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You can lock your car up every time you get out, but sometimes you can lock your key in the car. Firewalls are wonderful things and they have become necessary primarily because of public networks were anyone can get access to your network or workstation. Making the decision to install a firewall is a good step in any security plan. However, the rest of that plan is about allowing access from the programs that you use to the network or allowing the people you work with to have access to the system. That access is given by something called "ports". It may be easier to think of ports as channels that allow a conversation between computers or networks.

A port is defined by a number and it can be any number. For instance email, typically uses ports 25 and 110. One port or channel for receiving and the other is for sending. So if you use your computer for email, you would want to make sure that those two ports or channels are allowed to pass through your firewall. If you didn't, guess what? No one can send email either in or out.

This same scenario is true for any program, computer, server, or network that wants to communicate through a firewall. So installation is one step, configuration is the last. In order to configure your firewall you will need to know what ports or channels are used by the programs and services you run or want to access to. A lot of times these ports are listed in FAQ's on game forums or under the vendor's requirements.

Remember, each time you open a port, you are allowing unrestricted access to your systems through that channel. Because the firewall is a security device, you must grant or allow access with it. It's default condition is that no one can unlock the car unless you have the key in the first place. In other words, the default condition of most firewalls is that no one is allowed through unless you decide and the way you decide is by defining the ports or channels that access will pass through.

Learn more about this author, Rick H. Blase.
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