Firewall/router

[Jonathan Hutchins]

One reason it's better to have an actual PC rather than a dedicated box is
that they're far more flexible in what you can let through.  For some
protocols like NetMeeting the only way to allow connections is to "DMZ" the
box that wants to connect, which essentially leaves that box completely
exposed.  Linux has modules to handle most of the popular chat/video/game
protocols without blanket exposure like that.

I like to use the Firewall for FTP sessions too, seems more efficient to go
direct from remote to firewall to storage rather than
remote-firewall-workstation-storage.

And there are handy network tools that you can run from the firewall box,
and so on.