[H-GEN] Request for help with smoothwall firewall

[Ronald Bradford]

Christopher,

Thanks for you feedback. I'll post a response to the list when I've got 
it all working in our environment.

Regards

Ronald :)

Christopher LeMoyne wrote:

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> Ronald Bradford wrote:
>
>> However two things remain, VPN & VNC access.   I've been unsuccessful 
>> in doing testing of VPN access from a Windoze machine (which all 
>> staff use).
>> While there is a certain amount of accessible documentation, it's a 
>> lot to wade through and consensus is VPN is complicated, and with 
>> Microsoft not supporting IPsec very difficult hence my request for 
>> anybody that could give some valuable assistance first hand.
>
>
>
> Hi Ronald,
>
> Firstly, Microsoft Windows does support IPSEC firewalls.  PPTP is 
> their primary focus, but they do support IPSEC (out-of-the-box on 2k 
> and XP).  I know, because it's a big part of exam 70-218 (requirement 
> for the MCSA) which I passed a few months ago.  IPSEC, unfortunately, 
> is quite complicated to setup, no matter what platform you choose.  It 
> is best implemented at larger companies that can readily setup the 
> infrastructure needed.  Some resources for IPSEC on Windows:
> http://labmice.techtarget.com/networking/ipsec.htm
>
> Secondly, you may want to consider another firewall technology 
> altogether.  I have setup a number of OpenVPN tunnels to friend's 
> machines & LAN's, using both Linux and Windows.  OpenVPN is 
> OpenSource, comes with a Windows installer and Linux binaries/source, 
> is quite simple to implement (especially suitable for SME), and comes 
> with some excellent howto's and other doco:
> http://openvpn.net/
>
> Thirdly, for VNC, I thoroughly recommend UltraVNC (also OpenSource).  
> Although it is Windows-only, it is backwards-compatible with other VNC 
> versions (depending on what authentication methods you select, if you 
> choose MS-Logon I or MS-Logon II, it is then UltraVNC only, though it 
> has an embedded JavaViewer for other platforms to use).  It has some 
> excellent features, such as requesting user permission to shadow, and 
> defaulting to accept or reject with a timeout, and quite a few others 
> that make it very suitable for business use.  Refer to Anthony Irwin's 
> post for how to forward different ports to each machine inside the 
> LAN.  You could either change the port on each machine via UltraVNC's 
> settings panel, or rewrite the port number with your firewall rules.
> http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
>
> Good luck.
>
> Regards,
> Christopher
>
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