By Emmett Plant
Editor, Linux Today
The Linux community is filled with people who do security for a
living, and protect their networks with invaluable tools like
ipchains. On December 13th, these people will be given a free
opportunity to put another firewall solution through its paces.
That’s when Progressive Systems, Inc. will start giving away a
personal use version of its Phoenix Adaptive Firewall. According to
Progressive Systems, Phoenix is the first Linux firewall to be
certified by the International Computer Security Association
(ICSA). Progressive claims that the level of session support in the
fully-featured firewall allows it to secure desktops, home
networks, or low traffic servers. Beginning December 13, the
software can be downloaded from a variety of sites, including
Progressive’s home page, http://www.progressive-systems.com.
According to Alex Hutton, Director of Sales and Marketing at
Progressive Systems, the ‘personal use’ version is only good for
two ‘user’ connections, and is basically just a tool to see how
well it will hold up. Hutton suggested that it will do well for
people with small home networks.
The fact that Progressive’s firewall is ICSA-certified will be
important to some people in the purchasing seats at large
companies, but their current stance on Open Source and
security-through-obfuscation may not hold water with many seasoned
Linux administrators.
“As a security-focused company, we have to put the concerns of
the corporate user over the concerns of the open source ideal. If
we could get 99% of our users to upgrade to every patch, that would
be ideal and attractive to us, but patch rates aren’t near that
sort of return,” said Hutton.
It seems that Progressive’s biggest concern is that of inherent
security, and when queried by Linux Today, Hutton alluded to
several cases in which Apache and Sendmail were causing security
holes, and that patches had been made available for the system, but
70% of the installations never set up the patch. To Progressive,
opening up the source code would mean constant checking,
re-checking and patching, and that would mean that customers would
face a major security risk in the meantime.
While the personal use 2-user connection limit version will be
free, the standard version sells for $2995 with no connection
limits. SmartGate VPN from V-ONE is also available as an extension
to the Phoenix Adaptive Firewall.
Progressive Systems has no plans to Open Source the firewall
engine due to support issues and encryption laws, but they may Open
Source some of their other software technology, which is a step in
the right direction. Another good thing is that they’re not jumping
on a Linux bandwagon; Progressive has already been in the Linux and
UNIX business for quite a while.
“We chose Linux not for the ‘hype engine’, but for the facts
that Linux is fast and stable, and made our solution value
competitive with NT firewalls,” said Hutton.
For more information, visit the Progressive Systems Web site.