IPCop vs SmoothWall

[henry95]

I am currently running IPCop with the CopFilter addon.

I know IPCOP is based off of SmoothWall but does anyone know if one is better than the other?

[nihil]

I am no expert, but IPCop is a GPL product and Smothwall has turned towards being a commercial product.

So, if you want it free then IPCop would seem to be the choice as it has its own development and support.

I believe that there is a GPL version of Smoothwall, but I don't think it is being developed and I would expect them to concentrate more on their commercial product?

[brokencrow]

I know IPCOP is based off of SmoothWall but does anyone know if one is better than the other?

I was under the impression it was the other way around...

[nihil]

This is a bit old, but it does give the history:

http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1556

It broke away from Smoothwall when they went commercial.

[brokencrow]

Oops, I stand corrected.

I've used both. Can't say which is best, though I opted for IP Cop most recently. I learned a lot from running Smoothwall though.

[henry95]

Originally posted here by brokencrow
Oops, I stand corrected.

I've used both. Can't say which is best, though I opted for IP Cop most recently. I learned a lot from running Smoothwall though.

what kind of stuff did you learn in smoothwall? I run a hardware firewall mostly for learning purposes, so I would like to know what you learned from it.

Thanks for the replies fellas!

[brokencrow]

Reading logs and doing whois's. I think Smoothwall keeps better logs. I gotta admit I was surprised at all them "furriners" who came a-knockin' on my door, especially from the North China Railroad.

[henry95]

yeah tell me about it. I can't even count how manys times I been "hit" with MS-SQL attacks.

[576869746568617]

nihil,

Hello my old friend! Hope everything is ok (is your tom still bossing you around?)

On the freeware version of smoothwall, they do still support and update it...kind of. They use the freeware version as a beta testbed to test new features and improvements to be incorporated in the retail version.

As far as I can tell, the only plus to using smoothwall over IPCop is the support that smoothwall offers, and as a prior smoothwall user, I can tell you the support is pretty good (or at least my experience with them was, may not be indicitave of their support program as a whole.)

Cheers!