[ale] Really liking SmoothWall 3.0

[Bruce]

I weighed between rolling my own firewall/proxy
server, installing IPCop or installing SmoothWall 3.0
I had previously done a "roll yer own" from bits 'n
pieces of Debian, then tried (and liked) IPCop. This
time, I figured I'd try SmoothWall.

Installation was a snap! My one gotcha was trying to
load drivers for my second nic - a Netgear FA-311. I
tried a bunch 'o times. Then, after getting ready to
take the PC apart (again) - I noticed no lights were
on on the Netgear card. No link beat, no nothing.
Can't bring a dead card up!!!! Off to pick up a new
card, and it was a snap!

Later in the day, two of my kids were in the kitchen,
and I explained that the firewall was back up, and
that I was thinking of installing filtering again. One
kid told me the sites he went to - and I told him I
knew where he had gone (Lego, Star Wars, Club
Penguin). While showing them, I noticed where the
third - conspicously absent - kid was surfing!

That made me change my mind about holdng off on
filtering! I installed DansGuardian and had the
default config running in 5 minutes.

Setting up a transparent proxy was a breeze! Filtering
was quick and easy. Couldn't ask for more.


       
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