Recommendations for Firewall / Web Filtering

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

All,

The school has recently change ISP's and our old ISP has taken back their Cisco PIX 515e Firewall. I have a temporary solution in place but would like a rack mounted appliance.

 

The schools current web filter is a Barracuda device, but it's now developed a habit of freezing which I think is down to its age.

 

So in short I'm looking for a device(s) that will do the above.

[jamesreedersmith]

Look at a Smoothwall UTM - they are great

[irsprint84]

We have sonicwall which is quite decent but if you can stump the extra cash get a smoothwall

[jamesfed]

Forefront TMG here - works a treat (you do need your own 2k8R2 server to run it on though) and educational price is fantastic.

[glennda]

I'm just looking for open source firewalls and was recommended to look at smoothwall express, Endian and Ipcop. But the first two will only allow you to have multiple ip's on the single nic

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

already have the smoothwall guys coming to see me, but thanks. Edited April 30, 2011 by Geek_of_HeathMount

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

I'm running smoothwall express, but was told by smoothwall support that it only supports a single ip. I will have a closer look at Endian

[john]

Another vote for Smoothwall UTMs, they are very much worth it Love ours and they are that good our entire county is getting them to replace the former centralised systems with a new de-centralised system with the UTMs being the heart of this system in each school

[jcollings]

We've just ordered Smoothwall too. So far the demo looks good and Rob at Smoothwall has been excellent. Looking forward to getting it up and running.

[john]

We've just ordered Smoothwall too. So far the demo looks good and Rob at Smoothwall has been excellent. Looking forward to getting it up and running.

 

Another local user You won't regret your choice, if you fancy a trip to my place to see it in action with the kids hammering through it always welcome to visit.

[Sylv3r]

Smoothwall - rubbish Nah all seriousness, we've been a happy Smoothwall company for around 3 years or so now.

 

Good support, and yes theres initial outlay first for the hardware if your looking at the UTM. But annual costs soon come down - all based on the number of devices that are on your network, if it's quite a small network costs should be pretty reasonable. Our LA have been looking at a county wide solution, but it looks like they choose Bloxx and not the smoothwall option.

[john]

Smoothwall - rubbish Nah all seriousness, we've been a happy Smoothwall company for around 3 years or so now.

 

Good support, and yes theres initial outlay first for the hardware if your looking at the UTM. But annual costs soon come down - all based on the number of devices that are on your network, if it's quite a small network costs should be pretty reasonable. Our LA have been looking at a county wide solution, but it looks like they choose Bloxx and not the smoothwall option.

 

Really how ironic I'm sure @tom_newton agrees with me on that one as he knows what I'm on about lol All I can say is they have made a very wrong choice

[cpjitservices]

you could build your own, maybe with an ubuntu machine with squid and Dansguardian or something like Zentyal or IPCOp which has firewall capabilities and they all have HTTP Proxy Filtering and Throttling. Or you could go to eBay and find a cheap PIX515E, I got an old 505 off of there years back and I sold it and it's now being used on a council network.

[localzuk]

We're still looking at this ourselves, and so far we've got PaloAlto, Smoothwall and Watchguard in our shortlist. All cost around the same too, except for Watchguard which is a bit cheaper.

[dhicks]

But the first two will only allow you to have multiple ip's on the single nic

 

ZeroShell is free and will do load balancing and failover of multiple connections for you. I've used it in the past to do the load balancing / failover bit and then used Smoothwall to do the actual filtering. This is handy to know both from a technical point of view (if you actually need a load balancing / failover solution) and a price-negotiation point of view ("We don't need to pay £extra for the added load balancing / failover feature of Smoothwall, we can provide our own." "Drat. Call it £50?" "Okay then.").

 

The same goes for the YouTube-URL-approval feature which several people were selling at BETT this year (Bloxx in particular, I think), that's quite easy to sort out yourself with a separate Squid-based filter.

[Iain.Faulkner]

+1 for Smoothwall UTM, had it in for about a month now, very impressed.

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

you could build your own, maybe with an ubuntu machine with squid and Dansguardian or something like Zentyal or IPCOp which has firewall capabilities and they all have HTTP Proxy Filtering and Throttling. Or you could go to eBay and find a cheap PIX515E, I got an old 505 off of there years back and I sold it and it's now being used on a council network.

 

Just looked at ebay and there are quite a few PIX515E's for sale, but how does a PIX515E compare to smoothwall UTM device. Should I go for the PIX or hold out for the smoothwall. I've got until the end of the week when I will be sitting down with the Bursar to ask for the money

[RTFM]

We went a slightly different direction and have a UTM300 firewall and an SWG1200 for filtering (so one box isnt doing both bits of work).

 

Still all Smoothwall and v.happy with it.

 

[tom_newton]

Just looked at ebay and there are quite a few PIX515E's for sale, but how does a PIX515E compare to smoothwall UTM device. Should I go for the PIX or hold out for the smoothwall. I've got until the end of the week when I will be sitting down with the Bursar to ask for the money

 

Cisco is a great firewall, but won't offer filtering. Also if you are new to Cisco you may find the learning curve a bit steep. It will do what you want out of a firewall tho.

[RabbieBurns]

we ended up going with these guys after trialling a load over a year.. Fortinet, Inc. : Network Security Appliance | Network Security | Business Network Security

 

works well, and the fact they had local support here in syd was the decisive factor.

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

Cisco is a great firewall, but won't offer filtering. Also if you are new to Cisco you may find the learning curve a bit steep. It will do what you want out of a firewall tho.

 

Not into steep learning curves, as I don't really have the time. So I'll look forward to your sales guy phone call on Tuesday.