Fedora is a Linux community project sponsored by Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) and is set to release Fedora 15 on May 24th. Security improvements are a key focus in the Fedora 15 release with a number of innovations.
The new dynamic firewall in Fedora 15 is a departure from the the IPtables static firewall approach used by in the past by Linux distros. The dynamic firewall in Fedora 15 has a dbus interface, so individual applications can communicate with the firewall. This allows apps to inform the firewall if a port needs to be open and can then close it when it’s not longer needed.
“Most Linux systems use IP tables type firewalls and the problem is that if you want to make a change to the firewall, it’s hard to modify on the fly without reloading the entire firewall,” Fedora Project Leader, Jared Smith told InternetNews.com. “Fedora 15 is really the first mainstream operating system to have a dynamic firewall where you can add or change rules and keep the firewall up and responding while you’re making changes.”