We have seen that IPCop can be more than just a simple NAT firewall. It can handle multiple network zones and treat each of these independently. We can have real control over how these network segments can communicate with each other. A firewall can do much more than just filter—it can control, monitor, and report on the network's status giving us a good overall view of how our network is functioning, and IPCop can fulfill these requirements.

We have also seen IPCop as a network appliance similar to the expensive commercial offerings from many vendors. In this respect IPCop can handle advanced firewalling with some application-level or layer-seven filtering. We discussed this earlier and IPCop's layer-seven shortcomings. We now see how we can address this and any other problems to create a truly useful and powerful perimeter device.

We looked at the various addons available for IPCop and had a fairly detailed look at some of the most commonly used ones and the useful options available...