On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Michel Py wrote: > Daniel, > > I agree with the rest of your post, however > > > Since NAPT uses stateful inspection to operate, when referring to NAPT, we are talking about rinetd, right? you can run that on a linux box with two network interfaces (ethernet, ppp, token ring, serial, whatever) to distribute the network service load around your lan (or across the internet, for that matter). combine that with snort or so, and iptables, and you have a firewall, do you not? > > I think I don't agree with this. I would say that NAPT is a stateful > process but not that it uses inspection. By "inspection" I understand a > more intelligent process that decapsulates packets and looks for "bad" > things inside them, which is a separate function. > > In other words, there is a difference between 'stateful' and 'stateful > inspection'. 'Stateful' is a feature of both NAPT boxes and firewalls; > 'stateful inspection' is a feature of more sophisticated firewalls only; > if you happen to find a NAPT box that does stateful inspection (the $50 > ones don't) it could indeed be called a firewall. > > Michel. > > > sleekfreak pirate broadcast world tour 2002-3 live from the pirate hideout http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81