Firewall advice needed

[jhall251]

We have been depending on the nat built into our dsl router. I might be able buy a different firewall solution at this point. I no little about this area and am looking for help. Advice or direction to relevant resources appreciated. I think there are out of the box hardware firewalls available? Another possibility would be setting up a Linux box with firewall software on it? Thanks for any help!!!

Joe Halloran

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Well, if you go linux. IPCop is a great distro. Most all configuration is done via a web front-end.

http://www.ipcop.org

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[jhall251]

Yes - I was reading about ipcop on an iis forum - the question for me is: Is there a hardware turnkey solution that will require minimal staff time to implement? and 2. how much staff time is going to be involved in setting up a Linux box and setting up ipcop when we have not done either before?



Joe Halloran

 

[Xemus]

Sonicwall (and others I'm sure) offer managed firewalls fi you want to go that route.

Here's what google turned up:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=managed+firewalls

http://www.closedsocket.com

 

[pansophic]

I have used many of the Linux firewall solutions, and some, like Astaro, compare quite favorably with commercial firewall applications that I have used. Astaro can be purchased as software or as a turnkey solution and is VERY inexpensive when compared against similar products based on MS or Solaris.

IPCop is a derivative of SmoothWall, albeit a slightly better implementation as far as I am concerned. I can't recall if IPCop is available as a turnkey solution, but SmoothWall certainly is. This class of firewall lacks many of the features that are necessary in a production firewall, like any type of notification, and the update utility is quite clunky. But the functionality is GREAT! I use IPCop on my home network, and it only takes a few minutes to configure a basic system. All you have to know about your network is your external (Red) network addressing scheme, your internal addressing scheme, whether or not you use DHCP on either (and a DHCP scope for the Internal (Green) network so that you can run the DHCP server). And the only other thing is whether you want a DMZ (Orange net) or not. I am assuming that you already know your DNS info.


pansophic

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Yes, it takes me about 10 mins to install and be done with the console. The best thing now is that you can back up your config, so (if for some ungodly reason) you have problems, or you upgrade, you won't lose all of your settings.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[jhall251]

Thanks all for your advice!!

Joe Halloran