01-27-2011, 07:50 AM

Greetings,

not trying to hijack the OP's thread...but how do you delete most of the connections that you see on NETSTAT? Is there a way to do this? How to select/ID the ones you need and do not need?

Thanks.

01-28-2011, 07:55 PM

This is a really open-ended question, since "netstat" shows a bunch of different things. However, if you just want to see which process is using a currently open connection/session you can use the "lsof -i" command in the Terminal. Once you know which app is using which port(s) it's often easier to determine if that's something you want or need. Figuring out all the other ports is a bit more complicated, since listing ports don't always have a running app associated with them. However, they're usually associated with some service which is enabled on your Mac, such as file sharing, etc. but identifying all the background services that might be important can be a bit daunting. If you really want to prevent access to your Mac on a particular TCP and/or UDP port then you can use the old "ipfw" firewall feature to block it, but it's complex. There are free utilities out there that can help make it easier to use, but even so you should know what you're doing or you can easily break network access to/from your Mac.

HTH - Good luck!

01-28-2011, 08:50 PM

Dj,

thanks for your detailed answer. I am new when it comes to tinkering with the OS X. I was just curious as I saw a similar post on another thread. What book would you recommend to learn OS X? I would like something to be detailed but not to the point of open heart surgery....

I see a lot of comments pertaining to Terminal. How do I learn to use?

Thanks for your help.

01-29-2011, 12:55 AM

I don't have any first-hand experience with any Mac books, but I've heard people say good things about the "Missing Manual" series. I'm sure there are several other good ones as well - I'd suggest doing a search at Amazon and reading some of the reviews. The Terminal app is kind of the OS X version of the Windows "cmd" window (or what many people call a "DOS window"). It's actually provides a UNIX command line environment (called a "shell"), however, and is real live UNIX. Note that it is *NOT* Linux (though the two are quite similar), so if you look for a book make sure it's either specifically about the Mac Terminal app or else BSD UNIX in general (though there are a few differences between those two, also). Since you're new to this I'd also suggest you learn the "bash" shell environment, since that's the default on the Mac. I know this can seem overwhelming, but if you get something akin to "Terminal for Dummies" (I just made that up) and take it slow it'll start to make sense in no time.