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Date:      Thu, 22 Nov 2001 03:17:39 -0800
From:      "Crist J. Clark" <cristjc@earthlink.net>
To:        Fernando Germano <fgermano@audiotel.com.ar>
Cc:        security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Best security topology for FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <20011122031739.A226@gohan.cjclark.org>
In-Reply-To: <00ca01c172aa$814c90d0$ed64a8c0@audi2k>; from fgermano@audiotel.com.ar on Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 01:35:18PM -0300
References:  <00ca01c172aa$814c90d0$ed64a8c0@audi2k>

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On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 01:35:18PM -0300, Fernando Germano wrote:
> 
> Could please help me?
> 
> I'm about to install a FreeBSD 4.4 box with some firewall and I need to know
> wich one of the freeware firewalls product is the best (IPFW, IPFilter,
> etc), or maybe if you could recomend me a good solution for this situation:
> 
> FreeBSD box = firewall with 10 NICs
> 
> NIC 1 -> DMZ
> NIC 2 -> Internet
> NIC 3 -> Partner network
> .
> .
> NIC 8 -> Partner network
> NIC 9 -> Internal network
> NIC 10 -> Internal network

It is sad to see this poor design,

     Internet
        |
        |
      Firewall--"DMZ"
        |
        |
     Internal

Used so very, very much these days (I think thanks to several firewall
vendors pushing this as a standard design).

A much better design, is

      Internet
         |
         |
      Firewall1
         |
         |
        DMZ
         |
         |
      Firewall2
         |
         |
      Internal

(This design is actually where the term "DMZ" comes from since it
actually looks like one here.)

And in your case... that many NICs in one machine... I hope you have a
dedicated stand-by. It's screaming "single point of failure." I would
really consider NOT using one machine for all of this.
-- 
Crist J. Clark                           cjclark@alum.mit.edu

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