Chapter 11. Managing Firewalls

This chapter looks at the management of firewalls. From the perspective of the small office/home user, the firewall is a single device that protects the home network from malicious trafficit keeps out the "bad stuff" and provides the end user a more secure online experience. For the enterprise, the firewall can be both an inbound filter as well as an outbound filter depending on how the security policy calls for enforcing the edge network. Either way, the firewall (or in the case of enterprises, possibly firewalls) must be managed in one fashion or another. Typically, most manufacturers rely these days on a web interface. In the home market, this stems from the fact that a graphical user interface (GUI) is more intuitive to the end user, and therefore ostensibly easier to use, than a command-line interface (CLI). However, for the more daring at heart who so want, there are firewalls (namely the PIX, Linux IPTables, and Solaris IPF to name just a few) that can be managed solely from the CLI. This chapter covers such topics as default passwords, the maintenance of the underlying firewall platform for firewalls such as Linux's NetFilter, and managing firewalls through the CLI as well as a GUI. Finally, a discussion of management interfaces and common firewall management tasks is provided.