DragonFly vs Linksys as firewall and Gateway

[Erik Wikström]

On 2007-12-28 17:55, Stephane Russell wrote:
> This is a very general post. I've just buy a Linksys Wireless router,
> and it comes with a router, a firewall with forwarding and natting
> capability and a DHCP server. I'm wondering if it's a equivalent choice
> (for speed, security, etc) to use such a router for my network, or if it
> just can't be as good as a BSD like DFBSD. For now, since 1996, my
> FreeBSD, then DFBSD was never cracked, and it's not because nobody is
> making any attempt.
> 
> For one, DFBSD is supporting IPv6, but not the router (yet). So it's
> already a plus for DFBSD. On the other side, by using my DFBSD as a
> firewall, I'm exposing my file and print server directly on the net.
> Also, the router is very little maintenance compare to a full server.
> Another plus for DFBSD is backdoor control. Maybe I'm traumatised by the
> movie "The Net", with Sandra Bullock. Nobody can verify if Cisco is
> providing it's router with backdoors, or bugs at least, while this can
> be easilly verified and fixed with an open source OS like DFBSD.
> 
> For now, I still think a true open source OS is a better choice for this
> kind of task.

I prefer to use BSD (Open in my case) instead of some commercial product
mostly because they are infinitely more configurable. If I one day
decide that I want functionality foo then I can pretty be sure that I
can add that to my router. If I used commercial product then I am stuck
with what the vendor though that I needed.

PS. Some Linksys routers can run Linux, and perhaps also BSD, if that is
the case it might be an attractive choice.

-- 
Erik Wikström