Linux Firewalls?

quackers · 15 Jun 2009 at 19:35

Evening all,

who is using a hardware home built linux firewall? I've just setup smoothwall 3.0 on an old 800mhz celeron, 128mb ram and it's working really nicely. Easy to setup and full of options and features.

Anyone use smoothwall? Are there any others worth considering?

vidda · 15 Jun 2009 at 19:42

There's also IPCop.

Smoothwall is free for home users but isn't free in a commercial environment (afaik). I would stick with it if it works out for you

quackers · 15 Jun 2009 at 19:48

Only been using it for a couple of hours, i'm very impressed by all the features and it seems to be doing a good job.

ZuG · 15 Jun 2009 at 20:03

not exactly linux but pfsense is quite good. Although Freebsd can be hard work. There is also m0n0wall but I have not tried that.

fishfishfish · 15 Jun 2009 at 21:19

m0nowall is awesome. I made some little Mini ITX firewalls with this a few years back. Neat little distro.

deano · 15 Jun 2009 at 21:58

currently using pfsense myself for the more advanced traffic shaper, parents are using monowall both really good firewalls never had an issue with either.

quackers · 15 Jun 2009 at 22:45

has anyone had any experience of untangle?

JonJ678 · 16 Jun 2009 at 04:48

I'm hoping to set up ipcop in virtualbox in a few days time. Theres some stuff on google which suggests it should be possible.

I'd be interested in any opinions as to the security implications of this relative to a dedicated hardware option.

cybergeek · 16 Jun 2009 at 09:43

m0n0wall is great

quackers · 16 Jun 2009 at 19:20

I was impressed on how small the m0n0wall download is that it can run on a cf card.

Passing don's can we have a poll please? What versions people prefer and are using

slylittlefox · 16 Jun 2009 at 21:59

quackers said:
has anyone had any experience of untangle?

Yep, installed it in a VM a while back - seemed too 'gimmicky' for my liking, though the basic premise appealed.

In the end I just went with IPTables

Bob Wya Jnr · 17 Jun 2009 at 09:51

slylittlefox said:
...

In the end I just went with IPTables

Yeh I used to play around with Iptables a lot on a standalone router PC box (with a PCI ADSL modem). I think it's amazing what you can do in the Linux kernel (QOS traffic shaping, load balancing multiple connections, etc.) Go on get your hands dirty folks!!

BTW IpCop was quite nice as well - takes the grunt work out of administering a remote box (u know SSH in - in a terminal, etc.).

Bob

.walls · 20 Jun 2009 at 13:11

<pedantic> Using a linux based distro on a dedicated machine doesn't make the dedicated machine a hardware firewall. It's still a software solution. </pedantic>

slylittlefox · 20 Jun 2009 at 13:18

.walls said:
<pedantic> Using a linux based distro on a dedicated machine doesn't make the dedicated machine a hardware firewall. It's still a software solution. </pedantic>

Every 'true hardware firewall' uses software to implement its rule sets though; so the argument can be either way.

Name one firewall that doesn't use software.

.walls · 20 Jun 2009 at 13:38

A true hardware firewall uses ASICs. A home built box doesn't have these.