README

Title: README file for my TCP proxy/firewall
Author: Matthias (matthias@corelatus.se)
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Warning! Abandonware: 
    Corelatus used this code as a firewall for about five years.
    Eventually, we decided that an IPtables based firewall was
    sufficient for our needs. I've put the code on github because
    someone asked me to. I'm no longer actively maintaining it.

What is this?

    A firewall babysitter and FTP/TCP proxy written in Erlang.

    Features:

     - ZoneEdit Dynamic DNS client.

     - Generic TCP port forwarder. Lets SSH, IMAP, POP, 
       SMTP, NNTP, CVS, etc. through the firewall. 

     - Incoming TCP port forwarder. Forwards external
       connections to a certain machine on the inside.

     - Bandwidth rationing. Problem: someone else is downloading an 
       ISO, so now all the interactive SSH connections are sluggish
       for the next couple of hours. Solution: throttle the download
       in the proxy.

What do I need to run it?

     * A machine with two ethernet interfaces acting as a firewall
     * The 'pump' DHCP client
     * Erlang R9B-1 or later

     You can also use R9B-0 or R8B-x, but if you want FTP to work in
     your browser, you need to supply a patched 'ftp' module. Luke
     Gorrie posted the patch to the mailing list on 13. January 2003.

How do I start it?

     1. Unpack the files somewhere.
     2. run 'make'
     3. mv firerc.demo firerc
     4. Take a look at "firerc". Edit it.
     5. Start erlang and the proxy, perhaps something like:

         erl -detached -s reflect go

How do I get UDP packets through my firewall?

     This proxy doesn't have any UDP support. You can, of course, get
     the UDP packets through some other way, such as configuring your
     system to be a router.

What's the licence?

     I've put all the source under a BSD licence. I did that because
     I figured a BSD licence would let most people do what they want.
     If you want some other licence, mail me, preferably with some
     reasoning.

See also: the 'todo' file

// eof