Firewall for Mac OS X.3

[Evening Star]

About to go broadband. Is OS X.3 safe enough, or any recommendations for a suitable firewall?

[goates]

I think OSX has a firewall built in, but that it requiers a little knowledge of Unix to set up. I have heard of a small program to help with this, but can't remember the name right now.

Almost all Unix or Unix like systems are inherently more secure than Windows out of the box, because of the way things like users are set up. You won't have to worry too much about viruses as OSX is a new operating system and is not as widespread as Windows is. This doesn't mean that you don't have to worry about security or viruses, just that it isn't anywhere near the problem it is on Windows.

[Daysleeper]

In a bout of paranoia Ive started using Norton Firewall for OSX.2.8 Hmm its fine but now I cant post replies to PPRUNE, :{

I can however start new topics weird :confused:

So Im reduced to using my wifes Laptop which uses OSX.2's own firewall.
Any advice appreciated before Im forced to get the manuals out.

[Dop]

Go into your System Preferences, and then in the 'Internet and Network' section click on 'Sharing'
In the 'services' section make sure everything is off.
Go into the 'Firewall' section and make sure it says 'Firewall On'
If it says 'Firewall Off' there should be a button labelled 'Start'. Click that, and it should then change to say 'Firewall On'.
In the list of things below that make sure everything is off.

That should be OK.

[Evening Star]

Fair points. Suspect I am just being paranoid.

Bland online help article from Apple at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86600. Main point is:

Mac OS X includes firewall software you can use to block unwanted network communication with your computer. You can use a firewall to protect all of the services available in Mac OS X, such as Personal File Sharing, Windows Sharing, and Remote Login.

However, new to Mac's and been so used to Windows that intuitively do not trust software that comes with an OS.

[Eddie_Crane]

Hi,
I am a new user of Mac OS X as well.
For those of you who know bits of UNIX, it might worth checking that all the unnecessary services are disabled (tftp, finger, etc etc..) or are "tcp wrapped" using tcpd (TCP wrappers access control) or the inetd daemon is not a startup process.
I *think* Mac OS uses ipfw as a kernel-level firewall in much the same way Linux uses iptables or BSD Unices use a similar kernel-level process. There are GUIs that take advantage of ipfw and there are independent solutions. I personally use none at the moment because I am behind a corporate firewall anyway but all my services are disabled and tcp-wrapped if I were to need some of them, e.g. SSH.
Some info here (http://www.hmug.org/HowTos/tcpwrappers.html) and here (http://www.macos.utah.edu/Documentation/macosx/security/security.html)

Hope it's of some use.:ok:

C

PS This has more or less all that's needed for a "bastion" Mac OS X:

http://www.securemac.com

C