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> how would you compare the BSD-based firewall distros to the Linux-based firewall distros In terms of being a firewall, there's no difference. Both will open
by kogepathic 10y ago
> how would you compare the BSD-based firewall distros to the Linux-based firewall distros
In terms of being a firewall, there's no difference. Both will open and block ports as needed.
Where BSD excels over Linux is in the traffic shaping/manipulation capabilities. pf lets you simulate just about any kind of link you want (e.g. want to simulate a satellite connection with accurate latency? or want to simulate a 2G connection with high latency and high packet loss?)
So, as a static firewall, Linux/iptables is fine.
If you want to do any kind of link simulation or complex traffic shaping, BSD is far better.
- 293984j29384 10y agoCould you explain a bit more? I often do this on Linux using "tc" (traffic control) to simulate all types of links. What tools does BSD have that are superior?
- kogepathic 10y agoIt's been 5+ years since I did this testing. It's possible that the Linux ecosystem has caught up to BSD in this time. I was using pf to simulate links with specific attributes (e.g. latency, packet loss). Reading the documentation of tc, it seems like it would accomplish what I was doing. However the documentation I found for tc was quite old (mentioning kernels 2.2 and 2.4).