Howto: Set up Ubuntu as a firewall/gateway router with webmin

[sammydee]

Hey there, thank you so much for the guide!

I have followed every step exactly, save for the part in the command prompt at the beginning, when you said to press "ctrl + O" in order to save it. This was not the option for me, instead it was to overwrite it. I just decided to exit, unable to find the save feature, could this be why I have not found success?

Yes, you absolutely must overwrite this file or it will not work.

Sam

[michaelgilch]

Is there a way to still access Webmin without a gui? I am using Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition.

[pandamoniumcomputers]

Wow! So far so good. Very well put together guide. I am currently using this setup at a big time international company and it is almost ready to go. I had been working on a Linux router for some time now. I have tried smoothwall, monowall and a few others but this actually worked thanks.

[sammydee]

Is there a way to still access Webmin without a gui? I am using Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition.

Well, webmin is a web server so you can connect to it from any computer with a web browser. You don't need a gui on the computer you set it up on.

Sam

[leonix]

After how many days of goggling howto's like this, i've finally found at last and made it working 90%, thanks sammydee to this useful howto's.

I had just this problem, the dhcp client workstation behind my ubuntu router can't resolve/ping using public hostname, only it can resolve the IP Address.

any idea on possible reconfiguration...thanks.

[sammydee]

After how many days of goggling howto's like this, i've finally found at last and made it working 90%, thanks sammydee to this useful howto's.

I had just this problem, the dhcp client workstation behind my ubuntu router can't resolve/ping using public hostname, only it can resolve the IP Address.

any idea on possible reconfiguration...thanks.

Sounds like a dns issue. Make sure your router is handing out a valid dns server address to clients.

Sam

[mittwit]

Great Howto.
I started with a clean install of 8.10 desktop and my eth_BAD is a USB wireless 3G which shows as ppp0.
I followed the directions to the end of setting up the basic firewall and now I can share my wireless internet with the other computers on my lan.
One thing I noticed when setting webadmin access to local only it wouldn't accept 127.0.0.1 as the local connection. Webadmin thought my ip was 127.0.1.1 so I just put 127.0.0.1 and 127.0.1.1. When I checked ifconfig gave 127.0.0.1 so not sure about that.
Anyway it works which is great. Thanks for the clear instructions.
Peter Cook.

[leonix]

yes, you're right...i'd messed up on putting correct dns address for my dhcp client subnet.
and now, its working 100%...thanks again
I still have another problem, although this is not a big deal one and I know this was resolved before, just no time to find solutions.
I can't ping my ubuntu routers' hostname from windows client, only IP address works.

[sammydee]

yes, you're right...i'd messed up on putting correct dns address for my dhcp client subnet.
and now, its working 100%...thanks again
I still have another problem, although this is not a big deal one and I know this was resolved before, just no time to find solutions.
I can't ping my ubuntu routers' hostname from windows client, only IP address works.

This is because windows is crap and doesn't support zeroconf. Blame microsoft for this and ask them to pretty please implement zeroconf for windows.

Sam

[Navje]

After some trouble, I finally made it work like a charm!

Two things I want to mention, could be useful for some people:

1. IP Tables are really effective. My router-pc is connected with the internet with a PPPOE connection and connected to a huge network in our student campus through eth2. Both are physically on the same network card. I have configured both separatley via IP Table rules, so i have added rules for eth2 and ppp0 separatley. I've also masqueraded both. Now my laptop (which is connected to eth0 on my router-pc) is a complete ghost on both the network as on internet Without masquerading and correct IP rules, I wouldn't have been able to connect to the internet and/or the student network. Just one of them would have worked. But now everything works fine!

2. I really recommend completely uninstalling UFW (Ubuntu Firewall) BEFORE doing anything with webmin! It caused me a pain in the *** when I didn't! I think it did a lot of interfering with the IP Table rules. I learned my lesson!