Are newbies running a firewall?

[Mike Teehan]

On Sunday 06 May 2007 01:29:32 pm Chris Maaskant wrote:
> I've been using kubuntu 7.04 for a few weeks now after been using debian
> etch for a while, and one of the first things i noticed was that no
> firewall is running after a default install.
> I thought this to be strange for a newbie friendly (i'm no newbie) distro.
>
> Anyway, i installed firestarter and it ran fine, but it won't startup as
> the system boots.
> This is a known
> bug:https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firestarter/+bug/42759
>
> It seems that this problem exists since ubuntu edgy.
> OK so i tryed guarddog (wich i don't like) and it woudn't run at all!
>
> Because the firestarter problem has to do with networkmanager i decided to
> remove networkmanager because it is useless to me anyway because i only
> have a cable connection.
> After that firestarter works fine.
>
> But that made me wonder, since kubuntu seems to aim towards newbies, how
> many of them are running kubuntu without a firewall?
> Even if a newbie decides to install firestarter it would appear to be
> running fine until after a reboot, how many would notice?
>
> I don't now if these problems also occur in ubuntu, but it would be strange
> if it didn't cause it's not kde related.
>
> So are newbies running a firewall,and how insecure is this?
>
> Chris Maaskant.

If you are running Kubuntu behind some sort of NAT device, then you probably 
don't need a software firewall at all when the hardware (router) is already 
providing one.  Generally speaking, most Linux distros ship with a minimum of 
services enabled by default.

Firewalls are a good idea on servers with real live internet IPs, but for most 
other home-type uses, I don't really see them doing much good.  Unless your 
distro of choice ships with file sharing enabled...

--- eMpTy
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