On 10/16/2014 03:27 PM, Matt Allen wrote:
> Hi Pete,
>
> Unfortunately I'm a bit swomped at the moment (might have some time in the future if you're still in need), so can't help out with the graphics themselves right now, although thought I'd throw a view on your analogy your way.
>
> The Post Office idea is good, however personally I'd see the firewall as more of the post office distribution (or sorting) centre. Anyone can send you mail, which ends up at a distribution centre, this centre filters your mail, deciding what gets passed through to your address, returned to sender or forwarded elsewhere (based on your personal rules for allowed 'mail'). The postman then arrives at your house with all mail the distribution centre has allowed through and delivers the mail which matches the mailboxes on your door which are open ('listening'), all other mail without open services (or open letter boxes for this analogy) are rejected.
>
> In this analogy I realise that everyone would have 65,535 plus potential ports on their door, but in the graphics you would label each letterbox with a port number and only show open (listening) letterboxes on the door, which all mail has labelled with your address (your IP address). So the address on the envolope would be:
>
> Mr P Sherman
> 127.0.0.1:42
>
>
> The IP representing your address on an envelope, the port representing the letterbox on your door.
>
> Ping me a message if this doesn't make sense or if you want to run through anything else :)
>
> M
>
>
>
>
> Matt Allen
> Design, Development, Interactivity & Photography
>
> Twitter: @sdmix
> Skype: itsmattallen
> Web: itsmattallen.co.uk / sdmix.in
>
> On 04/10/2014 20:21, Pete Travis wrote:

Hello,

The Fedora Docs team is planning on writing a Firewall Guide, to explain
what a firewall does, how it functions, and how to administer it.  For
the initial explanation, I think that some visuals would be very helpful
to the reader.

Right now, the best allegory I can contrive is a post office.  The
outside network is.. well, anyone who might send mail.  The postman is
the firewall, the post office boxes are ports, and the customers who get
mail in the boxes are listening services.

Is there anyone on the design team that would like to hammer the idea
into something useful, and work with us on creating imagery for this guide?

-- - -- Pete

Hey Matt,

Your analogy is close to the same. Instead of PO Boxes, there are letterboxes; you have a distribution center in place of the local post office staff doing the sorting.  Having spent some time observing in such places, I think your view has the potential to be more appropriate as the discussion progresses.  I do worry that detailed comparisons to logistical organizations could grow to be just as esoteric to the layman - but that's where the graphics come in :)

We probably won't start on this in earnest until after the F21 release, but I find that some time with the idea rattling around in my head helps.  Feel free to jump in as much as you like, the content will live at https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/docs/firewall-guide.git/  .

--
-- Pete Travis
 - Fedora Docs Project Leader
 - 'randomuser' on freenode
 - immanetize@fedoraproject.org