Software firewall for small business

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rustic

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Hi,

I'm looking for a firewall along the lines of Ipcop but that can run on a win32 OS.

Our bandwidth useage has been climbing over the past few months and i'd like to know why aswell as be able to block certain ports etc. Also does anyone know if setting quotas either via mac or ip is possible?

Any help would be great

Thanks in advance
Rustic
 
Thanks for the reply :)

It seems though, that they only list personal firewalls, i might be wrong, I'm no expert.

I'm looking for a network firewall that can block/log/restrict/quota internet access for the network. Someone on our network is using up all the bandwidth :(
 
@ rustic - take a look at smoothwall.

You can set it up with 3 policies, full-open, half-open and closed.

Half open means only certain traffic is allowed out, and closed means you have to physically open the specific ports (eg email, web etc) for traffic to go out.

This will stop anybody trying to run P2P apps as most firewalls does not have a default-deny state to block P2P apps.
 
rustic said:
Hi,

I'm looking for a firewall along the lines of Ipcop but that can run on a win32 OS.

Our bandwidth useage has been climbing over the past few months and i'd like to know why aswell as be able to block certain ports etc. Also does anyone know if setting quotas either via mac or ip is possible?

Any help would be great

Thanks in advance
Rustic
Click to expand...

You mentioned that you want to run on a Win32 OS but if you want some very good advice, seriously consider one of the free linux/bsd firewall distributions... ipcop, smoothwall, and my personal favourite pfSense

The first thing to remember is that they are free, and will work on that old P3 you may have standing in the storeroom.

If you are not comfortable with them (perhaps do not know linux/bsd) do not stress! There are enough willing individuals in these forums to get you through every single hurdle, and you will be so happy once its all working!

Trust me!
 
Most Intruders Get In Through Windows.

Install Linux.

Installing a firewall on Windows to stop intruders is like throwing a blanket over your car to stop a nuclear warhead.
 
Ryder_JHB said:
You mentioned that you want to run on a Win32 OS but if you want some very good advice, seriously consider one of the free linux/bsd firewall distributions... ipcop, smoothwall, and my personal favourite pfSense

The first thing to remember is that they are free, and will work on that old P3 you may have standing in the storeroom.

If you are not comfortable with them (perhaps do not know linux/bsd) do not stress! There are enough willing individuals in these forums to get you through every single hurdle, and you will be so happy once its all working!

Trust me!
Click to expand...


Hi Ryder,

I'm very keen on IPCOP, a friend of mine is in IT and he gave a rundown of whats its capable of,Also an addon called SARG. It sounds great, but unfortunately i have no old pc's lying around. What i will do is pop over to cash converters or something similar and see if i can get an old box.

Thanks for the advice :)
 
Last edited:
Just a thought,

if i had to install vmware or something similar and run ipcop in a virtual machine?
 
rustic said:
Hi Ryder,

I'm very keen on IPCOP, a friend of mine is in IT and he gave a rundown of whats its capable of,Also and addon called SARG. It sounds great, but unfortunately i have no old pc's lying around. What i will do is pop over to cash converters or something similar and see if i can get an old box.

Thanks for the advice :)
Click to expand...

Rustic, listen to The_Librarian as well - He is known as probably the best oke in town when it comes to anything to do with Smoothwall!

Smoothwall nicer than Ipcop imho, but pfsense still my favourite ;)
 
rustic said:
Just a thought,

if i had to install vmware or something similar and run a IPCOP?

anyone tried it?
Click to expand...

It will work, I have a couple of virtual firewalls running on the Jawug network myself - but if you want to do it properly, have a dedicated system, rather than a VM (Especially running within Windows!)
 
Thanks ryder,

I'd like to test the vmware option just to play around with the various firewalls, is vmware the best to use on a vista system? is there any virual machine software thats better than vmware?
The vista system is basically a spare system and atm only has the bookkeeping software on it, so its used once a month.
 
rustic said:
Thanks ryder,

I'd like to test the vmware option just to play around with the various firewalls, is vmware the best to use on a vista system? is virual machine better?

The vista system is basically a spare system and atm only has the bookkeeping software on it, so its used once a month.
Click to expand...

I'm not gonna bash it, but I suspect you will have many issues trying to get a vm working correctly in here, especially a firewall, even if it is just for testing. But yes, the best way to learn a new distro/firewall without doing too much hassle would be a Virtual Machine!
 
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