Building a Transparent Firewall with Linux, Part III

config 'switch' 'eth0'
	option 'enable' '1'

config 'switch_vlan' 'eth0_0'
	option 'device' 'eth0'
	option 'vlan' '0'
	option 'ports' '0 1 2 3 4 5'

config 'interface' 'loopback'
	option 'ifname' 'lo'
	option 'proto' 'static'
	option 'ipaddr' '127.0.0.1'
	option 'netmask' '255.0.0.0'

config 'interface' 'lan'
	option 'type' 'bridge'
	option 'ifname' 'eth0.0'
	option 'proto' 'static'
	option 'ipaddr' '10.0.0.253'
	option 'netmask' '255.255.255.0'

Listing 4 shows the seven commands necessary to transform /etc/config/network, as shown in Listing 2, into that shown in Listing 3. Before executing these, however, please read the explanatory text that follows, which will help you avoid the risk of bricking (rendering useless) your broadband router.

root@OpenWrt:~# uci set network.eth0_0.ports="0 1 2 3 4 5"

root@OpenWrt:~# uci delete network.eth0_1

root@OpenWrt:~# uci set network.lan.ipaddr="10.0.0.253"

root@OpenWrt:~# uci delete network.wan

root@OpenWrt:~# uci show network

root@OpenWrt:~# uci commit

root@OpenWrt:~# reboot

I'm out of space for this month, so I can't dissect Listing 4, which is hopefully similar enough to the previous uci examples to make sense. I will, however, leave you with two important notes.

First, note the uci show network. This allows you to check your work before committing changes. If any line is wrong, you can re-enter the relevant uci command. To start over, enter the command uci revert network to undo all changes. If you mess things up so badly you can't ssh back in, you can re-flash the firmware image, which among other things will reset the router's IP address back to 192.168.1.1. Checking and rechecking your work before committing, however, is less work and easier on your nerves than re-flashing!

Second, after changing your device's IP address and rebooting, you won't be able to reconnect to your OpenWrt box until you've reconfigured your client system with an IP address compatible with the OpenWrt box's new address. For example, after I reconfigured my Linux laptop's Ethernet interface with the IP address 10.0.0.30 and netmask 255.255.255.0, I was able to ssh back in to my OpenWrt router with the command ssh root@10.0.0.253.

I've covered a lot of ground this month: recompiling OpenWrt for iptables bridging support, enabling SSH, using uci and reconfiguring networking. Next time, I'll show you how to disable the default OpenWrt firewall and create a custom iptables script that should work on any bridging-aware Linux 2.6 system. Until then, be safe!