If you don't know what you're doing with a freeware package,
or if the package has not been updated recently, it is dangerous.
I believe the tis-fwtk is the best freeware firewall package
available. However it has not been updated for years (v1.3),
and does not contain updates to support new versions of platform
O.S. For example, the telnet proxy does not work on all OS's,
and just don't use the fwtk httpd, use CERNs. Also, not all
OS versions are fully supported. If the firewall happens to
compile O.K. on 'SuperUNIX v6.0', you may not be completely
sure what the binaries are going to do when they run. You fix
the obvious bugs yourself by hacking the source code.
That is freeware software. No service, no support,no
'bet-your-company-on-it' ability. In some cases you do have
a tempermental mailing-list to query, but it may take you weeks
to get the thing running exactly right.
Personally I have better things to do with my life than hack a
specific proxy, in a specific software package, for a specific
OS, for specific hardware, which all of course will be obsolete
in a few months. (Old: Gopher/Archie/Veronica, MIP/386/486/VAX
CPUs, BSD UNIX. New: Chat, RealAudio, Encrypted links, new
authentication packages, Solaris/SVR4/FreeBSD/Linux, Java,
Active-X, plug-ins, etc.)
If you want something to bet your company on, have a professional
install a commercial supported package. At least if something
goes wrong, you have a place to point to, other than only yourself.
My 2 cents.
Bill Stout
P.S. - An alpha version of Fwtk (v2.0alpha) is available.
At 09:07 AM 7/11/96 -0700, you wrote:
>What are people's experiences with freeware products for firewalling,
proxy, etc.? Good, bad, dangerous?
>
>TIA
>
>Joseph Flahiff
>Moss Bay Group, Inc.
>Advisors in Technology Management
>
>
>
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William B. Stout | Major revelations:
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