AltaVista Firewall Windows NT AlphaServer 800 DIGITAL HiTest Notes

This document provides a comprehensive overview and detailed technical information for the AltaVista Firewall Windows NT AlphaServer 800 HiTest Suite. Published in April 1998 by Digital Equipment Corporation, it serves as a guide for configuring, installing, setting up, and operating this specific firewall solution.

The HiTest Suite is designed to provide a flexible and secure connection between private networks and the Internet, preventing unauthorized external access while allowing controlled access to internal services. Key components include AltaVista Firewall 97 software, Windows NT Server 4.0, and the AlphaServer 800 platform.

The document details the suite's characteristics:

• Availability: Focuses on data protection, availability, and platform stability, noting that higher availability requires a dual AlphaServer cluster.
• Installability: Installation procedures for hardware and software (including the wizard-driven AltaVista Firewall 97) were thoroughly tested, taking approximately six hours for a maximum configuration.
• Interoperability: All major components, including application, OS, hardware, firmware, and service packs, were tested successfully for compatibility.
• Manageability: Features a comprehensive graphical user interface for configuration and administration, an active alarming and notification system for security events, and remote administration capabilities via Netscape browser with AltaVista Tunnel.
• Scalability & Performance: The AlphaServer 800 configurations offer good performance and significant expansion capabilities for memory, processors, and storage. Workload characterization tests for SMTP, HTTP, and FTP showed the system could handle up to 55,000 hits per hour.
• Services: The suite is backed by DIGITAL's Business Critical Services, including a 99.5% Uptime Guarantee, Availability Reviews, Gold Support, and global support capabilities.
• Year 2000 Compliance: While Windows NT Server and AlphaServer 800 components were deemed Year 2000 ready (Blue), AltaVista Firewall 97 was not (Green), with AltaVista Firewall 98 stated as compliant.

The document provides extensive installation and setup instructions, covering environment preparation (DNS and mail server configuration), hardware installation, Windows NT Server installation, AltaVista Firewall 97 installation, and post-installation tasks such as user authentication (NT Domain or Hand Held Authenticators), remote management channel creation, and proxy configuration.

Testing and results confirm the interoperability and workload capability of the firewall for various protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, Telnet). Minor problems identified during testing, such as "fake mail" being disallowed and GUI limitations for underscores in NT domain authentication, are accompanied by solutions or workarounds. Detailed hardware configurations, including system diagrams, slot usage, and storage architecture, are also provided.