iptables versus hosts denied

[Tim]

On Tue, 2007-10-16 at 10:10 -0600, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
>     In terms of performance and when a packet is dropped or denied, 
> what's best to use?  iptables or hosts.deny ?  Let's assume for a
> moment here that one has a very long list of IP ranges that are being
> blocked, would using iptables to deny the ranges work better/faster
> than having hosts.deny block them?  Just wondering ... 

If iptables is running, then it's already had a look to see whether to
let the traffic through, or not.  Might as well make a decision about
not letting it through, at the same time.

I'd think that firewalling would be better, anyway.  Firewalling is
stopping traffic getting in or out, whereas hosts deny/allow is dealing
with something that's already got part way in.

-- 
[tim at bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.9-91.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.