RE: A firewall Question

From: Joseph Ezerski (jezerski@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Fri Oct 12 2001 - 20:06:02 GMT-3


   
RE: A firewall QuestionWhoops, I think you might be misunderstanding me....I
meant it to read "this might be useless to add to the conversation because
you are discussing firewalls...."

I meant absolutely no insult at all.

-Joe
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Kenny Sallee [mailto:kenny@centerspan.com]
  Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 4:03 PM
  To: 'jezerski@broadcom.com'; ccielab@groupstudy.com
  Subject: RE: A firewall Question

  WTF do you mean by useless? So it's a L2 device that's smart enough to
look at L2-4 info. Which is exactly what the PFC does ( amongst other
things ). And it's not smart enough to look at L7 - that would mean it
can't look at the DATA portion of a packet to make a decision as to forward
or not. And by the way I've used VACL's before and they definitely are
useful for providing a level of security on a LAN segment. Used with
private VLANs you can really restrict traffic on a LAN segment. Still don't
understand what you mean by useless / why you were trying to insult me.

  The original email states " firewall that is a layer 2 device". The point
I was trying to make was that a firewall that inspects L3-7 traffic cannot
( by my definition ) be a true L2 device ( by my definition again ). If it
were a true L2 device you'd call it a bridge and you'd have to filter by
MAC. By the way, a Cat6k with an MSFC/PFC/etc in my definition is not a
true L2 device either.

  Kenny

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Joseph Ezerski [mailto:jezerski@broadcom.com]
  Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 3:27 PM
  To: 'Kenny Sallee'; 'louie kouncar'; ccielab@groupstudy.com
  Subject: RE: A firewall Question

  This may be entirely useless to you, but the Cat 6509 switch with a PFC
  matches EVERY packet up to layer 4. This lets you do VACLs on the switch
  itself at wire speed. We use them to stop rogue DHCP servers from taking
  over the LAN.

  -Joe

  -----Original Message-----
  From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com]On Behalf Of
  Kenny Sallee
  Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 3:05 PM
  To: 'louie kouncar'; ccielab@groupstudy.com
  Subject: RE: A firewall Question

  It can't be a pure L2 device and still filter anything above it. It may
be
  setup like it's a bridge, which I have seen before ( I can't remember the
  name/type of the firewall ). But it still filters packets based on L3,4
and
  7 information, else there would be now way to filter. I guess it's a
matter
  of definition. If the box is a bridge and sits like this:

  router
    |
    | ---> Subnet 192.168.1.0/24
    |
  L2 firewall
    |
    | ---> Subnet 192.168.1.0/24
    |
  Router
    |
  ------- > Internal Segment

  Then it's a layer2 device that's smart enough to look at, and react to,
L3-7
  packets. Not a true L2 firewall ( or it'd only filter on MAC right).
Just
  my opinion of course.

  Kenny

  -----Original Message-----
  From: louie kouncar [mailto:lkouncar@UU.NET]
  Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 10:02 AM
  To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
  Subject: A firewall Question

  All,

  I have been working with Check point firewall for a while, and just today
I
  heard a guy say that there is a kind of firewall that is a layer 2 device,
  anyone can comment on that please....

  Thank you

  Louie J. Kouncar CCIE #7994



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