hello, ive just bought a new router to allow me to connect to the internet via linux, it is a Netgear DG834.

it has got an 'SPI' firewall, and a 'NAT' firewall.
is this security adiquate on its own? or do i need look into other measures?

The router will provide NAT (network address translation) so that your single IP address provided by your ISP can be shared to access the internet by all of your LAN PCs. You need to configure the router firewall properly (SPI is stateful packet inspection, it can do various filtering functions if you desire), read the manual for the options. This does not really have anything to do with linux per se, you could have PCs running any OS behind the router, just as long as they are accessing the internet with TCP/IP, etc. they will be serviced by the router/firewall. In my case, I preferred the added configurability of a linux (iptables) firewall/router, so I took an old PC and converted it into a router/firewall box by installing linux on it. There appear to be lots of helpful folks here if you choose to go that route.

Being it is not a wireless router then the defaults should be fine. The defaults have no open ports or one cannot access the router from the internet side. Only thing is change the default password on them just in case someone can get in.

Brian

hi jeff and brian,

the router was recommended to me by a friend, and actually runs linux and iptables,

this page has some interesting info:

http://www.suburbia.com.au/~dan/

i need to read the manual, but as always, its finding the time.

brian,

i purposely bought the wired version of this router (not the wireless), because my computer is always in the same place, and i dont see the point of over complicating things. i like to keep things as simple as possible and perhaps minimise the risk of exposing myself to new dangers. thanks for the heads up on the password too, i saw it earlier, but kind of forgot about it, i will change it later tonight.

I wasn't aware from their description that this was one of their open-source routers. A little embarrassing on my part, I purchased a Netgear open-source router with the intent to load in my own modified code, and I never got around to doing it. The code that came with it worked pretty well. I believe that a website that will help you a lot is the openwrt.org group, this is the wireless router webpage for modiying code on wireless routers. As you said, the challenge is finding the time. Regarding purchased hardware, many if not most routers run a skinny version of linux, but they are not reconfigurable. The open-source versions allow you to recompile and then flash your own homegrown code into the routers, if you are so inclined.