Arch Linux

robot5x

Member

Registered: 2004-01-26

Posts: 266

Is iptables good for a basic one-pc setup?

Hi all,
I just moved from a place where I was on a secure network - now it's just my computer and a cable modem and I'm interested in seriously looking at how to make it secure.
I'm not afraid of delving into iptables but I read a few articles which stated that it's probably not the right thing for a single workstation - my needs are not extensive, all I want to do is browse the internet and have the relevant ports left open to use bittorrent. That's it - no fancy stuff.
I found a small programme called levy on the gShield site which may be more appropraite - anyone have any input on this? Is there a more simple way of fulfilling my needs? Maybe iptables is the best thing around?
Thanks.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Is iptables good for a basic one-pc setup?

From muse.linuxmafia.org
levy is a perl script which generates a basic iptables rulesets based on a given external interface and a set of ports to open.

In other words, if you decide to use levy, you'll end up using iptables - levy simply makes rule creation a bit easier.

I haven't used it myself, but it could be a good place to start. Let levy sort you out initially, then examine the rules it creates, and start writing your own.

There are a lot of tools out there that do this kind of thing - google some more and you'll find them.

robot5x

Member

Registered: 2004-01-26

Posts: 266

Re: Is iptables good for a basic one-pc setup?

Thanks tomk - I had previously followed iceram's advice by using gshield to create a rules file. It was pretty heavy going though and I wasn't sure if it was set up properly. Anyway, I managed to use it to get iptables started and it seemed to be working OK. I tried levy too but iptables wouldn't start when I tried to use the file it generated....
so I tried arno's iptables script as suggested here which seems pretty easy to set up - there's even arch-specific instructions
The thing I really need set up properly is allowing bittorrent uploads - at the moment I'm getting about 50kb/s and nothing uploaded so I'll probably be kicked off the tracker soon...

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,914

Website

Re: Is iptables good for a basic one-pc setup?

Wow that links is great ,set up in minutes ....now just got to check settings ...

would be nice to see set up in Wiki 

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Mr Green