> Hi! I have but one goal :)
> 
> I would like to be able to setup a firewall type of thing that serves
> these goals:
> 1) Allow hosts set to connect
> 2) Deny hosts not in the list
> 3) Send a message to the denied hosts explaining what happened
> 
> Is this possible with netbsd? I know it is with Linux and their oh so
> lovable hosts.allow and hosts.deny.

I think it's possable. A better place to ask the question, though, is on
current-users. Some changes have gone in recently which should support
this stuff.

Note: what you described isn't firewalling as I understand it. Firewalls
are computers which act as selective gateways between networks.
Gateways also act as intermediaries for connections. The programs which
will communicate through a gateway have to be modified to work right.
Like for a web browser, the browser wants to hook to a server, and
asks the firewall to help out (as the client can't talk to the server
nor can the server talk to the client directly). The server thinks the
firewall asked for a page, and serves it up. the firewall then feeds
the page off to the client, which shows it to you.

You described a host which is picky about what computer can connect. I
think that's easier to do, and (like I said) recently supported.

Take care,

Bill