect "Running in full 
stealth mode. There does not appear to be a computer at this address"

Regards

Ken Hough