I know this is probably a tall order, however, I have a spare PC with a couple of network cards. I would like to change it into a firewall & proxy. Just to learn more about firewalls / security and web caching.
In the past I've installed linux / iptables / squid / fwbuilder etc. However, it took a lot to get it compiled running and configured. It was a little more work and a little less elegant then I originally intended. Although I learned a lot, this time I am looking for a cleaner (simpler) solution. One where I could manage the entire thing from an fwbuilder type interface and one that would work 'out of box' so to speak.
Do I need to go a Linux route with iptables / squid manually built by hand. Configure OS / IP-Tables / FW-builder / SQUID or some equivalent solutions or are there already free canned distro/appliances that will let me remotely push a firewall policy onto this machine and manage its proxy settings from a remote location. (Save my trip to the basement). Hopefully this solution has some sort of free IDS type detection built in as well. Thank you in advance and please point me in the right direction if at all possible.