[Setup-tool-hackers] Re: setup-tool-hackers digest, Vol 1 #50 - 7msgs

[Tuomas Kuosmanen <tigert ximian com>]

On 24 Jul 2001 17:01:30 -0400, setup-tool-hackers-admin@ximian.com
wrote:

[ sorry, replying to a digest, which sucks for your threading :( ]

> I think such a tool is seriously needed. I say go for it. However, try to keep it
> very elegant. A 13 year old ought to be able to make sense of it.  I kind of liked
> my diagram of it where each device is shown, the common services with their ports,
> spaces for manual port input, and then check boxes to select which device has that
> service/port blocked and which doesn't. It just makes more sense like that to
> people that have no clue about firewalls. All they'll see is that "if I click this
> button, no one outside can access my ssh server."

Maybe have a look at the bunch of Windows based firewall tools, and how
their 
user interfaces are done? I have seen many gtk based ones, some looked
like a 
graphical version of ipchains where you just had to know the syntax of
ipchains
anyway to be able to use it. They sucked for the new/uneducated user. 

Alan's tool (Gnome Lokkit if I remember correctly) was wizard-based and
I liked
it a lot. It was easy to walk through, and it had questions that made
sense.

It might be also good to have a bunch of example scenarios to start
with, like

   1) Modem dialup use
   2) Cable modem / DSL connection to internet with one machine only
   3) Cable modem / DSL with NAT (masquerading)

Also should handle dynamic IP numbers!

Now I dont know if Chema wants to have this kind of tool in XST, it is
up to him,
but I'd like to see something like this for Gnome, setting up
ipchains/iptables
is hard enough on the console. It might also work as a standalone app,
though 
XST might provide some useful infrastructure for maintaining the
configuration 
etc? 

Just think for a moment about the interface before starting to hack on
it!
Otherwise you just end up as Yet Another Obscure Firewall
Configurator... :)

Tuomas

-- 
:: :: Tuomas Kuosmanen  :: Art Director, Ximian :: ::
:: :: tigert@ximian.com :: www.ximian.com       :: ::


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