In addition to the campus firewall restricting access to the campus network from the internet, departmental firewalls are also available for an extra layer of protection at the department level.The CIS Network Group would provide the equipment and support for the firewall, and would be responsible for the installation and configuration. We would also be the point of contact for all rule changes, as they are needed. The firewall would run the Drawbridge software. This is the same software used in the campus firewall. Once installed, there is a $50 per month charge for firewall services.
Before installing the firewall, the Network Engineering and Installations Teams will determine if any architectural changes will need to be made to your network. Changes may be needed in order to isolate your department or lab in preparation for the firewall. Depending on the complexity of the network infrastructure, the time required to install a firewall for your department may vary.
Other Notes:
For more information on installing a departmental firewall, please send mail to firewall@tamu.edu.
- We will review the current campus firewall configuration for your hosts that have ports open. This will be use to help create your departmental configuration.
- Rule changes will be requested by email. We do have a plan in place to develop a web form to accept change requests. Once this is in place, changes submitted via this form (for departmental firewall changes) will take effect within about 10 minutes. Until that time, we will make the requested change as quickly as possible.
- You will not have unlimited access to the firewall logs for privacy reasons. However, if there is any type of network event that requires investigation, we will work with you to extract the relevant logs.
- The $50 per month charge is required for cost recovery for the equipment required and the personnel time needed to to configure and implement changes to the firewall and rule set. This will ensure continued security for your network.