Smoothwall (formerly styled as SmoothWall) is a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

designed to be used as an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spr ...

. Smoothwall is configured via a web-based

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

and requires little or no knowledge of

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

to install or use. Smoothwall is also a private software company based in the UK who specializes in the development of web content filtering, safeguarding and internet security solutions, which also maintains the SmoothWall

project.

History

Smoothwall began life as Smoothwall GPL, a freely redistributable open source version. In August 2000, with a proprietary version sold by Smoothwall LTD from November 2001. Smoothwall still maintains its open source roots with Smoothwall Express still available today (latest release V3.1 in 2014), however the main Smoothwall solution is now paid for and is in use by millions of users worldwide in both the public and private sector. Smoothwall's filtering and safeguarding products are typically sold into educational organisations and businesses. In 2017, Smoothwall announced a management buyout backed by private equity fund, Tenzing. The new management team was led by Georg Ell, previously Director of Western Europe at Tesla, who was appointed as Group CEO in May 2018. Georg was joined by existing Board members Gavin Logan, Douglas Hanley and Manprit Randhawan in the management of the Smoothwall business, along with Lisa Stone, who took the position as chairperson. On 5 August 2021, Tenzing announced they had agreed to sell their investment in Smoothwall to Australian security firm Family Zone Cyber Safety for £75.5 million ( A$142m cash consideration. The deal was completed on 17 August 2021, with a £10.5m deferred balance of the sale price paid on 1 September 2021.

Smoothwall Express

Smoothwall Express, originally ''Smoothwall GPL'', is the freely distributable version of Smoothwall, developed by the Smoothwall Open Source Project team and members of Smoothwall Ltd. Released in August 2000, Smoothwall GPL was developed by Lawrence Manning and Richard Morrell to provide a quick and easy-to-use solution to the problem of sharing their

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Wo ...

connections with the rest of their LAN. Created using

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used Commercial software, commercial Open-source software, open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. R ...

, Smoothwall GPL originally had two simple functions: control the modem to dial and hang up, and to route

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

packets from the LAN to the Internet connection, and back again. The LAN was hidden from the public network by

NAT Nat or NAT may refer to: Computing * Network address translation (NAT), in computer networking Organizations * National Actors Theatre, New York City, U.S. * National AIDS trust, a British charity * National Archives of Thailand * National As ...

, applied using

ipchains Linux IP Firewalling Chains, normally called ipchains, is free software to control the packet filter or firewall capabilities in the 2.2 series of Linux kernels. It superseded ipfirewall (managed by ipfwadm command), but was replaced by iptables ...

. Beginning with 0.9 in August 2000, the Smoothwall GPL 0.9.x series went through several versions based on the 2.2 Linux

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...

, culminating in 0.9.9 SE in December 2001, which was probably the most popular GPL release. Each release led to a number of improvements, including PAT (port address translation),

DMZ A demilitarized zone (DMZ or DZ) is an area in which treaties or agreements between nations, military powers or contending groups forbid military installations, activities, or personnel. A DZ often lies along an established frontier or bounda ...

PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...

and ISDN dial-up support, broadband (

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

and

Cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

) support. Smoothwall GPL 1.0 was released in December 2002, including all previously released patches and security fixes, and ended development of the 0.9.x/1.0 series, although it was supported by errata updates for another year and a half.

Smoothwall Limited

In late 2001, Manning and Morrell, with George Lungley, formed Smoothwall Limited as a UK registered private limited company, company number 04298247. The company was formed to take the open source software and commercialise it, by expanding the software to include corporate and enterprise oriented functionality, and to provide dedicated support staff for customers to contact. Now based in Yarfort, with a

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

office in Charlotte, NC, the company has continued to develop the commercial,

closed source Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and inte ...

Smoothwall product range, while moving from its initial direct sales model to a reseller, channel-based sales model.

Past Products

Smoothwall Server Edition was the first product from Smoothwall Ltd., released on 11 November 2001. It was essentially Smoothwall GPL 0.9.9 with support included from the company. This was — as were virtually all future products — made available to purchase on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

directly from Smoothwall Ltd. by mail order. Initially announced in January 2002, and priced at £30, but never released, Smoothwall Home Server was an aborted attempt to tap into the home and residential market. It used the open source platform again as a base but included SmoothGuard, and would have permitted customers to make email support requests directly from Smoothwall Ltd. Released on 17 December 2001, Smoothwall Corporate Server 1.0 was the first in a long line of separate, closed source releases from Smoothwall Ltd. Forked from Smoothwall GPL 0.9.9SE, Corporate Server included additional features such as

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

support, and the capability to increase functionality via add-on modules. These modules included SmoothGuard (content filtering proxy), SmoothZone (multiple

) and SmoothTunnel (advanced VPN features). Corporate Server was designed to become the backbone of all future products from the company, with the module functionality permitting customers to select the exact level of functionality they required. Further modules have been released over time, each providing a particular set of functionality, such as

traffic shaping Traffic shaping is a bandwidth management technique used on computer networks which delays some or all datagrams to bring them into compliance with a desired ''traffic profile''. Traffic shaping is used to optimize or guarantee performance, impro ...

, and

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

anti-virus Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. ...

and

anti-spam Various anti-spam techniques are used to prevent email spam (unsolicited bulk email). No technique is a complete solution to the spam problem, and each has trade-offs between incorrectly rejecting legitimate email (false positives) as opposed to ...

. After Daniel Barron, author of

DansGuardian DansGuardian, written by SmoothWall Ltd and others, is content-control software: software designed to control which websites users can access. It also includes virus filtering and usage monitoring features. DansGuardian must be installed on a ...

, joined the company in April 2002, a variant of Corporate Server called Smoothwall Corporate Guardian was released, integrating a fork of DansGuardian called SmoothGuardian. Corporate Guardian is a stand-alone web proxy, cache and filtering solution. SmoothGuardian was also made available as a stand-alone module for Corporate Server customers, replacing the Smooth-Guard module. School guardian was created as a variant of corporate guardian, adding

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralize ...

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicati ...

support and firewall features in a package designed specifically for use in schools. When released on 13 June 2005, version 4 of Corporate Server was renamed to Corporate Firewall. In February 2008, Corporate Guardian was renamed to Network Guardian with the release of the 2008 version. Released on 9 May 2005, Smoothwall Advanced Firewall targeted the enterprise market directly by bundling Corporate Server with all available add-on modules, and adding further functionality, including Active Directory,

eDirectory eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was i ...

& LDAP authentication and the capability to use up to 20 network interfaces with external connection load balancing. In April 2007, the company released the SmoothGuard UTM-1000 hardware appliance, based on a commodity

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Core 2 Duo Intel Core is a line of streamlined midrange consumer, workstation and enthusiast computer central processing units (CPUs) marketed by Intel, Intel Corporation. These processors displaced the existing mid- to high-end Pentium processors at the ...

1 U 19-inch rack-mountable chassis. The UTM-1000 came pre-installed with a variant of Smoothwall Advanced Firewall.

Awards

* Reader's vote, ''

Linux Format ''Linux Format'' is the UK's first Linux-specific magazine, and as of 2013 was the best-selling Linux title in the UK. It is also exported to many countries worldwide. It is published by Future plc (which produces a number of other computer magazi ...

'', Best Security Tool, 2001 *''Supplier of the Year'' - Highly Commended, Education Resources Awards, 2017 *''Cyber Security - Software and Technology Excellence Awards'', Worldwide Business Review, 2017

References

External links

Smoothwall Limited
*http://www.smoothwall.org * Computer Reseller News
Advancing Firewall Protection
(2006-01-09) * Network Computing
Rollout: Smoothwall's Corporate Guardian 5
(2006-09-28) * Information Week
Build This Cheap But Effective Firewall
(2007-01-29) {{DEFAULTSORT:Smoothwall X86-64 Linux distributions Firewall software Free routing software Content-control software Gateway/routing/firewall distribution Linux distributions