Re: location of an IPS

[FinAckSyn <finacksyn () yahoo co uk>]

An IPS should be placed in front of the firewall, to
provide complete network protection.
However, the Unity 50 is quite low spec - 5,000
connections per second, 5,000 concurrent connections.
Bearing in mind most Check Point firewalls have a
default connection table size of 40,000 (?)
connections, then putting the Unity 50 in front of
your firewall would be a bottleneck.
Assuming small packet size (512bits per packet), then
5,000 of these per second equates to just under 3Mbs.
If your Internet feed is less than this, then no
problem.  If it's higher, then the Unity 50 would not
be able to handle a 3Mbs pipe full of small packets. 
You should really design your perimeter with this
worse case scenario in mind, especially if you have
negotiated burst rates with your ISP and your ISP feed
can suddenly shoot up in usage.
Port scans should be blocked by the firewall - all
irrelevant ports are discarded at this point.  I'm not
sure how the Unity 50 handles port scans, I haven't
played with one yet...  ;)

Regards,

Matt




--- Doug Fox <dfox168 () hotmail com> wrote:

> I'm sorry for this dumb question, which may have
> been answered many times.
>
> Where should one place an TippingPoint Unity 50 IPS
> device?  Behind or in 
> front of a firewall?
>
> I have a/the TippingPoint behind a Check Point
> firewall. Even though we 
> externally and internally port-scanned the firewall
> and the IPS many times, 
> the activity log did not contain any record of the
> "attacks".
>
> What am I missing here?  Any pointers are
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
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