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5
Using Firewall Protection
The role of system service ports
Total Protection Service allows you to configure a custom connection to accept only communications
that originate from designated IP addresses. You can specify IP addresses that conform to either of
these standards:
•
IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) — The most common Internet addressing scheme. Supports
32-bit IP addresses consisting of four groups of four numbers between 0 and 255.
•
IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) — Supports 128-bit IP addresses consisting of eight groups of
four hexadecimal characters.
The role of system service ports
System services communicate through ports, which are logical network connections.
Common Windows system services are typically associated with particular service ports, and your
computer's operating system or other system applications might attempt to open them. Because these
ports represent a potential source of intrusions into a client computer, you must open them before the
computer can communicate through them.
Certain applications, including web servers and file-sharing server programs, must accept unsolicited
connections from other computers through designated system service ports. When configuring a
custom connection, you can:
•
Allow applications to act as servers on the local network or the Internet.
•
Add or edit a port for a system service.
•
Disable or remove a port for a system service.
Examples of system services that typically require ports to be opened are:
•
Email server — You do not need to open a mail server port to receive email. You need to open a
port only if the computer running firewall protection acts as an email server.
•
Web server — You do not need to open a web server port to run a web browser. You need to open
a port only if the computer running firewall protection acts as a web server.
Standard assignments for system service ports
These commonly used standard service ports are listed by default, where you can open or close them:
•
File and Print Sharing
•
Remote Desktop
•
Remote Assistance
You can add other service ports as needed. Standard service ports for typical system services are:
94
McAfee Total Protection Service 5.1.5 Product Guide
Select a port for system services only if you are certain it must be open.
You will rarely need to open a port. We recommend that you disable
unused system services.
An opened service port that does not have an application running on it
poses no security threat. However, we recommend that you close unused
ports.
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