RE: Firewall options- which way to go

["Burton M. Strauss III" <bstrauss3 () attbi com>]

If all you want it to be, you're better off with a firewall-specific
distribution.

Two reasons...

1) the developers tend to focus on the firewall aspects, it's not an add-on
among 1000s of packages and services

and

2) (very important, IMHO) it's a perfect defense against overloading the
"available" Linux box with a lot of other services that might weaken it's
defenses...

     "Nope, sorry, can't do, it only works as a firewall.
      However, if you want a xxxx server, I'll be happy to
      build another Linux box and set it up in the (LAN | DMZ)
      for you"

I prefer the iptables approach - there are a lot more things you can do
(such as rate limiting, etc.)

And, re your Q3, if it's a purpose oriented distro, then you typically get
much better how to docs.

-----Burton


-----Original Message-----
From: Leon Pholi [mailto:L.Pholi () secureinteractive com]
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 7:33 PM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Firewall options- which way to go



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Hi,

I am looking at options for setting up a Linux firewall for our
company. Although I am a relative newbie to Linux, I'm not afraid to
get my 'hands dirty' with IPTables etc.

I have a couple of questions and would appreciate all comments.

1) Is it better to use a purpose built distribution such as
Smoothwall, IPCop or firewall specific ones from Redhat, Mandrake,
SuSE etc, or, would it be better to use a standard distro & built it
from scratch (bearing in mind I haven't yet recompiled a kernel but
I'm willing to give that a go too)?

2) If building from scratch, kernel version 2.4 supports both
ipchains & iptables (newer)- does anyone have a strong view on using
one over the other?
If using a purpose built one, does anyone have any experienced based
preferences?

3) Other than just suggesting to do a google search, are there any
resources (a simple step by step howto would be good) you would
recommend for the suggested approach?

All help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Leon

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