Do you need a firewall? was fedora as a gateway / server)

[Eric]

At 06:31 PM 5/29/2007, Rick Stevens wrote:

<RS>>>>>Yes, you can use a Linux machine (Fedora, Ubuntu, whatever) as a 
gateway/firewall.  You say that everything's plugged into your DSL 
modem.  If that's the case, then it's really a DSL modem/router and it 
should have a reasonable firewall on it already.<<<<<

I have often wondered about this...

If you have a DSL router, then almost certainly that router is routing a 
public IP address to a private IP address block, probably in the 
192.168.x.x range.

Since those private IP addresses aren't visible or accessible to the 
outside world (assuming you don't have a DMZ set up that makes one of your 
private IP addresses visible via the public IP address), then why would a 
normal home or small business user need a firewall at all?