Setting up a firewall

[marzy1]

I have a windows 2000 Network and I have a dial up internet account, I would like to secure the network with a firewall and would like to use a linux based firewall, I have a copy of red hat linux 7.3 which I would like to use and an older pc to put it on.
What I would like to know is:

What equiptment do I need to set this up?
What other software would I need?

I would also like some details of how I would go about setting this up from the beginning, starting at installing linux as the firewall and configuring server to use the firewall?

I would appreciate any suggestions and any detailed steps on doing this as I have no experience with using linux at all.

Thanks All

Lee

 

[TheStressFactor]

Lee,

You can throw linux on any decent machine...the firewall program you wil use is called IP CHAINS...make sure you have 2 interfaces one for outbound, one for inbound. Once you configure all your rules, the default gateway of the server would be the ip you assign the internal interface on the firewall. You can find a book on configuring the firewall or any basic configs on the net...

Hope this is a start..thanks.

 

[dankelt]

Lee,

I would use iptables over ipchains, and I believe RH 7.3 is set by default to use iptabes. Here is a link to info on how to use iptables.

http://www.linuxguruz.org/iptables/

Dan

 

[johnvani]

Here is a link to building a linux firewall step by step.

http://doggerdog.bravepages.com/freesco/

Freesco org also has detailed instructions and freesco can even run off a floppy.

http://www.freesco.org

And finally a site that builds an even stronger firewall on top of freesco.

http://www.4096k.net/BHNet/

Here is the blurb from Freesco org themselves:
FREESCO (stands for FREE ciSCO) is a free replacement for commercial routers supporting up to 3 ethernet/arcnet/token_ring/arlan network cards and up to 2 modems.

Why should you use Freesco?
Ease of use - it's insanely easy to set up
Thoroughly documented - it's more or less self contained, read one doc and you're off and running
Like most players in this field, it runs off one floppy
FreeSco runs in as little as 6 Mb RAM.
Unique Web Control Panel
Freesco is the easiest to use, one disk Linux system available.

 

[jrogersnd]

Here is a nice firewall with really low requirements:

http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw

FloppyFW is a floppy distribution of linux that supports IPTables/IPChains/IPFilter with most of the advanced options of all of the three included. This one is your best bet if you just have an old P90 or similar since it doesn't require near the overhead of a full distribution.

It's as configurable as any firewall and highly secure because there are no services to hack on it unless you opt to install some.

You don't really need to know how to install linux to get this baby up and running, but you're going to need to brush up on your IPTables skills - which is my recommended choice of firewall.

HTH!

--James

 

[marzy1]

Thanks for all of your help guys.

All this info is much appreciated.

I would like your personal opinion though, I obvioulsy have a windows 2k network and need to secure it what would you recommend, as I have asked for info on setting up a linux firewall but would any of you recomment setting up windows firewall and putting it on the server as I only have a dial up connection.

I would like all opinions on this and the for and against.

Thanks agian.

Lee