RE: Hardware or Software

[Dan McGinn-Combs]

Title: Hardware or Software

My understanding is that the Foundry Networks' ServerIron family of switches can (and have been) used to implement firewalling features using the internal ASIC's. This is closer to your definition of a hardware firewall. However, I agree with you that "hardware firewall" is decidedly a misnomer. ASIC stands for "application specific integrated circuit." But since it is user configurable, you still have the firewalling running as software!

 

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Nagy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 10:00 PM
To: 'Steven Pierce'
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Hardware or Software

I think a better definition is that a "hardware based firewall" would need to run dedicated ASICs (or whatever) for all firewall functions.

Anything that uses any kind of code that runs in read / writeable RAM is a software solution. And yes, that includes firewalls that boot from read-only media.

Any other definition is sophistry. A Cisco PIX is no more "hardware" than a linux box running iptables.

As far as I know there are no extant hardware based firewalls. None. Nil. Zip.

Cheers,

--
Ben Nagy
Network Security Specialist
Marconi Services Australia Pty Ltd
Mb: +61 414 411 520  PGP Key ID: 0x1A86E304

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Pierce [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 11:13 AM
> To: Zachary Uram
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: zone alarme and udp 44767
>
>
>
>
> Zachary,
>
> A hardware solution is one that is like a machine.  So if you
> took a router that had a firewall built into it
> that would be a hardware solution.  Anything that is
> physically on your desk,etc is hardware.  Software is
> anything installed on the machine, so zonealarm would
> software.  Now you can have hardware and software also.
> If you have Linux (Any Flavor) installed on a old 486 that
> would be both hard and soft. 
>
> Does that help??
>
> Steven
>
> If anyone on the list would like to add to this please do, or
> if I am off base please let me know.
>
> S
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 7/4/2001 at 01:12 Zachary Uram wrote:
>
> >eh?
> >what is a 'hardware solution'?
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