Best firewall gateway version of Linux ?

[Richard Cottrill]

Smoothwall only ever needs a CD ROM at install time. The 15 minute
installation for Smoothwall is when there's no CD used at all. In this
set-up you'd mount the iso as a loopback thingy and copy a file across to a
web server and burn some floppy disc images. My Smoothwall box has never had
a CD drive. I have 48MB RAM / P100 CPU and everything runs smoothly; and it
never puts stuff in swap. I don't run a proxy (anorexic hard disc) or IPSec
so you may need a little more RAM if you plan on using them.

Richard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael James [mailto:michael at james.st]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 1:42 AM
> To: linux at lists.samba.org
> Cc: Richard Cottrill
> Subject: RE: Best firewall gateway version of Linux ?
>
>
> >I think the closest thing I've heard of in the wild (for free)
> is the IPCop
> >project. It's a spin-off of Smoothwall but it uses ext3 so it
> should shrug
> >off slight power cuts... FWIW Smoothwall is preparing a new GPL release
> >'real soon now' which they claim will have lots of nifty goodies. I have
> >less time for the Smoothwall people since one of the founders called me a
> >cunt (and a few other carefully chosen names).
> >
> >They're specialist installations (to the point where adding
> printer sharing
> >could be annoying) but the install is quick and easy. Installing either
> >should take anywhere from 5 - 15 minutes.
>
> Thanks for that, ext3 is an improvement.
>
> Printer (or file) sharing adds the need
>  for a hard disk for the var partition anyway.
>
> And to preserve the security
>  var would have to be mounted -nosuid -noexec
>  if there is such an option as noexec.
>
> Gibraltar seems to have useful options available to be turned on
>  so I might burn myself a copy and give it a spin.
>
> Could someone with experience of Gibraltar/Smoothwall
>  say what the CD activity is like?
> Does it let the CD spin down and sit once it has booted?
>
> That would require a decent complement of ram, say 64 Meg or 128 Meg?
>
> michaelj
> --
> A right not exercised is a privilege
> a privilege not exercised is illegal.
>
> Michael James			michael at james.st
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>