A little more than three years ago I started writing about my search for the perfect home firewall. Well, I'm still looking. I gave up on consumer routers/firewalls since they really didn't offer the kinds of features I was looking for.
So the plan is to setup a low power mini-itx box and try out some open-source or commercial firewall products that have free versions.
My requirements are pretty straightforward:
- SPI
- Squid
- Snort
- WAN, DMZ, multiple LAN, Wireless interfaces
- Suitable for embedded or low-power systems
- User friendly GUI
- Captive Portal
- Load balancing
- VPN Support
Here's the short list:
Astaro
ClearOS
eBox
Endian
IPCop
IPFire
Monowall
PfSense
Smoothwall
Untangle
Vyatta
ZeroShell
I found this comparison to be very helpful: Feature overview of Linux and BSD firewall and router distributions.
