Configuration checklist

The easiest way to configure DEFENDO is by using the wizards offered by the "Configuration" menu. When you are done you can start finetuning the system. However there are some things you should not forget.

Change password for "admin"

Please do not forget to change admin's password. It should consist of at least 8 characters. Preferably a mixture of capitals, lower case letters, digits and special characters. Avoid using simple words or names.

Poll or forward "admin" mailbox

DEFENDO always delivers notifications, alerts and reports to the builtin user "admin". By default these mails are delivered to a local mailbox. Please make sure that this mailbox is polled regularly. It is also possible to forward admin's mail to one or multiple other recipients.

Backup

Don't forget to create a system and a user backup when you have finished configuring DEFENDO. We highly recommend to make use of DEFENDO's automatic scheduled backup feature. This ensures that a recent backup is always at hands.

Connection monitoring on expensive dial-on-demand lines

If the internet connection is a dial-on-demand isdn or adsl link you should enforce limits on its use. Otherwise there's no protection against high bills when the internet connection is too often online (e.g. because of a misconfiguration). There's certainly no need to restrict the dial-on-demand link if you are not accounted for the time you are online (flatrate).

The limits can be configured in "Monitoring -> Dial-up".

Note: The limits apply to PPP interfaces only (i.e. interface names starting with ippp or adsl). So this feature cannot be used if DEFENDO is connected to an external dial-up router via ethernet (interface type eth).

DNS reverse lookup

By default the DNS server is configured not to forward DNS reverse lookup queries for IP addresses reserved according to RFC-1918. This refers to the IP addresses 192.168.*, 172.16.* to 172.31.* and 10.*. If the local LAN uses different IP addresses you should add a corresponding reverse lookup zone in the DNS configuration. Please check "Expert -> DNS" on the DEFENDO GUI. Otherwise reverse lookup on internal addresses will be forwarded to the internet, which might result in high costs especially if the internet connection is an expensive dial-up link.

Delivery of outbound emails

Please make sure that queued emails will be retransmitted. The wizard "Configuration -> Email configuration" will assure this when selecting the option"polling and delivery schedule". The same setting can be configured at "Expert -> Mail Server", too.

If you forget to configure this option, mails queued e.g. due to a temporary delivery failure will remain in the queue for several days or even until delivery is triggered manually.

Autostart of services

Finally check "Monitoring -> Services" if the autostart option is set for all services which are required. After a reboot only those services will be started which have autostart enabled.

Note: The remote maintenance wizard for ISDN will start the ISDN service but it won't set the autostart flag. So if ISDN is used for RAS dial-in or if remote maintenance has to be available all the time, don't forget to activate autostart for ISDN.