> I have been ask a question I can't answer. Without meaning any offense to you: that's because it is a silly question.
> What LEVEL firewall is iptables > > I was told that Norton has a level 7 firewall rating and FW-1 is osi `7 > layer firewall > > what is IPTABLES ? iptables alone operates a bit on L2 (ethernet MAC match, interface match), and mainly on L3 (IPv4, IPv6) and L4 (ICMP, UDP, TCP, ...) iptables integrated with other tools readily available for Linux, is capable of handling higher layer protocols. I assume that commercial firewall offerings also use such an architecture of doing some layers in the "packet filter" proper, and doing other things in process written against the hosting OS. The "levels" you appear to regard as a "quality rating" (right?), refer to the layers of the ISO/OSI networking reference MODEL. This is mainly a MODEL of the hierarchical interrelationship of network protocols. The layer number refers to the position in the hierarchy of that MODEL. For a firewall to "rightfully" claim operating at layer 7 (the highest layer of the MODEL), it has to support exactly one layer 7 protocol. For example, HTTP. Or a large number of others. And to one or the other extent. These distinctions cannot be made by refering only to the topmost layer according to the OSI reference MODEL. There is no easy labeling that could replace learning about what a firewall system has to do, and how it does it. There are, however, strange marketing usages of technical terms. That's the price to pay for a customer base :) best regards Patrick
