what do people reccomend as a firewall for windows 2003?

i always say Norton internet security http://www.symante.com
but people like cheap things like zonalarm or something

I don't use symantec software but this is what it says at their site:
WARNING: No version of Norton Internet Security, Norton Personal Firewall, or Symantec Desktop Firewall is supported on any type of Windows NT or Windows 2000 server.

Thanks for the link to the spam site too

You could disable all services except what you would have opened in a personal software firewall.

You could deal with IPSEC

You can spend a hefty amount on a software server firewall. One of the less expensive ones is VisNetic Firewall. The cost is about $250

Or you could always go all out and get a hardware firewall.

sorry for the typeo
http://www.symantec.com
they must have something for servers

i dont trust norton anymore than the distance from my mouse to my hand

Steer clear of the default Win2k3 firewall. It'll act weird if you have more than one IP bound to your NIC (like most of our servers are). All I can reccomend is not getting a personal or workstation firewall. By default those things will lock a box out. Remember to configure the firewall before enabling it.

hey klaude what about sygate's firewall, any good?

also I got a question, if I were to setup a firewall, what ports would I have to allow for SM to be able to monitor and connect to my server?

Visnetic is an AMAZING software firewall for Win2k3. Thats what I am running, and works very very well.

You might want to check it out.

http://www.deerfield.com/products/visnetic-firewall/

In case anyone finds this thread first -- the short answer is to use the basic firewall included in RRAS. It's a "good enough" solution, easy to do and already included in Win2K3. IPSec works well and is more flexible, but is more complicated to setup and maintain. I switched from IPSec to the RRAS firewall. Search these forums for more information. Use 3rd party firewalls if you need a more feature rich solution...but most of us don't.

I recommend it too.

RRAS firewall looks ok.
I hate firewalls with an incredible number of options for blocking softwares runnning on your box!!! All i need is to block ports.

Till now i have one problem with RRAS firewall. I don't know how to open a range of ports...

Do you actually have this installed on your own server because i am trying but am having some problems. Whenever i start the firewall of course it just kicks me out so how do i enable ports before starting it up?

I had the same problem with Sygate. What I did was configure the firewall on my home pc to allow remote desktop. Then I copied the config files from my pc to the server before enabling it.

Thats what i was thinking but wasnt to sure on how it would do the interface setup stuff.