From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Aug 19 9:49: 5 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from greg.ad9.com (greg.ad9.com [209.233.225.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A22637B422 for ; Sat, 19 Aug 2000 09:49:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from greg.ad9.com (nepolon@greg.ad9.com [209.233.225.5]) by greg.ad9.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA12413; Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:08:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:08:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Lewis X-Sender: nepolon@greg.ad9.com To: Duke Normandin Cc: "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org" Subject: Re: Problem with FreeBSD behind a firewall In-Reply-To: <003d01c009e5$adcb0c60$5985c5d1@odie> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Duke Normandin wrote: > On Saturday, August 19, 2000 6:26 AM Duke Normandin <01031149@3web.net> wrote: > > > >So this thread won't be wasted on me, I need to know what a "hardware > >firewall" is, please. I can take a wild-ass guess ;^), but I've *never won > >any loteries either. As well, the term "dual-homed" was used early in > >the thread -- would you briefly explain that term as well, please. Tia.... > > up. So "dual-homed" is a box with 2 NICs --- one public and one private. > > -duke Essentially correct. Technically, one doesn't have to be public and one doesn't have to be private, but that is the way they most often appear. Multi-homed would be the more generic term. As for a "hardware firewall" aka "firewall appliance," this is just an out-of-the-box device which works as a firewall. It doesn't use 'PC hardware' as such, so it will have more resemblance to a bridge (usualy two network interfaces, a power jack, and sometimes a serial port). Often they can be configured through a web interface which is only available from the private interface. I don't mean to imply it doesn't run a FreeBSD kernel, most firewall appliances seem to be highly specialized and modified *nix kernels stripped and mounted in a little black box. For an example, see http://www.lucidata.com/firewall.htm ... BTW - you should laugh when you look at this example. --Steve To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message