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RQ: Firewall Recomendation

Forum General Networking : General Gateways, Routers and Firewalls - RQ: Firewall Recomendation

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Lordrel   09-20-2002 at 03:44:22 PM

I need recomendations choosing a firewall. Here's the setup. I ave two offices. One office has a Terminal Server and a Domain controller. The domain controller does most of the work (file sharing ect) and the Terminal Server provides internet access for this office, plus remote connection from the other office. Both are running Windows 2000. I need a good firewall that will block all incoming traffic except VPN (pptp) and Web for the Terminal Server. I feel pretty confident in my port routing ect. ability, but still would like something fairly easy to configure. I need it to be fairly robust, as there is medical data on this network. Thanks for your suggesstions, and please ask if more info is needed.

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jlanka   09-20-2002 at 03:53:19 PM
- 0 +

the <A HREF="http://www.nexland.com" target="_new"><font color=red>Nexland</font color=red></A> routers are pretty good for SOHO applications. I've got a Pro800.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

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4ryan6   10-07-2002 at 07:27:17 AM
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Zone Alarm Pro. Ryan





Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

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jvanber   10-24-2002 at 06:45:47 AM
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I highly recommend Watchguard (www.watchguard.com) firewalls for applications such as yours. They are great firewalls, they are relatively inexpensive for business purposes, and they're modular & expandable based on additional features that can be added later. Also, Watchguard has great support, and regularly comes out with new firmware updates.

For a setup like yours, I'd recommend one (or two, depending on your WAN links) Watchguard SOHO 6 Firewalls. They license their products based on the amount of connections, which is available at 10/25/50. You can never go beyond 50 with the SOHO models.

In addition, they also feature a plug-in module for the routers, that provides a hardware-VPN capability, that lets you join two firewalls across the internet, and essentially makes two offices connected via the internet act as if they are simply subnetted.

Additional plug-in modules include on-the-fly virus scanning of all traffic. Another module allows you to filter your web-browsing traffic based on genre and content.

Lastly, although they do support wonderful scripting capabilities, and are very capable for intricate tasks, the standard administrative interface is simply HTML. You can add and remove your own ports and protocols via your web-browser. Its quite intuitive.

I highly recommend staying away from low-end software based firewalls, which are often more concerned with blocking instant-messaging than they are about true network security.

Otherwise, Cisco makes some nice hardware-based firewalls, but their configuration/cost/administration don't even come close to that of the Watchguard for the small business.

As far as cost, I believe the 10 user is around $350, the 25 user is around $550, and the 50 user is around $800. You can upgrade the 10/25 user models accordingly if you wish at a later date.

Good luck!

Joshua

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nja469   11-01-2002 at 03:52:27 AM
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nah, <A HREF="http://www.zonealarm.com" target="_new">http://www.zonealarm.com</A>

It's cheap, it will pass the test every time, and it is easy to use. ZA Pro would be easy to setup on your machine and configure access (sharing/safe zone) which will keep serving your other machines w/o any issues.

You can try the pro version for a month for free, check it out before you pay mucho bucks on something that may be confusing and could slow your connections down. If ZA doesn't pan out, then try the other route, but one thing is for sure, it's easy to uninstall a software firewall, while hardware firewalls can be more challenging.

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4ryan6   11-11-2002 at 03:38:22 AM
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I Agree

Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

Reply to 4ryan6
lemonlemon   11-23-2002 at 10:33:44 PM
- 0 +

Does ZA allow you to block certain ports?

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