Firewall with Ubuntu

[Joseph]

Florian Diesch wrote:
> Joseph <ubuntu at e-pops.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> I suppose this gives me another questions.  There are three options
>> here, in apparently two types, which are:
>>
>>         IPTables
>>                 Firestarter (for gnome) or Guarddog ( for KDE)
>>
>> What's the difference in them?  How are Firestarter and Guarddog (a
>> simple GUI front end) similar and how are these two different from the
>> IPTables which is......??
> 
> iptables is the kernel code that actually handles the filtering,
> together with some command line tools to configure it. 
> 
> All the other "firewalls" are really just front ends for iptables.
> 
> To use iptables manually you need some knowledge about TCP/IP and
> networking in general and gives you all the power and flexibility of
> iptables (if you need that). Some shell scripting skills may come
> handy.
> 
> The front ends are usually less powerful but often require less
> knowledge and/or make it easier to manager large and complex rule
> sets.
> 
> 
> 
>    Florian


Thank you so very much.  You've been very helpful.  I don't know much (if anything) about TCP/IP and 
networking, and certainly nothing about shell scripts.

That's why I was wondering about the front end programs.  It helps me when it's a little simpler to 
operate....   but where I can still learn the innards.

Again, thanks....

Joseph