Amahi Forums

I have been playing around with Amahi for a little bit and I'm in the process of reinstalling with the new version, but in the research over the last few weeks I've come to the conclusion that Amahi IS NOT a gateway as such.
I was having trouble getting the network computers to access the net once I switched to Amahi.
The way I setup everything, was:
the Amahi server computer was connected to the net via its Lan1 adapter card,
Lan2 Card was connected to an 8 port switch,
this was connected to the Wireless router, and the other 3 network computers I currently have!
Basically instead of sharing the router/Modem I disconnected the switch from that, and only left Amahi connected then connected the switch to the second Lan card. (I disabled the DNS etc from the modem router etc.)
Whenever I did this I lost internet connection for all computers, except the Amahi server system.
I could access Amahi, and local computers, but not the big wide world.
When looking at your connection diagram for the 50th time it finally twigged that all computers on the network are still connected directly to the internet via the "Home Router", the main Modem/Router/Wireless connection.
Previously using Centos I've set it up so the server is the only connection to the outside world. This is where the confusion sets in because I can't see how the system protects or isolates the LAN from the WAN etc.
This means that the AMAHI server doesn't HAVE to be on all the time for the rest of the network to have internet access, or talk to each other; BUT will need to be on to access ITS features.
Am I missing something or just confusing myself.
I'm new to Linux networking but have setup a couple of basic gateway servers using IPTables etc using Centos, and Ubuntu server, but this setup is different , still looks like a good system, but DIFFERENT!
Is it possible to configure this as gateway server and still maintain the Amahi features. ?
When I've tried in the past I've lost access etc, generally when configering IP ranges (I think!)
I generally use 192.168.0.xxx for internal (ie Client PCs, printers etc.) and 192.168.1.xxx for external (ie Modem Router, Server etc)

Finally found a post that explains why its so silent here!

... amahi is not equipped at the moment to be a firewall/gateway, ...

So after spending over 2 weeks setting up a system for a home server, I find it can't be done! Square peg, round hole sort of thing.

Anyway, if I do get it working then I'll let you know. Thanks for the help!

Back to the drawing board!

A router/gateway is not a Home Server, Windows Home Server is a Home Server and it is not a router/gateway.

Although any PC can be setup as a router/gateway, it does not come setup like that out-of-the-box with Amahi.

Hope that helps clear things up for you.

hi programit,

of course it can be done, just not "out of the box," as brandon mentioned.

we chose not to do it for two reasons:

1) 99% of people do not have two nics and they will get confused if asked to put two network cards

2) we did not want to worry about security issues with the firewall at this early stage

the recommendation is:

- use eth0 for the LAN
- use eth1 for the WAN

configure your firewall for eth1.

note that we have been working on a module for router/firewall control.
we need help with that

Thanks for the reply.
I did the usual and not read the instructions before diving in!
Anyway I'm going to give it a go again to get the gateway setup. The last time I tried I had problems with Amahi setup anyway which I believe was to do with the internal network card. I've since disabled that and install 2 PCI cards which seem to work fine and so far hasn't given me any grief. (I kept getting access errors etc with the first install.)
Last time I tried setting up the gateway and firewall I lost access which I believe was to do with changing network addresses.
I'm keeping notes this time of everything I do so if all goes well I'll post details for others to follow.
I've done Windows networking but am relatively new to linux so its still a learning process. I've got a gateway server running fine on a Centos box so hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult with this system.
I've had a quick look at the router & firewall control but yet to dive into it fully. If I do figure anything out with it I'll keep you posted.