Security Basics mailing list archives
RE: What firewall for small medical research lab
From: "Joseph (Joe) Lynn" <Joe_Lynn () tiniusolsen co uk>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 12:46:32 +0100
I'm in a similar situation to the original requestor... I'm installing a new firewall at my current workplace. We've currently got crippled Watchguard Soho boxes, and I want to swap them out for something a bit beefier... The options I've been looking at (other than building up either a Debian & Iptables or OpenBSD & pf from scratch) are IPCop, pfSense & Endian Firewall. At home I decided to go with pfSense because it has much better Wireless Access Point support, but at work, I'm definitely going to go with Endian. It is based around IPCop, but has a whole host of extra features... If you take all the add-ins to IPCop and shipped an iso pre-compiled, it would still have more features... It's on about the 9th release candidate before its launch, but it should be out any day now... Check it out, because it's pretty impressive... www.efw.it Cheers, Jx -----Original Message----- From: chris [mailto:christiaan.theron () virgin net] Sent: 29 April 2006 10:26 To: rmillisl () millis-it com Cc: firewalls () securityfocus com; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: Re: What firewall for small medical research lab rmillisl () millis-it com wrote:
<snip> Cost is a very important factor so suggested solutions have been: - Pay someone to set up a PC based firewall running on surplus hardware using either Fedora Core 5 and Shorewall 3.0.6 (to allow easy configuration of iptables rules). The hardware and software cost are
low.
The time could add up. I have considerable experience with this so this would be the lowest learning curve. Problem is Fedora with its frequent updates may make managing this more of a chore.
If you need a ready to go iptables solution www.ipcop.org is your best bet because it has a mature community with a huge amount of addons available, if business needs change and its free.
- Pay someone to set up a a PC based firewall running on surplus
hardware
using either OpenBSD 3.7 or 3.8 and pf. The hardware and software cost
are
low. The time could add up. I have some OpenBSD experience and no pf background.
This is not necessary, www.pfsense.com is a drop and go pf PC solution and its free. If you have specialised requirements the developers have a bounty option.
- Pay someone to set up a a Linksys or D-Link broadband switch/firewall/router. The hardware cost is low. The time to set up
may
be minimal (Plug&Play + some common sense and provided firewall/filter capabilities). Are these a serious and secure enough solution?
Too expensive and feature limiting, ipcop can run on 133mhz and pfsense does not require expensive hardware.
- Some other low cost hardware or software based alternative. What else might be out there that I don't know about that might be comparable in cost to the D-Link or Linksys options.
No need to look any further ipcop and pfsense have all the features you are likely to need.
The PC based solutions I personally have the most confidence in with respect to hand crafting a minimal OS build and hardening and patching
the
OS and doing rules mostly by hand. With pf there is some concern of
errors
introduced due to learning curve.
Ok, ipcop minimal learning curve- GUI based aimed at entry level networkers, however maximum feature set with a huge amount of addons available such as copfilter for email and www.mhaddons.tk. Pfsense higher learning curve- GUI based aimed at experienced networkers, advanced feature set.
Comments? Suggestions?
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Current thread:
- Re: RE: What firewall for small medical research lab, (continued)
- Re: RE: What firewall for small medical research lab rsingh36 (May 01)
- Re: RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Arunodhay Koul (May 02)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab kedearian.secuirty (May 01)
- RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Smith, Brad (May 01)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab Smith (May 01)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab Arturas Zalenekas (May 01)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab chris (May 01)
- Re: Re: What firewall for small medical research lab gun_mortimer (May 02)
- RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Steve Armstrong (May 02)
- RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Dahate, Pramod (May 02)
- RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Joseph (Joe) Lynn (May 02)
- RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Beauford, Jason (May 02)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab David M. Zendzian (May 03)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab Alice Bryson (May 10)
- Re: What firewall for small medical research lab Pankaj Miglani (May 12)
- RE: What firewall for small medical research lab Nguyen, PB (May 12)
- Re: RE: What firewall for small medical research lab daryl . adams (May 15)
- Re: RE: What firewall for small medical research lab rsingh36 (May 01)