ESX Firewall Configuration

The firewall on ESX, which appears to be Linux IP Tables, can be manually maintained via the esxcfg-firewall command on the service console. From what I can tell, the service definitions that are fed to the command are defined in the file /etc/vmware/firewall/services.xml, at least on our ESX 3.0.2 U1. On our ESX systems that file contains the following rule set definitions:

<id>sshServer</id>
<id>sshClient</id>
<id>ftpServer</id>
<id>ftpClient</id>
<id>nfsClient</id>
<id>smbClient</id>
<id>snmpd</id>
<id>vncServer</id>
<id>nisClient</id>
<id>ntpClient</id>
<id>telnetClient</id>
<id>LicenseClient</id>
<id>CIMHttpServer</id>
<id>CIMHttpsServer</id>
<id>CIMSLP</id>
<id>swISCSIClient</id>
<id>vpxHeartbeats</id>
<id>AAMClient</id>
<id>veritasNetBackup</id>
<id>veritasBackupExec</id>
<id>TSM</id>
<id>commvaultStatic</id>
<id>commvaultDynamic</id>
<id>activeDirectorKerberos</id>
<id>kerberos</id>
<id>legatoNetWorker</id>
<id>rshClient</id>

To enable one of these rule set profiles, run the command esxcfg-firewall –e 'name'. As in, esxcfg-firewall ntpClient

ASA/PIX Console Message Monitoring

To watch log messages while attached to a PIX or ASA running 8.x.

To start monitoring:
config t
logging monitor <level> I like warnings
terminal monitor

To stop monitoring:
terminal no monitor
no logging monitor

Pidgen MSN Problems

Walked in today to Pidgen 2.5.2 on Windows receiving "Unable to retrieve MSN address book" error messages. Upgraded to 2.5.3 and had the same error. Downloaded msn-pecan (Windows exe) from http://code.google.com/p/msn-pecan/downloads/list, changed to WLM for that account and it's working now.