Firewall Information and Hardware Setup Guide - Network Configuration and DHCP
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Network Configuration
The first thing we need to do is define our network configuration type. From the Smoothwall Installation manual:
“SmoothWall Express supports a number of different network configuration options for its three network interfaces, which are:-
Red – The External (un-trusted) interface, usually the Internet
Green – The Local network (trusted), not visible to the outside world
Orange – The optional De-Militarized Zone (DMZ), for servers visible to the outside world”
For our PPPoE setup, we are going to use GREEN + RED. Next, we will configure our network cards.
Remember that the software detected and installed the drivers for the GREEN card already. Selecting Drivers and Card Assignments will allow us to probe for and select the driver for the RED NIC. Note that at this point in time, replacing a GREEN NIC requires reinstalling Smoothwall or doing some intricate editing in the Linux configuration files, information on this can be found in the forums (version 3.0 may solve this issue). As a general rule, the software will assign the first NIC detected to the GREEN interface. This means that the card in the lowest numbered PCI slot (usually numbered 1-n starting from the slot closest to the processor) will be the GREEN one, followed by ORANGE and RED. Keep in mind while performing maintenance on the machine that moving a card to a different slot, even if it’s just a shift sideways, will require reinstall (if GREEN) or rerun setup (if ORANGE or RED).
In Address Settings, we can change the address for GREEN if necessary (default is 192.168.0.1), this is the address where the other computers in the network will look for the firewall. Also, and this is a critical step for us, we need to set our RED interface for PPPoE. Note that while there is a DHCP option on this page (and we will cover DHCP in a moment), this option is for interfacing the RED with our ISP, not for enabling the firewall to perform DHCP functions on our internal network.
We won’t need to go into DNS and Gateway Settings here, since that is for setting the DNS server addresses at the ISP if the ISP will be performing DHCP for the network. We plan to do that locally so we will select “done” and go back to the main menu.
DHCP
Scrolling down a little will bring us to the local DHCP Configuration menu.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a means for issuing an IP address to each entity on the Local Area Network (LAN). This allows devices such as additional computers or LAN printers to be added without having to track and manually assign a unique address to each unit.
We will check the box to enable DHCP on our machine, and set the address range for assignment. The default ranges from 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.200. If you plan on having close to 100 devices on your internal LAN, then leave it. I only have five plugged into my network and don’t anticipate more than ten anytime soon, so I adjusted the range accordingly.
The Primary DNS should be the same address that the GREEN is set to.
Finally, we have to set our passwords. The root password is for accessing the smoothie locally, as is the setup password. The difference being that anyone logging into the firewall machine using the setup account will be automatically put into the setup program, while the root user will have access to the entire OS.
The admin account is the only account that is able to access Smoothwall through the primary GUI.
After that, we can quit and reboot the system. Smoothwall is installed and we are almost done.
Next: The GUI >>
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