All,

I am having a pretty rough time with installing a Linux firewall box. I have an old PIII 1GHz 384MB RAM rackmount server laying around. Our current firewall subscription has expired and we don't want to spend money on them anymore...too pricey. FYI: We use cable modem to get our Internet access. Enough of that, now to the problem.

I have tried to install many different firewall distros like SmoothWall, CensorNet and IPCop with a 0% success rate. This is what happens. I am installing it fine and I am using a GREEN + RED network configuration. DHCP is disabled on the routers since one of our Windowz servers is supplying it. Once I am 100% done with the installation and it is set up to the needs of my network I am unable to connect to the Internet from any LAN computer. This has happened with all three distros. I can ping the router from a LAN computer but I cannot access the router via a web browser (ex: http://smoothwall:81) because the operation times out. Yes, I have swapped the cables so that each has had it's turn in the two NIC cards to ensure I don't have the cables in the incorrect port. *takes a breath*

Ok, that being said, what could be my issue? How do you recommend I go about trouble shooting beyond what I already have? I thought SmoothWall was just a install and run kinda distro but am finding it to be somewhat of a headache. Oh yes, one more thing: When I plug the Internet cable back into our old router everything is back up and running. I definately know it's something with the Linux router I am trying to set up. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated so I can get this up and running. Thanks in advance!

-dumbsheep (I feel like one too! )

I run Smoothwall on an old Dell PIII without any problems at all. You might pose specific questions regarding it to the community forum at smoothwall.org. The regulars there are very responsive.

jcliburn,

Good idea. I will post my issue there as well. However, if anyone still has any ideas please do post. Thank yoU.

-dumbsheep

For smoothwall:

1. From a machine on the green net, try ssh -p 222 root@<smoothwall_green_ip>

2. From a machine on the green net, try https://<smoothwall_green_ip>:441

3. Since you used the hostname "smoothwall" in your connection attempts, did you add an entry for it in the appropriate client machines' hosts file? /etc/hosts on linux, /c/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts on the win box.

4. Put a monitor and kbd on the smoothwall box and try to login directly as root.

5. Bad NIC on the red interface?

If you haven't already tried m0n0wall, you might want to give that a shot as well. It doesn't have quite as many features as Smoothwall, but it's a good, simple, rock-solid firewall that's really easy to set up.

Thanks. I'll check m0n0wall out

-dumbsheep

Ok, the easiest solution i can see to this problem is to allow your IPCop, smoothwall or whatever linux router do the DHCP work, this way you can be sure DHCP will deal out the correct DNS and gateway settings. However if you wish to keep your current setup then you'll need to do this...

Assign IPCop/Smoothwall a static IP address on its GREEN interface, note this down. Then go to your windows machine that provides the DHCP, configure DHCP server on that machine to deal out the gateway/dns IP address as the one you noted previously of the GREEN interface. I believe what is going on is that your GREEN interface is being set to DHCP? Am i right, so it recieves a dynamic lease from your windows server, but there is no way for your computers to know that this dynamic IP is the gateway. So, for ease of administration, just move DHCP over to your IPCop/Smoothwall machine and you should be fine