I ran Smoothwall, then IPCop on my network at home for about a year. I recently switched over to an OpenBSD box running pf. I am much happier with the OpenBSD box.
Considering it's a home network, Smoothwall/IPCop were fine. I had a couple of nagging doubts, though. One being the fact that all ports above 1024 were open and the other being the concept of having other things (IDS & VPN) on the same box as my firewall. Depending on who I asked, those things were either "not a problem", "a gaping hole" or "could be good, could be bad, depending on what you're doing". I had a long weekend with some free time so I thought I'd try pf. The thing that has made me happiest are the results when I scan the firewall from the outside. While Smoothwall/IPCop looked pretty solid, I always saw things I could do to tighten them. When I scan the pf box, it doesn't seem to exist. Invisibility always seems to ease paranoia. > -----Original Message----- > From: Justyn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 12:55 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Suggestions Needed > > > I'm a home user rather new to firewalls. I have a spare pc I > want to use > as a firewall machine for our local lan of 2 workstations > w/cable modem. > I'm wanting a linux/unix flavor os for the firewall system. > Would I be > better off using a stripped down os that is tailored for firewall > machines or something like redhat/freebsd? Would would anyone > suggestion > as a starting place to learn. > > Thanks! > >
