i currently use firestarter as means of a firewall. however, i read that setting up iptables are a better means of security and also i'm unsure of how secure running the firestarter logger under root is.

could somebody please give me more info on this?

also, does somebody have a good iptables script and info on how to set it up?

I think it depends. IMO, it's possible to set up a 'more' secure firewall, but for the average newbie or person without a grasp of iptables knowledge, it's certainly better than just throwing together some random rules. It's extremely easy to write a ruleset that with a simple syntax error or miss-placed rule order that allows un-intended malicious traffic or drops important traffic leading to debugging headaches. So using something like firestarter is a good way to keep secure until you reach a level where you can write your own custom scripts.

Modifying netfilter/iptables requires root level permissions and I believe the logging function of firestarter is done by logging packets w/ iptables and then analyzing the system logs, so it's not directly interacting with packets on the wire per se, though some kind of malicious log entry could cause problems if not handled properly by firestarter.

hello i am very new at this, i'm trying to setup firestarter on suse 9.1, but when i try to install it it send this message "firestarter needs initscripts".
any help will be appreciated....

I have started to work with iptables as well, and I am finding www.fwbuilder.org a great access. It is very nice for building and maintaining rulesets without knowing every little detail of iptables. Check it out.