what's the best firewall distro?

**a2xm** · 03-10-2005

Hi all,

I'm planing to install a pc (Pentium2) special for firewall on my small internet sharing network. What is the best (good) one and easy to use distro firewall?

I've searched on http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=firewalls and found some of them, but don't know which one is good.

Thanks...

Cheers,
a2xm

**adam7979** · 03-10-2005

http://www.smoothwall.org/ is built just for the purpose.

However, once you've mastered the art of iptables, any distro is equally good.

**Fallen Angel** · 03-10-2005

There is a good firewall in other distros called iptables. It is really powerfull if you know how to set it up.

**Flatline** · 03-10-2005

Like FallenAngel said, pretty much any distro can make a good firewall via iptables.

Since you specified ease of use, though, I'm gonna give another vote for Smoothwall.

**a2xm** · 03-11-2005

Thanks all for the reply.

May be I need to narrow down a little bit here. In fact, I also need your opinions about which one is better (for me) between LiveCD distro version and installed-to-harddisk version. Since my Pentium2 box is only has 120MB RAM & 20GB HDD. So I think I need the lightest one distro.

Smoothwall is just like an application, right? I've to install it on my distro?

Right now I interested with http://www.ipcop.org and http://www.devil-linux.org

Cheers,
a2xm

**adam7979** · 03-11-2005

smoothwall itself takes up about 200MB, the rest of your hard disk space will most probably be eaten up by log files.

live distro? no for me. install any distro will do, without X. That would take you about 400++MB (i fit debian into a 500MB hard disk) to 1GB++ (recent distro like FC3) and put iptables on top of it, bingo.

120MB is good enough for any distro (again, without X) to run smoothly, so don worry about your P2.

good luck

**logan5** · 03-11-2005

Take a look here -

http://security.linux.com/security/0...tid=127&tid=35

for a review of smoothwall. It should answer your questions and will give you a better idea of what it is, how it's installed, and how you use/configure it.

**sparkix** · 05-01-2005

Don't give a second thought to your hardware... my main server for my house is only a P2 350Mhz with 128MB of RAM and until recently only had a 6GB harddrive (now has 250 GB).

It is currently performing the follwing functions:

Iptables firewall/router
DHCP server
Web server
FTP server
SSH server
Samba server

It only needed the hardrive upgrade because I wanted more space for the website/ftpsite and the media that samba was serving to computers in the house.

My little P2 is a real workhorse!

**xathras** · 05-01-2005

Originally Posted by a2xm

Hi all,

I'm planing to install a pc (Pentium2) special for firewall on my small internet sharing network. What is the best (good) one and easy to use distro firewall?

I've searched on http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=firewalls and found some of them, but don't know which one is good.

Thanks...

Cheers,
a2xm

Own iptables script will default DROP policy.

Allow only specific services you want and brilliant protection. Install Fedora/Gentoo and configure distro to your liking.

Users Auditing - know the users of your system
Directory Auditing - know you directory/file system
OS Knowledge - hands on experience on OS admin and installation
Increase knowledge - build knowledge on works of system
much much more.

You learn a hell of a lot more than using someone elses setup

**gromer** · 05-13-2005

I love my IPCop router I have setup. I still need to upgrade to 1.4.x from 1.3.0.

8:12am up 162 days, 12:30, 0 users, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00

It's pretty solid.

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