OS X's firewall

dmband0026dmband0026
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I know that some of the firewalls out there aren't as good or secure as others, so my question is...how does OS X's built in firewall stack up? Am I going to be screwed someday becuase I was cheap and didn't invest in a third party firewall, or will I be okay. Thanks a lot.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    staphbabystaphbaby Posts: 353member
    I'm not a hardcore sysadmin, but in general the system 10 firewall is pretty good; it's certainly got all the bells and whistles (assuming you're willing to go beyond the provided gui via the command-line or third-party utilities such as BrickHouse (http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_...rickhouse.html).



    Basically, the engine for Apple's firewall is ipfw. It's got a pretty good reputation.



    To get an idea of how to use it you can either:



    (1) Launch Terminal.app and type "man ipfw" and revel in the nerdy goodness;



    (2) Have a squiz at the FreeBSD Handbook, at:



    http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...firewalls.html
  • Reply 2 of 5
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    I don't run stupid stuff. I am a programmer and power user, tending to use non-default ports. I leave the firewall off.



    Lol... I also leave mySql running on my Ti without a root DB password. For shame!
  • Reply 3 of 5
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Xool

    I don't run stupid stuff. ... I also leave mySql running on my Ti without a root DB password. For shame!



    For the record, that is stupid stuff.



    Just pointing out the obvious.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    swizzmacswizzmac Posts: 12member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DMBand0026

    I know that some of the firewalls out there aren't as good or secure as others



    Wrong. There is no better or worse firewall but there are better configured and worse configured firewalls. So don't spend your time on looking for a good product but instead try out your best configuration of open and closed ports.



    A good way could be to close all ports and then try to work as you are used to. Then for every service you cannot use, open that specific port (e.g. SMTP, FTP, ...) again.



    There is no absolute security unless you unplug your network cable. That's the fact we all have to face
  • Reply 5 of 5
    madmax559madmax559 Posts: 596member
    if you guys are really interested in learning

    then get this book absolute freebsd or absolute openbsd



    i believe os x is using pf aka bsd's packet filter
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