Now, what is IPCop?
IPCop is a firewall; first, last and always.
IPCop is a specialized Linux Distribution; complete, configured, and ready to protect your network. Further, it is distributed under the GNU General Public License, complete source ready to be downloaded, reviewed, or even be modified and/or recompiled by yourself for your personal needs or security reasons.
IPCop is a community; where members help each other, all sharing to improve the project and each other. This help goes from simple “Networking 101” type of instruction and direction, to helping members customize their IPCop to meet a specialized needs such as Net-Phones (VoIP) and multiple office integration.
This was a trick question. The correct answer is: All of the above.
Background:
IPCop grew out of many needs. The first of those needs was a need for secure protection of our personal and commercial networks. When IPCop started October 2001, there were other firewalls available. However, the team that started IPCop felt that the other two needs that IPCop fills were not addressed; GPL and a sense of community.
The IPCop founding group decided to do things differently and forked the base GPL code of an existing firewall and started out anew, looking to keep user community needs in the forefront. Among those needs is the need of the user to make IPCop their own, to install improvements, to just learn by seeing what others have done. Through these needs is where development gets some of improvements to IPCop, directly listening and seeing what has been done and why. This community makes IPCop grow and IPCop helps them grow.
Now, after almost two and a half years, the first major overhaul of IPCop has been released. With it, a lot of cool things have been added; quad network support, intrusion detection on all networks and a slick new interface, to name a few.
And so again, Welcome to IPCop!
Jack Beglinger
Project Leader