The System Menu

The System menu provides several information about the Endian UTM Appliance and its status, and allows to define the network setup and some access modalities (e.g., via SSH or for the Endian support).

The sub-menu on the left-hand side contains the following items, which allow for some basic administration tasks and to monitor the running activities of the Endian UTM Appliance.

  • Dashboard - overview of the system and of the connections status utm4i
  • Network configuration - network and network interface configuration utm4i
  • Event notifications - set up of notification via e-mail or SMS utm4i
  • Updates - management of system updates utm4i
  • Support - support request form utm4i
  • Endian Networky - Endian Network registration information utm4i
  • Passwords - set system passwords utm4i
  • Web console - a console shell on the browser utm4i
  • SSH access - enable/configure SSH access to the Endian UTM Appliance utm4i
  • GUI settings - web interface language settings utm4i
  • Backup - backup or restore Endian UTM Appliance settings as well as reset to factory defaults utm4i
  • Shutdown - shutdown or reboot the Endian UTM Appliance utm4i
  • Credits - acknowledgement to all contributors utm4i
  • License Agreement - a copy of the User License Agreement utm4i

The remainder of this section will describe the various parts that compose the System menu items.

New in version 2.5: Updates, Web Console, Licence Agreement.

Dashboard

utm4i

The Dashboard is the default page, the one that is displayed upon every login. It encompasses several boxes (“plugins”) organised in two columns that provide a complete overview of the running system and of its health. The top of each box reports the name of the box. The Dashboard has lately undergone some changes in its usability and new features have been added to improve the interaction with the user. The information visible on screen are updated at regular intervals.

Several enhancement have been introduced to the plugins in releases 2.4 and 2.5.

  • Collapsing plugins. On the top left corner of each plugin’s box there is a openplugin button: Its function is to toggle the plugin’s visibility, hence a first click on it causes the box to be folded, leaving visible only the title and the button, that will change into closeplugin. A second click restores the plugin’s visibility.

    New in version 2.4.

  • Drag & Drop. Each of the six boxes can be moved around and rearranged in either of the two columns. While moving, a green rectangular box will preview the position of the plugin.

    New in version 2.5.

  • Personalisation. A click on the Show settings link underneath the main bar will open a small table showing the available plugins, their description, and the refresh interval. Any of them can be enabled or not and consequently displayed or not on the Dashboard.

    New in version 2.5.

  • Signatures updates plugin, described below.

    New in version 2.5.

The available plugins and the information they display are described here.

System Information Plugin

It shows several information about the installed system. It usually presents the hostname and domainname of the Endian UTM Appliance in the title.

Appliance: The appliance type.

Version: The version of the firmware.

Kernel: The current running kernel.

Uptime: The time since the last reboot.

Update status: The number of available updates or the message “up to date”.

Maintenance: The remaining days of validity of the maintenance support.

Support access: Whether support access is enabled or disabled.

This plugin also shows the remaining days of validity of the additional modules Sophos and Commtouch, if purchased.

Hardware Information Plugin

It shows the main hardware information of the Endian UTM Appliance and the resource availability. All the information are provided with the absolute value (graphically with a small bar and in number at the end of a line) and the percentage of their use. The only exception is the CPU load, which shows only the percentage of use, in graphic and numbers.

CPU x: The load of the CPU, where x represents the CPU number, for those appliance that have more than one CPU.

Memory: The amount of the RAM memory used.

Swap: How much swap disk space is used. A high percentage here usually means there is something not working correctly.

Main disk: The usage of the root partition.

Temp: The space used in the /tmp partition.

Data disk: the usage of the /var partition.

Configuration disk: The space occupied by the partition containing all the efw services and settings.

Log disk: The amount of space used in the partition containing the logs.

The latter values, showing disk space availability, can vary depending on the appliance, since the data, system, and log partitions may be located in different places.

Warning

A partition on the hard disk (e.g., main disk, data disk, /var/log) shall never have a usage of 95% or more, as this can cause malfunctioning and data loss.

Service Information Plugin

Information about the most important services installed on the Endian UTM Appliance, along with their actual status, are displayed by this plugin. For each service is shown the status, either ON or OFF, and a summary of the tasks accomplished during the last hour and the last days. A click on the service’s name expands or collapses additional information on the tasks carried out by the service. For running services, there is the possibility to open in a new window the respective Live Logs. Hence, if some number in the summaries sounds strange (e.g., a number of email rejected that is twice as normal) or not common compared to the normal activities (e.g., the IDS has detected some attack), the logs can be controlled to search for some useful message that has been recorded. The services currently supported by this plugin are:

Intrusion Detection: The number of attacks logged by snort.

SMTP Proxy: Statistics about the e-mails processed. The number of e-mail currently in the postfix-queue, of the received e-mails and how many of them were clean, the number of viruses found, and how many e-mails were blocked.

HTTP Proxy: The numbers of cache misses and hits of squid and of the viruses found.

POP3 Proxy: Statistics about the received, blocked, and virus-containing e-mails that went through the POP3 Proxy.

Network Information Plugin

It shows information about the network interfaces of the firewall and the traffic. The upper part of this plugin shows several data about the network interfaces of the Endian UTM Appliance: Their name, type, link (Up if a connection is established, Down otherwise) and status (Up if the device is activated, Down if not), and the In- and Outgoing traffic. The latter two data are updated in real-time. When ticking the checkbox near the device name, that device is shown in the graphs underneath. The devices’ name is coloured according to the zone they serve.

The lower part of the plugin contains two charts: The first one shows the incoming traffic, while the second one the outgoing traffic on each of the interfaces chosen. The traffic of each interface is coloured according to the zone it belongs to, different interfaces serving the same zone have different nuances. Bridges built on one device are shown in the same colour as the device. Like the traffic data in the upper part, both charts are updated in real-time.

Hint

Up to six interfaces can be selected and shown in the charts.

Signatures Information plugin

This plugin shows information about the actual status of those services requiring the download of signatures that are installed and enabled on the Endian UTM Appliance. In case no signature has been downloaded and no service has already been enabled, the message No recent signature updates found is displayed, otherwise the plugin presents the signatures installed for the variuos daemons and the timestamp (date and time) of the last download. The list includes the signatures for the anti-spyware, antivirus, contentfilter, and intrusion prevention services.

This plugin shows a table detailing the uplinks’ connection status. For each defined uplink are shown name, IP address, status, uptime, whether it is active on or not off, managed on or manual off. The green circular arrow reconnect, when clicked, allows to immediately reconnect the corresponding uplink. Of particular interest is the Status field of each individual uplink, which can be:

Stopped: Not connected.

Inactive: Not connected.

Connecting: Not yet connected, but a connection is ongoing.

Connected or UP: The connection has been established and it is fully operational.

Disconnecting: The uplink is closing the connection. The Endian UTM Appliance keeps pinging the gateway and announces when it becomes available.

Failure: There was a failure while connecting to the uplink.

Failure, reconnecting: There was a failure while connecting to the uplink, but the Endian UTM Appliance is now trying again.

Dead link: The uplink is connected, but the hosts that were defined in the uplink configuration (Menubar ‣ Network ‣ Interfaces, option Check if these hosts are reachable in the Uplink editor ) to check the connection could not be reached. In other words, the uplink is not operational.

Managed and manual uplink.

Each uplink can be operated in either managed mode, which is the default, or manual mode. In managed mode, the Endian UTM Appliance monitors and restarts the uplink automatically when needed. If managed mode is disabled, the uplink has to be activated or deactivated manually: This implies that there will be no automatic reconnection attempt if the connection is lost, but clicking on Reconnect is required to restart a nonoperational uplink. The management mode of an uplink can be selected under Menubar ‣ Network ‣ Interfaces.

While an uplink should always be managed to allow for a quick reconnection in case of a connection loss, the manual mode proves useful for troubleshooting or testing connections before actually establishing them.

Network configuration utm4i

The configuration of the networks and of the network interfaces serving the zones is fast and easy with this 8-step wizard. It is possible to freely navigate back and forth the step, using the <<< and >>> buttons and even decide at any moment to cancel the actions done so far. Only at the last step it is required to confirm the new settings: In that case, all the changes made will be applied. Note that while applying the new settings, the web interface might not respond for a short period.

The 8 steps in which the wizard is divided are:

1/8 - Choose type of RED interface utm4i

At installation time, the Endian UTM Appliance receives a default GREEN IP. This screen allows to choose the type of the RED interface (i.e., the type of uplink) among those supported by the Endian UTM Appliance.

ETHERNET STATIC
The RED interface is in a LAN and has fixed IP address and netmask, for example when connecting the RED interface to a simple router but with the convenience that the Endian UTM Appliance be always reachable at the same IP address.
ETHERNET DHCP
The RED interface receives its network configuration via (dynamic) DHCP from a local server, router, or modem, i.e., the RED interface is connected to a simple router but without the need to have a fixed address.
PPPoE
The RED interface is connected to an ADSL modem. This option is only needed when the modem uses bridging mode and requires to use PPPoE to connect to the provider. This option should not be confused with the ETHERNET STATIC or ETHERNET DHCP options, used to connect to ADSL routers that handle the PPPoE themselves.
ADSL (USB, PCI)
The RED interface connects to an ADSL modem via a USB or PCI cable, not via an Ethernet one.
ISDN
The RED interface is an ISDN connection.
ANALOG/UMTS Modem
The RED interface is an analog (dial-up) or UMTS (cell-phone) modem.
GATEWAY
The Endian UTM Appliance has no RED interface. While this represents an unusual situation, since a firewall normally should have at least two interfaces, this configuration may be suitable for some special scenarios, like for example when only some specific services of the Endian UTM Appliance are needed. Another, more sophisticated example is a scenario in which the BLUE zone of an Endian UTM Appliance is connected through a VPN to the GREEN interface of a second Endian UTM Appliance. The second firewall’s GREENIP address can then be used as a backup uplink on the first firewall. If this is the case, a default gateway shall be configured later on.

A small box recalling the number of network interfaces available on the system is shown to the right of the available choices. The RED interface can be fully configured during step 4.

2/8 - Choose network zones utm4i

The Endian UTM Appliance separates the networks connected to it into four main zones, as described in this section. At this point the two most important zones - GREEN and RED - have already been encountered during the installation: This step allows to enable one or two additional zones, depending on the services that should be provided by the Endian UTM Appliance:ORANGE and BLUE Their full configuration will be possible in the next step.

Note

In the Endian UTM Appliance, one network interface is reserved for the GREEN zone and another one has possibly been assigned to the RED zone, if the RED interface requires a network card. This might limit the choices here to the point that the ORANGE or BLUE zone cannot be enabled, due to lack of additional network interfaces.

3/8 - Network Preferences utm4i

This step concerns the configuration of the GREEN zone, if needed, and of any zone chosen in the previous step. For each of the zones enabled, the following options can be configured:

IP address

The IP address (such as 192.168.0.1) of the interface, which should not be already in use in the network.

Hint

Good practice suggest that the last octet be 1, since the interface will gather the traffic of the whole subnet.

Remember also that a change in the IP addresses of an Endian UTM Appliance, especially in a production environment, might require to adjust additional settings elsewhere, for example the HTTP proxy configuration in the workstations, otherwise the web browsers will not work correctly.

Warning

When configuring the interfaces of the GREEN zone, make sure to not remain locked out of the web interface! This situation may occur for example when changing the GREEN IP address into one that is not reachable from the current GREEN segment and then saving the settings. In this case the only access to the Endian UTM Appliance is via serial console.

Network mask
Define the network mask from a drop-down menu containing the possible masks (e.g., /24 - 255.255.255.0). It is important to use the same netmask for all the devices connected on the same subnet.
Additional addresses
Additional IP addresses for different subnets can be added to the interface here.
Interfaces

Map a network interface to a zone, with the following rules:

  1. Each interface can be mapped to only one zone and each zone must have at least one interface.
  2. When more than one interface is assigned to a zone, these interfaces will be bridged together and act as if they were part of a switch.

For each available interface these information are shown:

  • A colored checkbox, showing which zone the interface serves. No color means that the interface is not assigned to any zone.
  • Port, the number of the port.
  • Link, shows the current status by means of icons: linkok -the link is active, nolink -no link, or no cable plugged in, linkna -no information from the driver.
  • Description, the interface’s PCI identification string, as returned by lspci. The string is trimmed, but it can be shown by moving the mouse on the ?.
  • MAC, the interface’s MAC address.
  • Device, the logical name of the device.

Note

Internally, the Endian UTM Appliance handles all zones as bridges, regardless of the number of the assigned interfaces. Therefore, the Linux name of the interfaces is brX, not ethX.

Finally, the system’s host name and domain name can be set in the two text boxes at the bottom of the screen.

Private IP Addresses

It is suggested to follow the standard described in RFC 1918 (which has been recently been updated by RFC 6761) and to use for the zone’s setup only the IP addresses contained in the network segments reserved for private use by the IANA, which are:

10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 (10.0.0.0/8, 16,777,216 addresses)
172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 (172.16.0.0/12, 1,048,576 addresses)
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 ( 192.168.0.0/16, 65,536 addresses)

This choice avoids incurring in DNS resolution errors, as IP addresses not falling within these ranges are likely to have been reserved by other organisations as their public IPs. Moreover, different IP ranges must be used in the different network segments for each interface, for example:

IP = 192.168.0.1, network mask = /24 - 255.255.255.0 for GREEN
IP = 192.168.10.1, network mask = /24 - 255.255.255.0 for ORANGE
IP = 10.0.0.1, network mask = /24 - 255.255.255.0 for BLUE

Note also the first and the last IP address of a network segment (which are usually .0 and .255) are reserved as the network address and the broadcast address respectively, and must not be assigned to any device.

4/8 - Internet access preferences utm4i

This step allows the configuration of the RED interface chosen in step 1, that connects to the Internet or to any other untrusted network outside Endian UTM Appliance.

Depending on the type of the selected RED interface, different configuration options will be available, as required by each interface type. At the bottom of the page appear two options that are commonly available, namely MTU and Spoof MAC address with, described below, and the choice of the DNS resolver, available for almost all interface types, which is wither Dynamic or Manual: In the latter case, one valid IP address of a DNS server must be provided manually in the next step. The other configuration options are:

ETHERNET STATIC
The IP address and network mask of the RED interface, as well as the IP address of the default gateway, that is, the IP address of the gateway that connects the Endian UTM Appliance to the Internet or to another untrusted network. Optionally, the Ethernet hardware address (MAC address) of the interface can be specified.
ETHERNET DHCP
Only one available option, namely the DNS choice.
PPPoE

To configure PPPoE, fill in the form with the username and password assigned by the provider, and the authentication method. Optionally, the provider’s service and concentrator name can be configured, though this is usually not needed.

Hint

If unsure whether to select PAP or CHAP authentication, keep the default option.

ADSL (USB, PCI)

There are 3 sub-screens for this choice.

  1. In the first one, select from the drop-down menu the appropriate driver for the modem, among the possibilities offered.

  2. In the second one, choose the ADSL type from the drop-down menu among the four choices: PPPoA, PPPoE, static IP, or DHCP.

  3. Finally, depending on the selection made in the previous two steps, some of the following settings are required, which can be asked to the ADSL provider:

    • VPI/VCI numbers and the encapsulation type
    • the username and password assigned by the provider and the authentication method (if unsure, keep the default PAP or CHAP)
    • the IP address and network mask of the RED interface,
    • the IP address of the default gateway (required for static IP only);

    Note

    If PPPoE was chosen at point 2. above, then the configuration is exactly like explained in the previous paragraph, PPPoE.

ISDN
To configure the ISDN connection, the modem driver, phone numbers (the provider’s number and the number used to dial out), as well as the username and password that have been assigned by the provider, and the authentication method are needed (if unsure, keep the default PAP or CHAP). Also specify whether the IP address of the DNS should be assigned automatically or set manually.
ANALOG/UMTS Modem

While Endian UTM Appliance supports most modern UMTS modems, some care is required when using them in conjunction with Endian UTM Appliance. On one side, some UMTS modems are USB mass storage devices as well and usually register two devices (e.g., /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyUSB1): In this case the first device /dev/ttyUSB0 is the modem, the second one is the storage. These types of modem can cause problems when restarting the firewall because the Endian UTM Appliance tries to boot from the USB mass storage device. On the other side, some SIM cards require a personal identification number (PIN) to work, but this is not supported. To allow those cards to work with Endian UTM Appliance, the PIN should be removed from the card.

There are 2 sub-screens for this choice.

  1. In the first one, specify to which serial port the modem is connected to and whether it is an analog modem or an UMTS/HSDPA modem.

    Hint

    The /dev/ttyS0 device is reserved for the serial console and is therefore not available as port for modems.

  2. In the second one, configure the modem’s bit-rate, the dial-up phone number or access point name, the username and password that have been assigned by the provider and the authentication method (if unsure, keep the default PAP or CHAP). For UMTS modems it is also necessary to specify the access point name.

GATEWAY
The IP address of the default gateway - that is, the IP address of the gateway that connects the Endian UTM Appliance to the Internet or another untrusted network.

The common options are:

MTU
The MTU size of the packets send over the network.
Spoof MAC address with
Specify a custom MAC address for the RED interface. This setting is required for the proper failover of slave devices in an HA setup. See High availability for more information about the RED address in HA setups.

The MTU size.

While the vast majority of the ISPs uses a standard value of 1500 bytes, in some circumstances the standard MTU size results too high. If that happens, some strange network behaviours will noticed, like e.g., downloads which always stop after a while or connections which will not work at all.

If the ISP does not use a standard MTU size, it is easy to discover the correct one, by sending special ICMP packets with a specific value, that can be lowered until no errors are encountered: At theist point, the MTU size is correct and this value should be entered in the configuration options.

In order to send the icmp packets do the following:

Log in to the EFW and choose a host which can be actually reached (e.g., the ISP’s DNS, which should always be reachable) and ping that host with the following command:

ping -c1 -M do -s 1460 <host> (please refer to the ping(8) manpage for more info).

If the MTU size 1460 is correct, ping replies like the following one are received:

PING 10.10.10.10 (10.10.10.10) 1460(1488) bytes of data.
1468 bytes from 10.10.10.10: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=75.2 ms

If however the current MTU size is still too big for packets of the size 1460, an error message like this will appear:

PING 10.10.10.10 (62.116.64.82) 1461(1489) bytes of data.
ping: sendmsg: Message too long

Retry with different packet sizes (i.e., the value after the -s option), until the correct size has found and no error is displayed. The value shown within brackets in the ping command’s output is the MTU size. In this example the output is 1460(1488), therefore 1488 is the value to select for the MTU size.

An MTU value lower than 1500 may cause problems also in the OpenVPN setup and require to adjust some setting there.

5/8 - Configure DNS resolver utm4i

This step allows to define up to two IP addresses for the DNS server, unless they are assigned automatically: In this case, no configuration option can be set and it is safe to move to the next one. If only one DNS server should be used, the same IP address must be entered twice. The IP address(es) of the DNS must be accessible from the Endian UTM Appliance, otherwise URL and domain resolution will not work.

See also

Changes to the RED interface, i.e., the uplink, and the DNS server can be modified later, separately from the other network configuration:

Uplink editor
Menubar ‣ Network ‣ Interfaces ‣ [edit uplink]

6/8 - Configure default admin mail utm4i

The configuration of a global administrator e-mail address that will be used by all services to send e-mails, is done here. The administrator e-mail address is then used for notifications, in case of problems or emergencies .These email addresses will be used by the Event notifications .

There are three fields to configure.

Admin email address
A valid e-mail address to which the system e-mails should be sent.
Sender email address
A valid e-mail address that appears as the sender address. A custom sender address proves useful if the recipient wants to filter messages sent by the Endian UTM Appliance.
Address of smarthost
The SMTP server through which the email should be sent.

Hint

Although all the fields may be left blank, it is suggested to supply at least one valid Admin e-mail address.

7/8 - Apply configuration utm4i

This step informs that the network setup is now finished and all the new settings have been gathered. Clicking on the OK, apply configuration button will save the settings and apply the configuration by restarting all the necessary services and daemons.

8/8 - End utm4i

In the last step, all the configuration files are written to the disk, all the devices are reconfigured and the network-depending services and daemons (e.g., the firewall and ntpd) are restarted as necessary. The whole process may take up to 20 seconds, during which the connection to the administration interface and through the Endian UTM Appliance may not be possible.

The administration interface will then reload automatically. If the GREENIP address has changed, the GUI will be reloaded at the new IP address. In this case or in case the hostname changed, a new SSL certificate is generated to identify the new host.

Note

To change later only some of the settings in the network configuration (e.g., the hostname or the network range of a zone), simply start the network configuration, skip all the steps until the one in which to make the desired changes, edit the appropriate values, then proceed to the last step and finally save.

Event notifications utm4i

Whenever some critical event takes place on the Endian UTM Appliance (e.g., a partition is filling up, or there are updates available), there is the option to be immediately informed by e-mail about it and to promptly take some actions to solve a problem, if required.

Sytems that feature the hotspot use also SMSs for the activation of new accounts or for the purchase of new tickets. Three tabs are available in the page: Settings, SMS Notifications, and Events.

Settings utm4i

The default tab serves for the configuration of the email notification:

Email notifications

Select from a drop-down menu how to use the notification system. Available options are:

  • notify using default email address: the default administrator e-mail address (as specified in the Installation wizard or in step 6 of Menubar ‣ System ‣ Network configuration)

  • notify using custom email address: an alternate e-mail address to which the notification e-mail shall be sent. In this case, three more options must be configured, namely:

    Mail sender address

    The e-mail address that appear as the sender of the e-mail.

    Mail recipient address

    The e-mail address to which the e-mail will be delivered.

    Mail smarthost

    The SMTP server that will be used to send the notification e-mail.

  • do not notify: no notifications will be sent

Events utm4i

This tab shows a list of all the events that can produce a notification message and allows to configure the actions to be done when each of the events takes place. Right above the list there is a small navigation bar and a search field: The latter can be used to filter only the relevant items.

The list contains three columns:

ID

The 8-digit ID ABBCCCCD code of the event, which is built as follows:

  • A represents the layer number, i.e., in which system’s component the event has taken place: 1 means kernel, 2 the system itself, 3 services, 4 configlayer, and 5 the GUI.
  • BB is the module number
  • CCCC is a sequential number assigned to the event
  • D is the severity of the event, i.e., the degree of badness of the event. The lower the number, the worst the severity: 0 is a critical event, 4-5 neutral, 9 is a positive event.
Description
A short description of the event.
Actions
The actions that can be performed for each event. All e-mail notifications are enabled by default (this is shown by the enmail icon), but to disable notifications for one event, click on the mail icon in that event’s row (this causes also the icon to change into dismail). To later re-activate the notification, it suffices to click again on the icon. After changing an action, remember to click on the Apply button that appers within the green callout above the events’ list.

Updates utm4i

Changed in version 2.5: Moved from the Endian Network sub menu

The management of the software updates is done from here. It is possible at any time to manually check for available updated packages, or to schedule a periodic check.

In this page there are two boxes: One with the current status of the system and one to schedule a routine check for updates.

Status

The Status box informs whether the system needs updates or not. In the former case, a list of available packages is presented, while in the latter the message “Your Endian UTM Appliance is up to date!” is displayed. Moreover, additional messages inform of the last date and time when a check for updates and the last upgrade have been carried out. These options are available:

Check for new updates
A manual check for updated packages is started, and any upgradable package found is listed here. Individual packages can be chosen from the list and installed.
Start update process NOW
The update process is launched: The system downloads the updated packages which are then installed, replacing the old ones.

Note

In order to check for updates, a valid maintenance is required, otherwise no update will show up, even if available.

Schedule for retrieving the update list

The Schedule box allow to set up a periodic job, governed by the cron daemon, that retrieves the list of updated packages. The available, mutually exclusive, options are Hourly, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. Moving the mouse over the small ? next to each option shows a tool-tip with the exact time at which the job will run.

Support utm4i

In this page it is possible to manage requests for assistance to the Endian support.

Note

To be able to submit a support request, the system must be registered to the Endian Network.

If the system is not registered, support request can be made to one of the several forums or mailing lists enumerated in the Endian web sites section.

The page is divided in two boxes with different purposes: The first one containes a link to open the support’s home page, while in the second one it is possible to grant SSH access to the support team.

Visit Support Web Site

This box contains only a hyperlink to the home page of the support.

Please visit our Support Web Site
By clicking on this link, a new tab in the browser will open, where it is possible to find directions on how to fill in an assistance request to the support team.

Access for the Endian Support Team

Optionally, access to the firewall can be grant via SSH, a secure, encrypted connection that allows a member of the support staff to log in to the Endian UTM Appliance, verify its configuration and inspect it to find out where the problem lies. The box contains an informative message, the status of the access, which is either DENIED or ALLOWED. When the status is DENIED a button appears at the bottom of the box:

Allow access

Clicked on this button to grant 4 days of access to the Endian UTM Appliance to the support team.

When the support team access is allowed, a new message appears under the status message: Access allowed until: followed by the date and time when access to the Endian UTM Appliance will be revoked. Moreover, there are two buttons at the bottom of the box.

Deny access
Immediately revoke the grant to access the Endian UTM Appliance.
Extend access for 4 more days
If the support team needs more time to inspect the Endian UTM Appliance, a click on this button extends the access grant by four more days.

Note

When enabled, the support team’s public SSH key is copied to the system and access is granted via that key. The support team will not authenticate with username/password to the Endian UTM Appliance. The root password of the Endian UTM Appliance is never disclosed in any way to the support team.

Endian Network utm4i

If the Endian UTM Appliance has been purchased with a maintenance package, it can be registered and connected to the Endian Network, the Endian solution for an easy and centralised monitoring, managing, and upgrading of all the registered Endian UTM Appliance systems, with just a few clicks. Note that many functionalities of the Endian UTM Appliance (e.g., support, sms notification, and so on) require that the appliance be registered to the Endian Network.

This page is organised into two tabs, namely Subscription and Remote Access.

Subscription utm4i

If the firewall has not yet been registered to the Endian Network, the registration form is shown, that can be filled in before submitting the request for registration. After the registration has been completed, the Subscriptions tab shows three boxes:

System information

Basic data about the Endian UTM Appliance: Serial number, activation code, model of the appliance, and the maintenance package chosen.

Registration Status

A summary of the Endian Network support status: System name, organisation for which the Endian UTM Appliance is registered, system ID, and the date of the last update.

Your Activation Keys

To receive updates from and to participate in the Endian Network, at least one valid (i.e., not expired) activation key is required. There is a key for each support channel, but typically just one, shown with the validity time and the days of maintenance left. An expired key is shown by its channel name stricken-through and by the expired string in the corresponding Days left column.

Remote Access utm4i

The Remote Access tab allows to choose whether the Endian UTM Appliance can be reached through the Endian Network and by which protocol. To allow access, click on the grey switch on the top of the page: Its color will turn green, and two access options can be chosen, by ticking the checkbox:

Enable HTTPS access ...
The Endian UTM Appliance can be reached via the web interface.
Enable SSH Access ...
Login via a secure shell to the Endian UTM Appliance is allowed. Activating this option automatically activates the SSH access .

See also

A step-by-step lesson to register the Endian UTM Appliance on the Endian Network is available here.

Passwords utm4i

In this page passwords can be changed for each of three default users, by writing each new password twice and then by pressing the corresponding Change Password button:

Admin
the user that can connect to the web interface for administration.
Dial
A special user that can only manage uplinks, with a limited interface access. It is not present in recent versions of the Endian UTM Appliance.
Root
the user that can login to the shell for administration. Logins can be made either via the serial console, or remotely with an SSH client.

Hint

Passwords need to be at least 6 characters long.

Web Console utm4i

New in version 2.5.

The web console provides an applet which emulates a terminal within the browser window, that serves as a CLI to carry out administrative tasks.

The functionalities of the web console are the same found upon logging in via serial console or SSH. On the bottom left of the applet, a message shows the status of the console: Connected or Disconnected. It is possible to exit at any time by typing exit in the console and then pressing Enter on the keyboard, like in any normal console.

When disconnected, click again on the Web console sub-menu item to reconnect. On the bottom right of the applet, two hyperlinks show up:

Enable virtual keyboard.

When clicking on this link, a keyboard applet appears below the console, that can be used to type and execute commands by clicking the mouse on the various keys.

Note

When the web console is disconnected, this applet does not communicate with the console.

Disable input

This link toggles the possibility to send input from the keyboard to the web console.

Hint

This option has no effect on the virtual keyboard.

SSH access utm4i

This screens allows to enable remote SSH access to the Endian UTM Appliance. This is disabled by default and it is the recommended setting. There are two boxes in the page: Secure Shell Access Settings and SSH host keys.

Secure Shell Access Settings

The SSH access is activated by clicking on the grey switch swoff. The SSH service is started, and after a few seconds, some configuration options are displayed:

SSH protocol version 1

This is only needed for old SSH clients that do not support newer versions of the SSH protocol.

Warning

The activation of the SSH version 1 is strongly discouraged, since this version is not maintained anymore, deprecated, and contains well known vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious users. SSH clients nowadays shall always use version 2 of SSH, which is more secure and reliable.

Allow TCP forwarding
Ticking this option lets other protocols be tunneled through SSH. See SYS-1 example for a sample use case.
Allow password based authentication
Permit logins using password authentication.
Allow public key based authentication
Logins with public keys are allowed. The public keys of the clients that can login using key authentication must be added to the file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys.
Save
Click on this button at the bottom of the box to save the setting of the above four options.

Note

The SSH access is automatically activated when at least one of the following options is true:

  • Endian support team access is allowed in Menubar ‣ System ‣ Support.
  • High availability is enabled in Menubar ‣ Services ‣ High Availability.
  • SSH access is enabled in Menubar ‣ System ‣ Endian Network ‣ Remote Access.

SSH host keys

At the bottom of the page, a box details the public SSH host keys of the Endian UTM Appliance, that have been generated during the first start of the openSSH server, along with their fingerprints and their size in bits.

GUI settings utm4i

New in version 2.5: Japanese language

Two configuration options for the GUI are present here. The first option is the language that will be used for the section names, the labels, and all the strings used in the web interface and can be selected from a drop-down menu. There are 4 languages currently supported: English, German, Italian, and Japanese.

The second option is to display the hostname of the Endian UTM Appliance in the browser’s window title, activated by ticking the checkbox Display hostname in window title.

In the Community release it is also possible to click on the Help translating this project link, which will open the Endian UTM Appliance translation page. Any help is appreciated!

Backup utm4i

New in version 2.4: automatic backups. Before any upgrade, a backup is automatically created, that can be used for a rollback in case something goes wrong during the upgrade process, or in case that a factory reset is performed.

In this section the management of the backups can be carried out: Creation of backups of the current Endian UTM Appliance configuration and system rollback to one of these backups when needed. Backups can be saved locally on the Endian UTM Appliance host, on a USB stick, or downloaded to a workstation.

It is also possible to reset the configuration to factory defaults, to create fully automated backups, and to carry out various other administrative tasks concerning backups.

This section is organised into two tabs, Backup and Scheduled backups: The former is used to manage manual backups, while the latter to set up automatic, scheduled backups.

Backup utm4i

In the Backup tab there are four boxes, that allow to manage the manual backups.

Backup sets

The first box contains a list of the backups stored on the Endian UTM Appliance - both manually and scheduled ones, an option to create a new backup, and the legend of the symbols that accompany each backup. If a USB stick is plugged in in the Endian UTM Appliance and detected, also backups stored on it are displayed.

When clicking on the Create new Backup button, a dialogue box opens up in which to select the data to be included in the backup.

Current configuration
The backup contains all the configuration settings, including all the changes and customisation done so far, or, in other words, all the content of the /var/efw directory.
Include database dumps

The content of the database will also be backed up.

Warning

The database dumps may contain sensitive data, so whenever a backup contains a database dump, make sure that it is stored in a safe place.

Include log files
Include the current log files (e.g., /var/log/messages, but not log files of the previous days.
Include log archives
Include also older log files, that have been rotated, like e.g., /var/log/messages.YYYYMMDD.gz, etc. Backups created with this option may become very big after some time.
Remark
A comment about the backup, that will appear in the Remark column of the table. Hence, it should be meaningful enough to allow a quick recall of the content.

At least one of the checkbox must be ticked to create a new backup.

The format and name of the backup files.

Backup files are created as tar.gz archives, using standard Linux’s tools tar and gzip. The files stored in the archive can be extracted using the tar zxf archivename.tar.gz or tar vzxf archivename.tar.gz to see all the file processed and extracted and see some informative message on the screen, the v option meaning verbose. The name of the backup file is created to be unique and it conveys the maximum information possible about its content, therefore it can become quite a long string, like e.g., backup-20130208093337-myappliance.mydomain-settings-db-logs-logarchive.tar.gz, in which 20130208093337 is the timestamp of the backup’s creation, in the form YYYYMMDDHHMMSS -in this example, 8th of February 2013 at 9:33:37 AM. This choice allows the backups to be lexicographically ordered from the oldest one to the most recent one; myappliance.mydomain are the Endian UTM Appliance‘s hostname and domainname as set in Step 3 of the Network configuration (Menubar ‣ System ‣ Network configuration), and settings-db-logs-logarchive represent the content of the backup. In this case it is a full backup, since all four parts appear in the name. For example, a backup containing only settings and logs will be identified by the string settings-logs.

In order to create a backup on a USB external drive, a USB drive (even a stick) must be plugged in in the Endian UTM Appliance. It is suggested to use a FAT32/VFAT filesystem, as this maximises portability to other systems. When the stick is detected, the message USB stick detected will appear on the right-hand side of the box, along with a new option Create backup on USB stick. The checkbox next to this option must be ticked for the backup to be stored on the stick.

Click on the Create Backup button to create the backup. After a short time, during which the files required by the backup are gathered and assembled into the archive, the new backup appears in the list. The end of the backup process is marked by a yellow callout that appears above the box, showing the message Backup completed successfully.

The list of available backups, which is initially empty, presents for every backup the creation date, the content shown by a set of letters, the remark, and the list of actions available on each backup file. Automatic backups are marked with the string Auto - backup before upgrade.

The content of each backup is marked by at least one of the following letters or symbols, corresponding to the option specified during its creation:

S, Settings. The backup contains the configurations and settings.

D, Database dumps. The backup contains a database dump.

E, Encrypted. The backup file is encrypted.

L, Log files. The backup contains today’s log files.

A, Archive. The backup contains archived log files.

!, Error. Something did not succeed while sending the backup file by email.

C, Cron. The backup has been created automatically by a scheduled backup job.

U, USB. The backup has been saved to a USB stick.

The available actions are to export download an archive to the local workstation, to delete it delete, or to restore it restoreicon on the Endian UTM Appliance.

Encrypt backup archives

The second box makes available the option to encrypt all the backups by providing a GPG public key. Select the GPG public key by clicking on the Choose file button to upload the key file from the local file system. Make sure the checkbox Encrypt backup archives is ticked, then upload the key file by clicking on Save.

Hint

Encrypt backup archives whenever saving sensible data in the backup file, like for example the passwords of users stored in the database or hotspot’s users data and billing information.

Import Backup Archive

The third box lets a previously saved backup archive be uploaded to the Endian UTM Appliance. The backup file can be selected by clicking on the Choose file button and then choosing the backup file from the local file system. Optionally, some note to the backup can be added in the Remark field. Finally, the backup is uploaded by clicking on the Import button. The backup appears after a short period in the backup list at the top of the page, and can be restored by clicking on the restore icon restoreicon.

Note

It is not possible to import encrypted backups on the Endian UTM Appliance: Any encrypted backup must be decripted before being uploaded.

Reset configuration to factory defaults and reboot

The fourth box allows to wipe out all configurations and settings done so far and reboot the system with the default configuration. This result is achieved by clicking on the Factory defaults button: The configuration of the Endian UTM Appliance is reset to the factory defaults and rebooted immediately, right after a backup copy of the current settings has automatically been saved.

Scheduled backups utm4i

Automated backups of the system can be enabled and configured in the Scheduled backups tab, which contains two boxes.

Scheduled automatic backups

In the first box, automatic backups are enabled and configured. When enabled, the elements of the Endian UTM Appliance to be included in the backup can be chosen as seen in the Backup Sets box in the other tab. The only difference is that for scheduled backups there is no possibility to specify a remark. Additional options are:

Enabled
Enable scheduled backups.
Keep # of archives
Choose from the drop-down how many backups to keep on the Endian UTM Appliance (from 2 up to 10, but they can be exported to save space).
Schedule for automatic backups
The frequency between backups, either hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

Send backups via email

In the second box, the system can be configured to send or not the backups by e-mail. The following otpions are available.

Enabled
Allows backup archives to be sent via e-mail.
email address of recipient
The e-mail address to which to send the e-mail with the backup.
email address of sender
The e-mail address that will appear as the sender’s e-mail address, which proves useful when backups should appear to have been sent from a special address (say, backups@myappliance.mydomain), and must be provided if the domain or hostname are not resolvable by the DNS.
Address of smarthost to be used
The address of a smarthost to be used to send the e-mails, which is needed in case the outgoing e-mails should go through a SMTP server, like, e.g., the Company’s SMTP server, rather than to be sent directly by the Endian UTM Appliance.

Hint

The explicit address of a smarthost is needed if the SMTP proxy (Menubar -> Proxy -> is not enabled. SMTP) is disabled.

Send a backup now
A click on this button will save the settings and immediately try to send an e-mail with the backup’s archive as attachment, ab action that serves also as a test for the correctness of the data supplied.

See also

A guide to create a backup on a USB stick.

Shutdown utm4i

Option to either shutdown or reboot the Endian UTM Appliance, by clicking on the Shutdown or the Reboot button respectively, are provided in this page.

Warning

The shutdown or reboot process start immediately after clicking on the respective button, with no further confirmation request.

After a reboot, it is possible to continue to use the GUI without the necessity of an authentication.

Credits utm4i

The list of people that contributed to the development of the Endian UTM Appliance and their role within Endian if they are member of the Endian team.

License Agreement utm4i

This section displays the license agreement between Endian and the owner of the Endian UTM Appliance.

Note

After an upgrade, if the license agreement changes, at the first login it is necessary to accept the new license agreement before accessing the upgraded system and being allowed to use the Endian UTM Appliance