- Free Software Firewall Guide -

IP Filter Based Firewalls HOWTO

This document is intended to introduce a new user to the IP Filter firewalling package and, at the same time, teach the user some basic fundamentals of good firewall design.

Introduction

IP Filter is a great little firewall package. It does just about everything other free firewalls (ipfwadm, ipchains, ipfw) do, but it's also portable and does neat stuff the others don't. This document is intended to make some cohesive sense of the sparse documentation presently available for ipfilter. Some prior familiarity with packet filtering will be useful, however too much familiarity may make this document a waste of your time. For greater understanding of firewalls, the authors reccomend reading Building Internet Firewalls, Chapman & Zwicky, O'Reilly and Associates; and TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, Stevens, Addison-Wesley.

Disclaimer

The authors of this document are not responsible for any damages incurred due to actions taken based on this document. This document is meant as an introduction to building a firewall based on IP-Filter. If you do not feel comfortable taking responsibility for your own actions, you should stop reading this document and hire a qualified security professional to install your firewall for you.

Copyright

Unless otherwise stated, HOWTO documents are copyrighted by their respective authors. HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the authors would like to be notified of any such distributions.

All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the HOWTO coordinator.

In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.

Where to obtain the important pieces

The official IPF homepage is at: <http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~avalon/ip-filter.html>

The most up-to-date version of this document can be found at: <http://www.obfuscation.org/ipf/>

 
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