Security is a top priority for any Systems Administrator and keeping your organizations network safe can prove to be a difficult and sometimes costly task.

Enter IPCop. The IPCop Linux Firewall Distribution is a simple to install, stable and highly secure statefull firewall which offers a DHCP server, HTTP Proxy, Intrusion Detection System, and VPN functionality. There are also many great addons you can use for tasks such as Bandwidth Monitoring, Content Filtering and Internet Access Control.

Best of all, IPCop will fit into any IT budget as it is freely distributed via http://ipcop.org. To summarize the IPCop Linux Teams mission statement, they aim to provide a secure, highly configurable, opensourced Linux Firewall Distribution while developing an appreciation for the Linux and Opensource movements in their users.

The default IPCop installation will provide your network with a high level of security and logging capabilities however using some of the freely available addons will add even more value to this distribution. In this article we will offer a brief review of the IPCop installation process as well as two custom addons: Block Out Traffic (BOT) and URL Fitler.