Who's Knocking at My Door?
By Brian Wilson
Did you just get a DSL connection? Now you've got a high-speed, always-on connection. These connections are great. However, "always-on" means that you're always exposed to uninvited visitors. I've watched the logs on my firewall and it regularly blocks access attempts, even on my DSL-connected home PC. Could it be the neighbors' kids? Whoever it is, I don't want them inside my network.
Initially, I built my own firewall with a Linux system. I did this as a security measure but also to allow all my computers to share a single connection to the Internet, and to let me use one static IP among all my systems by running Network Address Translation (NAT). With NAT, you can have a whole network of computers behind your firewall appear as one IP address to the outside world. This is cheaper than buying extra IP addresses from my ISP, because they charge more for that. It's more secure, because outsiders can't probe your networks to find out how many computers you have.
But even if you have the expertise to build your own Linux firewall, it will still take time and tie up a computer in the process. Instead, consider purchasing one of the current crop of gateway routers, such as the Asante FR3004 or FR3004LC.
Asante FriendlyNet Cable/DSL Router
Asante
www.asante.com
About $180 for the FR3004 model, $200 for the FR3004LC |
The prices have come down on what are being called cable/DSL or gateway routers—most are under $200.
