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Thread: Layered Firewalls?

  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Posts
    6

    Question Layered Firewalls?

    Hi, I want to be clear on where packets are being filtered within my particular home network.

    I am currently sitting behind a soho router with NAT, ip filter, mac filter, firewall capabilities. ( D-Link 614+) Now although this is a wifi router, I am only using the wired ports.


    At any rate my question is... is there a difference in the OSI layer that this hardware router is filtering on as opposed to my software ZoneAlarm firewall?

    My thought is that the router is filtering at layer 2, but Zonealarm filters only after packets have hit my system, at layer 4 perhaps? I know this must seem trivial to most of you but I'm just getting lost in the layers here.
    For instance say that I was only running ZoneAlarm, would that mean that I begin filtering only at layer 4?
    What if I just had the router, but I am using ip filtering on it, does that constitute filtering at layer 2 and 4? In this case layer 4 because of the ip filter rules and not ZoneAlarm.

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Posts
    707
    Does this answer a bit of your question :

    Firewall White Paper - OSI & TCP/IP Network Models
    The ISO Layering Model

    If not feel free to correct me.
    Operation Cyberslam
    \"I\'ve noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.\" Author Unknown
    Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit
    Proyecto Ututo EarthCam

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Posts
    6
    Right on the money thanks, much appreciated.

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