Linux and Firewalls

[Ish]

I'm just playing around but I've got a Linux installation on one of my PCs now. Regarding firewalls... do you need to run a seperate firewall like you do in Windows? Or is it usually configured with the distribution?

If its of any use I'm running a Mandrake Community 10.1 distribution that I setup as an Internet client.

I get the impression its 'all done' but better safe than sorry!

[dmg]

firewall'in is built into linux as standard, its called iptables and theres a stack of ways to configure it. The mandrake distros i've used installed shorewall by default which is more or less a nicer front end to iptables and easy to set up, i think when you install mandrake it asks you a few questions about what you'll using the machine for and it uses this to set up your iptables rules for you. a simple way of checking to see whats set up is by opening up a shell and typing "iptables -L", without the quotes and it list the rules that iptables is using.

[Pij]

Just to add my bit to what dmg has said.

I think Mandrake installs Shorewall and Webmin as standard. You can setup rules easy by going to http://127.0.0.1:10000 or the ipaddress of the PC.

under the Networking Tab theres a icon called Shorewall, thats just an easy to use gui for editing the conf file.

Alternativly i think theres a option for firewall in the system Center (its been years since ive used mandrake so i might be slightly wrong)