m0n0wall vs. smoothwall

[xyyz]

while i've downloaded both, but used neither, i still have a bias for m0n0wall because i'm a total BSD (FreeBSD in particular) head.

i was reading that smoothwall has really nice features, but that it's rife with problems and often patches are issues to fix other patches.

m0n0wall also has a the ability to be a captive portal which really stands out to me.

anyways, anyone poke around with them? what can you tell me about how the compare?

 

[wlee]

Well, I've only used Smoothwall and I can tell you that the hardware requirements are *WAY* more than what they say it runs on. I've built up 2 boxes on Smoothwall 2.0 The first was a K6-350 w/ 256MB ram. The second a Celeron 500 ( Intel i810 ) w/ 512MB ram. The 350 was a pig. Very high latency. The 500 worked fairly well, but would also have high latency under load. Also, by default, the freeware vers have no outbound restrictions. Through the GUI anyway. You have to manually create an access list. I've just retired the 500 and put together another box using a Dell 2400 1.8Ghz and 512MB ram. This one is loaded with IPCop v1.4 which is a code fork of Smoothwall. With all the add-ons packages, it is a very nice setup. No latency probs, much easier to configure, *AND* does *NOT* require you to use vi or some other filthy UN*X text editor to config. ( I was using WinSCP anyway ) Monowall looks like it will run OK on the lesser hardware, but I wouldn't try less than a 350mhz and 256MB ram. You might want to read one of the reviews on it here
I'm sure n0cmonkey will be along soon enough to also tell you about the "efficiency" of PF vs IPTables and the advantages of BSD's CARP, etc.
Bottom line from my experience is that having a good firewall means you build it with OVERWHELMING HORSEPOWER.

 

[xyyz]

i dunno... i think it's on the package. because the pix 520, 535's were nothing more than a lowly intel p2 with not too much ram, and look how well they worked.

m0n0wall's requirements are pretty thredbare. these sokeris devices don't tote too much horsepower.

as for the entire BSD argument, i am complete agreement with monkey. the only problem is that m0n0wall doesn't use pf, it uses iptables. since freebsd has adopted pf, i wonder if the later versions will use that instead.

 

[wbresson]

NOT smoothwall, whatever that leaves over

 

[wbresson]

Originally posted by: xyyz
i dunno... i think it's on the package. because the pix 520, 535's were nothing more than a lowly intel p2 with not too much ram, and look how well they worked.

m0n0wall's requirements are pretty thredbare. these sokeris devices don't tote too much horsepower.

as for the entire BSD argument, i am complete agreement with monkey. the only problem is that m0n0wall doesn't use pf, it uses iptables. since freebsd has adopted pf, i wonder if the later versions will use that instead.

PIX 505 is an AMD 200 I believe

 

[Shaotai]

I'm using m0n0wall using the soekris 4805 box and it works great. this is on a t1 also. Well, we haven't got much traffic though it yet, but it has worked flawlessly so far...
The soekris 4805 box is basically a 486 amd chip with 64mb ram and it works wonder with the m0n0wall!

 

[Zuke]

I use ipcop for a 50 computer network through a cable modem. It runs on a pentium 166 with 32 megs of ram. Runs great, no problems at alll and is rock solid stable.

 

[jtusa]

I run smoothwall on a Pentium 200 with very good performance.

 

[ColdZero]

I'm running SW on a Celeron 400MHz, it filters traffic for a school of 600 kids, 80 or so computers. It is connected to a cable modem that hits easily 7mb/3mb. It also runs DansGuardian (a content filter) and ClamAV for all incoming HTTP traffic. We have no throughput issues, we even hit 10MB/s to our DMZ. One thing I've noticed is that smoothwall likes a lot of ram, the 400 has I believe 384 in it. At another school the computer that ran SW actually just broke and we're looking for something to run it on, but don't want to buy a 2.8ghz dell because it would be way overkill (we would like the support plan).

I really like SW and would recommend it the mod community is pretty big as well.