Hi there,

I'm looking into installing Mandrake on my computer, which is currently running win2000 (would be a dual boot system). For win2000 I am thinking about buying a Netgear router/firewall. Does Mandrake/linux offer a low overhead secure software firewall, which would make a hardware firewall redundant and not very usefull? If I can stay away from hardware, I can save $140 (cdn).

thanks!
Doug

On mandrakes website there is a link to Bastille. 1.5M file D/L and install. Xcellent firewall. have had it scanned and it works great!!!!!!

Is Bastille a whole new firewall implementation, or does it need iptables (or ipchains for older kernels) to be compiled into the kernel, which makes Bastille simply a front-end to iptables (granted a convenient one at that if you don't know enough about tcp/ip to be able to construct your own firewall rulesets).

hi,
bastille is a front end and it can either use ipchains or iptables.
it is fairly intelligent and can configure nat , logging and there are also modules to secure the local environment like who is allowed to log in , run cron , sendmail etc.
It's extremely useful if you want a fast and easy firewall config.
you can add additional rules later.
did i mention it was easy to use and setup?

regards penseur2

what about your w2k setup? if you still need to use it on the internet, you should firewall it too. if you have a dedicated computer for the firewall that can run linux, then you're all set. if not, i would recomend a h/w firewall (router). in windows, i find, a s/w firewall is SERIOUSLY slow... on my cable connection in windows, a s/w firewall slows me to about 10% of what i get without it. i have noticed no measurable throughput slowdown now that i use a dedicated linux box as firewall and router. a Linksys router (or whatever) would probably be just as efficient.

thanks for the info guys.

sluggo