SmoothWall Product Overview

There are four product groups within the SmoothWall family of network security products:

• Firewall and VPN (perimeter/internal firewalls and VPN gateways)
• Web Security (content filtering, anti-spyware, anti-virus and download control)
• Email Security (anti-spam, anti-virus and mail relay)
• Bandwidth Management (Quality of Service traffic prioritization)

Firewall and VPN Products

Advanced Firewall is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) product designed to meet the demanding needs of today's enterprise networks - the result is the most versatile network security solution available to fulfill the following roles:

• Perimeter firewall: multiple Internet connections with load balancing and automatic connection failover
• Internal firewall: segregation of networks into physically separate zones with user-level access control of inter-zone traffic
• VPN Gateway: site-to-site, secure remote access and secure wireless connections
• Web Security/Content Filtering: block access to inappropriate and time wasting content (with SmoothGuardian add-on module)
• Email Security: anti-spam, anti-virus and mail relay (with SmoothZap add-on module)
• Bandwidth Management (QoS): maximize the performance of Internet connections (with SmoothTraffic add-on module)

Policy based access control is the key to the operation of Advanced Firewall, with user authentication against a Microsoft Active Directory®, Novell eDirectory™ or other LDAP server being used to determines the security policies applied to each user.

Corporate Firewall is a modular firewall and VPN system, designed to meet the Internet security needs of small to medium sized organizations and corporate branch offices. With this innovative software firewall it takes less than ten minutes to convert a standard PC into a dedicated firewall appliance. Corporate Firewall includes:

• Stateful packet inspection firewall
• VPN for site-to-site connectivity or Secure Remote Access for mobile users (Road Warriors)
• Comprehensive reporting and logging of network traffic, user activity etc.
• Reporting and incident alerting via email or cell phone text (SMS) messaging
• Control users' Internet access via outbound (egress) rules
• Intrusion Detection System (IDS)

Corporate Firewall exploits the power, reliability and versatility of commodity PC hardware, with support for both the latest and not-so-new hardware. Entry level server or workstation computers from major manufacturers are popular platforms for Corporate Firewall due to the excellent on-site support services available for such equipment.

SmoothHost is an add-on module for Corporate Firewall that provides support for multiple web, email and other Internet servers in the DeMilitarized Zone (DMZ). SmoothHost allows unlimited public IP addresses to be configured on the firewall’s external network interface and introduces Static Network Address Translation (SNAT) capability to Corporate Firewall.

Guardian Web Security Products

SmoothWall Guardian web security and content filtering solutions ensure that web browsing is work related and safe from dangerous content. The three SmoothWall Guardian products are:

• Network Guardian: stand-alone (self contained) system for use with any firewall or Internet gateway
• SmoothGuardian: add-on module for Advanced Firewall and Corporate Firewall
• School Guardian: integrated firewall and web content filtering system for schools and colleges

Network Guardian is a stand-alone (self contained) system that: includes a proxy cache server and is deigned to integrate into any network regardless of whatever firewall/Internet gateways are used, thus Network Guardian has no firewall, gateway or VPN capability.

All Guardian products:

• Control access to non work-related websites to improve user productivity
• Block access to objectionable web content such as pornography, violence and gambling
• Protect against web-borne spyware, viruses and software exploits
• Stop the illegal download of copyright music and video
• Provide comprehensive reporting on user activity

Guardian’s primary filtering mechanism is Dynamic Content Analysis, where the actual content of all received web pages is examined, blocking on the basis of what pages actually contain, not where they come from. SmoothWall’s unique Dynamic Content Analysis technology which is able to understand and categorize every one of the ten billion or more web page in existence, blocking objectionable content, spyware, viruses and web browser exploits. Filtering is augmented by a variety of other techniques including the traditional URL blocklist, PICS, MIME type checking of downloaded files and an integrated anti-virus engine.

Integration with Microsoft Active Directory®, Novell eDirectory™ and other LDAP based user authentication systems facilitates group based security policies and reporting. Policies can be changed by time-of-day, typically being used to allow access to non work-related sites such as news, sport and shopping, outside of core working hours.

Email Security Products

SmoothZap is the Anti-Virus and Mail Relay module for Advanced and Corporate Firewall. Using transparent proxies it will anti-virus scan all SMTP and POP3 email passing through the firewall, including any email received form employees' personal mail accounts. SmoothZap defends mail servers against attack by mal-formed email and reports on the number of viruses and email blocked along with emails sent and received per user.

Bandwidth Management (QoS) Products

SmoothTraffic Bandwidth Management enables organization to manage and prioritize their Internet traffic, to achieve faster and more consistent Internet access, maximize productivity and avoid the expense of network capacity that is seldom used. Typically this is used to ensure that interactive traffic like Voice over IP and web browsing will get priority over background activities such as file transfers, downloads, email and network backups.