RH 7.2 as Firewall?

[Gerald Combs]

On Thu, 23 May 2002, jose sanchez wrote:

> Is me again. Sorry for the back-to-back postings.
> 
> How good or reliable is RH 7.2 as a firewall system?
> 
> Is it recommended?

Nearly every recent Linux or BSD distribution, including Red Hat 7.2,
should work fine as a firewall.  Note that I said "recent" - older
versions of Red Hat and other distros are notoriously insecure.  If you're
going to set up a firewall using Linux, you should become familiar with
the Netfilter documentation at http://netfilter.samba.org.  Netfilter
(iptables) is the firewalling, NAT/PAT, and packet filtering code that
ships with the 2.4 kernel.

If you're bent on using Red Hat I would recommend that you find some way
to stay current with their security updates.  This is pretty easy to do if
you register you machine with the Red Hat Network using the rhn_register
command.  It's also free for a single machine.

My firewall at home runs OpenBSD.  I've found that I don't have to install
as many security updates over the life of the system, and I can pretend
that I'm one of those 1337 haX0r d00dz, since OpenBSD has a more
"hardcore" reputation.

> 
> Thanks and sorry.
> 
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