firewall problems

Hey guys.

The only time I can get a port to open in the OS X firewall is when it's associated with a service (SSH, Web Server, etc.) and I've turned on that service in the system prefs. Setting a custom rule never works anymore (used to be fine) even though I can see that the list of rules shows even my own and hence should work.

Now even though a port will open when I turn on its service in the System Prefs, if I was to create a custom rule for the same port, it doesn't work. In other words, it's not the port number I'm choosing. Something is happening (or not happening) in the firewall.

Any ideas?

I don't understand what good having the port open would do you without the service active... Custom rules are generally for upper level ports that are not standard, like for torrents and stuff. Rules wizards usually cover your lower ports by associating then with their common service names. Also, if you have a broadband router, why not let that handle port filtering? I prefer to never let a computer do a routers job, makes troubleshooting a lot easier when you have several systems.

illy5603 said:

I don't understand what good having the port open would do you without the service active...

Click to expand...

Sometimes you need to open a port for something other than SSH, FTP etc. etc. Like a network game, or torrents as I'm sure many people are used to these days since that's a popular thing to do...

I'll try to put is as brief and concise as I can: I will tell it to open up TCP port 1720, or maybe TCP/UDP port 6010. Or, maybe Ill even just tell it to open port 22 (because I know that turning on SSH will open up port 22, I want to see if I can manually open port 22.) This never works and I'm on the same computer with the same operating system and software as I've been using for a long time.
The one and only way I can open a port on my computer right now is by engaging a service, which is not necessarily what I want. Sure, it opens the port, but then that service is using the port and the port is useless unless I want to use the service.