Sygate Personal Firewall Sygate for DNS Forwarding and Remote Administration Kevin Reichard
Sygate for DNS Forwarding and Remote Administration
Sygate supports DNS forwarding. When an organization sets up a network, it can assign the TCP/IP address from the PC running Sygate to all the PCs on the network. When these networked PCs need to resolve host names, they will go to the Sygate PC, which in turn will grab that information from the ISP and pass it along to the networked PC. However, Sygate does not support DNS caching, which would record frequently requested DNS look-ups on the Sygate PC.
For operating systems that support it — including Windows 95/98, Windows NT, MacOS, and Linux — Sygate offers DHCP capabilities. When a networked computer boots up, it obtains its TCP/IP information (including the address, subnet mask, gateway, and DNS server address) from the Sygate PC.
One promised capability that we did not have a chance to test -- because our installation worked from the get-go — was Sygate's advertised network troubleshooting capabilities. When Sygate is installed, it will analyze the network configuration. If the network is not configured properly, Sygate will automatically fix the problem or advise on how the problem can be fixed.
Sygate also supports remote administration of a Sygate server, through a proprietary client application or a telnet connection. (No Web-based administration is supported.) Either way, this tool provides real-time information about network usage and user activity, and gives administrators the power to install software.
