how do i install ubuntu applications from behind a firewall

You should download DEB files. Why are you even considering RPM? Those are for RPM based distributions like RedHat and Mandriva etc.

What are you trying to install exactly?

Well, it's always a bit of a pain to use any recent Linux-distribution (incl. Ubuntu) without a network connection at all.

Anyway, of course it is possible to install software without an active network connection.

You can alway install software manually by downloading the packages on another computer and transfer to your non-network computer by the help of a USB-Stick or so. Then, use "sudo dpkg -i PACKAGENAME" to install. The main drawback is that you have to take care of dependencies yourself, thus if package A depends on package B, you have to install B manually first and then A. This can be very exhausting and is prone to errors for packages which have a lot of dependencies.

Use can also use Synaptic in this case.

1. Run Synaptic on you office computer.
2. Mark packages you need to install.
3. Choose "File->Generate package download script menu" menu entry and enter name for script.
4. Run this script on computer with the Internet connection (if you have no computer with Linux you can open this script in Notepad and manually download all packages using URLs from this file).
5. Run Synaptic on you office computer again.
6. Choose "File->Add downloaded packages" menu entry and select directory with downloaded packages. Synaptic suggest you to install this packages.

You may download packages without script and only install it using "File->Add downloaded packages", but it can cause a lot of trouble with dependencies.

Firstly, thanks for all the responses. they have already helped. But I haven't yet resolved my problem completely yet..

actionparsnip, I did not find a .deb installer for firestarter at http://www.fs-security.com/. They recommended a apt-get command for deb installer, that I cannot issue. The only downloadable installer was rpm.. My plan was to use alien (http://www.debianadmin.com/install-rpm-files-in-debian-and-ubuntu.html) to convert, but alas, i don't have that either!!

Jochen, I am assuming that the package to download is a .deb file. thanks for providing the command. please confirm?

Maxim, I tried that. But first, my current repository is only listing packages from the iso image. I can't find a way to list other tools in synaptic. I have installed *everything* from the CD.. so, if i run the steps given above, I just get a empty file.. Now, I need a way to tell synaptic about *other* packages so it lists them, so that I can select those. how do i do that?

Yes, you need to download the .deb file. The way to do that is up to you - you can download it with an web browser, wget, ... whatever can download a file.

Regarding the RPM issue: Well, in case you only have a RPM file of some program, just convert it on any computer to an DEB file using alien and transfer the DEB file to the computer without internet connection.

BTW: Are you _sure_ you need a firewall on a computer which is operating in a sealed environment (=no outside network connection)? Sounds strange... As an alternative, you may want to use ufw (=uncomplicated firewall), which is part of the Ubuntu standard installation (AFAIR...).

Thanks Maxim Petrov, that solved my question.

Thanks Maxim.. I will test that out..

Jochen, thanks for that confirmation..
btw: Yes it is a network test scenario, hence the strange setup..