Which routing/firewall os do you use?

M

munkle

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jan 16, 2005
Messages
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Just wondering what works the best for everyone else. I have tried alot of the os's in the below list but only the monowall seems to install and work on an old dell I have (p4, 640mb of ram, 2x intel pulse nics).

These are the os's I have found.

Ipcop
monowall
pfsense
smoothwall
zeroshell
endian
untangle
clearos
 
At home....PFSense, I like the QoS features, keeps my online gaming good while others are using the internet.
I'll be using it at a client with a new higher speed WAN, 5x sites, doing VPN tunnels.

For clients with their SMB networks....Untangle, due to its help with SPAM and malware blocking and other UTM features.

Others to add to the list
Vyatta
Clark Connect (which some have branched from and continued to develop as ClearOS)
Comixwall
Astaro (pretty popular as a professional UTM)
eBox
 
Currently I use smoothwall but after moving my cable modem to the basement and adding another one I will be moving to pfsense.
 
I've been using smoothwall for quite some time now, but am now finding it to be having way too many problems with Torrents.....

Smoothwall has a lot of room for mods and such, and lets not forget that neat geek factor, but it's sad when a linksys router can handle more traffic than the smoothwall (in respects to torrents).

But then again, to each their own!
 
Smoothwall 3.0 on a PII 400 with 128mb ram.

Runs good with maybe 7-12% cpu usage. I'm thinking of seeing how low I can go on the system requirements before it bottlenecks it.
 
Arch said:
Good lord, how many watts does that thing draw 24/7? 200?
Click to expand...
It only has a 135 watt max power supply... I doubt it draws that much without a load on it under steady state operation. I only have some of the modules populated as well.
 
Home: Linksys WRT54G w/ Tomato

Work: pfSense 1.2.2 (need to get 1.2.3 on it - might just wait for 2.0)
 
dd-wrt as it is the only thing I can find that fully supports my ISP (x86 version installed on an ALIX)
 
I use a Linksys 400N at home with DD-WRT. Seems to do great for me and easy to manage.
 
For home I've used:
Untangle
Endian
Vyatta
Monowall
PFsense
Smoothwall
IPCop

Now using Vyatta and Checkpoint.
 
Right now I am using Astaro but I may switch back to Untangle as I'm going to be installing it at a few clients soon and I want something at home to test on. I like both but I find Astaro has better QoS and the free home use license has much better URL and malware filtering than Untangle. It uses the exact same software as the enterprise versions but is free for home use. Plus it has a Cisco VPN client feature now that works really well, don't have to use the SSL VPN software anymore if you don't want and a few more features that you have to pay to get in Untangle.

I've also used pfsense and find it to be a fantastic firewall. I don't use it anymore because I want a UTM, not just a firewall. Other's I've tried are eBox, ClarkConnect/ClearOS, Endian, Smoothwall, IPCop, Vyatta. ClearOS is neat but the interface is clunky, only really usefull if you want to run your firewall on your file/app server. Vyatta just plain sucks, the CLI is atrocious and the web interface is a joke. IPCop and Smoothwall I haven't tried in years but they were okay. Endian I thought was great as it would run on lesser hardware but haven't tried it in years either.

I've also got my Cisco 2621 hooked up along side my Astaro because Calvin convinced me to start peering again . . .
 
At home: Tomato
Office: monowall

I'm amazingly satisfied with monowall. It's running off a CF card on an old 1.5GHZ celeron compaq, last time I checked it was @ 330 days w/ no reboot. Gui on it is great as well.

Recently I ran into some frustrating limitations with monowall, no proxy support without some hacking. (was just part of april fools joke so not a big deal :p )
 
Ran pfSense on a PC for a while. But, I'm running DD-WRT on a WHR-G300N now.
 
Home: DD-WRT on a WRT150N. Runs much better than the linksys firmware did.

Work domain: RV042 linksys firmware
Work guest: WRT54G2 linksys firmware


Eyeing pfsense 1.2.3 builds for both places....
 
home: the freebie router that came with my isp, it's a bit 'meh' but it does what it says on the tin.

work: juniper netscreen <3
 
I am currently using smoothwall but I have pfsense installed on a other computer still doing testing on it and I going to get a other computer and install untangle for testing also.
 
Currently running Astaro at home but I have used Smoothwall, pFsense, Endian, and Untangle. I am really happy that Astaro bumped up their home IP limit from 10 to 50. The Astaro interface is a little confusing and very geeky but I really like it.
 
pfSense 1.2.3 and 2.0 if you want to play with betas. I love it. The only limitation I have found is with pptp, and they have yet to fix it on 2.0. You can only make one pptp connection per ip. Beyond that slight limitation, the qos is amazing, and I haven't been hacked yet :-P BTW I bought the book from the developer and it was a good read.
 
BootSector said:
Currently running Astaro at home but I have used Smoothwall, pFsense, Endian, and Untangle. I am really happy that Astaro bumped up their home IP limit from 10 to 50. The Astaro interface is a little confusing and very geeky but I really like it.
Click to expand...

Astaro is confusing? I thought it has one of the better web interfaces out there.
 
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