[BBLISA] Home router/NAT/firewall linux software?

[John Stoffel]

Alex> My project: build a home firewall/NAT box on which I can have a
Alex> web app where my kids check off when they have done their chores
Alex> in order to get screen time (aka internet access).

So what's to stop them from just checking off the boxes any way?  :-) 

Alex> The web app I can write. I can build a firewall/NAT box by hand
Alex> in iptables, but do I have to?

Alex> On the one hand, I found several complete distributions that do
Alex> this: m0n0wall, smoothwall, etc. On the other hand, what I would
Alex> like is software that does most of what those bundled
Alex> distributions do that I can install on my existing linux
Alex> system. In that realm all I have found is use raw iptables or
Alex> things called apf and csf, which appear to be geared towards an
Alex> ISP rather than a home network; in particular, I would worry
Alex> that they would take over and clobber the NAT configs. So my
Alex> question is, can one get the nice software built for the
Alex> m0n0wall or smoothwall distros as standalone packages that can
Alex> be installed on any other linux? (In my case Scientific Linux, a
Alex> RHEL clone).

I personally would look at adding to smoothwall, or maybe the latest
version of m0n0wall which is based on FreeBSD 8 (9?) and has PHP
already there.  But the nice thing is that I think you can actually
just run this app anywhere, and have it hook into the router to
open/close ports at need.