I am looking for a good standalone firewall in $1000 - $2000 range for
a small business (ie none of those personal firewalls). I would like a
list of the top three choices (as you seem them) with links to the
reviews that lead you to these choices. These reviews should be ones
done by companies/sites that have a history of good reviewing.
    Unless your research leads you to believe there is no other choice
I do not want to, in any way, roll my own.  I want something that
comes will full support and a good company behind it. It can be a
blackbox or require I supply a PC.
  It must allow me to explicitly add a list of approved MAC
addresses (or in converse block all but a small set of address) for
certain protocols. If none of the top firewall's seem to support this,
please still give me the list of the top ones plus the best one that
does handle this.
   Finally, the price range I gave at the top is what I am willing to
pay. If it can be done for $500, great.  If it just can't be done for
less then $2000 please give me the best choice for under $2000 but
also let me know what I would have to pay for a "real" solution.

---

Clarification of Question by lorin-ga on 22 Nov 2002 17:16 PST

BTW - in case it is important by small business I mean supporting
about 12 PC's and a couple of servers with a business DSL line.

I have done some research into your question, and I have come up with
many different options.

Firstly, there are the "Firewall Appliance" options. These are
plug-and-play boxes you simply put between your network and the
Internet, and are normally configurable through a simple web-based
interface. I have worked with SonicWall products before, and their
SonicWALL PRO 100 product seems to fit your needs well.

It offers the whole range of standard firewall features, including
those you mention in your question. It optionally offers services such
as anti-virus protection and web content filtering for your employees.
This is my strongest recommendation. There isn't much a small business
could need that this firewall appliance couldn't offer.

More information on the SonicWALL PRO 100 can be found here:

http://www.sonicwall.com/products/PRO_100/index.html

It can purchased for $1,389.00 at firewalls.com at this address:

http://www.firewalls.com/sonicwall-pro-100.asp

Roughly on par with SonicWALL's PRO 100 product is WatchGuard's
FireBox 700. It has almost as many features as the SonicWALL option,
but is a bit more expensive, at $2,000. While it really has no merits
over SonicWall's product, here is a link to its product page:

http://www.watchguard.com/products/firebox700.asp

And, in case you wanted to buy it, CDW offers it here:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.asp?edc=317669

Another popular option is to take an off-the-shelf PC and use Linux to
turn it into a "home-made" firewall. While this doesn't have the
plug-and-go simplicity of the firewall appliance solutions, it has the
advantage of low cost and high potential for customization... and also
the potential to be made completely useless by a simple mistake.

The exact procedure for creating a Linux firewall varies according to
your exact needs and whim, but these websites should contain enough
information to get you started:

http://www.linux-firewall-tools.com/linux/

http://www.grennan.com/Firewall-HOWTO.html

http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/0920.ipchains.html

My personal recommendation would be the SonicWall product. I have seen
them in action, and worked with them personally. They are very slick,
very powerful, very easy to manage, and quite a bargain.

If you have any further questions, be sure to drop a request for
clarification, I would be glad to help out more within the scope of
your original question.

Search strategy:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Security/Firewalls/

"linux firewall howto" on google.com

--
samrolken-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by lorin-ga on 23 Nov 2002 01:01 PST

Thank you for this work. However, I did explicitly ask for links to
reviews that backed up your answer.  I need more then just your option
and the list of features from the companies web site.
    I would like at least one and preferable two in depth comparisons
done by well known sources that, for instance, back up your claims
about SonicWall Pro 100.
   I had no problem finding firewalls that seemed to meet my needs.
What I didn't have was reviews that proved they did what they promised
and that compared them in a rigorous manor.

---

Clarification of Answer by samrolken-ga on 23 Nov 2002 15:13 PST

I apologize for not providing you with the reviews.

These are links to comparitive reviews of many different firewall
products, including those I mentioned:

http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2001/0312rev.html

http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/reviews/0,6755,2581890,00.html

http://www.commweb.com/article/COM20000912S0009

http://netsecurity.about.com/library/weekly/aa041601a.htm

http://www.networknews.co.uk/Products/Hardware/1129516

http://www.westcoast.com/securecomputing/2001_09/survey/products_02.html#SonicWALL%20Pro

http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/reviews/0,6755,2581890,00.html

While not all of these reviews contain information about the specific
models you may be interested in, it will give you a good feel for how
one brand stacks up against another.