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I was recently delving into thoughts of building a small home server to run random things off of (maybe a TF2 server). Thinking about this further I realized I would need to get a better firewall system for my current home network. I was wondering what would be a good Linux distro to run for a home network firewall?

There are a ton of distro's out there, and it is kinda overwhelming when you're new to it. I have looked at Zentyal (previously eBox), SmoothWall, M0n0wall and a couple others. I have little experience in setting up firewalls, but I am willing to do some research into it and give it a shot. I would just like a little help with the starting ground. If someone could provide some pro's/con's of available distro's or some insight on what might be best to set up in a home network it would be appreciated!

Thanks!

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The distro called ipcop exists since 2007 and is designed exactly for your purpose. http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ipcop

I think there are many reasons strongly in favor of ipcop that put it ahead of the bunch:

  1. Designed for your purpose
  2. Long history + high ranking in google search "linux firewall distro"
  3. Latest release: 2012 February

As the other post mentions, pfsense can be interesting to, a big difference is that pfsense (like moonwall) is based on FreeBSD, not on Linux.

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  • I reviewed (most of) the manual for ipcop and it does seem like a decent linux firewall distro, however my concern is that it does seem to rely on mostly dated hardware (it still speaks of floppy disks as a main boot source). Have you used ipcop? Would you say it is still reliable? I do like the ease of use for the web interface for it, and their classification of each zone in a network (Red, Blue, Green, Orange). Commented Apr 11, 2012 at 18:11
  • Hi @SirCobalt, nope, haven't actually used it. I keep an eye on the various distros and have my list of options for specific purposes, and ipcop is my top candidate for firewall, but that's all. Commented Apr 21, 2012 at 23:20

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