texmac
02-04-2009, 04:10 PM
I have some fairly basic questions about firewall protection.
My OS is MAC OSX 10.5.5. I have the Application firewall turned on and 'stealth' mode checked. I connect to the world via DSL using a modem with a (firmware?) default NAT firewall.
It is my understanding that the underlying unix firewall ipfw is still active (this from the apple support site). In googling the subject I find a bewildering amount of info involving iptables, ipfilter, shell scripts, Launch daemons and various config files etc all of which are absent on my machine.
So my questions are:
1) how can I tell if the ifpw fire wall is running? ipfw list shows 2 rules but the ipfw.log is empty
2) if ipfw is not running, how do I start it?
3) where can I find detailed step by step instructions, preferably specific to Mac OSX, for rules that will explain the syntax, the significance and why I should have the rule?
and finally
4) how can I safely test my firewall?
Many thanks in advance
My OS is MAC OSX 10.5.5. I have the Application firewall turned on and 'stealth' mode checked. I connect to the world via DSL using a modem with a (firmware?) default NAT firewall.
It is my understanding that the underlying unix firewall ipfw is still active (this from the apple support site). In googling the subject I find a bewildering amount of info involving iptables, ipfilter, shell scripts, Launch daemons and various config files etc all of which are absent on my machine.
So my questions are:
1) how can I tell if the ifpw fire wall is running? ipfw list shows 2 rules but the ipfw.log is empty
2) if ipfw is not running, how do I start it?
3) where can I find detailed step by step instructions, preferably specific to Mac OSX, for rules that will explain the syntax, the significance and why I should have the rule?
and finally
4) how can I safely test my firewall?
Many thanks in advance