On May 19, 2007, at 12:27 PM, Dr.Ian Silvester wrote:
On 19 May 2007, at 16:26, Josh Graessley wrote:
Modifying the ipfw rules directly is likely to cause problems.
Ipfw is used for Internet sharing as well as the firewall.
Yes, but so long as one's own rules don't interfere with those for
internet sharing then all is good. Just switch on internet sharing,
list the rules, compare with the list with it off and you're good
to go.
Not necessarily. The default rules and syntax can change from OS
version to OS version.
In addition, third parties make use of ipfw. I believe the built-
in firewall will detect modifications and disable itself, assuming
a third party firewall is installed.
Test this - IIRC if you modify the rules all that disables itself
is the Firewall Preferences panel, not the firewall.
You are correct that just the panel is disabled. However, that makes
for a rather unpleasant user experience. When they click on that
panel they are told that the panel is disabled because of third party
software, but there is no way for the average user to figure out how
to fix it.
Josh is correct in that your software should just tell the user to
disable the firewall and leave it at that. Don't fiddle with the
firewall directly.
