Jul 9 2008 12:03PM GMT

Open Source Network Gateway

Posted by: Yasir Irfan

Networking, Linux, VMware, Content Filtering, Open Source, Gateway, Spam Blocker, Protocol Control, Open VPN, Network Gateway, Untangle

In our organization internet management was a big issue, since we had no budget allocated to Internet management I was worried? How should I control our internet usage? Tried to convince the management to buy content filtering appliances, unfortunately they had no budget and our users had no control and they were enjoying the freedom of internet. I started looking for open source appliances and came across Untangle. Which proved to be great for us to control our users? (Who were not happy)? By installing this open source network gateway we could manage to block most of the unwanted contents, P2P applications and much more.

What is Untangle?

Untangle is a privately held company that provides an open source network gateway for small businesses. Untangle provides many gateway applications, such as blocking spam, blocking malware, web filtering, phishing protection, intrusion prevention, and more [1] on the Untangle Gateway Platform.

Untangle was founded in 2003 as Metavize, Inc. by John Irwin and Dirk Morris. Metavize officially launched in 2005 at Demo@15![3]. In 2006, Metavize raised a $10.5M series-A venture round from CMEA Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners, named Bob Walters as CEO, and renamed to Untangle, Inc. In 2007, Untangle released the Untangle Gateway Platform as open source under the GPLv2 license .In 2007, Untangle also experienced significant growth and surpassed 100,000 users in 2,000 organizations

Some of the features available with Untangle are as follows

· Spam Blocker

· Spyware Blocker

· Web Filter

· Virus Blocker

· Firewall

· OpenVPN

· Phish Blocker

· Protocol Control

· Intrusion Prevention

· Attack Blocker

· Router