Hardware Firewall?

lordrobs

lordrobs

lordrobs

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2003
Posts
16,622
Location
Norwich
Just had one of the admin people from our shared work building come to see us and she said that because we are changing our buildings internet acces to a leased line setup we will be required to supply our own hardware firewall.

:confused:

Now the basics of what she said was that the firewall would plug into port one on the network switch in our office and all internet connections would go via that.

:confused:

We have 3 computers we need to connect to the internet so what is it that I actually need? They said that if needed they can supply one but at a cost of £150 which to a non profit company like ours is a bit of a PITA. Apparently we "only need a basic one".

Any help would be great as I'm at a loss and the boss did the usual "you know about computers" "er... not really" " oh, well you know more than me, you sort it" :( .

Thanks in advance.
 
Hello,

Few things.

1) A cheapo old PC with 2 network cards can act as a firewall with the right free software. Normally some linux distro. Check out Smoothwall on google.

2) I have a cable wireless router that has a built in firewall. Easy to configure and cheap.

3) I also have a 3Com firewall specific device which I borrowed from my company. This is awesome and allows all sorts of boxes to be checked and content to be filtered. I can stop my girlfriend accessing all the cat charity websites which in turn stops her from wanting another cat.

Check out www.grc.com to make sure your firewall is secure once implemented.

Regards

B.
 
Last edited:
ruffneck said:
think you can get a Basic Sonicwall for around £100 will do the job perfect
Click to expand...
:( Still a bit on the pricey side. Sounds silly but I need to justify buying a £100 chop saw when I've got to make up a whole load of 4mx3m steel frame works :(

Still if thats what we need then, thats what its going to have to be.

One thing I have seen for £45 ish is a firewalled router and 4 port switch. Now we've been told do not put a router into the network as it falls on its bum but could this be used as just a switch and firewall? It says each port is firewalled individually. Sorry if this sounds dense, I know nowt about networking :o
 
Can you put a price on the Company's Data? What's the consequences if the data gets stolen/destroyed by a virus? £100 on a firewall isn't very much in the scheme of things.
 
Your best bet would be to take a look on ebay for a cisco PIX 501 or even better netscreen 5GT second hand you should be able to get one for around 100 quid. Or even the sonic wall as suggested. The advantage of a pix, sonicwall or netscreen over an old PC with 2 nics and smoothwall is that these are very small boxes that will just sit there and work with a far smaller chance that a harddisk will break or a fan will fail etc.
 
Triad2000 said:
Can you put a price on the Company's Data?
Click to expand...
Hmmm... about £30 :p

Seriously though thanks for the suggestions. If its going to have to be around a ton then I'll have to tell the boss to get her hand in her pocket :p
 
You could look on a popular acution website for firewalls.

failing that you could buy a adsl router (like a belkin or netgear) and just use it as a kind of NAT / Firewall (firewall term used losely).

Problem with Linux stuff is that you need a bit of knowledge to get it up and running. If you could find an old pc or scramble some parts together for £50 it could be a good option.
 
ruffneck said:
just tell her £100 is dog cheap for a hardware firewall and she shoould get a reality check..
Click to expand...
I can see her point though. We move into a building where internet access and hardware is included in our ridiculous rent. Since September the internet access has been shocking then they say its ok we've got a new company to do all the hardware and act as provider, by the way you now need this £100+ bit of kit.

Anyway thats for her to worry about. Thanks for all your help.
 
A great firewall would be a Sonicwall TZ170 which you should be able to get second-hand for less than £70. Very easy to set up but very powerful.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom