Firewalling with a webserver and DB

From: Bartel, Matt (Matt.Bartel_at_qg.com)
Date: 07/17/01


If I am running a setup as follows:
Internet<->Firewall<->DMZ<->Firewall<->Internal Network

and I am running webservers in the DMZ that need to pull info out of
databases (that hold confidential information), where is the best place to
put the db's??? If I put them in the internal network, I would have to make
a rule to allow the webservers to access the db's through the FW (which
defeats the point of the FW)...if I do not allow the webservers to go
through the FW, then they cannot access the db's, unless I would put them in
the DMZ...What is the safest way to do this? What would basic, sample rules
look like that would be optimal in this type of a setup be?

Also, one other really dumb question, while I'm on a roll:
I know that I should *only* allow port 80 into the DMZ, but do you allow
*ALL* ports to go out??? Doesn't the webserver use all different local
ports to talk out onto the Internet? If I wanted to do the following
(assuming there is no internal network):
Internet<->Firewall<->Webserver

Can I allow *only* port 80 to run through the FW to the Internet (both
ways)? I am using IIS 5, and I am under the belief that IIS opens ports
(source ports???) on the local machine to talk out to the world...If I only
allowed 80 to go out, wouldn't that effectively block the webserver from
talking onto the net, since it picks high ports (like 5000, or whatever)?

Thank you.
-Matt



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