Network access problem

P

pradeepta

Geek Trainee
There are 12 machines in my office all are in LAN. Internet is managed by proxy server that installed one of the machines. Yesterday i installed free zone alarm firewall software in proxy machine.when zone alarm is ON then Lan is not working. No one can access other machines and internet is also not available. when i shut down zone alarm in system tray icon all are working fine. I can not understand what's the real problem. Is it due to running Zone alarm?
Please suggest me if you have any idea regarding it.
 
Welcome to the forums.

If I may be so bold, ZoneAlarm is not a good solution to protect a whole LAN, nor is a Windows machine at all. The best solution is to get a dedicated machine for the task. This machine needs to be at least an i486 with 32mb RAM and two network cards; a Pentium1 with at 64mb RAM would be even better. For instance, my firewall is built from an old AMD K6-2 ~300MHz w/128mb RAM which somebody threw away, and it is actually overpowered for my purposes. It doesn't need a keyboard, mouse, or monitor once it's setup. Just take the old machine (as long as it runs stable) and install the free operating system IPCop on it. It's simple, stable, secure, immune to virii and you won't have to worry about it.

All the best,
-AT
 
what you say is not the solution of my problem. For security purpose i have installed the firewall. the machine configuration is better than you say i.e. P-III machine with 256 Ram, 40 GB HD and 2 lan card also. then where is the problem?
 
pradeepta said:
what you say is not the solution of my problem. For security purpose i have installed the firewall. the machine configuration is better than you say i.e. P-III machine with 256 Ram, 40 GB HD and 2 lan card also. then where is the problem?
Click to expand...
What I am saying is that you have a Windows machine acting as your edge router for security. Is this a correct assumption? I am also saying that Windows makes a very poor edge router and will leave your network in a vulnerable state. I'm trying to help you here. :) Furthermore, ZoneAlarm is not designed to run on a system which is acting as a router, and will cause networking problems like those you are currently experiencing.

What I am suggesting to you is that you dedicate a computer, such as the one you are currently using for this purpose, to act as a dedicated firewall. More to the point, I am suggesting that you install the IPCop operating system on that machine instead of Windows, and it will offer advanced security features for your network while providing Internet connectivity to every computer on your LAN.

I realize we have somewhat of a language barrier in effect here, so please let me know if I am being unclear.

All the best,
-AT
 
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