Chapter 3. Mcafee Firewall Configurations; Applications; Control Applications - McAfee FIREWALL 2.1-GETTING STARTED Getting Started

McAfee Firewall Configurations
3
The configuration of McAfee Firewall is divided into two parts—application
and system. Upon installation, a base set of rules for system services such as
ICMP, DHCP and ARP is installed (these are considered default settings). The
applications part is personalized. Whenever you run a new program that
attempts to communicate over the Internet, McAfee Firewall will prompt you
whether you trust the program or not.
For example, using the Netscape Web browser, enter a Web address or the
Uniform Resource Locator in the location bar and then press ENTER. Netscape
will attempt to connect to that URL over the Internet. The first time you do this,
McAfee Firewall prompts if you "trust" Netscape. If you say "Yes", McAfee
Firewall notes Netscape is allowed and whenever you use Netscape in the
future, McAfee Firewall will allow Netscape traffic.
Behind the scenes, McAfee Firewall creates a rule allowing Netscape to
communicate to the specific URL you have indicated and then deletes the rule
once all traffic is received or once you exit Netscape. Additionally, when
trojans on your system try to communicate out from your PC, McAfee Firewall
will also prompt you whether you trust them or not, and the decision to stop
trojans is easy and instantaneous.

Applications

Control applications

McAfee Firewall monitors network traffic to see which applications are
communicating. Depending on your settings, it will allow or block an
application's attempt to communicate.
To control which applications may communicate, click the Settings menu item
and choose Applications.
If you choose to "Trust all applications" (putting a check mark in the box), then
applications will be added to the "Trusted" list automatically and will be
allowed to communicate.
If you do not choose to "Trust all applications", as shown in the figure above,
then the first time you run an application and it tries to communicate, you will
be prompted and asked if you want that application to communicate. You are
only prompted once. Known applications are either allowed or blocked,
depending on which list they have been put in.
3
Getting Started 21