Hi,

Im running slackware 10.2 on my work computer, now I just want to hear if it's necessary to install/configure a firewall on it?

Does Slackware have a 'build in' firewall? Or does it just offer better security than windows xp?

Earlier I used Fedora & Suse, they had 'build in firewalls' so I didn't think about the security that much

Is there any reason for getting paranoid about this?

Slackware, as with all distros, comes with IPTables. That can be a little daunting, so grab Firestarter or GuardDog if you want a GUI frontend which makes things easier to configure.

And, if you are connecting to the internet, you definitely do need a firewall.

I, for one, would say that you should. There are good gui-based firewall available for slackware. I've used firestarter. You can also check out guarddog if you are using KDE.

Tux,

All distribution has a buildin firewall it's called 'iptables'. The only thing you have to do is to set it up with your roule.
Check on the man pages or/and on the net you have plainty of site who will explain you how to set it up.

Thanks for sorting things out for me.

I just installed GuardDog & currently configuring it.

I use a cable-modem connection and the first thing that's downstream from the modem is a firewall-equipped router.

Each of the computers downstream from the router also have their own firewalls enabled.

The purpose of a firewall is to separate what is "inside" from what is "outside." For example, you probably don't want someone in another continent to be able to print to your printer or to share your local files ... but without a firewall, that person in another continent is "local!" A firewall would filter that kind of traffic: packets from outside would not be allowed to come in, and these sort of packets could be exchanged on the local ("inside") network but would not be permitted to flow out.

I use IPCop, it seems to work well. I guess the only disadvantage is that it requires its own box. What do you guys think of IPCop?

i use it at my house and at my office. i will not trade it for any other firewall ATM.

yes it uses its own stand alone box, but that is the best thing. 100% of the RAM and CPU time that IPCop uses has zero to do with the performance of my workstations or servers. my IPCop at the house is way over powered running on an old PII 2xx with 3xxM ram. the one i have at the office is also over powered, but i might increase the ram as i tend to push things more here at the office then at the house: PII 266 with 128M ram. i might up that to 256M ram as i am constantly at 90% ram usage due to the much heavier traffic at the office.

as for a firewall. iptables is hard to understand, but here is a great book i sujest buying and reading:

Linux Firewalls by Robert Ziegler. i have the 2nd edition, but there are newer vs out there. thankfully iptables has not changed enough since this book to matter, but what ever edition is out now, grab it. should run you between $30-50USD.

FYI, you can pick up an old PII for under $50 with 2 NICs and 128M ram and a 4-6G hard drive you are golden. best part about IPCop is it is a 50M CD that takes roughly 10-15min to install the complete firewall and you are up and running.

I couldn't agree more with all you have said. Mine runs on an old Dell which I think has a celeron processor and 128 mb ram. Mine has a 4G hard drive, a cdrom, and a floppy drive. Mine has 4 NIC's since I run a server and a WAP on it as well. The best thing about it is that you don't need a monitor - all your maintenance can be done through any internet browser on any computer on your network. Not only that, but if you back up your settings on a floppy drive, you can re-install the whole thing to a completely new hard drive (in case of failure) by just putting in the cd and the floppy. Amazing.