I know I am able to block IP addresses through Webmin. It's kind of nice that way. But it would be terrific if I could run a firewall on front of the system to spread the work out. I would then only allow those people through to the web servers that I want in. I could block out all of China if I wanted to because I don't get any mail from China. And I could cut down on Spam.
Does anybody know of a good router that will enable people to manually block IPs? I've looked at Barraccuda, but it's a bit pricey. And I don't need all that automatic stuff.
I could set up a proxy, but hate to waste another machine for that.
You should make your own router/ firewall using a copy of Linux. Any old computer (Pentium 2 - 3) would be more then suitable for the job.
Just use iptables to filter out the addresses you don't want.