Telco's write best practices for packet switching networks

Wed Mar 6 14:40:25 UTC 2002

On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 09:41:55AM -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> 
> In message <gu9ofi1rcwe.fsf at rampart.argfrp.us.uu.net>, Eric Brandwine writes:
> 
> >
> >Firewalls are good things for general purpose networks.  When you've
> >got a bunch of clueless employees, all using Windows shares, NFS, and
> >all sorts of nasty protocols, a firewall is best practice.  Rather
> >than educate every single one of them as to the security implications
> >of their actions, just insulate them, and do what you can behind the
> >firewall.
> >
> >When you've got a deployed server, run by clueful people, dedicated to
> >a single task, firewalls are not the way to go.  You've got a DNS
> >server.  What are you going to do with a firewall?  Permit tcp/53 and
> >udp/53 from the appropriate net blocks.  Where's the protection?  Turn
> >off unneeded services, chose a resilient and flame tested daemon, and
> >watch the patchlist for it.
> 
> Precisely.  You *may* need a packet filter to block things like SNMP 
> (to name a recent case in point), but a general-purpose firewall is 
> generally the wrong solution for appliance computers.

Hmm...but certainly part of the right solution for a general "appliance"
network.

-ron