I am running a small web server using Suse. The machine has two network cards, one outside the company firewall and connecting directly to the Internet. The other card is hooked inside the firewall and is used only by staff members to FTP, edit web pages, etc from their individual workstations.

My problem is that the computer seems to be defaulting to the card that is inside the firewall. This means that my automatic update and some other applications cannot access the Internet because it is blocked by a Novell proxy server that requires a web based login.

What I need to know is, how do I tell the operating system to use the non-firewalled network card for ALL of the connections that it makes? The only thing the local card should do is receive incoming FTP and HTTP traffic from inside the company firewall.

I originally posted this in the Suse forum but was told to post it here for the networking folks.

Thank you for any advice you might have.

MaestroC

It sounds like you're running SLES. Did you pay for support and updates from Novell? You should be contacting them to help with this problem.

What SuSE forum told you to post the question here?

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What SuSE forum told you to post the question here?
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I originally posted the question in the Suse distro forum here on linuxquestions.org. It received some replies, but none of them really helped. They told me how to set up the proxy server on my Suse box to get through the firewall, but it only works if I have personally logged the machine into the BorderManager firewall. This won't work since the firewall logs you out after so many minutes of inactivity. I later received a reply suggesting that I try posting this question here, on the networking forum.

The thing is, I feel like there has to be a way to force the machine to use the non-firewalled ethernet card. I should have left the second card out when I was setting up the machine, allowing the system to set itself up properly and then later adding the second NIC card for local access. Since I didn't do this what option might I have to fix this problem?

I did try deleting the local card from the Network Devices control panel in Suse, but this did not fix the problem. The machine does not seem to realize that the non-firewalled NIC card is functioning and that it should use that card to access the Internet.

-MaestroC

I still feel like I'm missing something. By virtue of the fact that Novell is asking you for a login / password, it sounds to me like you are indeed connecting to their server for updates.

That's why I asked if you're running SLES...

It appears you are misunderstanding my statements.

My school runs Novell's Bordermanager software as a firewall for our network. In order to connect to the Internet and get to my Suse box's update site I have to go through this firewall. The username and password I spoke of is in order for me to get outside of our local network and onto the Internet.

I do not require a username and password in order to download the software updates, only to get through the school's firewall. This login times out after sixty minutes of inactivity. Unless I set the machine to check for updates every hour, the next time it tries to go onto the Internet for updates it will fail to do so because the firewall has timed out my login. The only way to reinstate this login is for me to enter my username/password in an online form.

I suppose I could set the update timer to check for updates every 59 minutes, but that seems like such a waste... It would, however, solve my problem in the short term.

I honestly do not know what the SLES server is that you speak of.

Thank you for your help.

MaestroC