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> I'm rather ignorant about firewalls but what use is one with holes in it ? The holes let the data in and out (grin). Seriously, firewalls are a bit of a big topic. I'm trying to start to get to grips with them at the moment (I'm a real beginner, so what follows is likely to be nonsense). Basically, there are several different configurations. A simple one can block all traffic, except traffic destined for designated IP addresses, and connecting to designated ports. Each IP service uses a 'well known port' so one, for example, can allow mail and Web browsing, but disallow telnet calls and NFS mounts. As far as I'm concerned, This Is A Good Thing. Other firewalls 'proxy' services, ie. machines on your internal network ask the firewall to make connections and use services on your behalf. Hence 'proxy' (If you have Netscape, have a look at Options / Network / Proxies ) The basic problems with the NHS firewall are *) there's only one of 'em. Likely to be a bottleneck. *) At Mednet, the NHS people said this was a gateway which would only allow outgoing 'calls' (ie. outside sites couldn't 'call in'). Then someone asked about those sites which had forms / CGI scripts etc. The answer, as I heard it, was that these sites would be unusable !!!!! Yikes! (I'd like to be proved wrong on this one) John Hearns %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%