Firewalls for the everyday
Not Just for Experts
Firewalls are becoming evermore sophisticated. Luckily, the tools for managing firewalls are becoming simpler and more accessible for ordinary users
Your computer lets you see the world, but you don’t want the world to see you. Intruders are becoming more sophisticated, and it isn’t enough anymore to hope they won’t notice your inconspicuous workstation. If you’re connected to the Internet, you’d better be behind some kind of firewall. Firewalls come in many sizes, shapes, prices, and designs. Interestingly enough, what used to be called a firewall is now only one of a wide range of security products. The traditional firewall is a form of router that resides in Layer 3 of the OSI reference model. Layer 3 is the layer of the stack that listens for the Internet Protocol, reads IP addresses, and makes decisions about where to route IP datagrams. A firewall additionally inspects the Layer 4 (TCP or UDP) headers to identify services and evaluate flags.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.