StillSecure Cobia

Cobia is another UTM which provides all the basic functionality, just like

any other software based UTM. Apart from the anti-virus/spyware one can also

find URL filtering, firewall, VPN etc.



The free version of Cobia is best suited for small or mid sized enterprises,
because its configuration and deployment are pretty easy as compared to Endian

or Untangle.

Like Endian, it has a web based configuration panel, which makes it easily

configurable. Considering the options it provides, it can be good for remote

offices, where the requirements are too specific, such anti-virus, anti-spam or

URL filtering etc. The installation of Cobia is pretty easy, despite being a

textual install process like Endian. Once the installation has been done, we

logged in using admin credentials.

The dashboard shows the overview of the system very elaborately. It shows the

total system uptime, average load, CPU usage, physical and virtual memory usage

and so on. The GUI is very simple and even newbies can learn the process

enabling services quickly as compared to Endian.

We used the same hardware that we used for the other UTMs, primarily the

Harpertown server. The minimum hardware requirement for this is Pentium 4, 1GB

RAM, 10 GB HDD space and 2 NIC. At first we did the anti-virus test. Here, it

detected 89% of viruses, which is a good number. Compared to other UTMs in the

shootout this number is pretty decent.

Next, we tested the anti-spam funtionality of this UTM for which the score

was not as satisfying as others in this shootout. It detected 52% of the spam,

which is an average score. This UTM doesn't have IDS or IDP in the free edition,

which is a drawback. Then we manually tested the URL filtering option which is

basically SQUID. It provides white and black list options only whereas the other

two UTMs provide much more elaborative options for content filtering, such as

categorized URLs. As we said earlier, it also has VPN capabilities. The

configuration of VPN in this UTM is a bit tricky as it opens up the

configuration file for configuring the VPN. And once you save that you need to

download the client separately on the client machine and then use it. Overall,

the UTM has basic options and as compared to others, it has less features.