[Sheflug] Re: Firewall

[Barrie Bremner <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>> "Darrell" == Darrell Blake <dazblake [at] btinternet.com> writes:

    Darrell> I don't understand what you're talking about at all. I've
    Darrell> never done networking before. What is a gateway? I only
    Darrell> have two machines, this one and the firewall. It says in
    Darrell> the docs to use the IP 192.168.0.1 and doesn't mention
    Darrell> anything about another port when connecting through the
    Darrell> browser.

Darrell,

It might be worthwhile finding a crash course in TCP/IP on the net
somewhere, and also reading the networking and firewall/security
HOWTOs[1] as well as Rusty Russell's unreliable guides[2], especially if
you're looking at firewalls - something that requires at least some
basics to work effectively.

A 'gateway' is pretty much what it suggests - to quote the Network
Administrator Guide[3]:

** A gateway is a host that is connected to two or more physical networks
simultaneously and is configured to switch packets between them.


The Smoothwall box is acting as a gateway - it might also filter the
packets going through it too, so it's performing as a firewall also.[4]

Each machine has an IP address. You can't just go picking them at
random.
The Smoothwall machine, from what you're saying, is set up on
192.168.0.1.
You cannot use 192.168.0.0 for your main machine - look for references
to "broadcast addresses" to find out why.

Hope that lot helps.

Cheers,

Baz.


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html

[2]  http://netfilter.samba.org

[3]  http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/nag/node1.html 

[4]  My definitions are slightly imperfect, but it'll do.  

-- 
Barrie J. Bremner		OpenPGP public key ID: 5164F553
baz [at] barriebremner.com	http://barriebremner.com/


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