It's time to hear out our community and see what topics interest most.  We are now giving everyone the chance to tell us what articles they want most.

Covering from Cisco to Microsoft technologies, we are in for the lot. Cast your vote in our Forum poll and make yourself heard!

More information can be found in our forum link below:

VOTE FOR THE NEXT FIREWALL.CX TOPIC

VoIP articles are finally a reality on Firewall.cx!

This new -and long awaited- section aims to cover the VoIP gap in Firewall.cx's material and will cover from  basic VoIP concepts to advanced and complicated configuration scenarios using leading VoIP technologies such as Cisco's CallManager Express (CME) and  Cisco's Small Medium Business solutions such as the Cisco UC520, UC540 & UC560 series.

The New Cisco VoIP section aims to provide a solid VOIP configuration reference guide to the VoIP community.

We are extremely excited about this new section as we feel it is essential to provide a broader and more complete coverage of network technologies to our global community.

The new VoIP section kick-starts with the Introduction of Cisco CallManager Express. Concepts and  configuration guides covered also apply to Cisco's popular SMB UC520, UC540 & UC560 series VoIP PBXs.

The introduction article analyses CallManager Express, what it runs on, what IOS software releases support it and how routers are transformed into fully-capable VoIP PBX's. In addition, you'll find information on voice interfaces commonly found on Cisco routers, how important they are and how they are used to connect to the  public switching telephony network.

Our Basic VoIP Concepts article illustrates how Cisco's CallManager Express and UC500, UC520 & UC540 systems work along with Cisco network switches and Cisco IP Phones. Voice Vlans are also covered in order to explain how important their existence is within an VoIP network.

We also take a look at basic telephone configuration on Cisco's Call Manager Express by explaining the 'ephone' and 'ephone-dn' concepts, how extensions are assigned to Cisco IP Phones.

Closing, VoIP codecs are also explained (G.711 & G729), which are used frequently on CME systems and why.

Of course, all the above are covered using our popular illustrated diagrams, presented in a simple manner to ensure our material is easily understood.

To read the first VoIP article (three pages), simply follow the link  below:

Introduction to Cisco CallManager Express (CME)

All Future VoIP articles covering CallManager Express, UC500, UC520 & UC540 PBXs will be located in the  'Technical KnowledgeBase > Cisco VoIP Technologies' Section of our menu.

Following the launch of our new VoIP section, this new Cisco VoIP article will help you identify the different CallManager Express (CME) versions depending on the Cisco IOS loaded on your router or UC500 platform.  We show you how to download the correct CallManager Express GUI files, what they contain, how to extract and install them on to your router or UC500.

Instructions on enabling the router's  web interface & creating accounts to access the CallManager Express GUI are also included.  Finally, we cover the configuration of basic CallManager Express system parameters and explain what they do.

This two-page article is designed to provide an insight on installing Cisco's CallManager Express GUI web interface, its basic configuration & techniques to overcome problems that might occur during the process.

To read this article, following the link below:

Cisco CallManager Express (CCME) GUI Software Installation & Configuration

Configuring Cisco routers to support IPSec VPNs is a fairly common task these days. This article will show you how to setup your Cisco router to support  Cisco VPN tunnels for your remote users, using the latest encryption technologies available, to provide a secure connection to your company's network resources.

Split tunneling also covered with the Cisco VPN Client configuration, allows specific networks to be tunnelled through the encrypted  IPSec VPN. This feature is also analysed alongside with a number of examples.

Features Covered:

- Router IOS requirements for Cisco VPN (IPSec)

- VPN Network Diagram

- Creation of user VPN accounts

- Configuration of crypto ISAKMP policies for authentication

- Crypto ISAKMP group authentication

- Cisco VPN client tunnel encryption

- VPN Virtual Interfaces

- VPN Split tunneling

- Necessary VPN Group & NAT  access lists

- Cisco VPN access list tips to make life easier for larger networks and complex VPN configurations

To read our article on how to setup a Cisco router for remote Cisco VPN client access, follow this link:

Cisco Router VPN Client Configuration - Setup

Engineers and administrators who need to restrict VPN user access to Layer-4 services e.g www, smtp, pop on a specific internal host (e.g web/email server) should read our How to Restrict Cisco IOS Router VPN Client to Layer-4 (TCP, UDP) Services - Applying IP, TCP & UDP Access Lists article.