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Hardware Firewalls

A

aug1516

Senior member
All these cable routers have built in firewalls that you can configure. When I looked at the configuration of my old Zyxel router, all that the router did was block all inbound and outbound traffic unless it met a specific rule. I now have a Win2k server running RRAS sharing my internet and it too has filtering options that will block all inbound and outbound traffic unless it meets certain rules. Is that all I need for a firewall or should I still download something like Tiny firewall or ZoneAlarm? If I do have to install some other software does it only need to be installed on the RRAS machine or the client machines sharing the internet connection as well?
 
That's really all any of these low cost firewalls do, and is pretty much the definition of a firewall. You can go with something that actually does packet inspection, but that will cost more. On the hardware side, Sonicwall, and Watchguard firewalls will inspect normally ok looking packets for malicious intent. Those two would be the cheapest solution for that. Netgear's FR314 uses Sonicwall's firmware and also inspects packets, it is very inexpensive retailing for about $300.
 
Well if you don't want any sort of intrusion detection system then the filters on RRAS in Win2k server will work just fine. I actually use Win2K RRAS to do my routing, and packet filtering. I then have Tiny Personal Firewall loggin all attempts into common ports, like 80, 21, 443, 137,139 (UDP and TCP). I log these attempts mainly to see what others are attempting to do to my box. Knock on wood - I have yet to have my Win2k server hacked or knocked off the Internet. I know what it takes to make windows 2000/NT "secure"(besides taking it off the network) so code red or nimda didn't do anything to me.

<rant>
Even at work a group of servers that I don't manage got infected with code red and nimda while mine were sittin' pretty, virus clean. If admins just take the time, they can easily figure out how to lock down a box to prevent a lot crap from happening. I really hate lazy administrators, which ironically is what the majority of NT/2k admins are.</rant>

 
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