Ubuntu

Could I get some advice on firewalls please

Asked by Ian Brownlie

 I'm looking for an effective firewall, I run gutsy, and at the moment I'm using "firestarter". However I know there is somebody intruding into my computer. My email has been hacked, the lights on my router are flashing madly when I know there's nobody on the net at my end. Please advise me as to what protection I need.
               Ian

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Jim Hutchinson
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Olexandr Zanichkovsky (ozanichkovsky) said : 		#1

What about using Shoreline Firewall (shorewall package)?

http://www.shorewall.net/

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Best Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#2

Ubuntu has an effective firewall built in. It's called iptables.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo

Firestarter is a front end for it but very limited compared to what iptables can do. I also just discovered a cool little tool called iptraf. It can tell you want traffic, what port and what IP among other things. It runs in a terminal and is pretty easy to use. Install it with

sudo apt-get install iptraf

and then run with

sudo iptraf

It may be useful in determining the cause of the traffic. There are many other tools like this, but this is one was quite easy to use and gave simple, easy to read output.

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Ian Brownlie (ibrownlie) said : 		#3

Thanks Jim Hutchinson, that solved my question.

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Ian Brownlie (ibrownlie) said : 		#4

    Thanks for the quick response fellas, the guys in the ubuntu network are amazing.
            Ian