Let's talk about yum and p2p in Fedora

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Joe Zeff <joe at zeff.us> said:
> Before somebody steps in again to point out that NAT isn't a firewall, 
> I'd like to give my perspective on it.  If your router uses NAT and only 
> forwards those ports you've told it to (and then, each port only goes to 
> one machine) port scanners can't find your machines because nothing 
> responds to their attempts to connect.  And, of course, even if you have 
> malware trying to act as some sort of server it won't do any good unless 
> your machine initiates the connection.  No, this isn't a firewall, but 
> it's better than having your box sitting on the net completely exposed. 
>   Consider NAT as one layer of protection in a properly designed and 
> implemented defense in depth.

NAT is a combination of a stateful firewall and a packet mangler (that
changes the IP+port fields).  A stateful firewall without a packet
mangler (i.e. no NAT) is just as secure.
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.