Shorewall Support Guide

Before Reporting a Problem or Asking a Question

There are a number of sources of Shorewall information. Please try these before you post.

Shorewall versions earlier that 1.3.0 are no longer supported.
More than half of the questions posted on the support list have answers directly accessible from the Documentation Index
The FAQ has solutions to more than 20 common problems.
The Troubleshooting Information contains a number of tips to help you solve common problems.
The Errata has links to download updated components.
The Site and Mailing List Archives search facility can locate documents and posts about similar problems:

Site and Mailing List Archive Search

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Problem Reporting Guidelines

Please remember we only know what is posted in your message. Do not leave out any information that appears to be correct, or was mentioned in a previous post. There have been countless posts by people who were sure that some part of their configuration was correct when it actually contained a small error. We tend to be skeptics where detail is lacking.
Please keep in mind that you're asking for free technical support. Any help we offer is an act of generosity, not an obligation. Try to make it easy for us to help you. Follow good, courteous practices in writing and formatting your e-mail. Provide details that we need if you expect good answers. Exact quoting of error messages, log entries, command output, and other output is better than a paraphrase or summary.
Please don't describe your environment and then ask us to send you custom configuration files. We're here to answer your questions but we can't do your job for you.
When reporting a problem, ALWAYS include this information:

the exact version of Shorewall you are running.

shorewall version

the complete, exact output of

ip addr show

the complete, exact output of

ip route show

THIS IS IMPORTANT! If your problem is that some type of connection to/from or through your firewall isn't working then please perform the following four steps:

1. /sbin/shorewall reset

2. Try making the connection that is failing.

3. /sbin/shorewall status > /tmp/status.txt

4. Post the /tmp/status.txt file as an attachment (you may compress it if you like).
the exact wording of any ping failure responses
If you installed Shorewall using one of the QuickStart Guides, please indicate which one.
If you are running Shorewall under Mandrake using the Mandrake installation of Shorewall, please say so.

As a general matter, please do not edit the diagnostic information in an attempt to conceal your IP address, netmask, nameserver addresses, domain name, etc. These aren't secrets, and concealing them often misleads us (and 80% of the time, a hacker could derive them anyway from information contained in the SMTP headers of your post).
Do you see any "Shorewall" messages ("/sbin/shorewall show log") when you exercise the function that is giving you problems? If so, include the message(s) in your post along with a copy of your /etc/shorewall/interfaces file.
Please include any of the Shorewall configuration files (especially the /etc/shorewall/hosts file if you have modified that file) that you think are relevant. If you include /etc/shorewall/rules, please include /etc/shorewall/policy as well (rules are meaningless unless one also knows the policies).
If an error occurs when you try to "shorewall start", include a trace (See the Troubleshooting section for instructions).
The list server limits posts to 120kb so don't post GIFs of your network layout, etc. to the Mailing List -- your post will be rejected.

The author gratefully acknowleges that the above list was heavily plagiarized from the excellent LEAF document by Ray Olszewski found at http://leaf-project.org/pub/doc/docmanager/docid_1891.html.

When using the mailing list, please post in plain text

A growing number of MTAs serving list subscribers are rejecting all HTML traffic. At least one MTA has gone so far as to blacklist shorewall.net "for continuous abuse" because it has been my policy to allow HTML in list posts!!

I think that blocking all HTML is a Draconian way to control spam and that the ultimate losers here are not the spammers but the list subscribers whose MTAs are bouncing all shorewall.net mail. As one list subscriber wrote to me privately "These e-mail admin's need to get a (expletive deleted) life instead of trying to rid the planet of HTML based e-mail". Nevertheless, to allow subscribers to receive list posts as must as possible, I have now configured the list server at shorewall.net to strip all HTML from outgoing posts.

If you run your own outgoing mail server and it doesn't have a valid DNS PTR record, your email won't reach the lists unless/until the postmaster notices that your posts are being rejected. To avoid this problem, you should configure your MTA to forward posts to shorewall.net through an MTA that does have a valid PTR record (such as the one at your ISP).

Where to Send your Problem Report or to Ask for Help

If you run Shorewall under Bering -- please post your question or problem to the LEAF Users mailing list.
If you run Shorewall under MandrakeSoft Multi Network Firewall (MNF) and you have not purchased an MNF license from MandrakeSoft then you can post non MNF-specific Shorewall questions to the Shorewall users mailing list. Do not expect to get free MNF support on the list
Otherwise, please post your question or problem to the Shorewall users mailing list .

To Subscribe to the mailing list go to http://lists.shorewall.net/mailman/listinfo/shorewall-users .

For information on other Shorewall mailing lists, go to http://lists.shorewall.net

Last Updated 7/9/2003 - Tom Eastep