On Oct 28, 7:43pm, Daniel Guy wrote:
> Definately, either *BSD or a Linux, unless of course you have money for a
> nice sparc with a SUN but then again, if you had cash you wouldn't use a
> homebrew firewall, right?
There are more reasons than cash limitations to build a homebrew firewall. We
have both here ;-)
I think that there are a number of very good operating systems out there, all
of which could be used for an effective firewall. The most important thing, in
my opinion for someone building something as important as a firewall, is to do
it on (1) something that works well, and (2) something they know well.
If you have a solid understanding of SunOS 5.4, that would probably be a good
OS for you. If you know BSDI well, that would be a good OS for you. If you only
know Windows 95, I don't suggest using that :)
It's been my experience that SunOS isn't too tough to lock down, and I've been
locking down and pounding on SunOS 5.4 lately ... If you're going the SunOS
route, I recommend 4.1.4 if you're a BSD type, and 5.4 if you wanna stay
current with OSes and/or know System V stuff. BSDI, Linux, IRIX, etc., are all
common firewall platforms, and I think any would work well as a foundation,
given a good understanding of the OS, and a rational evaluation of what threats
are out there, and what you're trying to protect yourself from.
--
C Matthew Curtin [AT&T|Bell] Labs Internet Gateway Applications Group
http://www.att.com/homes/matt_curtin.html PGP OK cmcurtin @
gatekeeper .
att .
com
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