ZoneAlarm Free Edition works well on a stand-alone PC and is an excellent personal firewall. However, if you connect that same PC to a network (with another PC or laptop) you'll soon realise that ZoneAlarm will not let you see or access your network. ZoneAlarm is in fact doing its job - blocking "unauthorized" incoming attempts to access your PC. The key word here is "unauthorized". To get ZoneAlarm to recognise your network and allow access between PCs, you will have to give ZoneAlarm information about your network so it will then become "authorized".
This sounds simple enough, but it is in fact very tricky for the "average Joe" to configure this when you are using ZoneAlarm Free Edition. (ZoneAlarm Pro Edition is better suited for use on networked PCs).
Here are complete instructions on how to authorize your network on ZoneAlarm Free Edition.
We will be using 2 PCs on a simple home-network for this tutorial and a dial-up internet connection. The instructions and explanations will be as non-technical as possible and you can read more about networks here.
The gateway PC is running Windows XP Home and the Client PC is running Windows XP Professional. Both PCs have been connected via network cable and the Gateway PC has been configured to share it's dial-up internet connection with the Client PC, along with file and printer sharing.
1) Install the very latest version of ZoneAlarm Free Edition on both PCs. When you then try to share / access files on the network, it fails right away. The Client PC is also unable to access the internet through the Gateway PC.
2) You will need to find out the IP address (or range of addresses) for each of the PCs. On our Gateway PC, we were able to find this out by right-clicking on our network connection (Control Panel > Network Connections) and selecting "Properties". In the "General" tab, we then clicked on "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and then clicked the "Properties" button. We saw an IP address in this format - 192.xxx.x.x. We will be using this as the IP address for our Gateway PC.
3) We then tried to follow the same procedure on the Client PC to ascertain its IP address, but we ran into a problem. The Client PC was set to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and therefore this did not help us to see its IP address. We went back to the Gateway PC where ZoneAlarm was already running and looked at its log file (double-click the ZoneAlarm icon near your PC's clock, click on "Alerts & Logs" and then click the "Log Viewer" tab). We were able to see that a particular IP address was consistently being blocked. This, we figured out, belonged to the Client PC. So we now have IP addresses for both PCs.
4) Open ZoneAlarm on the Gateway PC, click on "Firewall" and then "Zones". This is where we will enter in the IP address of the Client PC, thereby giving it permission to access the Gateway PC. Then click on the "Add >>" button and (in our case), click on "IP Address". If you have an "IP Range", you would select that instead. In the dialog box that comes up, be sure that the Zone is set to "Trusted" and then type in the IP address of the Client PC. Then you must also type in a description (example: Home Network). If you do not do this, you will be unable to proceed. You have now successfully added the Client PC to the "Trusted" Zone of the Gateway PC. At this point we went over to the Client PC and tried to access files from the Gateway PC - success. We then tried to access the internet through the Gateway PC - failure.
5) The next step we did was to open ZoneAlarm on the Gateway PC and click on "Firewall" and then "Main". Set the "Internet Zone Security" to "Medium" (which allows your PC to be visible but still be protected) and then do the same for the "Trusted Zone Security".
6) We then went back over to the Client PC and tried accessing the internet - success! We have now successfully configured ZoneAlarm Free Edition on our Gateway PC - allowing the Client PC to gain access to it and share files, printer and internet. Once your Gateway PC is protected and providing you with useful alerts, it is not necessary to have ZoneAlarm running on the Client PC. However, we will go even further for this tutorial and configure ZoneAlarm on the Client PC as well.
7) At this point, we went over to the Client PC and followed step 4) making sure we typed in the IP address of the Gateway PC instead. We then wrapped up by following step 5).
Both PCs were then restarted and complete tests were done.
ZoneAlarm Free Edition was running successfully on both PCs which were networked together. The Gateway PC can access files on the Client PC and vice-versa. The Client PC can utilize the printer connected to the Gateway PC and it can also access the internet through the Gateway PC.
As stated earlier, this process is tricky - but not impossible to accomplish.
Based on your particular network setup and the number of computers involved, the steps outlined above may not work for you, but it is worth the effort to have ZoneAlarm's firewall protection.
This sounds simple enough, but it is in fact very tricky for the "average Joe" to configure this when you are using ZoneAlarm Free Edition. (ZoneAlarm Pro Edition is better suited for use on networked PCs).
Here are complete instructions on how to authorize your network on ZoneAlarm Free Edition.
We will be using 2 PCs on a simple home-network for this tutorial and a dial-up internet connection. The instructions and explanations will be as non-technical as possible and you can read more about networks here.
The gateway PC is running Windows XP Home and the Client PC is running Windows XP Professional. Both PCs have been connected via network cable and the Gateway PC has been configured to share it's dial-up internet connection with the Client PC, along with file and printer sharing.
1) Install the very latest version of ZoneAlarm Free Edition on both PCs. When you then try to share / access files on the network, it fails right away. The Client PC is also unable to access the internet through the Gateway PC.
2) You will need to find out the IP address (or range of addresses) for each of the PCs. On our Gateway PC, we were able to find this out by right-clicking on our network connection (Control Panel > Network Connections) and selecting "Properties". In the "General" tab, we then clicked on "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and then clicked the "Properties" button. We saw an IP address in this format - 192.xxx.x.x. We will be using this as the IP address for our Gateway PC.
3) We then tried to follow the same procedure on the Client PC to ascertain its IP address, but we ran into a problem. The Client PC was set to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and therefore this did not help us to see its IP address. We went back to the Gateway PC where ZoneAlarm was already running and looked at its log file (double-click the ZoneAlarm icon near your PC's clock, click on "Alerts & Logs" and then click the "Log Viewer" tab). We were able to see that a particular IP address was consistently being blocked. This, we figured out, belonged to the Client PC. So we now have IP addresses for both PCs.
4) Open ZoneAlarm on the Gateway PC, click on "Firewall" and then "Zones". This is where we will enter in the IP address of the Client PC, thereby giving it permission to access the Gateway PC. Then click on the "Add >>" button and (in our case), click on "IP Address". If you have an "IP Range", you would select that instead. In the dialog box that comes up, be sure that the Zone is set to "Trusted" and then type in the IP address of the Client PC. Then you must also type in a description (example: Home Network). If you do not do this, you will be unable to proceed. You have now successfully added the Client PC to the "Trusted" Zone of the Gateway PC. At this point we went over to the Client PC and tried to access files from the Gateway PC - success. We then tried to access the internet through the Gateway PC - failure.
5) The next step we did was to open ZoneAlarm on the Gateway PC and click on "Firewall" and then "Main". Set the "Internet Zone Security" to "Medium" (which allows your PC to be visible but still be protected) and then do the same for the "Trusted Zone Security".
6) We then went back over to the Client PC and tried accessing the internet - success! We have now successfully configured ZoneAlarm Free Edition on our Gateway PC - allowing the Client PC to gain access to it and share files, printer and internet. Once your Gateway PC is protected and providing you with useful alerts, it is not necessary to have ZoneAlarm running on the Client PC. However, we will go even further for this tutorial and configure ZoneAlarm on the Client PC as well.
7) At this point, we went over to the Client PC and followed step 4) making sure we typed in the IP address of the Gateway PC instead. We then wrapped up by following step 5).
Both PCs were then restarted and complete tests were done.
ZoneAlarm Free Edition was running successfully on both PCs which were networked together. The Gateway PC can access files on the Client PC and vice-versa. The Client PC can utilize the printer connected to the Gateway PC and it can also access the internet through the Gateway PC.
As stated earlier, this process is tricky - but not impossible to accomplish.
Based on your particular network setup and the number of computers involved, the steps outlined above may not work for you, but it is worth the effort to have ZoneAlarm's firewall protection.
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