do i need a firewall?

[jin29_neci]

hi guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ill be having my own cybercafe as soon as I get my loan approval!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
is there a way that im gonna buy a firewall software or is it important in a small business like a cybercafe to have a firewall!!!!!!!!!!1
and my cousin told that i must have at 3 anti-virus software cause theres a lot of virus in the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
he also told me that the trojan virus is really a headache!!!!!!!!111
could someone explain to me this firewall is it really needed or not in a small business like this!!!!!!!!!!!
and secondly is there a way to block this Trojan virus or is there a way to remove or deletre this virus incase my anti_virus detected but cant delted it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

help
and one more thing could someone help how to manage a cybercafe????????
just any sugeestion under the sun !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ithanks a lot and
GOD Bless You Always
Peace and Love in Christ

[i2c]

firewall is definatly needed! as your ip address is likely to be static, that said even dynamic ip's should have a firewall.

you might consider using a hardware solution such as coyote linux, it runs on a 486 have a search on google for it. look up iptables to.

Theres cyber cafe software availibale as open source, when i was in abroad i sent myself an email from a cafe just to see how there set up so i could look when i was home, ill get the name of it for you when i have time

antivirus is also gonna play a big part, the amount of people that will download onto your machines and not give a sh*t what it does will be quite large, I think you just need to keep a good AV up to date rather than having 3 installed, and sometimes having multiple ones installed can lead to one attacking another ones pattern files and trying to clean it. Meaning that it actually looks like you have every single viri under the sun, when you actually dont..
hope that helps a little

i2c

[kryptonic]

Yes a firewall is a great idea. You wouldnt want to be infectid with a trofan or virus would you?

[i2c]

I think this is the one that was running in the cafe I used, it seemed very affective, I dont no whether youve got your own idea's about management solutions for your cafe but this one looks good,

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openkiosk/

also if you go to www.sourceforge.net and search for "cybercafe" there are loads of results regarding management solutions.

Are your computers gonna be full computers or diskless clients? how are you planning to set up the lan to enable internet connectivity to all computers?

i2c

[instronics]

Also, use Ghost by symantec, over a network. That way, you can reinstall every computer every morning or whenever needed. That will also save you alot of headaches. As for a firewall, i would recomend you setup an old computer somewhere, and let it act as a firewall/gateway. Maybe even implement a proxy server, to help with cache, url control, and so on. ( www.devil-linux.org for the firewall/proxy, it runs of a live cd, no Harddisk or installation needed. Has the advantage of being read only ) As for the anti virus, i dont recoment having more than 1 since more might interfeer with each other. Also get adaware from lavasoft, its a good anti-spyware program.

If you need a really GOOD internet cafe software, a friend of mine has made one. Its not free though, but its an excellent aplication giving you full control over every client, including time, drinks, pre paid access, extras, terminals, normal tables etc..... its a mix of a cafe and internet access software. PM me for details on that specific program, then i can give you his email address if your interested.

Cheers.

[the_JinX]

Originally posted here by jin29_neci
hi guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ill be having my own cybercafe as soon as I get my loan approval!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did youwrite that load application in the same way ??????????/??/

I'd hope not !!!!!!!!!11!!!1


thx i2c for the kiosk link, looks cool.. worth cheking out..

Also I wanna stress what some other members here have allready pointed out.. More then one AV product is usualy not a good idea, although I could see how installing one product on the clients and a different product on the gateway (proxy) would be a good idea..

Also think about a "logging" mechanism.. You don't want someone doing something "illegal" on your net and you getting the blame for it..
If you have good log files to show, you can help catch the real perp instead of going to jail for something he/she did..

[Vinoth]

It Depends upon, how much trojans or spywares get into your system.


so firewall ensures your online privacy/

[djscribble]

we have a couple of "cyber cafes" on my college campus, and we use a combination of hard drive-less stations that run a live version of linux... it works out really well because we are able to get away with using Cyrix 266's which is really cheap to replace since they take an huge beating...

if that doesn't seem to be what you are looking for, we also have computer labs that use a combination of symantec ghost and deep freeze. the reason we use this combination is because even though deep freeze is good to stop the common/occasional computer user, we have ppl trying to setup torrent servers and serve PS2 games and other things that can get the university in trouble. so they have found a way to disable deep freeze (i won't go into details because that is beyond the scope of your question) long enough to make it so that they can put their servers in there... when that happens or if we need to deploy critical patches or other software upgrades, ghost is a Godsend since it makes it so much easier to mantain our labs.

[Cybr1d]

so firewall ensures your online privacy/

Thats not what a firewall does. A firewall prevents harmful programs from entering your computer, or at least dialing out of your computer without you knowing about it. I.E. BargainBuddy gets in your computer somehow, and it needs to connect to the internet to download more ****. A firewall will warn you, and you can stop bargain buddy from connecting. A firewall also helps prevent hackers from entering your computer.

For the internet cafe, you'll need both A router, a software firewall, an Antivirus, and every week you need to clean them up of the junk that users install in them.

This is the software I use for my internet cafe : http://www.antamedia.com/caffe/

Remember, you will not be making any money the first couple of months. How many computers are you going to install? I paid $3500 for 6 computers and$2500 for the games. for certain games you'll need to buy one for each computer, For example you'll need to buy 5 Call of Duty games for 5 computers because they won't be able to use the Same CD key at the same time.

A couple of Xboxes and PS2s will also please customers and could bring in revenue.

[AngelicKnight]

They all hit it on the head. Firewall good. Mutliple antivirus programs on one machine bad.

Xboxes very good. That will protect you from boredom infections.

So, you're just a wee tad excited about this cafe thing aren't you?