1/ What is needed?
In order to create the wireless access point, the laptop will run Debian GNU/Linux.
The wireless adapter will be used in Access Point mode. In order to do so, hostapd daemon will be used.
Then, in order to run the router, iptables rules will need to be setup.

2/ Install Debian GNU/Linux and configure the OS and network
Get the latest Debian GNU/Linux installer and install Debian GNU/Linux on the spare laptop.
Install hostapd and shorewall:

root@wap:~# apt-get install hostapd 
root@wap:~# apt-get install shorewall shorewall-doc

3/ Configure hostapd
The example hostapd.conf file is quite long, detailed and full of options. But you can make it light and quick, as described here.
Note that this is working for an Atheros based Wireless adapter, and in this case, the interface is known as wlan1 on the system.

root@wap:~# cat /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
interface=wlan1
driver=nl80211
ssid=TheNameOfTheWirelessNetwork
auth_algs=1
channel=1
hw_mode=g

wpa=1
wpa_passphrase=ThePassphraseOfTheWirelessNetwork
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairewise=CCMP
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0

Edit the hostadp default file to let the daemon know about its config file:

root@wap:~# cat /etc/default/hostapd 
# Defaults for hostapd initscript
#
# See /usr/share/doc/hostapd/README.Debian for information about alternative
# methods of managing hostapd.
#
# Uncomment and set DAEMON_CONF to the absolute path of a hostapd configuration
# file and hostapd will be started during system boot. An example configuration
# file can be found at /usr/share/doc/hostapd/examples/hostapd.conf.gz
#
DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"

# Additional daemon options to be appended to hostapd command:-
# 	-d   show more debug messages (-dd for even more)
# 	-K   include key data in debug messages
# 	-t   include timestamps in some debug messages
#
# Note that -B (daemon mode) and -P (pidfile) options are automatically
# configured by the init.d script and must not be added to DAEMON_OPTS.
#
#DAEMON_OPTS=""

4/ Configure shorewall
This part is the simplest ever, thanks to Shorewall contributors…
If you remember what you’ve just done in step 2, you’ve installed both Shorewall and the Shorewall docs.
In these docs, you’ll find an example of a two interfaces system, that can easily be configured to route traffic from the wireless adapter to the ethernet adapter (so, from the WLAN to the WAN )

First, copy this example to the shorewall configuration directory:

root@wap:~# cd /etc/shorewall
root@wap:~# cp /usr/share/doc/shorewall/examples/two-interfaces/* .

Then edit the files to match your network configuration. In my scenario, eth0 is the ethernet adapter connected to the WAN, wlan1 is the wireless adapter acting in Access Point mode.
Here below, the file that have been modified as compared with the example:

root@wap:/etc/shorewall# cat interfaces
#ZONE	INTERFACE	BROADCAST	OPTIONS
net     eth0            detect          dhcp,tcpflags,nosmurfs,routefilter,logmartians
loc     wlan1           detect          tcpflags,nosmurfs,routefilter,logmartians

root@wap:/etc/shorewall# cat routestopped 
#INTERFACE	HOST(S)                  OPTIONS
wlan1		-

To have shorewall starting on boot, edit the /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf and change the line

STARTUP_ENABLED=No

to

STARTUP_ENABLED=Yes

“Et voilà"! Enjoy!!!

I’ve figured out that the Ubuntu machine was missing the DKMS package.
So in order to have the Guest Additions operational in an Ubuntu 10.04 VM (after a dist-upgrade), make sure to install DKMS:

[user@ubuntu1004:~] sudo apt-get install dkms

The first issue was linked to the IDE CDrom drive, not able to run the installer of CheckPoint. Therefore, the ISO file of the Installation CDrom has been used from the DRAC virtual media.

The second issue is still linked to this IDE CDrom drive. If enabled, then two cdrom devices are created under the SecurePlatform OS, preventing the use of

patch add cd

to do an upgrade.
By default the upgrade process looks for the CD to be /dev/cdrom while both /dev/cdrom and /dev/cdrom1 are available, the first being the IDE CDrom drive, the second being the DRAC Virtual Media.

In order to run the upgrade, the IDE CDrom can be disabled from the BIOS, and the /etc/fstab updated to match the CDrom device to be mounted to /mnt/cdrom (using the expert mode).

“It is prefered to create a ZFS storage pool using a full disk…”

C:\>wmic /user:administrator /node:remote-host bios get serialnumber

sc> setsc if_connection ssh
sc> resetsc -y

kick-setup.sh

The aim of this script is to set the kickstart environment for a new RedHat release on a Kickstart server running Solaris 10 or a flavor of Linux OS in a fully automated manner.
Two steps only are now required to prepare the Kickstart environment for a new RedHat release (can simply be a new RedHat update as well):

1. First, connect to the RedHat network https://rhn.redhat.com to download the RedHat DVD iso you need and that is not already setup in the kickstart server.
   Place the downloaded iso file in your iso repository. Note that the path to the isos must look like:

     /path/to/isos/linux/RHEL?/

   where ? is the number of the RedHat release.
2. Connect to your Kickstart server and run the script with the appropriate options.

Here below the help for the script, as well as an example:

root@ksserver:/export/kickstart# /opt/mc-thias/bin/kick-setup.sh -h  

This script intends to setup the whole Kickstart server 
for a specific release and update of RedHat Enterprise Linux.
This setup will be done according to a few required parameters, 
and thanks to the RHEL DVD iso.

kick-setup.sh is to be used with four mandatory parameters:
  - The release number of the RedHat Enterprise Linux to be deployed. 
    This number is an integer, for instance 5 for RedHat 5.
    This option is:
      -r num
  - The update number of the RedHat Enterprise Linux release to be deployed. 
    This number is an integer, as 4 for RedHat 5 Update 4.
    This option is:
      -u num
  - The arch of the RedHat Enterprise Linux to be deployed. 
    This is either 32b or 64b for 32 or 64 bits x86. 
    This option is:
      -m 32b|64b
  - The iso file of the RedHat EL that is to be setup on the Kickstart server.
    This iso should have first been downloaded from rhn.redhat.com
    This option is:
      -i iso_name

Examples:
To deploy RHEL6 U2 for x86 32bits, you would run the following:
  ./kick-setup.sh -r 6 -u 2 -m 32b -i rhel-server-6.2-i386-dvd.iso

Hit the Read More link to get the script and learn more on how to use it

When it comes to access the Networker configuration from the command lines a few tools appear to be very useful:

• mminfo
• nsradmin

among others. Therefore you are invited to have a look at the man pages of these tools.

2/ The request one can face
In order to comply with some reporting/quality policies, one might want to get the list of Networker clients currently in use, with their Description, Groups, Save set, Browse Policy and Retention Policy.
The nsradmin tool will then be used.
Let’s see how the nsradmin script looks like:

[root@nwserver ~]# cat /tmp/clientlist.cmd
. type: nsr client;scheduled backup: Enabled
show name;group;comment;"save set";"browse policy";"retention policy"
print
root@nwserver:~#

Running this script leads to the result one might expect, displaying every enabled clients, with their name, group, comment/description, save set and browse and retention policies. But the format of the output is not quite easy to work with when building reports (integration in an Excel spreadsheet for instance).
Let’s see an example:

[root@nwserver ~]# nsradmin -i /tmp/clientlist.cmd
[...]
                       name: gw.domain.com;
                     comment: Gateway main;
               browse policy: Year;
            retention policy: 10 ans;
                       group: FULL 1st quarter;
                    save set: All;

                        name: logs.domain.com;
                     comment: Logs server;
               browse policy: Year;
            retention policy: 3 ans;
                       group: Full Q2 Q3 Q4;
                    save set: All;
[...]

3/ Building a CSV format report from these data
In order to make these data easily workable, a Perl script is being used, translating this raw output from nsradmin to a CSV format.

You can fin the script here

Have a look at the content of this script as you might want to modify some parameters:

$nsradmin_cmd = "/nsr/sbin/nsradmin";
$tmp_cmd_file = "/tmp/clientlist.cmd";
$tmp_csv_file = "/tmp/clientlist.csv";

where tmp_csv_file is the CSV output file.

The script is quite simple. It is simply using a hash of hashes to parse the output from the nsradmin script:

%result = ( "_name" => {
                comment => "Description",
                groups => {
                        group   => "Backup Group",
                        saveset => "Save set",
                        brpol   => "Browse Policy",
                        retpol  => "Retention Policy"
                        },
                },
);

This part of the script initializes the hash of hashes with entries that stand for the header of the resulting table.
Then the hash of hashes is built using a for loop:

$svrname="";
$savegrp="";
$grpidx=0;
for $rawlist_el(@rawlist) {
        $field = substr($rawlist_el,0,28);
        $field =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g;
        chomp $field;
        $data = substr($rawlist_el,30);
        chomp $data;
        chop $data;
        switch ($field) {
                case "name"     { $svrname = $data; $grpidx++; }
                case "comment"  { $result{"$svrname"}{"comment"} = "$data"; }
                case "group"    { 
                       $result{"$svrname"}{"groups$grpidx"}{"group"} = "$data "; }
                case "save set" {
                       $result{"$svrname"}{"groups$grpidx"}{"saveset"} .= "$data "; }
                case "browse policy"    { 
                       $result{"$svrname"}{"groups$grpidx"}{"brpol"} .= "$data "; }
                case "retention policy" { 
                       $result{"$svrname"}{"groups$grpidx"}{"retpol"} .= "$data "; }
                case "" { 
                       $result{"$svrname"}{"groups$grpidx"}{"saveset"} .= "$data "; }
        }
}

An index (grpidx) is used as a client can belong to multiple groups.
The values 28 and 30 might be adjusted but are a match on the server that I’m working with.
They are corresponding to the number of char used for the first field in the nsradmin output.

4/ Use of the output
Once the CSV file has been generated, it can be imported in Excel or in any Spreadsheet tool, and can be easily manipulated to generate reports.

Enjoy…