Any recommendations for a good firewall for Slack 9.0 (must be able to be used by a simple-minded person). Thanks!

You aren't much familiar with firewalls and packetfilters, right? A firewall as an application doesn't exist and will never exist, because a firewall is a security concept of soft- or hardware related securitymanagement utilities.

So I'm right if you either don't understand the Linux kernel very well, because if so, you wouldn't ask this 'strange' question :-)

The Linux kernel has a packetfilter "out-of-the-box", called 'iptables' (kernel 2.4.x) or 'ipchains' (kernel 2.2.x). What you're asking for is 'iptables'/'ipchains' to control the incoming and outgoing traffic from and to your machine and decide, what happens with them.

man iptables
RTFM -> http://www.netfilter.org/documentati...ring-HOWTO.txt
http://www.netfilter.org
http://tldp.org

http://www.linuxguruz.org/iptables
http://www.jg555.com/projects/firewall/firewall.php

Linux Firewalls (2nd Edition)
# Paperback: 600 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.24 x 8.96 x 7.02
# Publisher: Que; 2nd edition (October 24, 2001)
# ISBN: 0735710996

I think the previous posters are correct, but they are being a little hard on you. There are plenty of packages around that help you set up iptables.
I am new to Slackware as well, but I installed Shorewall, which I was also using on my previous distro, but is 'slackware aware'. It is working fine. (Read the help files)
I also notice that on http://www.linuxpackages.net/ there is a link to GShield which I havent used but you may want to look at it, as this is a slackware oriented site.
HTH

Thanks! Appreciate the help! Will give it a try.

Hi

You may also try Guarddog (I use it myself). It is simple in use program for generating rc.firewall script (which is responsible for firewall settings). It is GUI application prepared for KDE, try www.kde.org, and then to Applications link.

I have been using gShield for about a year now and it works great. You can even get a GUI for it called gShieldConf (or similar).

fiaif is also a shell script that you can customize that will set up iptables for you.

I'd go with Waldi's recommendation and give GuardDog a try. It's about as easy to understand as any simple firewall package, and it works quite well.