Implementing a Firewall

After you establish the basic security function of i5/OS, it's time to implement a firewall.

A firewall is a combination of hardware and software that controls access between your system and the Internet. While technically it is not necessary to install a firewall to connect to the Internet, you would be foolish to go without one. It's like driving a car without wearing a seatbelt. You don't need it until something bad happens, and when it does, a seat belt can save your life.

Here are the benefits of a firewall:

• Control access to your system.

• Concentrate and simplify security administration.

• Protect services, such as network file systems.

• Improve system availability by blocking denial of service attacks.

• Provide statistics of network use and attempted misuse.

If you don't already have one, you should consider a PC firewall product. You want your firewall separated from your main processing. This can be a firewall on a stand-alone server, or possibly a firewall running on a separate iSeries partition using either AIX or Linux.

Tip 

The typical configuration is a dedicated Web server and a firewall to protect the internal network