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SmoothWall 2.0 Linux-Based Firewall Released
thegraham writes "Despite some earlier server problems, SmoothWall 2.0 has been released this evening - there are also release notes available. SmoothWall is 'a firewall operating system distribution based on Linux, enabling a low-end, possibly otherwise redundant, Intel and compatible PC to become a hardened Internet firewall', and changes from version 1 include: 2.4 kernel, new web interface, improved networking and many bugs corrected through the Beta program."
I've been using the 2.0 Beta at home without any problems. It's makes a great firewall for old boxes and has support for Proxies, DynDNS and everything else you expect in a good firewall. All configured easily from a web based interface. Works great for protecting those Windows boxes too. Think Windows cowering behind a big Tux. Kudos smoothwall team.
I used to use smoothwall, but switched to the forked project IPCop. Some of the original developers forked away from smoothwall because of the founder's desire to mix open source with a business model that conflicted with the project. I was having problems with smoothwall and updates, which prompted me to switch to IPCop. I've been happy ever since.
Anyone else got opinions on Smoothwall vs. IPCop?
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Using an old Pentium with two NICs for this is great, but the $699 licensing fee is a bit steep. Better stick to OpenBSD..
Trolling is a art,
I've been using version 1.0 of their firewall for just over a year now, and I have to admit that it is a rather good firewall. I was able to load it on a p100 box with only a 540MB hard drive. Granted with a hard drive that small, my firewall doesn't do alot as far as web cache is concerned, but otherwise it operates great. The patches are easy enough to install, all you have to do is download the gzip from the patches page built into the firewall web client. Upload the gzip's and they're installed.
Managing the firewall is exceptionally easy as well. You can setup port forwarding to internal computers in under 30 seconds. All-in all the firewall takes the major annoyances out of running a firewall. I highly recommend it for anyone who's got an old system lying around, and doesn't have the time to bother with setting up a firewall.
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
ipCop is a fork of the smoothwall source that has more of an open source community behind it. Personally, I found the whole "Buy Smoothwall Now!" experience just a little too annoying to use.
But, let me be the first to say that I love the concept behind this type of distro. A boot-cd and 20 minutes turns any old wintel machine into a damn god firewall appliance (one that has a shell!).
I couldn't agree more. With XP's firewall, I'm able to completely lose all access to the internet. I never have to worry about getting infected with virii, because they have no chance of being downloaded on my bulletproof machine.
I wonder when the rest of the OSs of the world will realize that XPs new focus on security first is the way to go.
because it's easy to set up on a bit of spare hardware, however old it may be? Because it provides all that the average firewall user needs? Because it is easy to maintain once it's running? Because most hardware firewalls are as unflexible as they are expensive? I can think of a lot of reasons. In my company, a number of offices use Smoothwall and will certainly upgrade to Smoothwall Express soon, simply because it's an affordable way to secure our network boundaries and because the ongoing maintenance work is minimal.
It's a really nice product now.
Once upon a time I wouldn't go near it - one of the original founders was a real rude little shite and a huge liability to the project. And when I say rude, I mean rude - he used to tell potential or even existing customers to fuck off on a fairly regular basis, and that was when he was being polite!
Only his small circle of friends stayed on the IRC support channel - anyone else got kick-banned without even saying a word (either party).
Basically he used the wrong license, as in the end he seemed to detest the GPL and the "freeloaders" that were "stealing" copies of "his" work (perhaps he was the inspiration for SCO, huh?)
Thankfully he fucked off. It a nice project now, supported by nice people! Give it a try.
And I highly recommended it for many moons.
Unfortunately, the developers really annoyed me. One time, they released a patch that added a splash screen to the web interface that popped up EVERY time you changed page. And set chattr+i on the file on the server, then deleted the {ls,ch}attr commands on the server.
Which was just offensive. I went into their [community] IRC channel and mentioned how to fix it, and was kickbanned.
They make a big thing about being GPL and community-friendly, but in practice I just find them offensive.
I cannot highly enough recommend that people don't use this, and use ipcop instead.
Gary (-;
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But Morell was in a league of his own. Most rude types are simply rude. Morell was the strutting peacock of rudeness amongst a rabble of sparrows and starlings.
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I've been using Smoothwall 2.0 beta X for over a year now and I've had very few problems.
/., your ads too)..
/home/httpd/zaps and edited the wrapzap file to tell adzapper to look on smoothwall ofr it's images rather than using the resources of sourceforge. I found that the black and yellow gif was more annoying than the ads it was blocking.
;-/
The most recent I'm using is Pendolino and it's great.
I have installed several customer sites with Beta5 (after extensive testing at my site) and they are all very pleased with it.
I highly recomend it. You can take an old PC and load it up and really be covered.
It's very easy to use, very reliable, very flexible.
What's even better is that you can use the built in,
transparent proxy (squid) to block ads. (sorry
I made a dull gray "this ad zapped" gif and put it in
Man, it's great. EVERY machine that I plug into my lan automatically gets it's ads zapped. Friends and customers are freaked out and impressed with that. Then after seeing how cool it is they want a smoothwall too. Problem is I end up setting them all up for free..
Smoothwall is very cool, get it....
Please note the following caveat before researching anything about SmoothWall - Richard Morrell has left the company and the project.
neuro at well dot com (when I post, it's my opinions, no-one elses)