[PLUG] OpenBSD on Portables?

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Tony Schlemmer wrote:

> The FVS318 is a pretty decent firewall and I say this as someone that has
> used OpenBSD for a number of years now for a firewall at several sites.
> I've been using an FVS318 as a a no fuss replacement for my OpenBSD
> firewall when I need to take the system down for an upgrade of the version
> of OpenBSD on it. I've also worked at a startup and had my non-computer
> techincal boss put me on the stop at CompUSA for a firewall for our office.
> I picked the FVS318 since it had the ability to support up to 8 IPSec
> tunnels which was great since we had a few people working offsite.

   Thank you very much, Tony, for the insight on both the FVS318 and OpenBSD.
For six years I used floppyfw -- version 1.09 all that time -- on a box
sitting under the desk. Because it worked, the Netgear sat here unused for
about a year. One day, a couple of months ago, something died on the floppyfw
box. Once I figured out that was the problem, I uploaded the FVS318 config to
the box from where I had stored it on my notebook, plugged everything in, and
was back on the 'Net in an hour or so.

   The FVS318 is very chatty: not only does it mail me a log of every smtp,
udp, and tcp packet it saw over the previous 24 hours (boring plot, but a
huge cast of characters), it also sends me individual notices of rejected
attempts to scan ports for vulnerable openings. It's silent, small, and just
works as designed and intended. I'm very happy with it.

   If I had major state secrets and a ton of free time when I was sitting here
twiddling my thumbs, I would probably invest in an OpenBSD firewall. As you
so clearly pointed out, it seems to be a career to maintain and is not
justified here.

   On the other hand, getting rid of the rest of the spam that makes it
through the postfix and spamassassin filters is a different story. Sigh. So
much comes through over Friday night it must be an after-school job for kids
everywhere.

Rich

-- 
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President     |   Author of "Quantifying Environmental
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM) |  Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic"
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517         Fax: 503-667-8863