Untangle Network Security (2014)

Preface

Nowadays, network security has become the trending topic besides cloud computing and virtualization. With the increasing number of cybercrimes, all networks, irrespective of whether they belong to a small or enterprise organization, needs to be protected.

Untangle NGFW provides a comprehensive platform that is built on the best-on-the-market application such as zVelo's web filtering technologies that are used by most UTM manufactures. Untangle provides a complete stack of applications that cover the needs of most users.

Accompanied with ease of use, high reliability, great support, and low prices, Untangle NGFW is considered a great choice for network protection.

This book is based on version 10.2.1; slight differences can be found between the different Untangle NGFW versions. Since you have the basic concepts provided here, you can easily deal with any change you meet. Although you can use the free-to-roam style to read this book, this is not advised for beginners since the advanced chapters have some dependencies on the earlier chapters.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to Untangle, introduces you to the world of information security and Untangle. This book starts by giving a brief introduction about Untangle, the company. Then, it provides some information about security concepts. After that, it gives a detailed introduction to Untangle NGFW.

Chapter 2, Installing Untangle, guides you on how to build and install the Untangle NGFW server. This chapter first discusses the hardware requirements of Untangle NGFW. Then, it describes the virtualized environment used for this book's examples. Next, the chapter covers how to obtain Untangle installation media, and then it guides you through a step-by-step installation of Untangle NGFW.

Chapter 3, The Initial Configuration of Untangle, walks you through the initial configuration wizard of Untangle NGFW in which we configure the administrator account, interfaces' IPs, and Untangle mode. In addition, it explains the GUI of Untangle NGFW.

Chapter 4, Untangle Advanced Configuration, covers how to configure network-related settings such as interface IP, VLAN, DHCP, DNS, QoS, Routes, NAT, and port forwarding. Also, it discusses Untangle's high availability options.

Chapter 5, Advanced Administration Settings, covers the settings related to Untangle NGFW administration such as the administrators' accounts, Untangle public address, backup and restore, and the e-mail settings for Untangle NGFW to send e-mails to users.

Chapter 6, Untangle Blockers, covers the Untangle applications that protect your network from direct threats such as viruses, spam, phishing, and malicious traffic.

Chapter 7, Preventing External Attacks, covers how you can protect your network from the Denial of Service (DoS) attacks by using intrusion prevention systems to stop malicious traffic and using firewall to limit the number of opened ports.

Chapter 8, Untangle Filters, covers Untangle applications that improve the user's productivity and network performance by blocking access to least important sites such as social networks, and denying traffic from applications such as BitTorrent. In addition, this chapter covers how Untangle NGFW can scan and filter the HTTPS traffic.

Chapter 9, Optimizing Network Traffic, covers how you can save and optimize your WAN bandwidth by limiting nonbusiness-related applications and prioritizing business-related applications. In addition, this chapter will also cover the use of Web Cache to enhance users' browsing experience.

Chapter 10, Untangle Network Policy, shows how it's possible to set access rules based on the Active Directory user and group membership, and how to force users to accept the acceptable use policy before they start using your network resource.

Chapter 11, Untangle WAN Services, describes the Untangle NGFW modules that allow for using WAN services from multiple ISPs to provide higher throughput and a continuous WAN connection to users even if any of the connection has failed.

Chapter 12, Untangle VPN Services, covers the modules that allow Untangle NGFW to provide a VPN connection to its remote users or between two branches.

Chapter 13, Untangle Administrative Services, shows how administrators can simplify their tasks using reporting, automated backups, and premium support, and how they can customize Untangle logos, interfaces, and pages.

Chapter 14, Untangle in the Real World, provides a brief overview of the regulatory compliance related to the IT field. Then, it lists the Untangle NGFW advantages over its rivals. Finally, it provides some examples on how Untangle is used in the small and medium businesses, education, healthcare, government, and nonprofit sectors.

What you need for this book

The examples presented in this book assume that you have a computer system with enough RAM, hard drive space, and processing power to run a virtualized testing environment. Some examples will require the use of multiple virtual machines that run simultaneously. The complete virtualized environment used for this book is described in Chapter 2, Installing Untangle.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to install, deploy, configure, and administrate Untangle NGFW. This book has been written for readers at a beginner's level either on network security or Untangle NGFW, but they should be familiar with networks. For those who have more experience with network security, this book can be their quick guide to learn Untangle NGFW. For those with experience on Untangle NGFW, this book can serve as a refresher and validation of their skills.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Backups will store the current Untangle NGFW server settings to the .backup file."

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "If your country is not listed in the preceding list, you can choose other."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.