[clug] Home Firewall dedicated OS

[Nathan O'Sullivan]

Ian McLeod wrote:
> Seems a better solution to set up home VPN is to bridge the modem to a 
> dedicated OS..  Is this a *viable* option in terms of investment in 
> time and maintenance required for the average small home network?  And 
> secure enough compared to a hardware firewall and NAT (modem)?
>
> Seems there is SmoothWall and ClarkConnect free editions and something 
> called Devil Linux..
>
> Any experience with these things?  Not concerned with philosophical 
> implications of a commercial company vs puritan GPL or whatever, just 
> something that is free and works well and is relatively easy to set up.
This is how a lot of people I know got their first taste of Linux at 
home - an old desktop PC is re-purposed as the home internet firewall.

I've no experience with any of the specialized distributions, but Ubuntu 
Server was easy enough to setup and defaults to no open ports so is 
perfectly secure for home use. I have a permanent OpenVPN bridge to my 
workplace and I find the whole thing very robust - set it up ages ago 
and haven't touched it since