Mandrake MNF Problems

[albeecha]

Hello all,

Just decided to install Mandrake MNF for a small network(250 machines). Install seems to have went fine and everything seems to work except when I log into the gui and start configuring the network cards. Most of the time the system will hang and I have to reboot it and cannot log on any longer to the mandrake machine. The only solution to this that I have found is to reload the box. If I understand this right I need one card configured coming from my lan and I have an internal address on this card. The other card I have marked as wan and going into the ethernet port on my cisco 1700 series router(it is also marked as the network card for internet access). However I can never get a link between the mandrake box and the cisqo router. The lan port seems to be working fine. I am mainly going to be using the proxy immediately and learning a bit more about the firewall so I can implement that. Am I doing something wrong on the Wan side? Or am I completely confused about how I should implement this on my network? Thanks for any help.

[Windependent]

i ran into the same problems with MNF. if you read through the MNF threads here, you'll find that there are a few undocumented "features" in MNF that will cause problems like those you've experienced, including little things like time/time zone sync between the client machine and the MNF machine.

 

i have also had the experience that you are limited in how successful you will be in attempting to use the web interface to make changes to the NIC configurations. more often than not, making changes results in a lockup, forcing you to reinstall MNF. imho the MNF setup is not at all fault tolerant.

 

i spent about three full weeks banging on MNF trying to get it to act as a firewall/router between a verizon DSL modem and a home LAN. although i was able to connect to MNF via the LAN, like you i was NEVER successful in getting a connection between MNF and the outside world. i never got the package to work, and nobody here has been able to suggest any ideas. i threw away my MNF disk and bought a hardware router.

 

i think that MNF may be worth trying if you pay for a license and get the support. without the support package, my experience has been that the download version is worthless, and i've even started to wonder if the download version is crippleware -- ie: you have to buy the retail version to get a package that even works. i hope that somebody here will prove me wrong, but i'm still waiting...

 

fwiw, nobody i know has ever gotten the download version of MOVE to work either. OTOH, i've had good luck with the download version of MDK 9.2.

 

good luck.

[Guest sean_dunlop]

Have you tried creating a host zone for the Clam (Cisco 1700)

 

Have you implemented a default or specific rule that allows the FW (as a source) to access the 1700?

 

I noticed (after I RTFM) that changes to the default policies require a 'stop/start' as opposed to a 'restart' - I dont run a console so I have been bouncing the MNF box via the gui (ie full reboot)

 

At first I thought it was a shit product but then I lernt to ride it.

[Windependent]

I noticed (after I RTFM) that changes to the default policies require a 'stop/start' as opposed to a 'restart' - I dont run a console so I have been bouncing the MNF box via the gui (ie full reboot)

 

At first I thought it was a shit product but then I lernt to ride it.

its too bad that RTFM isn't an option for people who are trying the download release of MNF. AFAIK there's no manual to accompany the download verison, which makes using it next to impossible. In this case, the absolute need for documentation to get MNF working, and the lack of documentation in the download release, support the MNF Download is Crippleware hypothesis.