Hardware Firewall with blacklist

Jun 16, 2005 8 Replies

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Garry 21 years ago

Looking for suggestions please.

I am in need of a hardware firewall/router to serve about 40 PC's through 4 switches. I need to be able to restrict access to adult sites, so I guess I need support for blacklists. I have seen products (Netgear / Linksys) with a blocked site list feature, but they only allow url's to be added one at a time - I would like to copy/paste or upload an entire blacklist in one hit. Updating it monthly say.

Internally, we only require web access / msn messenger / email - no mail servers running internally.

The setup is very similar to what you might expect in an internet cafe, but with no user accounts, ie. everyone has equal access & is equally restricted from adult sites.

Budget is cheap - ie. less than $500 / £300

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, Garry.

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Charles Newman 21 years ago

Why dont you go for a business-level software solution, such as Websense, CyBlock, or SurfControl instead. Site lists are updated daily on all three products.

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Charles Newman 21 years ago

You would either have to set aside one PC to run the software filter, and you also need either a software firewall, or a hardware firewall appliance to put all the PCs behind.

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Mark 21 years ago

Sonicwall TZ170 Unrestricted Comprehensive Security bundle, ~$1500 US List (I'm sure someone sells em cheaper than that though)

You get a nice little hardware Firewall/VPN Appliance with - Intrusion Prevention (~4000 attack sigs) - Gateway AV (in the wild list ~5000 sigs) - Gateway Antispyware (~1400 sigs) - Content Filtering (think they use surfcontrols list) - Viewpoint Reporting (quite hand for the content filtering)

Take the $500 budget you have, figure how much time you'd spend doing blacklists, configuring linux boxes, but a $$$ figure on your time (for one year) and see how it works out. The firewall does some nice "internet usage policy" stuff for users to agree to AND the logging module is very handy.

Its 3 x your budget, but you have to figure the time factor in and weigh in the added Gateway AV/AntiSpyware bonus.

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John Mason Jr 21 years ago

I'll jump in with a URL or two

Smoothwall with Danguardian + AV

John

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Garry 21 years ago

Hi Charles,

Thanks for the quick reply. Pardon my ignorance, but would I have to install a software based solution on all 40 PC's, or do I need to set aside one PC to act as a firewall ?

Cheers, Garry.

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Wolfgang Kueter 21 years ago

If you want hardware, go to a hardware store and get a wire cutter.

Managing (long) black-lists results in an arms race and you'll lose it.

Install Linux or another free Uni* and use squid as a (transparent) proxy. Any old P3/400 or maybe a bit better with 256 MB of RAM and 4 GB disk space will do for that without problems.

Use an old PC and free software.

Wolfgang

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Michael Seidner 21 years ago

You can also check out the Astaro Security Gateway. The model 120 is priced at $995.00 for unlimited users. Our customers have been very happy with them. They are loaded with features. You can download the software for home use for free. Check out

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