Smoothwall or IPCop?

[mickwish]

Well, I've had a Smoothwall firewall set up now for a couple of months. And it works fine.

But I wanted to implement a filter for adult content with Dan's Guardian, but discovered it is not supported in the free version of Smoothwall (you have to pay for it as a module in the Corporate version).

Which then lead me to check out IPCop, which is the true GPL project which spun from Smoothwall when it went corporate (read greedy, IMO).

Seems as good, if not better than Smoothwall from what I can see. And still is free, with good support via users.

So does anyone have any opinions about IPCop? Any rants about they way it was set up (developers from the original Smoothwall project started it)?

I might just try it out for a bit to see how much different it is from Smoothie.

Thanks
Mick

[RobRich]

While I haven't checked this out yet, several people have recommended that I try this Linux-based firewall install:

http://freshmeat.net/projects/asl/?topic_id=151

Might be worth checking out.

Robert Richmond

[mickwish]

Thanks Robert
Looks nice, but hardware specs are out of my reach for a firewall box (min 400MHz/128MB RAM/8G HDD), and you need to buy add on modules for filtering and such (even for home users). Is more a business firewall solution; mine is for my home LAN.

Thanks anyway
Mick

[RobRich]

Just glanced at the specs from a link a friend sent me. Assumed content filtering was included, but virus scan was not. Oh well....

Anywho, I would say that IPCop is your best bet for a freeware or GPL type of solution. You'll never know until you try it.

[mickwish]

Well, I found this "unbiased" review (it was linked from the IPCop website, so how "unbiased" I don't know )

http://www.southwestlug.uklinux.net/...wcontent&id=35

It's sort of what I wanted to know, anyway. Looks worth trying.

Cheers
Mick

[Fujiiro]

Just wondering if you can get into the download section since from here it is saying that there is a problem if you can ill just get it vie my windows partition.

sounds like a good old program there mick, thinking about it was it not you whom pointed me to smoothwall thanks for that

ritchie

not to worry its going now many my rooter was haveing a hissy fit.

[dj1471]

Originally posted by mickwish
Well, I found this "unbiased" review (it was linked from the IPCop website, so how "unbiased" I don't know )

http://www.southwestlug.uklinux.net/...wcontent&id=35

Well, as the author of that review, I can assure you that it is 100% unbiased. Agreed that they only linked to it because it made them look good....

I mainly wrote the review because as a Smoothwall user, I was looking for alternatives, found IP-Cop and liked it. No bias, no favours for the IP-Cop team

[mickwish]

Hey, thanks for that, dj1471, and welcome to TechIMO!

I didn't mean to imply the source was dodgy, just that I never know when to trust a source which has been linked from the vendor (or in this case, the GPL Team). You know what I mean I guess.

I've now installed IPCop, and have actually used the mailing lists which I find a breath of fresh air after the stifling one at Smoothwall. And Dan's Guardian runs great, albeit a little resource hoggish.

Nice to know your review is 100% unbiased. I'll refer others to it if they want to know about IPCop.

Thanks
Mick