Firewall

Ewan Mac Mahon ewan at macmahon.me.uk
Thu Aug 4 11:30:39 UTC 2005


On Wed, Aug 03, 2005 at 05:00:01PM -0400, Rajiv Vyas wrote:
> > > Do you have to set up a firewall or is it set up automatically?

> So, what's the solution if someone gets stuck or can't do it right? It
> would be scary to run OS that's plugged in to the Internet 24hrs a day
> to run without a firewall
> 
Not so much if it isn't Windows. The problem with Windows is that it has
loads of server processes for UPNP, file sharing, messenger and so forth
running by default; the point of a firewall is to cut these processes
off from the net. Ubuntu takes the much simpler approach of not running
the unwanted servers in the first place, but the net result is the same
- a box that doesn't listen to incoming requests.

Since Ubuntu only runs a server if you ask it to firewalling would only
complicate matters, you'd get into the situation that people would
install (say) SSH, but find that it wouldn't work because the firewall
blocked it. The only advantages to firewalling would be that incoming
requests would simply disappear rather than have an error returned
(which is an arguable benefit at best) and that it would prevent
unpriveleged users from starting servers; for a single user machine
that's not an issue anyway.

Ewan

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