Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Firewall Recommendations?

Posted by Cliff on from the only-the-best-for-your-network dept.

anomalous cohort asks: "The company that I work for is looking at upgrading to a proper firewall (sadly, we use only the MS-ISA server now). Our I.T. guy is ready to recommend Fortigate [45]00a. Ours is a small company with about a dozen employees and about 400 customers. Does anybody have any experiences, good or bad, with these two products or with the Fortinet company? Are there any recommended firewalls (outside of Cisco's) that we should seriously look at?"

3 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. OpenBSD PF by akpoff · · Score: 5, Informative
    OpenBSD makes for an awesome Firewall. Get whatever size machine you need, install OpenBSD, enable PF, follow the *very* well written configuration docs online and you'll have one or more firewalls up in no time.

    I just set one up and it was easy. And best of all the PF syntax is very straight forward.

  2. The perfect firewall by ernest.cunningham · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well fairly good anyway. check out Smoothwall Linux Firewall. http://www.smoothwall.org/get/ SmoothWall Express is an open source firewall distribution based on the GNU/Linux operating system. SmoothWall includes a hardened subset of the GNU/Linux operating system, so there is no separate OS to install. Designed for ease of use, SmoothWall is configured via a web-based GUI, and requires absolutely no knowledge of Linux to install or use. We use this in our business. VERY good.

  3. Windows Computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Computers with Microsoft Vista make the best firewalls. Let's say you have a large boiler room, and you really want to keep the heat contained. A good thick layer of 3-4 PCs with Vista Home Premium (or 2-3 PCs with Vista Ultimate) will keep just about anything contained. Please note that Vista Home Basic isn't really suitable for this job in any thickness, as it will tend to burn and contribute to the problem.

    Oh, and don't forget to apply a generous coat of anti-virus paint every morning!