Great, you’ve installed the best Windows proxy server software around, but now you need to know what to do with it? It’s easy if you know how, but if you’re not a Networking Wizard then it can be a little daunting at first. So read on to find out what to do after you’ve installed WinGate, and how to go about configuring your LAN to get your client machines connecting to the Internet.


Logging in

The first time that you log in to WinGate you must log in as the Administrator. When you installed the software you were asked whether you wanted to use the WinGate user database or the Operating System (OS) user database.

If you chose the WinGate user database then you’ll need to log in as
USERNAME: administrator
PASSWORD: (blank – i.e. no password)
You will then be asked to set a password for the user administrator

If you chose the OS user database then you’ll need to log in as the local machine Administrator with the appropriate password.


Activating a License

WinGate v6 requires an activated license before it will work, you can either activate your purchased license or a 30 day free trial license. There is an Activation Wizard that will guide you through the Activation process, if you have any problems then you should contact Customer Support, either through the Reseller that you purchased your license from, or from Qbik Software.

You can deactivate a license if you are moving WinGate to a different machine, this should be done before you uninstall the software.

For more about activating your license please see the Activation guide or this knowledge base article.


Setting Up Your Network

Believe it or not, that’s the hard part done. WinGate is designed so that it’s ready to share and manage your Internet connection as soon as it’s installed. As long as WinGate is installed on your Internet Gateway and your LAN adapter is marked as Internal and your Internet adapter is marked as External, then everything is set up and ready to go.

Now all you have to do is set your LAN client machines so that their default gateway and DNS server settings point at the WinGate server. WinGate comes with a built-in DHCP server that will automatically assign IP addresses in the range of the WinGate LAN adapter and set the WinGate server as the default gateway and DNS server, so all you have to do now is reboot your LAN client machines. They should now get an IP address from the WinGate server and have their default gateway and DNS server listed as the WinGate server. Now open a web page on the LAN client machine and check the Activity pane in the GateKeeper User Interface. You should see a connection from that LAN machine to an IP address on the Internet. Woo-hoo, you’re good to go! You’re now making what we refer to as a NAT connection, basically all Internet traffic from your LAN machines must pass through the WinGate server, this gives you control over what your users are doing and allows you to see what they access.

Proxy and WGIC connections can also be made when the WinGate server is the gateway machine.

Now, there are a few exceptions to the above scenario, the most obvious being if you’re running an Active Directory domain. In this case you may already have a DHCP server running on your network and you’ll definitely need to set the LAN clients’ DNS server settings to point at the AD DNS server. If you’re already running DHCP on your network then you can set the default gateway as the WinGate server, this will allow you to make a NAT connection as above. You should stop the WinGate DHCP server if you already have a DHCP server running.

Another common, if not recommended scenario is to have WinGate installed on one of the LAN machines and have all machines connecting to a Router. This means that the LAN traffic cannot be forced through WinGate and will allow users to connect to the Internet without connecting through the WinGate server. While this is a potential security risk in that Internet traffic can not be definitely intercepted, NAT connections will still work and there are two other connection methods available. Clients can make a Proxy connection by entering the IP address of the WinGate server in an Application’s proxy server settings, or they can make a WGIC (WinGate Internet Client) connection by installing the WGIC on the LAN machines. The WGIC hooks into the OS of the client machine and redirects all Network traffic to the WinGate server. This method of connection is very popular in Active Directory domains as it gives the Network Administrator an almost unprecedented level of control over the LAN machines. For more information on client connections methods please see the Install guide or this knowledge base article


I need to see the URLs that my users are browsing to, not an IP address!

If you’re seeing an IP address when your LAN clients are browsing the Internet then that’s great, it means that they’re making a NAT connection through WinGate. NAT connections happen at a low level in the WinGate driver, and they don’t show URLs. You need to Transparently Redirect these NAT connections to the WWW Proxy service to view the URL, fortunately that’s really easy. To read a knowledge base article on enabling the Transparent Proxy please click here

I need to make my users authenticate before they get access to the Internet

There are several authentication options available in WinGate, to read more about them please see this knowledge base article


I need to stop certain users from browsing/allow certain users to browse

You can create all the Policies you require to control your Users’ Internet access, for more information on creating policies please see this knowledge base article

I need to scan Internet traffic/emails for viruses before they reach my network

Sounds like you need Kaspersky Anti-Virus for WinGate, this is a plug-in for the WinGate server that will scan traffic for viruses/malware as it passes through the server. You can download a 30 day free trial from the Qbik website, or from your Reseller.

I need to prohibit access to offensive content on the Internet

The easiest way to do this is by getting the PureSight for WinGate plug-in which is powered by ICognito. This will scan web traffic for prohibited content such as Pornography and Gambling, and can be set up to deny access to sites containing Webmail, HateSpeech, Stockmarket content and more. You can download a 30 day free trial from the Qbik website, or from your Reseller.

I need to set up my WinGate Email server

Please see the following white paper on the WinGate mail server

I need to synchronise WinGate with my Active Directory User Database

Please see this knowledge base article



These have been some of the more common tasks that can help users new to WinGate. If you have further questions, or any problems, please contact your local Reseller or the Qbik Software Support Team.