As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

Time to review an amazing piece of software from the open source community.  This time around, it's a network security solution that works as nicely in your home network as it does a small to medium sized business network.  SmoothWall Express is a GNU/Linux distribution that is designed to be a network appliance firewall.  It contains many other powerful tools such as a DHCP Server, router, web proxy, IDS (Intrusion Detection System), and traffic monitor - to name a few.  Built in quality of service components can mould your network traffic to improve network performance where it needs it the most.  With it's easy to use web interface, SmoothWall Express is designed with the non-Linux user in mind.  All you need to get it running is an old (or new) computer with a couple of network cards and you are off to the races.

SmoothWall Express is currently at a very refined version 3.0, SP1.  You can download it from their web site in both the 32 and 64 bit architectures.  It come's as an ISO, so you can burn it to a CD using most of the common burning applications out there (i.e Nero, Roxio, Etc...).  My first impressions were not so good.  When I first acquired this software a couple of months ago, the installed appeared to go without a hitch.  Until the reboot at the end.  Every time I installed it and rebooted, the post screen would display repeated "99" or "02" number sets on the screen and hang.  Google taught me that this is caused by something to do with the boot loader, but it took me a long time, several hard drives and quite a few installs to determine that my motherboard (ASUS P3 800) was not compatible with the Linux based boot loader.  I switched to a really old all-in-one board that had a built in Samuel 2 processor and we were in business.  First install was perfect. 

The install is a wizard type setup that resembles the installers of the MS-DOS based software of yesteryear.  It's blue background and text based interface don't really do any justice to the sophistication of the application itself.  It was pretty easy to follow though.  The company provides a PDF to help you through the installation, and this install guide can be found here.  I don't recall any of the specific difficulties I may have encountered, but the answers to any questions that arose were easily located in the guide, or on their web based community forums. I have a relatively complex network in the house with 11 computers and multiple security zones, including wireless - and it was still easy to configure and start using.

The web based user interface is very intuitive and easy to use.  Most of the configuration pages are relatively straight forward and easy to navigate.  You'll be looking at your network in ways you never dreamed of.   Those of you have even the smallest Linux background will find even more adventurous ways to utilize this tool  I give SmoothWall Express a 9.5/10.  It continues to amaze and impress me months later, showing a vast performance improvement over my original D-Link wireless router.  Visit their web site to learn more about this must-have product.