nanog mailing list archives

Re: Firewall opinions wanted please


From: Rachael Treu <rara () navigo com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:58:20 -0600



"Firewall" refers to access control.  Firewall appliances are dedicated
machines that perform firewall functions.

ACLs on many router platforms are called firewalls.  Juniper calls them
"firewall filters."

My personal context was covered in a reply I sent earlier in this thread
that read:

"Firewalls are logical interventions, costing as little as some processor
overhead.  Dedicated appliances are only one deployment.  Filters on
routers also qualify as firewalls."  

So...I don't disagree with you at all...

--ra

On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 06:33:54PM -0000, Matt Ryan said something to the effect of:

Depending on your chosen vendor the ACL cost is unlikely to be $0 - if you
steal CPU cycles from packet forwarding then you incur earlier router
upgrade costs and that has a NPV cost increase associated with it. It's just
not as obvious as a invoice for a firewall.


Matt.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu]On Behalf Of
Eric Gauthier
Sent: 17 March 2004 17:20
To: nanog () merit edu
Subject: Re: Firewall opinions wanted please



_Everyone_ (network connected) should have a firewall.  My grandma
should 
have a firewall.  Nicole, holding dominion over this business network
and 
its critical infrastructure, should _definitely_ have a firewall.  ;)

By "firewall", do you mean "dedicated unit that does statefull filtering"
or just "something that will block packets"?  We've successfully argued
to just about every group here at our University who came to us asking for a

"firewall" that, given what they wanted to achieve, they could accomplish
the 
same thing with simple ACLs...  

I'm sure that the cost of the ACL's (i.e. $0.00) versus the cost of a
firewall 
also helped them in their decision...

Eric :)

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-- 
rachael treu       rara () navigo com
..quis costodiet ipsos custodes?..


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