Timothy
Parker Consulting Incorporated
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Phoenix Adaptive Firewall Progressive Systems’ Phoenix Adaptive Firewall is, as the
name suggests, a firewall product. It
can run on a variety of platforms but the product I reviewed was interesting
because it ran on the Cobalt Networks’ Qube system. I wrote about the Qube in a previous column and was suitably
impressed by its ability to provide small companies with a turnkey gateway
solution. Adding the Phoenix
Adaptive Firewall to the mix simply makes the Qube even better suited as a
solution. (Late-breaking news: Cobalt Networks is in the process of acquiring
Progressive Systems, so they obviously think the Phoenix Firewall is a good
match for their product!) The Qube, for those who have forgotten and don’t want to
check out the earlier column on the Cbiz Web site (or tpci.com) is a small
plug-and-play appliance preconfigured with Linux and all the software you need
to run a gateway and Web server for a small company. Installing the Progressive Systems version of the Qube is
simple: plug in the network connector, turn on the power, and use the back
panel’s buttons and small LCD display to configure an IP address for the Qube
both for the internal network and the connection to the outside world (an ISP).
Next, go to any machine on the internal network and enter the internal IP
address in a web browser (any operating system), and there’s your Phoenix
Adaptive Firewall configuration screen. Simple, fast, and easy.
I set these beasties up in about fifteen minutes from opening the box to
walking away. The documentation that accompanies the Phoenix Adaptive
Firewall package is good, but lacks any images or real explanation of what’s
going on internally. A little more
care (and a lot more illustrations) would make the document more user-friendly.
On the positive side a small three-fold single page instruction sheet
contains everything you need to know to install and machine and get the IP
addresses set properly. Configuring the firewall requires a little preplanning.
You have to decide what the firewall will block and what it will let
through, just as you would with any firewall product.
You should, of course, read the manual.
If, like many of us, you skip this stage, you’ll be pleasantly
surprised by the ease with which the menu-driven system lets you configure the
firewall for use. The prompts and explanations are more than enough for simple
firewall setups. There are many firewall packages available for Linux and
other operating systems, but Phoenix Adaptive Firewall is one of the easiest and
best configured for its price (especially since you get the Qube included in the
setup I tested). There’s all the
usual setup options for blocking specific protocols and services such as telnet,
FTP, and so on. There’s also a
packet filtering capability to block port scanning and sniffing routines (which
are rampant these days). You can
choose to block specific multimedia file formats such as RealAudio and
StreamWorks. And the setup for a
VPN (Virtual Private Networks: read my earlier series on VPNs for more
information) is excellent and easy to use.
In short, this is a flexible and versatile firewall product.
I was impressed with its simplicity of configuration and completeness as
a firewall. What about its ability to prevent hacking?
Among the many things I do, I test network security for several large
companies and military bases (as well as write a lot of reviews about hacking
techniques and preventing breakins). While
I was testing Phoenix Adaptive Firewall I was writing a comparison article on
firewall software for a large Linux magazine.
On hand I had a half dozen firewall packages, ranging from shareware to
very expensive, all for Linux. Since
Phoenix Adaptive Firewall was already installed on a Linux server (well, it
could be interpreted that way), I included it in the testing regimen too. Phoenix Adaptive Firewall managed to block all the usual
hacker access methods with ease, including all the Linux-based hack tools (about
three dozen) in my test suite. It
prevented any network spoofing, port scanning, and denial-of-service attacks
with ease. Getting through the
Phoenix Adaptive Firewall would require an ill-configured installation and a lot
of knowledge. Is the software
impervious to attack? Of course
not: nothing is. There are lots of
new hacks coming on the market, but the ability to download upgrades from the
Web makes Phoenix Adaptive Firewall useful. I’m not quite sure where the “adaptive” in the product name arises because usually I would interpret this to mean the software learns from attacks and adapts itself to prevent them in the future. This isn’t the case: the firewall does what you configure it to do. Still, there may be some routine in the software I didn’t uncover in the testing period. I also didn’t test Phoenix Adaptive Firewall on any other platform than the Qube, but presumably it is equally at home on other operating systems. After playing with the Qube and Phoenix Adaptive Firewall, though, I can’t think of any reason not to buy the combination. It’s as good as a reasonably-priced turnkey firewall can get. |
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