Can a cisco router be a “true\ firewall?
This depends on the definition of firewall. Some writers (e.g., Gene Spafford in _Practical UNIX Security_) define a firewall as a host on which an “inside” and/or an “outside” application process run, with application-level code linking the two. For example, a firewall might provide FTP access to the outside world, but it would not also provide direct FTP service to the inside world. To place a file on the FTP external server, a designated user would explicitly log onto the FTP server, transfer a file to the server, and log off. The firewall prevents direct FTP connectivity between the inside and outside networks; only indirect, application-level connectivity is allowed. Firewalls of this sort are complemented by chokes, which filter on network addresses and/or port numbers. Cisco routers cannot do application-level control with access control lists. Other authors do not distinguish between chokes and filters. Using the loose definition that a firewall is anything that selectively
