2018年后Firestarter与gufw对比及替代方案、VPN适配技术问询

Hey there! Let's tackle your two main questions—finding a replacement for Firestarter's unique features, and whether it (or its alternatives) can work with VPNs.

Since Firestarter is no longer maintained or available in Debian's repos, here are solid alternatives that match its key functionalities:

• UFW + GUFW with Logging & Add-ons
  While GUFW doesn't show active connections or one-click rule creation from logs by default, you can enable UFW's logging with sudo ufw logging on and view connections in /var/log/ufw.log. For active connection monitoring, pair it with tools like gkrellm or conky (lightweight system monitors that display live network connections). If you want one-click rule creation, you can write a simple bash script to parse the log and generate UFW rules, or use third-party GUFW extensions if available.

• Firewalld + Firewall-config
  Firewalld is a modern firewall manager available in Debian 10 and later, and its graphical frontend firewall-config comes very close to Firestarter's workflow. It lets you:

  • View active network connections in real time
  • Access detailed connection attempt logs
  • Create allow/block rules directly from log entries with a few clicks
    Install it with sudo apt install firewalld firewall-config, then start the service with sudo systemctl enable --now firewalld to get started.

• nftables with Graphical Frontends
  Debian now uses nftables as the default backend for firewalls. You can use tools like cockpit (a web-based server manager) with its firewall module, or gufw-nft (the nftables-compatible version of GUFW) to get a visual interface. These tools support connection monitoring, log viewing, and quick rule creation—just like Firestarter.

• Gateway-level Firewalls (pfSense/OPNsense)
  If your Debian machine acts as a network gateway, consider switching to pfSense or OPNsense. These open-source firewall distributions include all of Firestarter's features (and much more), with built-in support for VPNs, log-based rule creation, and active connection tracking.

First off: Don't bother trying to use the old Firestarter with modern VPNs. It's been unmaintained for over a decade, so it won't play nicely with current Debian kernels, VPN protocols like WireGuard, or even recent OpenVPN versions. You'll run into dependency conflicts and compatibility issues that aren't worth fixing.

All the alternatives listed above work seamlessly with VPNs:

• For UFW/Firewalld/nftables, just configure your firewall to trust the VPN interface (usually tun0 for OpenVPN, wg0 for WireGuard). For example, with firewalld, you can add the interface to the trusted zone with sudo firewall-cmd --add-interface=wg0 --zone=trusted --permanent.
• You can create rules specific to VPN traffic—like allowing only certain IPs through the VPN, or blocking connection attempts originating from the VPN network. All the tools let you view VPN-related connections in their logs and create rules directly from those entries, just like Firestarter did for regular traffic.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者sunwarr10r