Re: The best GUI for ipchains and/or iptables?

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From: Alan Guy <nospam@myhouse.com>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 20:56:27 -0400

> Simple question: which is the best GUI for either ipchains or
> iptables? Is their one that is much more popular than the
> rest, or are none worth the hassle.

Stephen, I came to linux from Windows where it was rare that I
did anything NOT from a gui.

When I came to Linux, just a few months ago the FIRST thing I
wanted to do was get a firewall going. Just a stand-alone pc
with a dial-up ISP.

I struggled with iptables and felt I just couldn't get the hang
of it. I was always questing for a nice gui to build the wall
for me.

What I found was the the GUIs were as complicated (to me) as
the straight-up iptables were. For the most part they even
seemed to require a pretty good working knowledge of iptables
in order to create the rules via the GUI. If not, they were
just complicated in their own right, with a learning curve
seemingly as tough as the iptables themselves. And the *lack*
of good firewalling really kept me from enjoying Linux.

In desperation, one Saturday evening, I printed out all the
iptables literature I had (just the basic tutorials really);
sat down in the La-z-boy, kicked back with the Cartoon Channel
(Ed, Edd and Eddie were on for 8 hours that night).

In about 30 minutes it all fell in place. iptables just all of
a sudden made sense to me.

So after about 3 months of whatever it was that made me quest
for a firewall GUI - I came to the same conclusion that most of
the other folks have told you: the easiest and least
complicated way for you to firewall with Linux is to do it
yourself. Honest-to-God, that's the truth.

If you *insist* on questing for that GUI, your just wasting
time and in the end - you're STILL gonna wind up *thinking* in
iptables, but pointing and clicking with a mouse at a GUI.
It'll just take you longer to build the firewall you want.

You'll get where you want to get FASTER, if you just knuckle
down and learn the iptables from the git-go.

Anyways, that's how *i* see it.

hth - Alan

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