[mdlug] linux firewall/vpn package like monowall

[Dan Pritts]

Hi all -

got a query from my brother.

he wants to host an app at a cloud provider (looking at rackspace).  the data is hipaa protected, so he's understandably leery about security. 

one suggestion he got was to have a pair of VMs, one running the app and another running as a dedicated firewall/VPN.  

They're evaluating the pros and cons of this approach, but without worrying too mucha bout whether it's a good idea, a couple questions -

anyone familiar with the cloud providers, and know which providers let you set up your VM networking like this?  

any suggestions for relatively simple firewall/vpn configuration tools that can be installed in a VM image from one of the big distros?  rackspace in particular provides a fairly comprehensive list of linux distros, but from what i can tell you can't just install your own distro in a VM.  So, a dedicated distribution like monowall wouldn't work.  iirc monowall is freebsd-based anyway, but you get the idea.  

thanks
danno