Our IT guy moved on to bigger and better things several months ago, and the owner of our business has come to me to see if I can get our websites updated. We had two, one controlled by us, and one controlled by Chrysler. The one controlled by us is being done away with because it is costing us money (the other is not). In order for our inventory to be automatically updated, we had to give a third party authorization to access our network. I got that from signed and sent over, but apparently we have a firewall in place that they cannot get through. I know I need to make changes to the firewall and an exception or whatnot. I just don't know how to do so. I am DEFINTELY not a Novice when it comes to computers. I have what IP addresses need to be added and that stuff, I just need to mnow how to put it in. Could someone PLEASE help a girl out???
If you are a novice at computers, you are going to have a fun time with this firewall policy change (rule update).
Basically, you need to be able to log in to the firewall with an admin account. Either the firewall appliance will have a web server running so you can connect with a browser, or you need to install the firewall client software on your computer. A lot of details missing here, but the first step is to get access to the firewall admin console.
Then, you have to look for a section that lists all of the firewall rules.
You either need to modify and existing rule or create a new one. Specific rules generally go on top of the list and general rules are moved towards the bottom.
In most firewall rule scenarios, if this is a rule you need to allow inbound access, you simply need to know the following...
Source IP address
Source TCP/UDP Port
Destination IP Address
Destination TCP/UDP Port
What Action to take (allow, block, etc..)
Then you save and push the policy.
Be very careful because if you modify the wrong rule or delete a rule, or create a new rule that is not configured correctly, you can block other traffic that you did not intend to do so, or worst yet allow unsolicited traffic you were blocking before and you just created a security hole into the network.
Without any security/firewall experience, i'd be suprised if they would be allowing you to do this. I'm assuming that your boss has absolutely no idea what he/she is really asking you to do?
If your boss is delegating this responsibility to you, I believe you should ask him to at least buy you a Cisco Packet tracer and practice on it. You can troubleshoot the firewall rules. You can also analyze access list, IP, ports, NAT and many other good things that may sound pretty foriegn to you.
prett much you can have the overall idea on what is going on.. kind of like the attached screenshot.. it is not a pretty good network design, but you should get the idea on how to make things up in packet tracer.
My boss really doesn't know what he is asking me to do. He thinks I'm a genius because I managed the old website and I am great at excel. Oh mylanta, how he loves those spreadsheets. Now he wants to do away with the website that's costing us money and keep the website that is managed by an outside source. I told him what needed to be done and told him that I had never made exceptions to a firewall for an entire network (only my own computer at home). He was supposed to call the IT guy that he got rid of, but its been over a month, and still nothing...so the owner asked me about it today. "We need to get on that asap..." Maybe I should just build a whole new site, pay for it, and turn in a reimbursement sheet each month.
Got it. I've dealt with people who think because you know how to use Excel, somehow you can fix any IT or computer related issue. Haha.
Well... I'm sure you are bright and depending on the complexity of the network this firewall rule change could be very, very simple. Whether it be a personal computer firewall, or a firewall appliance sitting as a gateway or inline device operates with the same principal.
If your company has a maintenance agreement with the firewall vendor, open a support ticket and they will help you. At the minimum, you'll need the info that I described above related to IPs and ports.
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