INSTALL

firewater by Walter de Jong <walter@heiho.net> (c) 2012

firewater COMES WITH NO WARRANTY. firewater IS FREE SOFTWARE.
firewater is distributed under terms described in the GNU General Public
License.


For installing the software, in short, run the following (as root):

    ./setup.py install

    # ./setup.py install

See below for information on how to create a package.


== Configuration ==

The firewall does _nothing_ until you configure it.

Review and edit `/etc/default/firewater` for some basic settings.

Setup your rules using `vi` (or editor of choice) in `/etc/firewater.rules`.
Beware that making a mistake might lock you out of the system, so start out
with a simple ruleset that only logs things.

Next, test the ruleset (verify that there are no syntax errors) and
it must be committed to take effect. The firewall is reloaded when
committed.

    # vim /etc/firewater.rules

    # firewater test

    # firewater commit

Remember: Whenever the ruleset is changed, it must be committed,
otherwise the rules are not active.


== Starting at boot time ==

A committed ruleset persists across reboots, _but only if_ firewater has
been enabled in the boot process.

On systems that use SysV init:

    # chkconfig firewater on

    # service firewater status
    # service firewater start

or

    # update-rc.d firewater defaults

    # service firewater status
    # service firewater start

On systems that use systemd:

    # systemctl enable firewater.service

    # systemctl status -l firewater.service
    # systemctl start firewater.service


== Creating a package ==

On Debian systems you may create a package by using `debian/rules`

On Redhat, CentOS, SUSE and other RPM based distributions you may
create a package by using distutils. You can create the package by
running the following command:

    # python ./setup.py bdist_rpm

On most OSes, installing a package does not activate the service.
You must configure and enable the service otherwise the firewall
is not active.


For more information, please consult the documentation at:
http://walterdejong.github.io/firewater/doc/index.html