IPCop Deputized

After much research and time, we have decided to try out the IPCop firewall with URL Filter for the school's needs. Our VERY limited budget made the decision even more difficult. So, we are currently testing it as a VMWare appliance on a Windows 2003 box. For the time being, we are directing 2 computer's traffic through it to test the waters. While IPCop is running in transparent mode, our LAN currently uses a Surfcontrol plugin on an ISA server and forcing the transparency to happen would require removing the MS Firewall client for all machines. A friend of mine will be scripting this so that the all workstations we be automatically run the uninstall.

One issue I am having is that I sometimes have to ping the IPCop box from the workstation in order to get internet access. For the testing phase, I am simply using IPCop as the gateway, but Linux seems to have an issue recognized other nodes on the network unless they are pinged. I haven't been able to find out much about this by Googling it. I guess I'm not using the correct keywords. If has any information on this, I would very much appreciate hearing about it. I suppose I could write a boot script but my guess is that there is an easier way. Anyone?? Does the fact that it is a VMWare appliance affect things? Thanks!!

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