Content: * About KMyFirewall * Release Notes * Hacking * Packaging * Reporting Bugs * Contact About KMyFirewall ----------------- KMyFirewall attempts to make it easier to setup IPTables based firewalls on Linux systems. It will be the right tool if you like to have a so called "Personal Firewall" running on your Linux box, but don't have the time and/or the interest to spend hours in front of the IPTables manual just to setup a Firewall that keeps the "bad" people out. There is also the possibility to save entire rule sets, so you only have to configure your rule set one time and then you can use it on several computers giving each of them a similar configuration (p.e. school networks, office, university etc.). For a complete list of the features have a look at the Features section Programs can't do any magic so you still will have to know what your firewall should do to setup your rule set. KMyFirewall just tries to help you as much as possible, but you decide what it will do. Release Notes ------------- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! Important: As the file format used to save the rulesets has changed, !!! !!! rulesets created with KMF < 1.0beta1 WILL NOT work, don't even try it! !!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since the last stable release KMF has been completely rewritten in order to be even more flexible and on the other hand easier to use. New plugin framework Most parts of the application has been rewritten introducing a plugin framework that allows to add new IPTables rule option editors to be written within a few hours (well maybe days depends on the options complexity :). This will allow us (and contributors) to easily implement the fast growing number of IPTables ruleoptions without the need of understanding the whole application. The backend generating the IPTables rules itself has been extended to allow the registration of new rule options by defining them in an XML description file. For a detailed description about how to write such plugins have a look at the application handbook in the current CVS version. So feel free to contribute plugins, there are lots of options still not implemented. New Easy-To-Use platform independant interface As I often got mails complaining about the to complex nature of KMF and the very limited possibilities the wizard provides i simply removed the wizard and implemented a completely new interface. Features of the new Interface As the new interface works on an abstract descrioption of the generated rules the new plugin structure allows us top implement script compilers that support other firewalling backends than just netfilter/iptables. To support a new tool kit it is required to write a compiler and an installer plugin for the new framework. Currently just the iptables/linux compiler and installer is implemented. As with the rule option plugins of the IPTables interface it shouldn't bee too much work to develop those plugins. IPTables vs. Generic interface The main difference between those two interfaces is that the new Generic Interface is OS and toolkit independant while the IPTables interface is an improved version of the well known KMF GUI and therefore tight bound to the netfiler/iptables toolkit and can therefore only be used with Linux as operating system. Why two different interfaces? Especially when concerning security related applications you (as developer) need to decide if you like to build an application used by expert users (e.g. experienced system administrators) or if you like to provide a tool that everybody can handle. It hasn't been an easy decision to implement one interface for each user group but after pondering about concepts to merge those two requirements into one interface we decided that it is much better to seperate them. This allows us to concentrate on the wishes and wanted features for each of the user groups. Reporting Bugs -------------- If you found a bug in please do not hesitate to drop an e-mail to chubinger@gmail.com or use the "Report Bug..." dialog from the Help menu. Hacking ------- As you can see this thing gets quiet big so every kind of help (coding, docs, translations) is very welcome. Please don't hesitate to contact me (chubinger@gmail.com) if you have some ideas, patches, wishes or whatever. To ease the development for writing KMyFirewall plugins i've wrote a small howto about implementing such plugins which may be a good starting point for getting involved in the development process. It can be found in menu "Help -> KMyFirewall Handbook" in the Development section or have a look at the project website at http://kmyfirewall.sourceforge.net Packaging --------- If you are intereseted in packagin KMyFirewall do not hesitate to contact me. As my time is quite linited i cannot package KMF on my own so if you like to you will be very welcome. Just drop me an e-mail Contact ------- Do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail at chubinger@gmail.com if you have questions, problems or what ever concerning KMyFirewall. For the latest news about KMyFirewall have a look at http://kmyfirewall.sourceforge.net