quick question: open ports

[bshi]

what's the name of the utility that displays all open/active ports on one's machine?

Oh yea, another one: anyone know of a decent frontend to iptables?

[swangods]

Try nmap.

From http://www.insecure.org/

[miteycasey]

I've always used firestarter for the firewall stuff.
http://firestarter.sourceforge.net/

You might try SAINT for network security.
http://wwdsilx.wwdsi.com/index.html