Hello all, I'm still learning Linux bit by bit and think I know enough to set up a simple (kind of) Firewall/server for my home network. I would like it to run:
BIND
IPtables
SNORT
Tripwire (or would this interfere if I was to write files to the shared directories?)
Squid
Samba (to share lots of files to my windows and Linux boxes)
DHCP
A program that can block viri and SPAM as they come through Squid would be cool to (any recommendations?)
and a voice messenging program called VOCP (Great program it can compress the voice message and send it by email!)

I need to choose a distro, I use Mandrake 10 on my desktop box with a dual boot with Windows XP.
I have played around with Fedora Core 2 in the past and found it quite nice to use, with no problems detecting any hardware and setting up Samba was a breeze, same with Mandrake 10.
So the choice is between Mandrake 10 and Fedora Core 2, obviously it needs to be secure, but I have read a few things about Fedora and stability issues (which should have been fixed by now I suppose)

What would you choose based on what I need it for?

I currently use Smoothwall for my Firewall and it's been wonderful since installing it over a year ago, would I be safer leaving the smoothie in place and running the server behind this on the LAN segment? I would prefer to have just the one box running all the time though. Smoothwall has a web gui that I can log into to check logs, make changes etc, is there something similiar to it that will connect securely from the LAN side only if I choose Mandrake or Fedora?

Thanks for your help, If I've missed something please ask or add it

For the firewall / server I've had good results with smoothwall2.
It was easy to configure, I had it up and running in about an hour.
Been running about 3 months, only rebooting as required by updates.

http://www.smoothwall.org/

There has been much debate and still is on IPCop vs. Smoothwall

Of course you can always add more Device Drivers to both but IPCop for me has picked up different kinds of Network cards that Smoothwall didnt.

They Are both very similar......
IPCop is based on the Smoothwall GPL version, v0.9.9


I like *Love* IPcop as my linux router/firewall
and of cource you can install any package you like
IPcop comes standered with SNORT for IDS

the two common IPcop versions are 1.3.0 and 1.4.0 (NEW!!!)


check out http://www.ipcop.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/IPCop/WebHome