Book Image

Configuring IPCop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source

Book Image

Configuring IPCop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source

Overview of this book

IPCop is a powerful, open source, Linux based firewall distribution for primarily Small Office Or Home (SOHO) networks, although it can be used in larger networks. It provides most of the features that you would expect a modern firewall to have, and what is most important is that it sets this all up for you in a highly automated and simplified way. This book is an easy introduction to this popular application. After introducing and explaining the foundations of firewalling and networking and why they're important, the book moves on to cover using IPCop, from installing it, through configuring it, to more advanced features, such as configuring IPCop to work as an IDS, VPN and using it for bandwidth management. While providing necessary theoretical background, the book takes a practical approach, presenting sample configurations for home users, small businesses, and large businesses. The book contains plenty of illustrative examples.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Configuring IPCop Firewalls
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
Preface
7
Virtual Private Networks
11
IPCop Support

Summary


In this chapter we had a look at the feature-set available in IPCop. We have an idea of what exactly IPCop can do, and combined with the knowledge of the previous chapter, we know how it stacks up as a firewall. We now also have an idea of the situations in which IPCop could be useful and what we will need to understand in order to use it. Some of the screenshots may look a little bit complicated at this point, if we are new to any of the topics. As we go through these functions, everything will be explained so that we understand each option fully and know whether we need to configure that particular area and how exactly we would want it set up. For those more familiar with the technologies this may have served to give an overview of how some of the features work within IPCop.