I hope I may be allowed to expand a bit on the OP's question. What are the advantages of a hardware firewall over a firewall built into a router? Can one use both, or should the firewall in a router be disabled if there is a hardware firewall? If the OP finds that he has a firewall in his router, would there be any reason for him to install a software firewall such as shorewall? -- Haines Brown, KB1GRM