securing Ubuntu and firewall

[H.S.]

Tom Smith wrote:

> I think Firestarter is quite flexible and will work for most uses from
> setting up a basic firewall to protect a single computer to setting up a
> firewall/NAT computer that can port forward traffic to, say, an internal
> web server. It's fairly simple to use but you do have to be familiar
> with the basic workings of a firewall. On my first time using it, I
> spent about 10 minutes browsing the different menu and configuration
> options--I configured a couple things and told it to start the firewall
> and viola! The firewall was up and running. Very simple, very quick.

I just set up firestarter on my friend's computer remotely. It was quite
easy to do so (of course, I am familiar with iptables which helps a
*lot*). And yes, they have a quite nice introduction webpage:
http://www.fs-security.com/docs/introduction.php

I haven't tried guarddog though. But I guess you are right, for home
networking, firestarter seems to be quite adequate and userfriendly. And
for a single computer connected to the internet, it is more than enough.
I have already suggested this to a friend who is trying to convert an
internet sharing machine on his work LAN (about 15~20 machines) to a
Linux based router.

->HS