Ask Slashdot: Advice On Building a Firewall With VPN Capabilities?

An anonymous reader writes "I currently connect to the internet via a standard router, but I'm looking at bulking up security. Could people provide their experiences with setting up a dedicated firewall machine with VPN capabilities? I am a novice at Linux/BSD, so would appreciate pointers at solutions that require relatively little tweaking. Hardware-wise, I have built PC's, so I'm comfortable with sourcing components and assembling into a case. The setup would reside in my living room, so a quiet solution is required. The firewall would handle home browsing and torrenting traffic. Some of the questions knocking around in my head: 1. Pros and cons of buying an off-the-shelf solution versus building a quiet PC-based solution? 2. Software- versus hardware-based encryption — pros and cons? 3. What are minimum requirements to run a VPN? 4. Which OS to go for? 5. What other security software should I include for maximum protection? I am thinking of anti-virus solutions."

Comments

What are you trying to do?

[RobbieCrash]

A VPN? To connect to where, from where? Are you doing this for something to do, or because you want to implement the best solution? Do you just want better router software?

Install Tomato or DD or OpenWRT or any one of their variants on your existing router.

Building your own in the name of security isn't going to work unless you really know what you're doing, which you said you don't in your summary. That sounds like a dick thing to say, but it's not. Security is difficult for people that know what they're doing, when people who don't try to DIY it, it's almost universally bad.