On 2001.05.03 18:49:33 +0200 Andreas Fiesser wrote:

I've got a SuSE 7.0 box sitting between my home LAN and my DSL ISP. Among other services this host acts as a firewall for the LAN. The clients connect by masquerading or JunkBuster (running on the router) to the internet.

Theoretically the FW should keep all the bad boys/girls out by stealthing my ports.

How can I make sure that only those apps get out where I say it's OK ? I figure that this is no trivial task but maybe there are solutions to do this.

If your are using kernel 2.4.x and running a iptables based firewall, you can use the (experimental) feature to allow only special users, groups, processes or sessions. This feature is called "Owner match support". But it only works for localy users/processes.

Primarily I use Netscape to browse the Net and do my e-mails. Then I need a few programs to ftp outside.

I guess it's a bit tricky to know if any other software tries to establish connections ?

Sorry, if this sounds a bit naive but I'm wondering if my firewall thingy is actually any good in the days of spyware thrown at us users "to improve the knowledge about the needs of dear customers".

Gruß Jörg -- www.lug-untermain.de - Dipl.-Ing. Jörg Schütter joerg.schuetter@gmx.de