<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="LinuxDoc-Tools 0.9.73"> <TITLE>Linux 2.4 Packet Filtering HOWTO: Who the hell are you, and why are you playing with my kernel?</TITLE> <LINK HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-5.html" REL=next> <LINK HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-3.html" REL=previous> <LINK HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO.html#toc4" REL=contents> </HEAD> <BODY> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-5.html">Next</A> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-3.html">Previous</A> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO.html#toc4">Contents</A> <HR> <H2><A NAME="s4">4.</A> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO.html#toc4">Who the hell are you, and why are you playing with my kernel?</A></H2> <P>I'm Rusty Russell; the Linux IP Firewall maintainer and just another working coder who happened to be in the right place at the right time. I wrote ipchains (see <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-3.html#filter-linux">How Do I Packet Filter Under Linux?</A> above for due credit to the people who did the actual work), and learnt enough to get packet filtering right this time. I hope.</P> <P> <A HREF="http://www.watchguard.com">WatchGuard</A>, an excellent firewall company who sell the really nice plug-in Firebox, offered to pay me to do nothing, so I could spend all my time writing this stuff, and maintaining my previous stuff. I predicted 6 months, and it took 12, but I felt by the end that it had been done Right. Many rewrites, a hard-drive crash, a laptop being stolen, a couple of corrupted filesystems and one broken screen later, here it is.</P> <P>While I'm here, I want to clear up some people's misconceptions: I am no kernel guru. I know this, because my kernel work has brought me into contact with some of them: David S. Miller, Alexey Kuznetsov, Andi Kleen, Alan Cox. However, they're all busy doing the deep magic, leaving me to wade in the shallow end where it's safe.</P> <HR> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-5.html">Next</A> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO-3.html">Previous</A> <A HREF="packet-filtering-HOWTO.html#toc4">Contents</A> </BODY> </HTML>