Best Linux firewall

scottalanmiller

@Joyfano said:

@lance said:

I guess a good spot to start is do you have a budget or are you trying to use old hardware and free software to accomplish this.

Well i am trying to use old Hardware and free software
Good morning Everyone..

Good morning. Pretty much all of the options here are free. So you have a lot to choose from.

Joy

@scottalanmiller said:

If Linux is a necessity, Untangle is the most common product found in the SMB. But it tends to be too complex for its own good. We used to use SmoothWall long ago, they were good.

We already have Untangle here,Yeah its was built by someone for us. I want to built another one so that i will have an idea from end to end.

Joy

Yeah.. hmm sure thanks for the option. i hope it will goes fine.working with this..

RoguePacket

Good ones have already been mentioned—Smoothwall Express; pfSense; Untangle; ClearOS—yet a couple more:

m0n0wall
Sophos UTM (née Ataro)

See also—

scottalanmiller

How does mono stack up? Only one of these I've never touched.

scottalanmiller

Vyatta is actually the best of the lineup but the learning curve is ridiculous. And updates may not be forthcoming anymore for the free version.

RoguePacket

Monowall is bare bones. Seems often comes up as one people used to use. Guessing still valid for minimal hardware.

One from the TechRadar link noted as the "winner" was... e-Box (http://www.ebox-platform.com/) built off Ubuntu. Haven't tried it, am skeptical, not a first choice, but keeping an open mind.

scottalanmiller

Don't know e-box at all. Need to take a look I guess. Any killer feature?

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller said:

How does mono stack up? Only one of these I've never touched.

I thought m0n0wall and pfSense were branches of the same ting at one point in the past. I may be misremembering things though.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch m0n0wall is FreeBSD at least like pfSense. That much I know.

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller said:

Vyatta is actually the best of the lineup but the learning curve is ridiculous. And updates may not be forthcoming anymore for the free version.

VyOS was forked out of it after the Brocade buyout. I have not really followed that though because my current use of Vyatta is all inside Ubiquiti hardware.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Vyatta is actually the best of the lineup but the learning curve is ridiculous. And updates may not be forthcoming anymore for the free version.

VyOS was forked out of it after the Brocade buyout. I have not really followed that though because my current use of Vyatta is all inside Ubiquiti hardware.

Awesome thanks. Don't know how I forgot about that. Looks to be stable and production ready now too. Been on Vyatta for years so will look to go down this route I think.

RoguePacket

@scottalanmiller said:

Don't know e-box at all. Need to take a look I guess. Any killer feature?

Article was circa 2010. e-Box is now...Zentyal—

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentyal
Dunno, sticking with pfSense. Other known ones are fallbacks. Zentyal is much further down the list.

scottalanmiller

@RoguePacket ah ha. zentyl I have heard of but not used.

scottalanmiller

Zentyl is really an SBS style server project. A kitchen sink sorta mish mash. Not an optimized firewall.

Ambarishrh

@scottalanmiller Yes, have used it in one of my freelance project. They wanted an AD replacement as they couldn't afford windows licensing.

After some research, I tried Zentyal. It was a real good alternative for Windows AD.

Got a decent desktop machine, installed Zentyal, configured as main DC, joined all clients machines from 3 offices, (all nearby, and has shared connection from their main office). Also enabled jabber server+file server. All offices are using this without any issues. AD+Chat+File Server!
If am not mistaken, its Ubuntu based. Even though it has quite a lot of features including firewall, I never used it as a firewall.

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller so was ClearOS.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller so was ClearOS.

True

Mike Ralston

I'd recommend pfSense. I'm only an intern level tech person, and I find it fairly easy to work with.

Nara

@Mike-Ralston said:

I'd recommend pfSense. I'm only an intern level tech person, and I find it fairly easy to work with.

For a straight firewall, pfSense is good. If you're looking for something closer to a UTM, Untangle becomes a better option.