hey markb:
je sure its not advised to run a firewall on the same physical computer.
thats very much true for a software firewall. if the program crashes, the machine is unprotected.
in mine case a crash would remove the ip, the next router would give back a "no route to host" later.
idk any soft firewall that show such a save behaviour on hard crash.
and i think thats the reason why they are normally on a separate hardware.
see:
- its very easy, but sure important to remove tcp/ip from the adapter over that the wan interface is bridged. as ip is the lowest thing that get transported in internet, it should be pretty safe.
- the traffic is scanable on the wan side easily with pcap. so u can snort or whatever. this gives a big advantage of monitoring traffic in problematic situations.
- the cpu resources that u need on normal dsl line are small, 64 MB ram are aviaible in every desktop machine of these days. that could make the firewall even interesting for advanced desktop firewalling
(like bring every client behind own nat, connecting the clients over vpn through lan/wlan...)
i use that in thisvirtual installation often as a vpn tunnel to other networks in branch firms.
then its allready behind a nat.
its nice and stable, theres no additional cost and nice flexibility and distribution is pretty fast and simple copypasting.
to darthobiguan:
hmm, je theres a service in background that start and stop virtual machines.
u can check in the properties of ur virtual machine, theres possibility to specify a user that runs that machine and the possibility to start it on system start.
(they need up to 5 min after boot to start up, dunno why...)
vmware server is "free" btw, u can download at vmware.com
serials need registering but you get the serials immideatly on page there, not by mail.
its licensed up to 16 cpu (sockets) and run pretty fast, with some performance probs in harddisks.
hm for a hardware solution id prefer some smaller device too, specially cause energy cost is high in my country.
a desktop pc, if switched on 24/7 will eat 20 euro / 30 dollar ca. for electricity every month.
within lets say 5 jears running time we have pretty expensive box then.
better spend 200-300 on some little device.
btw. theres cheap ibm compatible low power systems too. they come with a ca. 10 min batery backup unit and console/monitor. what im talking bout is old notebooks, i think if i would be in the situation to run such a system, id take old notebook of chef
all u need is compatible networking devices, dunno theres some differences between monowall versions they say.
m0n0wall Forum > m0n0wall Support (English) > Hardware
Topic: New m0n0wall installation with brand new PC