Administration

This section describes a NetworkShield Firewall 2006 Administration and provides instructions on how to administer NetworkShield Firewall 2006.

• NetworkShield Management Console
• Backup and Restore
• Remote administration
• Remote monitoring
• Administration: How to

NetworkShield Management Console

The NetworkShield Firewall Management Console consists of two main parts: Console tree and Configuration section. The Console tree shows sections for the configuration of NetworkShield Firewall. When you select a section in the Console tree, its settings will be displayed in the Configuration section of the Management Console.

Applying Configuration

After you make changes in the configuration of NetworkShield Firewall (for example, create an object or a rule), you should click the Apply button on the Information bar to save the new settings on the server. Until you click the Apply button, the settings will not be sent to the server and the changes in the configuration will not be applied.

To cancel all made changes, you should click the Discard button. The current configuration will be loaded from the server after that.

The Apply and Discard buttons appear automatically together with the Information bar when you make changes in the configuration.

The Information bar also displays important messages and information about the work of NetworkShield Firewall.

Backup and Restore

To increase the reliability of the server, NetworkShield Firewall allows you to back up the configuration in order to restore it later in case of failures or damages. The procedure of backing up and restoring the configuration is very simple and takes several minutes.

The configuration is saved as an XML file to any folder on a network drive or on the hard drive.

It is recommended to save backup files to a folder that only NetworkShield Firewall administrators can access.

Backing up the configuration

NetworkShield Firewall backs up all necessary configuration settings: network objects, rules and statistics if specified. The administrator password is not saved when a configuration backup is created. It is recommended to create a backup after each major change in the configuration.

Restoring the configuration

While restoring the configuration, you can load either the configuration from a previously created backup file or the default configuration.

Remote administration

NetworkShield Firewall allows you to change the configuration from any computer on the local area network. You should install the NetworkShield Management Console on the computer or to connect to the server using the Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) service to be able to remotely control the server. It is recommended to use the NetworkShield Management Console for controlling the server from local area networks. If you need to configure NetworkShield Firewall from other networks, you should use the Remote Desktop Connection service.

After installation, NetworkShield Firewall allows you to establish any connections with the server. While configuring the network with the Network Configuration Wizard, you should specify the services on the NetworkShield server that you need to provide access to. If you configure the server remotely via the RDP service, you should specify the RDP protocol to create a permitting rule. Otherwise the established RDP connection will be blocked after the configuration with the Network Configuration Wizard.

It is possible to control the server with NetworkShield Management Console from a remote computer only after initial configuration with the Network Configuration Wizard. There are no limitations concerning the configuration of NetworkShield Firewall during remote control.

Remote monitoring

NetworkShield Firewall allows you to monitor the statistics of traffic usage from any computer on your network. To do it, just open the browser and enter the host name or IP address of your gateway and port 2200 into the address bar.

Example: http://your.server.hostname:2200 or http://12.34.56.78:2200

It is possible to view statistics in two modes: statistics for all rules and statistics for the current client. Statistics for all rules is available only to the NetworkShield Firewall administrator. You should use the administrator password for your authentication to be able to view statistics for all rules.

For a client, the rule statistics section displays only those rules that are set for the client the request to the statistics server was made from. If "display statistics for users" checkbox is not set in the properties of a traffic usage rule on the server, statistics for this rule will not be displayed for the client in the client rule statistics.