Help:Firewalling

Firewalling out Off Campus Connections

Due to the restrictions and threats of disconnections by ITS on campus, it is worth thinking about blocking all external connections to DC++ on campus. This does NOT guarantee safety from ITS on campus, but it will stop you using any external bandwidth and hopefully keep you a bit more under the radar. Almost all the time, connections between on campus and off campus people are impossible due to the traffic shaper, so even without any kind of firewall rules in place you should not be transferring to or from somebody off campus. However, the connection attempts will be detected and blocked by the traffic shaper even if you do not see any transfers in DC++ (although a connection may rarely slip through the traffic shaper).

Firewalling off campus out is only intended as an extra layer of security, and does not guarantee you safety from ITS. We do believe that is is by far the best thing you can do though and recommend it to everybody.

Guides for blocking blocking external connections to DC++ in various firewalls are below. If you are looking for a quick and easy firewall to block connections, both Sygate Personal Firewall 5.6 (NB. Now owned by Symantec so you would have to use a version equal to or below this) and Sunbelt Personal Firewall works for free doing this job even after the trial license runs out. NB. This is NOT the Kerio WinRoute Firewall. Tiny is also good, but this is shareware. One of these is probably the best choices if you need a new firewall specifically for blocking external connections as they are reasonably light on system resources.

==Sygate Personal Firewall== (produced by fallingmagpie)

Works on Windows XP or below only. Free shareware, continues to work after license runs out. Downloadedable from http://www.download.com/Sygate-Personal-Firewall/3000-2092_4-10049526.html.

==WIPFW== (produced by Rampage)

Free Firewall

This is not a fool proof way to block Off Campus connections as it doesn't filter by application but it is a quick and easy way to get a firewall set up. (Need someone to test it with Vista)

To block connections to Off campus users you must do the following: In DC++ go to File -> Settings -> Connection Settings and set the Incoming and Outgoing connection settings as 'Direct Connection' and the TCP and UDP port as '20000'.

Now download the WIPFW from the http://www.twofo.co.uk/resources/wipfw.zip , unzip the contents into the Program Files folder and run the file 'install'. That is all you need! Please check with an Operator to confirm whether the firewall is working.

NB. Although this works most of the time it is not foolproof so we would suggest trying to set up one of the other firewalls on this page.

==Comodo Personal Firewall 3== (produced by Rampage)

Free firewall
Version 3 is Windows Vista compatible

There is a guide available for Comodo Personal Firewall Version 2.4 here.
You can download Comodo Personal firewall from http://personalfirewall.comodo.com.

==Sunbelt (Kerio)== (produced by astropoint)

This is NOT the Kerio WinRoute Firewall
Windows XP and below only
Download from http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/downloads/2128767/kerio-personal-firewall

==ZoneAlarm== (thanks to Huck)

This is NOT the free version of the firewall. As far as we know the free version of the firewall cannot block external connections properly. However this is as yet untested on the vista compatible version (7.1)

Kaspersky

Windows Vista compatible

==Tiny== (produced by Rampage)

Windows XP and below only

==CA Personal Firewall== (produced by Rampage).

Some people seem to have trouble running this firewall on vista. Try Comodo if you experience issues

==Jetico Personal Firewall== (produced by itsmonktastic)

Vista Compatible.
Expert firewall

==Norton Personal Firewall== (produced by astropoint)

Guide was produced for Norton 2005, but the basic structure of the rules etc hasn't changed so should be applicable to more recent versions.

==Mcafee== (produced by 2448-1111)

Warning: This puts the whole of the Resnet into the firewall's "Trusted Zone" which is a really bad idea on the whole. So if somebody comes up with a way of allowing IPs JUST to DC++, pm astro/astropoint and I'll try to update the guide.

Linux

A guide for setting up the Linux firewall, iptables, to block external connections. (produced by xyzzy originally. Resurrected by mooo)

Windows

From what we can see, external connections cannot be blocked using only the windows firewall. This is certainly the case with the XP firewall, however it is in theory possible to do it on Vista, however nobody has yet managed it. If you do manage it, tell an op and this space will be updated.

==Mac== (produced by Rampage)

A guide for setting up the Mac OS Firewall, ipfw, to block external connections. (Needs testing)

Confirm with an Operator to check that it is working.

If you want to do this from scratch, you need to find how to get your firewall to only allow Resnet IPs (137.205.0.0 - 137.205.254.254 or 137.205.0.0/16 or 137.205.0.0/255.255.0.0) and the loopback address for stunnel (127.0.0.1) and blocking all other IPs from connection. Conversely you could allow all IPs then block 0.0.0.0 - 126.254.254.254, 127.0.0.2 - 137.204.254.254 and 137.206.0.0 - 254.254.254.254 specifically.

Also, if you do this on a firewall not listed here then please contact an op with at least a basic set of instructions to be uploaded here.

If there are any other problems any of the guides themselves, please contact astropoint/astro on the hub or on the forums and I shall try to correct them. Or, if you feel you can produce a guide for any other firewall, please do so and pass it onto me and I shall upload it onto here.