----- Original Message ----- From: "Shawn Fertch" <fertch at mninter.net> To: <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 12:40 PM Subject: Re: [TCLUG] intrusion detector > > Jay, > Aside from smoothwall, what other firewall would you recommend? > Everything that I seem to be reading about Smoothwall is turning it sour. > It's still at the 2.2 kernel, and I'd like to move up to the 2.4 kernel. > I tried to build my own firewall, however, I lacked the time to really > devote to a project of that tasking. > > Shawn I have been using BBIagent (www.bbiagent.net) for over a month, I started on a P100 but have since moved it to a 486/100. It is the 2.4 kernel, floppy based. Very easy to configure. I wrote up a review about a month ago, after Ben mentioned it. Here it is: Ben, Thanks for the link (http://www.bbiagent.net/en/index.html) for the floppy based firewall. My Christmas project (one of several) was to replace my NT based firewall and this one did very nicely. The script based download is nice, but if you are going to use ISA based NICs, make sure you know the IRQ and I/O address, even though they say it can probe, that only works on PCI NICs. The administration is simple and the support via e-mail is amazing. The doco's are pretty thin, so when I sent an e-mail on the evening of the 23rd, I expected to hear sometime today or tomorrow. They replied within 2 hours! The only complaint I have is that it doesn't remember the port forwarding rules or special port blocking on reboot (or if it does, I haven't figured it out yet). It boots very nicely headless and all the admin is via a Java enabled browser on the local network --can't use Konqueror :( It is not https, so if that is a concern to anybody, don't use this one. It does DNS proxy and can be a DHCP server for the local network (I use static, so didn't try it). I am using it with RoadRunner cable and it had no problems getting the IP info. It even tells the length of the lease and renewal time. It will run on anything 386 or better with 8 MB of RAM, but I am running it on a P100 with shared video memory, so it is actually running on 7 MB and according to the stats it still has 400 KB free. I am tempted to dig out that 386 I have lying around, just to see if it will work, but I don't think I have enough memory in it :) It seems to perform well, I only have a 5 node network, but my son does some heavy downloading, and it seemed to hold up under the load.