Hello,

I got my first Linux machine this past weekend. I am waiting on my modem to get here. It has Slackware on it. I asked the guy I bought it from if I needed a firewall and he said no. I was just checking. I am used to Windows where you have to have a firewall, ani-virus, and adware. If I do need a firewall which one? Thanks for your help.



Michael

Congrats!


Then he's full of it. (If your box comes with Linux preinstalled I wouldn't trust his installation. I would make a backup and then install over it as soon as I got it.)


For all the Linux kernels there is just one firewall and that's all you need to know. (It's called "The Netfilter Framework" and it is "baked" into the kernel or gets loaded as modules.) For kernel series 2.4 and 2.6 the interface is called "iptables", but that is strictly commandline, no GUI. The interface is used to manage "rules". Rules manage (block, allow, do funny stuff, etc, etc) traffic to and from your networked machine. Rules can be loaded by running a script, and if you search LQ you'll find a lot of standard and custom firewall scripts. If you are not yet capable of working the CLI you may want to install a GUI to build and manage rulesets.

Just read around a bit before you do stuff.
LQ has a lot of threads about firewalling to learn from.

Yup, I agree with unSpawn - especially the part about the wipe and re-install.

A firewall gives you control over which packets you want to allow in/out of your box/network.

This type of control is an extremely good idea - regardless of operating system.

How hard is it to make a backup and re-install it?

Depends on how much experience you have. If you're just getting started with GNU/Linux, perhaps Slackware wouldn't be the best choice anyways. I'd probably go with a more newbie-friendly distro like Ubuntu. You could boot the Ubuntu CD (it's a live CD) and play around with it for a while. Once you know all your hardware and stuff works fine you could proceed to install. As for backing the guy's install first, maybe you could simply hook-up the drive to a Windows machine and run a backup application you are already familiar with? Something like Ghost or whatever. Like I said, I'm not sure how comfortable you are working with GNU/Linux at this point. There's definitely GNU/Linux tools like Mondo Rescue which could be used.

"If you're just getting started with GNU/Linux, perhaps Slackware wouldn't be the best choice anyways. I'd probably go with a more newbie-friendly distro like Ubuntu"

I second that but wanted to elaborate a little, theres also Kubuntu witch is Ubuntu but uses the KDE window manager and might be a little more familiar to you, coming from windows.

"How hard is it to make a backup"

Both Gnome (Ubuntu window manager) and Kubuntu (KDE window manager) let you "drag and drop" files that you would want to save ie personal documents emails ect. If you just got the machine and havent put anything on it your self, you probably dont need to save anything.
There are alot of other "Distro's" like ubuntu and kubuntu out there to try, some of the more noobie friendly ones are PCLinuxOS my personal favorite, Mandriva, SuSE, Fedora witch uses SElinux as its firewall, Knoppix, Sabayon very cool looking with all the 3D stuff on by default and many others, I highly recommend trying a few of the different flavors linux has to offer. Just be careful distro hoping is like geek crack, yes my name is John and I'm an --addict

Here is a very popular firewall for linux called firestarter

http://www.fs-security.com/

It's a front end for iptables

for my pc which has 1 static ip bypassing my router i use firestarter. other pc is ubuntu has firestarter plus sonicwall firewall. wifes pc is windows behind sonicwall firewall