Well actually there is one product I remember seeing at
Fried Electronics (Baseline location) for several
hundred dollars that did every thing firewall, proxy,
web server, mail server, etc..    Has any one here
ever tried out one of these all in one appliances?
Sorry I can't remember the name of it now.

-Ryan


-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Dallas
Helquist
Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 4:04 PM
To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: Router-Gateway-Firewall solution for less than 150??


Others have stated this already, but here it is in one email:

If what you are looking for is strictly a firewall (something to
block/filter incoming and outgoing traffic),  you should look for something
that does only that.  Adding other things to this "firewall" - no matter how
convienent they may be - is just asking for trouble.  Ever wonder why the
big vendors don't sell firewall products that are also the company
mail/web/file server?  They aren't stupid.

Now, the above rant aside...most home users want more functionality from
their firewall device than just packet filtering.  I use mine for web,
email, samba etc.  It's a dual 133 with a few nics in it - total cost
including hub was $40.00US.  I put redhat7.2 on it, cleaned up the rc3.d
directory, set up a simple iptables ruleset.  Instant firewall, albeit not
very secure.  I also don't run anything behind it besides my home
machines..and everything there is easy to recover.

Windows has some alternatives as well that I have seen used with a fair
amount of success:

wingate - www.wingate.net
internet gate - www.maccasoft.com/igate/

And there are more, though most seem to work around via being a proxy or
transperant proxy.  I believe that e-smith does this as well - transparently
proxies everything through squid.

Anyways - good luck.

-dallas

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