The Last Octet

Want more functionality from your home or small business firewall, but not interested in paying big enterprise prices? There are a couple of options available for those interested in protecting their networks "on the cheap". Some people have chosen OpenWrt as a way to gain greater flexibility out of their consumer class firewall/"routers". Technologies like OpenWrt give administrators a number of options typically not available within the software and firmware that is shipped on inexpensive routers. As exciting as OpenWrt and projects like it are, there are other ways gain enterprise firewalling features without the enterprise expense.

The alternative that I'm referring to is the use of free and open source firewall solutions. There are a number of Linux and BSD based firewall solutions available that provide a number of robust features including VPN, transparent proxy, and QOS. The problem with these solutions in the past is that they have required a dedicated piece of hardware. Many have taken on the build up of such hardware as a project in and to itself (m0n0wall Hardware Project). Today we have a variety of virtualization options available to us that prevent us from having to recycle an old power hungry desktop for a firewall.

In my next post, I'll be looking at one example of how to implement a Linux or BSD based firewall within a virtual environment to protect a small physical or virtual network.