2022-08-01T11:38:58+02:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/feed.xmlLightning Wire LabsWe bring future technology into your networkCelebrating 10 Years of Lightning Wire Labs (10% Off All Appliances)2022-08-01T11:00:00+02:002022-08-01T11:00:00+02:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2022/08/01/celebrating-10-years<p>We are celebrating 10 years of Lightning Wire Labs!</p>
<p>A whole decade where we have been working to make the Internet a safer place.
Time that has been moving fast, has been full of challenges, as well as a time that has been a great success for ourselves, and our customers and partners we work with.</p>
<p>To say <strong>Thank You</strong> to our loyal customers, we are offering a 10% discount on all our appliances on <a href="https://store.lightningwirelabs.com?utm_source=blog.lightningwirelabs.com&utm_campaign=10-years">store.lightningwirelabs.com</a> for all of August<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote">1</a></sup>.</p>
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<p><img src="/assets/images/blog/celebrating-10-years.jpg" alt="Happy 10 Years" /></p>
<p>In those 10 Years, we are proud:</p>
<ul>
<li>That we have been working together with our great community, creating IPFire which is trusted by millions of users every day.</li>
<li>That we support customers ranging from Businesses of all shapes and sizes, Schools & Universities, Governments & Non-Governmental Organisations all over the world and help them to overcome their challenges.</li>
<li>We build tools to help people restoring their privacy from overreaching surveillance and data-collecting corporations.</li>
<li>We develop market-leading software so that anyone can make their business, organisation or home a secure place.</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank you to everyone who has been on this journey together with us.</p>
<p>Cheers to the next 10 Years!</p>
<div class="footnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>While stocks last. Offer ends on August 31st, 2022. Our terms & conditions apply. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Michael TremerWe are celebrating 10 years of Lightning Wire Labs! A whole decade where we have been working to make the Internet a safer place. Time that has been moving fast, has been full of challenges, as well as a time that has been a great success for ourselves, and our customers and partners we work with. To say Thank You to our loyal customers, we are offering a 10% discount on all our appliances on store.lightningwirelabs.com for all of August1. While stocks last. Offer ends on August 31st, 2022. Our terms & conditions apply. ↩Can You Get Better Value For Money From AWS?2021-08-30T19:41:00+02:002021-08-31T11:00:00+02:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2021/08/30/can-you-get-better-value-for-money-on-aws<p>Today, we are launching IPFire on AWS ARM-based instances, making IPFire cheaper,
more versatile and more secure for all your cloud-based projects.</p>
<p>Having been around for a little while, Lightning Wire Labs ported IPFire to the
new ARM-based processors from AWS with <a href="https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-27-core-update-159-released-new-kernel-inside">IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 159</a>.</p>
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<p>The cloud is here to stay. Lightning Wire Labs proudly has a large customer base
with large cloud envirtonments secured by IPFire.</p>
<p>One common question, we are getting often is <em>How to reduce cost?</em>
Although running your setup in the cloud gives you a lot of flexibility,
this does not come for free.
As companies grow, more resources are required driving up costs,
and with more financial pressure on most businesses due to the pandemic,
reducing cloud spend is more important than ever.</p>
<p>With IPFire already being free of any license cost, the biggest opportunity to
save money on the firewall is to use a smaller instance size.
However, since IPFire does not use a lot of resources, a certain amount of oomph is
required to keep your hosted services fast for your customers and to shift Gigabits
of data.</p>
<p>AWS new ARM instances based on their new Graviton 2 processors come with more performance
for a smaller price. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that?</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/aws/graviton2.jpg" alt="AWS Graviton 2" /></p>
<p>For application as a firewall, the T4g, M6g and C6g instances have many advantages:</p>
<ul>
<li>Faster processing power which decreases latency on the network</li>
<li>Cryptographic acceleration for more throughput over VPNs, easily saturating a
multi-gigabit link</li>
<li>Using lightweight virtualisation, IOMMU and DMA allows for less virtualisation
overhead which decreases processor usage when handling network packets and giving
the system time to care about other things</li>
<li>ARM processors are less likely to be vulnerable for any speculation attacks such as
Spectre and Meltdown, giving you a little bit of extra security in the cloud</li>
<li>Giving an overall 40% better price performance compared to x86-based instances</li>
</ul>
<p>IPFire in the cloud brings all the features that cost a lot of extra money to
AWS without extra charge. Setting up VPNs to connect to your
<a href="/products/ipfire/appliances">on-premise firewall in the office</a>, or securely connecting
your staff to the servers they are working on. Hosting services for your clients and
protecting your web applications against attackers using the Intrusion Protection System.
There are many opportunities and they have now become more affordable for everyone.</p>
<p>Read more about IPFire in the cloud on our <a href="/products/ipfire/cloud">product page</a>.</p>Michael TremerToday, we are launching IPFire on AWS ARM-based instances, making IPFire cheaper, more versatile and more secure for all your cloud-based projects. Having been around for a little while, Lightning Wire Labs ported IPFire to the new ARM-based processors from AWS with IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 159.Launching IPFire on Exoscale2020-11-09T17:00:00+01:002020-11-09T17:00:00+01:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2020/11/09/launching-ipfire-on-exoscale<p>Today, we are launching <a href="/products/ipfire/cloud">IPFire on Exoscale</a>,
the GDPR-compatible European Cloud Provider based in Switzerland.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/exoscale/logo.svg" alt="Exoscale" /></p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p>For the two years that IPFire is available on Amazon EC2, we have
often received feedback from various customers about their data privacy
concerns.
GDPR and the generally higher data protection regulation in Europe
is making it difficult for many people to find the right cloud provider
that complies with those laws.</p>
<p>We are proud to offer an option for those customers.</p>
<p>With data centers in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Bulgaria,
Exoscale is promising that your data won’t “travel halfway around the
world”. Privacy has been built into the cloud from the first moment.</p>
<p>With competitive pricing and a user interface that is very easy to use,
they are a brilliant alternative to the big, well-known cloud providers.</p>
<p><strong>IPFire in the Cloud, just like you are used to it</strong></p>
<p>IPFire in the cloud enables your business to grow above and beyond.
It is the same firewall appliance that you know from your
<a href="/products/ipfire/appliances">on-premise</a> data center,
just in the cloud - and therefore more versatile and flexible.</p>
<p>You can host your infrastructure of web servers, mail servers,
and have it protected by a powerful firewall while accessing
them easily through a secure VPN connection.</p>
<p>Your cloud infrastructure will grow with you to whatever size you
need it to. Whether your website is becoming more popular, or your
company is opening more branch offices that need to be securely
connected to your central servers.
Just upgrade your cloud instance and you have added more CPU power
and memory to handle whatever challenges you face.</p>
<p>From a small prototype environment to a 10 Gigabit router.
IPFire grows with you.</p>
<p>See some more examples on the detailed <a href="/products/ipfire/cloud">product page</a>.</p>
<p>Try out <a href="/products/ipfire/cloud">IPFire on Exoscale</a> for free today.</p>Michael TremerToday, we are launching IPFire on Exoscale, the GDPR-compatible European Cloud Provider based in Switzerland.IPFire on AWS: Update to IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 1462020-07-15T05:40:28+02:002020-07-15T05:40:28+02:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2020/07/15/ipfire-on-aws-updated<p>Today, we have updated IPFire on AWS to
<a href="https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-25-core-update-146-released">IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 146</a> -
the latest official release of IPFire.</p>
<p>Since IPFire is available on AWS, we are gaining more and more users who are
securing their cloud infrastructure behind an easy to configure, yet fast and
secure firewall.</p>
<p>This update brings a new kernel as well as many other exciting changes.</p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX"><img src="/assets/images/aws/aws.svg" alt="AWS" title="Amazon Web Services" /></a></p>
<p>The most important change for the cloud is that on AWS, IPFire will now
default to a MTU of 9001 bytes for all internal interfaces. The RED interface will
remain on 1500 bytes, since this is the Internet defaults to that size and
we prefer IPFire performing any fragmentation and reassembly of packets over
Amazon’s network stack.</p>
<p>This allows more network throughput with less overhead.</p>
<p><strong>Try it out today for free!</strong></p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://wiki.ipfire.org/installation/aws">detailed installation guide</a>
available which helps you setting up your cloud correctly for IPFire.</p>
<h4 id="how-to-update">How to update?</h4>
<p>For all customers that are already running on the latest image, there is nothing
to do here but to make sure that you have all updates installed on your instance.</p>
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX">Click here to go to IPFire on AWS</a></p>Michael TremerToday, we have updated IPFire on AWS to IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 146 - the latest official release of IPFire. Since IPFire is available on AWS, we are gaining more and more users who are securing their cloud infrastructure behind an easy to configure, yet fast and secure firewall. This update brings a new kernel as well as many other exciting changes.Follow Us on LinkedIn2020-04-14T14:22:27+02:002020-04-14T14:22:27+02:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2020/04/14/follow-us-on-linkedin<p>We are now on LinkedIn!</p>
<p>In a bid to improve our online presence we have created a LinkedIn page
where we will be sharing news, product updates and vacancies within Lightning Wire Labs.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightning-wire-labs">Check out our page</a> and start following us today!</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightning-wire-labs"><img src="/assets/images/linkedin.png" alt="LinkedIn" title="LinkedIn" /></a></p>Michael TremerWe are now on LinkedIn! In a bid to improve our online presence we have created a LinkedIn page where we will be sharing news, product updates and vacancies within Lightning Wire Labs. Check out our page and start following us today!IPFire on AWS: Update to IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 1412020-02-27T10:41:27+01:002020-02-27T10:41:27+01:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2020/02/27/ipfire-on-aws-updated<p>Today, we have updated IPFire on AWS to
<a href="https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-25-core-update-141-release">IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 141</a> -
the latest official release of IPFire.</p>
<p>Since IPFire is available on AWS, we are gaining more and more users who are
securing their cloud infrastructure behind an easy to configure, yet fast and
secure firewall.</p>
<p>This update adds the rewritten DNS stack and brings many bug fixes to the cloud.</p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX"><img src="/assets/images/aws/aws.svg" alt="AWS" title="Amazon Web Services" /></a></p>
<p>Managing DNS servers in IPFire has been re-imagined in this release of IPFire.
Before, there were many places where DNS was configured which varied for each
system depending on how it connected to the Internet.</p>
<p>For the cloud, we have added some changes that might be relevant for you:</p>
<p>For new installations, we won’t use Amazon’s DNS servers any more since they
do not support DNSSEC. By default, the system runs in recursor mode which means
that IPFire will contact authoritative DNS servers directly.</p>
<p>For that, Security Groups need to allow IPFire connecting UDP/53 and TCP/53 for
any IP address on the Internet.</p>
<p>Systems that are upgraded will automatically carry the previous configuration
over. We recommend reviewing those settings and ask you to consider to configure
<a href="https://wiki.ipfire.org/dns/public-servers">DNS-over-TLS</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Try it out today for free!</strong></p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://wiki.ipfire.org/installation/aws">detailed installation guide</a>
available which helps you setting up your cloud correctly for IPFire.</p>
<h4 id="how-to-update">How to update?</h4>
<p>For all customers that are already running on the latest image, there is nothing
to do here but to make sure that you have all updates installed on your instance.</p>
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX">Click here to go to IPFire on AWS</a></p>Michael TremerToday, we have updated IPFire on AWS to IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 141 - the latest official release of IPFire. Since IPFire is available on AWS, we are gaining more and more users who are securing their cloud infrastructure behind an easy to configure, yet fast and secure firewall. This update adds the rewritten DNS stack and brings many bug fixes to the cloud.Enhancements to our DNS Resolver2020-02-12T17:05:46+01:002020-02-12T17:05:46+01:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2020/02/12/enhancements-to-our-dns-resolver<p>Today, we have taken some important changes on our DNS Resolver into
production.
Having released support for DNS-over-TLS in 2018, we have now added
TCP Fast Open and TLSv1.3.</p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p>Lightning Wire Labs is managing a DNS Resolver to provide an alternative
to the large corporation who are trying to get the global DNS system under
their control and use it for marketing purposes.</p>
<p>To not fall behind the technical development, we have now enabled some
new features on our resolver to make it ready for the new DNS changes
that are going to land with
<a href="https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-25-core-update-141-is-available-for-testing">IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 141</a>
very soon.</p>
<h3 id="dns-over-tls">DNS-over-TLS</h3>
<p><a href="/2018/05/03/dns-over-tls-now-available-on-our-resolvers.html">We are supporting DNS-over-TLS</a>,
for almost two years now, but with only few users.
This is not surprising since IPFire did not DNS-over-TLS in the past,
but this will now change.</p>
<p>We support TLSv1.3 and require at least TLSv1.2. ChaCha20-Poly1305, AES-GCM,
Curve25519, and smaller ECSDA certificates are of course not missing either.</p>
<h3 id="tcp-fast-open">TCP Fast Open</h3>
<p>For users who have an ISP that is filtering UDP queries or breaks DNSSEC
in one way or the other, we are supporting TCP of course.</p>
<p>Since TCP requires a full 3-way handshake before any data can be sent, there is
a small performance impact. To combat that, we now support
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_Fast_Open">TCP Fast Open</a> which allows
to send the DNS query with the first packet, even before the TCP connection is
fully open.</p>
<p>This way, queries over TCP are just as fast as those over UDP.</p>
<h3 id="how-to-use-it">How to use it?</h3>
<p>The server is available at <code class="highlighter-rouge">2001:678:b28::54</code> and <code class="highlighter-rouge">81.3.27.54</code>.</p>
<p>If you are using TLS, enter <code class="highlighter-rouge">recursor01.dns.lightningwirelabs.com</code> or
<code class="highlighter-rouge">recursor01.dns.ipfire.org</code> as TLS hostname.</p>Michael TremerToday, we have taken some important changes on our DNS Resolver into production. Having released support for DNS-over-TLS in 2018, we have now added TCP Fast Open and TLSv1.3.Merry Christmas2019-12-05T21:11:13+01:002019-12-05T21:11:13+01:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2019/12/05/merry-christmas<p>As we are nearing the end of 2019, another successful year for Lightning Wire
Labs, it is time to say thank you to everyone who has helped to make that happen.</p>
<p>I would like to thank everyone who has joined us on our way this year,
as a customer, supplier, or a member of staff. It has been a great experience.</p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p>We are very much looking forward to continue our successful projects from 2019
in the next decade. Our customers are always challenging us with new tasks,
and I hope that we delivered well in all of them.</p>
<p>Of course, IPFire is the biggest project close to our hearts and we helped
delivering many new features, security updates and more things.
We hope to contribute even more in 2020 and encourage others to do so, too.</p>
<p>Merry Christmas, if you are celebrating. Enjoy the holidays if you don’t.</p>
<p>We will certainly use the the holidays to take some time off and will be less
available than usual. But our customers know how to get through to us in
urgent cases.
We will ship last orders on December 20th for this year and resume in the new
year.</p>
<p>See you then, folks!</p>Michael TremerAs we are nearing the end of 2019, another successful year for Lightning Wire Labs, it is time to say thank you to everyone who has helped to make that happen. I would like to thank everyone who has joined us on our way this year, as a customer, supplier, or a member of staff. It has been a great experience.IPFire on AWS: Update to IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 1382019-12-02T15:44:26+01:002019-12-02T15:44:26+01:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2019/12/02/ipfire-on-aws-updated<p>Today, we have updated IPFire on AWS to
<a href="https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-23-core-update-138-released">IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 138</a> -
the latest official release of IPFire.</p>
<p>This update includes security fixes for vulnerabilities in Intel processors
as well as the new and improved Quality of Service.</p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX"><img src="/assets/images/aws/aws.svg" alt="AWS" title="Amazon Web Services" /></a></p>
<p>We are very happy that from week to week, we are gaining more customers for
IPFire in the cloud - where you now can manage your network just as you do
it in your own data centre.</p>
<p>In contrast to Amazon’s own features, IPFire is easier to manage, performs
just as well, but brings you even more features like standard IPsec VPNs,
OpenVPN for on-the-road connectivity to the cloud, Intrusion Prevention for
your cloud servers, detailed logging and reporting and many more
<a href="https://www.ipfire.org/features">features</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Try it out today for free!</strong></p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://wiki.ipfire.org/installation/aws">detailed installation guide</a>
available which helps you setting up your cloud correctly for IPFire.</p>
<h4 id="how-to-update">How to update?</h4>
<p>For all customers that are already running on the latest image, there is nothing
to do here but to make sure that you have all updates installed on your instance.</p>
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX">Click here to go to IPFire on AWS</a></p>Michael TremerToday, we have updated IPFire on AWS to IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 138 - the latest official release of IPFire. This update includes security fixes for vulnerabilities in Intel processors as well as the new and improved Quality of Service.IPFire on AWS: Update to IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 1362019-10-14T11:37:25+02:002019-10-14T11:37:25+02:00https://www.lightningwirelabs.com/2019/10/14/ipfire-on-aws-updated<p>Today, we have updated IPFire on AWS to
<a href="https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-23-core-update-136-released">IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 136</a> -
the latest official release of IPFire.</p>
<p>This update includes security fixes for OpenSSL and the Linux kernel,
an updated Perl, and of course many other fixes throughout the whole system.</p>
<!--excerpt ends here-->
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX"><img src="/assets/images/aws/aws.svg" alt="AWS" title="Amazon Web Services" /></a></p>
<p>We are very happy that from week to week, we are gaining more customers for
IPFire in the cloud - where you now can manage your network just as you do
it in your own data center.</p>
<p>In contrast to Amazon’s own features, IPFire is easier to manage, performs
just as well, but brings you even more features like standard IPsec VPNs,
OpenVPN for on-the-road connectivity to the cloud, Intrusion Prevention for
your cloud servers, detailed logging and reporting and many more
<a href="https://www.ipfire.org/features">features</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Try it out today for free!</strong></p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://wiki.ipfire.org/installation/aws">detailed installation guide</a>
available which helps you setting up your cloud correctly for IPFire.</p>
<h4 id="how-to-update">How to update?</h4>
<p>For all customers that are already running on the latest image, there is nothing
to do here but to make sure that you have all updates installed on your instance.</p>
<p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07HYRD4FX">Click here to go to IPFire on AWS</a></p>Michael TremerToday, we have updated IPFire on AWS to IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 136 - the latest official release of IPFire. This update includes security fixes for OpenSSL and the Linux kernel, an updated Perl, and of course many other fixes throughout the whole system.