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My Firewall Page
John Edwards
New York, USA

I maintain this site for the pleasure of myself.

These pages are a public mirror of my private collection of firewall pages.

I hope I'm not violating any copyrights! If I am Send me e-mail anytime! (I may not see it right away though).

What is a Firewall?

A firewall is a set of related programs, located at a network gateway server, that protects the resources of a private network from users from other networks. Basically, a firewall, working closely with a router program, filters all network packets to determine whether to forward them toward their destination. A firewall is often installed away from the rest of the network so that no incoming request can get directly at private network resources. There are a number of firewall screening methods. A simple one is to screen requests to make sure they come from acceptable (previously identified) domain names and IP addresses. For mobile users, firewalls allow remote access in to the private network by the use of secure logon procedures and authentication certificates

What are currently the best Firewalls?

Based on my testing of network firewalls, I have created the following list of MY preferred Firewall/VPN solutions.
  1. InJoy Firewall 3.0 (linux | windows | os2)

    InJoy Firewall is made by F/X Communications in Denmark. It's simply the most powerful Firewall/VPN solution I've seen and if F/x would add some quick methods for manipulating my rules - then it would be perfect. Below some screen shots from F/x.

    Download the InJoy Firewall Trial!

  2. Zone Alarm
  3. Norton Personal Firewall
  4. Kerio Personal Firewall
  5. Tiny Personal Firewall
  6. Sygate Personal Firewall PRO
  7. McAfee Personal Firewall
  8. Black Ice Defender
  9. Agnitum Outpost Firewall PRO
  10. Cisco
  11. Linksys
  12. SmoothWall
  13. F-Secure

More Firewall information

Secure IOS Template
For Cisco routers.

Secure BGP Template
Also for Cisco routers.

Application Layer Firewalls vs. Network Layer Firewalls: Which Is the Better Choice?
Some technical and common information.

Firewall Piercing
You should know about this possibility.

Cisco Router Security Overview
Informative paper including Cisco IOS bugs and patches.

Characterizing and Tracing Packet Floods Using Cisco Routers
Practical recommendations.

Firewalls Complete
Good book about firewalls theory and practice

Fire in the Hole
About today's bulked-up solutions

Building your firewall, Part 1
Are you letting your firewall vendor decide your architecture? Try to do it yourself!

Building your firewall, Part 2
How to make sure your OS is ready to go.

Building your firewall, Part 3
Implementation: Setting up firewal

Network design - firewalls
This part of the well-known book is about firewall basics

Placing Backdoors Through Firewalls
How to set it and how to protect from it.

Linux LAN & Internet Firewall Security FAQ
Practical advice.

General Firewall White Paper
Nice description of common firewall functions

Firewalls and Internet security
Good paper with theory and firewalls description. Network security policy example.

Firewalling and Proxy Server HOWTO
For LINUX based PC

Keeping Your Site Comfortably Secure: An Introduction to Internet Firewalls
Sorry for some broken images in the English version