Hi,
I tired to get Firestarter running but im having some problems. I installed firestarter. I found it in the menu system and ran it, went through the wizard and all was sorted. I did all of this as root. Now i then logged out and then back in as a general user and every time I do this the firestarter gui appears and then I get an error message saying that i must be root to use the gui, wizard and logging. Im a little confused :-( i thought that i would install it, configure it as root and then when i logged in as a user the settings that i set as root would be carried over to the other users and it would just run in the backgroud (and I could look at stats through the gui).

Can anyone help me please.

Thanks
s0

p.s. I really do apologise if this has already been covered. I did look to see but couldnt find any threads covering this. I have also looked for help in the form of manuals but they are a little vague for a beginner to linux.

OK, once you run firestarter once, and apply the firewall, you don't need to run it again. The rules should be applied automatically to the system when you start up.

The reason you have to run firestarter as root, is because regular users can't change firewall settings. In fact, regular users shouldn't even need to change the firewall settings, because as soon as root sets them, they are applied to the entire system (i.e. carried over to all users).

maybe you need to reboot machine for setting to get remembered
else.
you can do it hard way (set it up with firestarter)
do iptables -L and copy down all rules and put them to /etc/rc.local

Thanks.
So is it the principle that you run firestarter, it makes the changes to the iptables and then it shouldn't actually run in the background. I noticed then it was running as a background process and if i didn't set the preferences to "start hidden" it would always show the gui when I started up - not to mention all the errors with the user (not root) problem. So i guesss it set itself up as a background process to be started on boot. Also isn't it useful to see who is trying to ping/woteva you or is that priviledge set aside for root. I mean it can be reassuring that your firewall is working when you can see things are being blocked.

Once again thanks
s0

p.s. how difficult is it to set up the iptables yourself.

well... have a look at the file in /etc/firestarter/firewall.sh that's how easy it is.... well it's all pretty repetetive i'm sure you can appreciate. but still it's a bit daunting from step one.

yes, once firestarter has started the firewall you don't need it. you won't need to load it again, as the wall SHOULD start at bootup time. the only benefit is that it monitors various ports and tells you who is trying to connect and such.

ive noticed that if you discconnect from the internet and then reconnect - you have to stop then restart the firewall. so i keep firestarter .gui. up and running for this purpose.

the third (or so) window in the firestarter wizard has an option for 'start firewall upon connect'. i recommend you click this option so you do not have to manually start it each time you log on to your isp. this will eliminate the need to run the firestarter program as root.