Regular readers will remember I asked a few Q's a while back about smoothwall not seeing the latest update page, therefore not being able to upload the latest updates as it wouldn't recognize them.

Essentially I had Smoothwall 2.0 with updates 1 - 4 installed, but then got an error message saying
"could not download the available updates list"
so even though I downloaded the updates to my windows machine I couldnt upload them to smoothwall as it wouldnt recognize them.
I asked here, the official smoothwall forum and other forums but to no avail.

However I found the problem and am now sharing it with you.

My ISP used to offer a local dial-in number for my connection but then added a national number which I changed to. Nothing appeared to have changed I could still use the net OK except that my smoothwall box decided it couldnt see the update page. I tried everything I could think of to remedy it on the gui but no go.

However I found I still had the configuration for the other local number saved so I switched back and lo and behold it was able to see the update page again. I dont know why my smoothwall box did this, maybe someone else can explain.

So if you changed ISP or dial-in number just be aware of this problem.

floppywhopper

Great! Thanks for posting your fix!

Actually the answer lies on pages 31 - 32 of the installation manual. This web proxy set-up is mainly for the update function, but any web traffic that smoothwall ITSELF generates.

My ISP had a proxy on the local number but not the national number so when I switched to the national number it was looking for a proxy which didn't exist. And therefore smoothwall could not connect to the net on its own behalf even though the computers it was protecting could through it.

I'm glad I found the solution as in a week they will discontinue the local number and all I have to do is reconfigure that proxy set-up, whereas in a weeks time I would have been none the wiser.

hope this helps someone
floppy