Smoothwall v3 Beta - "Degu"

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The_Unbeliever

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First looks and impressions :

Downloaded the CD, cut it without any problems

Fired up my trusty Smoothie, only to discover that it wouldn't start up anymore. Ripped off the covers, plugged in a new PSU, same problem. Like, wtf???

Noticed that the P2 CPU seemed a bit loose, punched it back, and it started up.

Plugged in a CDROM and chucked the Degu CD in.

The bootup screen had Beta written all over it... :)

Initial installation seemed to take a bit longer, especially with preparing the HDD. (I had a previous Smoothwall 2.0 install - extended defense by s-t-p) on the HDD.

Then the installation program commenced with the files installation, stock standard so far.

After the files was copied, the CDRom was ejected and the second part of the installation was commenced.

Right after proceeding into the installation procedure, a screen asked about the default security policy.

You have three choices -

"Open"

"Half-open"

"Closed".

Open - all outgoing requests are allowed - this is the same as the previous 2.x and older versions.

Half-open - most outgoing requests are allowed, except for potentially harmful ones.

Closed - all outgoing requests are blocked, and must be explicitly enabled on the ports and services you require.


I plumped for the "Open" security policy. At a later stage I will have a look at the other two and what they mean.

[If you are scurity conscious, then you can go for the closed policy, and open the ports and services as required]

Then it asked for the network configuration type. I chose simple Red/Green as I'm still using an analogue modem on Red. :eek:

Options are

Green (Red is Modem/ISDN)
Green + Orange (Red is Modem/ISDN)
Green + Red
Green + Orange + Red
Green + Purple (Red is Modem/ISDN)
Green + Purple + Orange (Red is Modem/ISDN)
Green + Purple + Red
Green + Purple + Orange + Red


Then the setup changed. Instead of barging through the ISDN and ADSL setup, it displays a menu with "Web Proxy, ISDN Configuration, ADSL configuration and DHCP server configuration."

I disabled ISDN and ADSL, enabled DHCP and checked the web proxy config. Basically you can enable Smoothwall to use an external proxy server with this option.

After clicking on Finish, I was presented with the password dialog for the root and admin user.

Then the setup program was finished, and the PC was rebooted.

The web interface (GUI) was redesigned (pictures to be posted later) and everything is in its place - the menu structure is exactly the same as with the previous versions.

There's lots of cool stuff not in the Express 2.0 release - the ability to view your bandwidth usage "on the fly", bandwidth usage per IP (also on-the-fly) a simple QoS module (traffic shaping) and other stuff which I'll have to play with.

Also, some pictures will be posted at one stage, along with a more comprehensive report.

I'm connected to the Internet via Degu at this stage, and all is working fine. :D

Regards

Libs
 
Yup, the new bandwidth features look very cool.

Installation didn't seem to take very long for me, but I didn't time it...

When I can get workable access to the smoothwall forums, I'll post some thoughts and feedback there.
 
As i type this question i realise google is my fiend !:o but here goes anyway.
Does it have support for a wifi and broadband connection?
 
gUrU, if you mean wifi on the LAN side, that's easy with a separate access point. Smoothwall 3 supports a separate interface you can attach your wifi to and enforce tighter security than you might for Ethernet-attached clients.

If you mean wireless WAN, no. There are mods for Smoothwall 2 that support multiple WAN interfaces, one of which could be a wireless router, but since Smoothwall 3 is not finalised yet there are no mods for it.
 
lol... somebody must hate Google :D :D

'nyways - after playing around with it, I found the Beta to be very stable (surprisingly :p ). It worked quite well on my work's DSL line (Cisco router have 5 ports, and we have 5 IP adresses at our disposal, so I used one IP for the test...)

Haven't had any major or minor issues with it.

Already a few bugs are lined up for termination, so we should see the next SP release soon.

The default installation policy of "half-open" do work quite well - but you need to open certain ports should you require these (such as VNC or pcAnywhere) to go outside. Which isn't a bad idea, considering that this will block most malware from trying to "phone home".

The origins of this "default-deny" policy can be found here.

Default deny - I like that word - and it gives any administrator more control over traffic egress.
 
Smoothwall is pretty damn cool, I prefer SME Server because it has a mySQL and PHP webserver and a mailserver built in, I just wish I could get bandwidth monitoring per IP to work... Open Source all the way!
 
Haven't updated this thread...

but good to see others also use open source solutions to protect their networks :D
 
Can I use a Telkom ADSL USB POTS (Marconi) modem with smoothwall, the modem does support bridge mode.
 
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