Initial tasks

After the installation, there are several things you need to make sure of in order to have WinGate function correctly. We recommend that you read our Network considerations section, for a brief run down on the types of factors that will influence WinGate's operation on the network.

Activating WinGate

Immediately after installation, you are required to activate your installation of WinGate with the WinGate Activation server on the Internet. While this has been designed to be a simple enough procedure, you can read more about Qbik licensing and activation in our Licensing section.

Choosing a user database

Once you have activated your WinGate installation, you will need to select the user database that WinGate should use in order to control user access to the Internet. This selection is required before being allowed to log into the WinGate Management console and administrate WinGate. WinGate offers a range of user database options depending on what current user controls you have in place, and what security requirements you have from WinGate regarding user access to the Internet.

Logging into the WinGate Management console

When you first log into WinGate, you will need to use a user who is a member of the Administrators group in the user database you have selected for WinGate. When WinGate is set to use an Active Directory user database, this will be a member of the domain admins group.

Setting adapter usage

WinGate will scan all of the network connections that it has in order to determine what type of networks they are connected to. Based on each connections IP address details, WinGate will classify what possible usage the interface will have automatically. This classification plays an important role in how WinGate will treat traffic received on each interface (e.g. which is the Internet connection, which is connected to the LAN etc.). You can manually set this adapter usage if required.

Installing services

WinGate provides a host of application protocol specific network services, that will listen for, and respond to client requests from the network. WinGate also provides a range of installable administrative network services such as DNS, and DHCP if required. When installing services to WinGate there are a number of considerations that you should be aware of.

Client operations

WinGate offers a choice of client connection methods to suit your client Internet access needs. These include Network Address Translation (NAT), specific application proxy services for clients, and several circuit level proxies.