Using the Administration Agent

To start the administration agent, log in as admin (or log in as root and run `fwadmin'). A copyright message will be shown at the top of the screen (see Figure 4.1). At the bottom of the screen a number of labels will appear. These are function key labels which describe the actions of keys F1 through F8. On some screens, including the initial screen, the F1 key action is labeled `Other Keys'. This means the screen has additional actions, and pressing F1 will alternate between the primary actions and the secondary actions.

  

Figure 4.1: The Main Screen

Two other labels appear on most screens. These are Help (the F7 key) and Quit or Done (the F8 key).

Most screens can take additional input from the administrator. These are called form screens. Form screens contain static text labels and editable fields. There are two types of fields, namely data fields and toggle fields. Data fields allow you to enter text from the keyboard, while toggle fields allow you to toggle between a fixed set of values.

To move between fields in a form screen, use the up/down cursor keys and the Tab key. The left and right cursor keys can also be used to move off a toggle field. In a data field, the left and right cursor keys move the cursor within the field for editing purposes, while the ENTER key moves the cursor to the next field.

To advance through the values of a toggle field, use the ` ' (spacebar) key or the `+' key (to advance forward) or the `-' (to go backward). You can also press the first letter of the value that you want to select, and the value will immediately change to the next possible one that starts with that letter.

Certain data fields are typed. That is, they require input of a certain type and will not allow you to move off the field or exit the screen until the text in the field is of the correct type. The different field types include numeric fields, IP address fields, and date and time fields. You will not be able to move the cursor off a typed field unless it contains valid data. You will also not be able to enter invalid characters in a typed field. For example, an IP address field will only accept numeric digits and periods, and will only allow you to move off the field if it is either empty or contains an entry of the form `n.n.n.n' where each n is a number in the range 0 to 255. The address `0.0.0.0' is the same as the empty value for an IP-type field. Numeric-type fields can be incremented or decremented by pressing `+' or `-' respectively.

There are some form screens which support multiple pages of input (see for example Figure 4.8). You can move between pages with F2, PageUp or Ctrl-U (previous page) and F3, PageDown or Ctrl-D (next page). Usually you will not be able to page down to an empty page unless the page you are on is already full. In most cases each page consists of multiple records, one per line, although those with many fields will have only one record per page. You can use F5 to delete the current record at the cursor position, or F6 to insert a new record at the cursor position. For most pageable form screens the actual order of records is unimportant, but there are a few exceptions (such as log filters and gateway packet filters).