shorewall_code/Shorewall-docs/support.xml
2003-12-21 04:06:48 +00:00

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<article id="IPIP">
<articleinfo>
<title>Shorewall Support Guide</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Tom</firstname>
<surname>Eastep</surname>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<pubdate>2003-12-18</pubdate>
<copyright>
<year>2001-2003</year>
<holder>Thomas M. Eastep</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>
<para>Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version
1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with
no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover, and with no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled &#34;<ulink
url="GnuCopyright.htm">GNU Free Documentation License</ulink>&#34;.</para>
</legalnotice>
<revhistory>
<revision>
<revnumber>1.1</revnumber>
<date>2003-12-19</date>
<authorinitials>TE</authorinitials>
<revremark>Corrected URL for Newbies List</revremark>
</revision>
</revhistory>
</articleinfo>
<graphic fileref="images/obrasinf.gif" format="GIF" valign="middle" />
<section>
<title>Before Reporting a Problem or Asking a Question</title>
<para>There are a number of sources of Shorewall information. Please try
these before you post.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Shorewall versions earlier that 1.3.0 are no longer supported.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More than half of the questions posted on the support list have
answers directly accessible from the <ulink
url="http://shorewall.net/shorewall_quickstart_guide.htm#Documentation">Documentation
Index</ulink></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <ulink url="FAQ.htm">FAQ</ulink> has solutions to more than
30 common problems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <ulink url="troubleshoot.htm">Troubleshooting Information</ulink>
contains a number of tips to help you solve common problems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <ulink url="errata.htm">Errata</ulink> has links to download
updated components.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <ulink url="http://lists.shorewall.net/htdig/search.html">Site
and Mailing List Archives search facility</ulink> can locate documents
and posts about similar problems:</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>Problem Reporting Guidelines</title>
<note>
<para>In this section, commands that are to be entered to a root shell
on your firewall system are underlined or are shown in a box with a
colored background.</para>
</note>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>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.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please keep in mind that you&#39;re asking for <emphasis
role="bold">free</emphasis> 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.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please don&#39;t describe your problem as &#34;Computer A
can&#39;t see Computer B&#34;. Of course it can&#39;t -- it hasn&#39;t
any eyes! If ping from A to B fails, say so (and see below for
information about reporting &#39;ping&#39; problems). If Computer B
doesn&#39;t show up in &#34;Network Neighborhood&#34; then say so.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please give details about what doesn&#39;t work. Reports that
say &#34;I followed the directions and it didn&#39;t work&#34; will
elicit sympathy but probably little in the way of help. Again -- if
ping from A to B fails, say so (and see below for information about
reporting &#39;ping&#39; problems). If Computer B doesn&#39;t show up
in &#34;Network Neighborhood&#34; then say so. If access by IP address
works but by DNS names it doesn&#39;t then say so.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Please don&#39;t describe your environment and then ask us to
send you custom configuration files. We&#39;re here to answer your
questions but we can&#39;t do your job for you.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>When reporting a problem, <emphasis role="bold">ALWAYS</emphasis>
include this information:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>the exact version of Shorewall you are running.</para>
<programlisting>shorewall version</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>the complete, exact output of</para>
<programlisting>ip addr show</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>the complete, exact output of</para>
<programlisting>ip route show</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis role="bold">THIS IS IMPORTANT!</emphasis> If your
problem is that some type of connection to/from or through your
firewall isn&#39;t working then please perform the following four
steps:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis role="bold">If shorewall isn&#39;t running</emphasis>
then <emphasis role="underline">/sbin/shorewall/start</emphasis>.
<emphasis role="bold">Otherwise</emphasis> <emphasis
role="underline">/sbin/shorewall reset</emphasis>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Try making the connection that is failing.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis role="underline">/sbin/shorewall status &#62;
/tmp/status.txt</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Post the /tmp/status.txt file as an attachment (you may
compress it if you like).</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>the exact wording of any ping failure responses</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis role="bold">If you installed Shorewall using one
of the QuickStart Guides, please indicate which one</emphasis>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>As a general matter, <emphasis role="bold">please do not edit
the diagnostic information</emphasis> in an attempt to conceal your IP
address, netmask, nameserver addresses, domain name, etc. These
aren&#39;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).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Do you see any &#34;Shorewall&#34; messages (&#34;<emphasis
role="underline">/sbin/shorewall show log</emphasis>&#34;) 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.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>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).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If an error occurs when you try to &#34;<emphasis
role="underline">shorewall start</emphasis>&#34;, include a trace (See
the Troubleshooting section for instructions).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis role="bold">The list server limits posts to 120kb so
don&#39;t post GIFs of your network layout, etc. to the Mailing List
-- your post will be rejected</emphasis>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The author gratefully acknowleges that the above list was
heavily plagiarized from the excellent LEAF document by
<emphasis>Ray Olszewski</emphasis> found at <ulink
url="http://leaf-project.org/pub/doc/docmanager/docid_1891.html">http://leaf-project.org/pub/doc/docmanager/docid_1891.html</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>When using the mailing list, please post in plain text</title>
<para>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 &#34;for continuous abuse&#34; because it has been my policy
to allow HTML in list posts!!</para>
<para>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 &#34;These e-mail admin&#39;s need to get
a (expletive deleted) life instead of trying to rid the planet of HTML
based e-mail&#34;. Nevertheless, to allow subscribers to receive list
posts as must as possible, I have now configured the list server at
shorewall.net to convert all HTML to plain text. These converted posts are
difficult to read so all of us will appreciate it if you just post in
plain text to begin with.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Where to Send your Problem Report or to Ask for Help</title>
<para><emphasis role="bold">If you run Shorewall under Bering </emphasis>--
please post your question or problem to <ulink
url="mailto:leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net">the LEAF Users mailing list</ulink>.</para>
<para><emphasis role="bold">If you are new to Shorewall and have a
question or need help with a problem</emphasis>, please post to the <ulink
url="mailto:shorewall-newbies@lists.shorewall.net">Shorewall Newbies
mailing list</ulink>.</para>
<para><emphasis role="bold">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
<ulink url="mailto:shorewall-users@lists.shorewall.net">Shorewall users
mailing list</ulink>. Do not expect to get free MNF support on the list</emphasis>.</para>
<para>Otherwise, please post your question or problem to the <ulink
url="mailto:shorewall-users@lists.shorewall.net">Shorewall users mailing
list</ulink>. <emphasis role="bold">IMPORTANT</emphasis>: If you are not
subscribed to the list, please say so -- otherwise, you will not be
included in any replies.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Subscribing to the Newbies Mailing List</title>
<para>To Subscribe to the mailing list go to <ulink
url="https://lists.shorewall.net/mailman/listinfo/shorewall-newbies">https://lists.shorewall.net/mailman/listinfo/shorewall-newbies</ulink>.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Subscribing to the Users Mailing List</title>
<para>To Subscribe to the mailing list go to <ulink
url="https://lists.shorewall.net/mailman/listinfo/shorewall-users">https://lists.shorewall.net/mailman/listinfo/shorewall-users</ulink>.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Other Mailing Lists</title>
<para>For information on other Shorewall mailing lists, go to <ulink
url="http://lists.shorewall.net">http://lists.shorewall.net</ulink> .</para>
</section>
</article>