Shorewall users - Apr 2004 - Add QuickGuide for 56K dial-up modem instead of Firewall/Router

Folks,

If you can find the time, please consider my request.

STATUS:
I finally got shorewall to work with my 2 PC LAN (using ethernet NIC cards)
and internet access (using a dial-up 56K modem). In short it took me about 3
full days. That is too long.

WHAT I DID:
I tried to following the Quickguide for "single public IP address" and
"Two-interfaces" but had trouble guessing how to apply the
"dial-up modem"
hints given in the guide to tweak the Firewall/Router configuration to
handle the dial-up modem configuration.

In particular, I had trouble trying to "interpolate" your descriptions
for
the zones, internal, and external interfaces in terms of the 56K dial-up
modem case. This visual picture is all important when knowing if you are
talking about "fw", "net", and "loc". I did a lot
of guess and re-guessing
before I got things to work. And, I''m not sure that I did it 100% right
(even though my system appears to be working).

MY REQUEST:
I am requesting that you add a Quickstart Guide that is dedicated for
dial-up modem access and a 2 PC LAN as follows:
    - a 2 PC LAN
      (in my case one PC is a Windows 98SE and the other
       was Mandrake 9.2 PowerPack Edition)

    - internet access via a dial-up 56K modem on EACH PC.
      (i.e., neither PC shares the internet access with any other PC).

This is a very likely configuration for a home PC as most PCs today
come with a modem.

Then if it wasn''t too much trouble and to satisfy those that want each
PC to
share a single 56K dial-up modem located on the linux PC, you could include
some remarks to help us handle that case.

Thanks for any help you might have.

George Zahorodny

George Zahorodny wrote:
> 
> In particular, I had trouble trying to "interpolate" your
descriptions for
> the zones, internal, and external interfaces in terms of the 56K dial-up
> modem case. This visual picture is all important when knowing if you are
> talking about "fw", "net", and "loc". I did a
lot of guess and re-guessing
> before I got things to work. And, I''m not sure that I did it 100%
right
> (even though my system appears to be working).
George,

I''m a bit confused by your confusion.

a) The figures in the QuickStart guide clearly label the interface to 
the internet as being the "External Interface" and that the internet
is
the "Net" zone.

b) In the section entitled "External Interface", is found this:

	"If you connect via a *regular modem*, your External Interface
          will also be ppp0".

    Was it that the term "regular modem" didn''t register with
you?

c) You only have one other interface ("eth0" presumably) so that 
interface is your "Internal Interface". Again the diagrams and text
make
it clear that the interface connects to your "loc" zone.
> 
> MY REQUEST:
> I am requesting that you add a Quickstart Guide that is dedicated for
> dial-up modem access and a 2 PC LAN as follows:
>  
I would much rather change the existing guide to avoid confusion of the 
type you suffered than have to support another guide which would be 
almost a carbon copy of the existing one.

-Tom
-- 
Tom Eastep    \ Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool
Shoreline,     \ http://shorewall.net
Washington USA  \ teastep@shorewall.net