Best firewall gateway version of Linux ?

[Daniel]

Hi, from the perspective of someone who still has a lot to learn on linux 
[as per previous posts!] -
When I knew even less than I know now I chose on name and ease of 
installation - Mandrake Single Network Firewall.  It was a breeze.
Now that I have read a bit more I think it's more to do with the setup and 
knowing how to monitor it:
- ease of updating anything - I think Debian wins hands down
- a Firewall is only as good as its monitoring of logs - I've read of 
"grsparse" that evidently outputs snort data in html format.
- testing with nmap - despite all assurances that the main settings are 
correct - have someone you trust test to see if they can get in.
- keep your firewall simple and single purpose - put your mail elsewhere.

http://www.grsecurity.net/ seems to have good kernel 2.4 patches for Debian 
-Grsecurity.

Astaro Firewall - uses kernel 2.4 and there is an Australian mirror for it 
so I wonder what kind of following it has.  Is anyone using it?

Regards,
Daniel.


At 10:30 15/01/2002 +1100, Burn Alting wrote:
>Hi Guys,
>
>Don't know if this will create a war, but I'd like to get some idea of the
>most common version of Linux used on as firewall/gateway system (eg
>Smoothwall, etc). I'm assuming the most common would mean the one of the
>better ones.
>
>Also, how nasty is it to also make the firewall one's mail router (sendmail)?
>This is in the situation that all other nodes within the firewall are
>personal systems which may be running or not, and either Linux, Solaris or M$
>boxes.
>
>Regards
>Burn Alting
>burn at goldweb.com.au