Packet filtering or Firewalls

[zonk]

Can anyone turn me on to some information about packet,ip or mac address filtering? I have a Buffalo Wireless WBR-g54 router that allows you to set rules for the above mentioned filters. I've never done this before so I'd also like to know the advantages of filtering and any potential impact on my lan. Is this the same as stateful packet inspection? For a home network should I really have a hardware firewall or is it ok to use a software firewall instead? Keep in mind that I'm paranoid about security :confused:

Thanks for the help,
Zonk

[zonk]

Is there anyone out there?? :(

[Philip]

Diltering by IP or MAC address would do just that, disallow transfer of packets that don't match those filters. The impact and advantage is again --> only packets that match those filters would be allowed to pass, only devices with those IP/MAC addresses, etc... If you'd like more specific information check your manual.

Stateful Packet Inspection is not a filter... It is a method where inbound packets are checked to see whether you initiated the connection and sent outbound packets to that device previously... It uses that to determine whether to allow inbound connections.

A hardware firewall is generally better than a software one...

[zonk]

Thanks Philip. That will help me a lot. I have a Buffalo wireless WBR-G54 Router but the manual doesn't really go into depth about configuration. Thanks for the help though :thumb: