Do you need a firewall? was fedora as a gateway / server)

[Tim]

On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 08:37 -0400, Eric wrote:
> I have often wondered about this...
> 
> If you have a DSL router, then almost certainly that router is routing
> a public IP address to a private IP address block, probably in the 
> 192.168.x.x range.
> 
> Since those private IP addresses aren't visible or accessible to the 
> outside world (assuming you don't have a DMZ set up that makes one of
> your private IP addresses visible via the public IP address), then why
> would a normal home or small business user need a firewall at all? 

Do not regard a modem/router as a firewall, unless it specifically
offers that feature, and you enable it.  I've seen a few that try to be
helpful and pass incoming connections through to the LAN (so that
clueless users can swap files, etc., without needing to know anything
about special configuration of their gear).

-- 
(This box runs FC6, my others run FC4 & FC5, in case that's
 important to the thread.)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
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