Workstation configuration

Network configuration

You should get a static IP from the system administrator. Your hostname will be the name of a famous scientist and the domain is ulb.ac.be. Other relevant addresses are:

Description	IP address
Gateway	164.15.10.254
DNS1	134.184.250.7
DNS2	134.184.15.13

You might also need to add the following data, althoug many systems set it automatically:

Description	Value
Network	164.15.10.0
Netmask	255.255.255.0
Broadcast	164.15.10.255

Firewall configuration

Since the computers are available through direct connections from internet you should protect your machine with a firewall. Linux provides an integrated mechanism for accepting or rejecting incoming packets.

If you want to setup a good firewall quickly, you may use the following link : Firewall script generator

How to generate the firewall script ?

Usually, the interface to internet is eth0. You can check your available interfaces by typing (as root) :

# ifconfig -a

Most of the time, you wish to have an access to the computer, but you still want it to be secure. The best is to disable any inbound service except SSH. The SSH connections are encrypted so that you can safely access to the computer even if someone is tcpdumping your connection.

For the moment, I don't know how to use the Fireparse format. If you know about it just use it. Otherwise you'll have to take a look at the logs (/var/log/syslog) to monitor the possible network problems or attacks.

Now that you have all the necessary informations, you can generate the firewall script. Name this script iptables, give it execution rights (chmod u+x iptables) and put it under the directory /etc/init.d/.

Be aware that the script loads some iptables modules in your kernel. If you have recompiled your kernel then you should ensure that the necessary modules are present. If you have statically linked the code to the kernel then you should remove the modprobe commands in the firewall's script.

Now simply add a symbolic link in the runlevel 2 to this script by typing (as root) :

# ln -s /etc/rc2.d/S12iptables /etc/init.d/iptables

You should adapt the number 12 to your needs. The firewall must be run as early as possible. For example if telnet services are run before it, an attack is still possible. Be careful about this.

If you want to understand more deeply iptables, you can check the following URLs :

Iptables official website

Iptables tutorial and explanations

Setting up a firewall using iptables (in french)

Printer configuration

Name	URL	Model	Location
Gutenberg	gutenberg.ulb.ac.be	HP4100	The seminar room
Meucci	meucci.ulb.ac.be	Ricoh Aficio 1027	Photocopying room

The IRIDIA and the ULB network

The IRIDIA system administrator can create an account on the local subnet for you, however, if you want to have access to some of the computer services of the university, you'll need an account on the university network as well. Ask the secretary for the forms and the process.

Mail configuration

Assuming that you have an account on both the local and the university network the mail settings are as follows:

Service	URL
SMTP	smtp.ulb.ac.be
Iridia POP	iridia.ulb.ac.be
Iridia IMAP	iridia.ulb.ac.be
ULB POP	pop.ulb.ac.be
ULB IMAP	pop.ulb.ac.be

The SMTP server does not require authentication. The POP and IMAP services of ULB accept unsecure connections (no SSL). The POP and IMAP servers of Iridia require secure connections (with SSL).

There are also web interfaces available to read the email if you can not connect to the above servers via POP or IMAP:

SERVER	URL
ULB	https://wwwdev.ulb.ac.be/webmail2/webmail.php
IRIDIA	https://iridia.ulb.ac.be/squirrelmail/

See also

Software HOWTOs