Inside Firewalla and STEM Learning example – Firewalla

First, we really want our kids or maybe even adults to learn networking and security. When we started Firewalla, we had a long debate, "should we save money and build a minimal platform?" or "should we build something that's fun and educational". We picked a later one.

We want to build something that can teach! This is also the reason, we decided to go with the more expensive/replaceable SD Card.

Here is a small preview of what you can do on Firewalla

Firewalla runs Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Server.
Linux Kernel 4.10
With all development tools installed, including editors like vim
You can run python, node, and even compile right on the box

Lets login the box:

https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004397274

Apt-get tshark STEM Learning Example on Firewalla

After inside the box, we can install something called tshark, the text version of Wireshark. What does it do? This is a packet sniffer that allows you to look at network packets.

If the system asks you any questions, just press enter

Apt-get tshark prompt user to continue with installation

Now let's look at all the packets on your network. The Firewalla platform already has the code in the background to move packets over, so you just need to run tshark. Please be prepared and control-c. Otherwise, you will be flooded with packets

Tshark packet sniffer install completed, view all packets on your network

Comments

2 comments

Benjamin Bellamy

May 25, 2020 21:38
It’s safer not to run tshark as root but from pi user.
```
$ unalias apt-get
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install tshark
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/dumpcap
```
then you probably want to run something like this:
```
$ tshark -i eth0 -f "host 192.168.1.42 and not arp and not icmp"
```
2

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Benjamin Bellamy

May 27, 2020 11:51
In order to have tshark run all the time, to keep 5 files of 1MB each, I run on Firewalla:
```
$ nohup tshark -i eth0 -f "ether host xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx" -b filesize:1024 -b files:5 -w /home/pi/myfilename &
```
Then I fetch the files with SFTP from my computer and open them in Wireshark.
2

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