* timothy bauscher ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) spake thusly: > I am planning on building a firewall > here. There is a lot of hype about > Freebsd being great for firewalls, > and books regarding Linux firewalls. > > I love Linux, but I believe in > finding the best solution for a > problem. My question is not which OS > is better for a firewall, but which > one you would use (or do use).
The OS you know best -- it's the one you're less likely to misconfigure. If I were building a firewall, I would try Linux first 'cause I know it best. I would not use Debian, or any general-purpose distro -- I'd take a look at existing firewall/router projects and if I didn't like any of them, I'd go for LFS. I would also run a few stress tests on it before going live -- I'm not entirely convinced in stability and performance of 2.4 kernels (and 2.2 doesn't have stateful packet filter, so I wouldn't use it). We have an old-ish FreeBSD firewall, set up before my time. In ~2 years I worked here it's been rebooted twice -- once when we moved it out of wiring closet, and once when I accidentally pressed C-A-D on the wrong keyboard (to give you an idea about FreeBSD's stability). Dima -- Surely there is a polite way to say FOAD. -- Shmuel Metz "Go forth and multiply". -- Paul Martin
