firewall problem

[msbinu]

Hi all,

I have an application which will be spawned by the inted whn the client telnet to a particular port ( say 8005). I can have multiple client connecting to my application at the same time .the woking is some thing like 8005 is a listning socket, when client telnets, inetd will retrun a socket(software socket ?) to the client for further communication and 8005 will continue to listen for new connections

MY question is, if all the ports, except 8005 (including all s/w port), are blocked in the machine and then when a client tries to connect to 8005, will inetd be able to assign a socket to the client for communication ??

Can any one help me out with this please ...
Regards
Binu

[Peter Godron]

Binu,
I think you have answered your own question when you said that all ports on the machine are blocked bar 8005. No connection port can be opened for the client communication. Your firewall needs to allow for traffic to flow both ways.

[Robert Fritz]

One addition, if I may. Peter is right that if all you allow is inbound 8005, then the service won't be able to contact the client. That said, you may want to enable outbound connections, and their replies (ex: IPFilter uses "keep state"). I've found that I get a much higher ratio or security benefit to usability cost when I am restrictive inbound, but fairly permissive outbound.

[Peter Godron]

Hi Binu,
if the problem is resolved could you please complete the thread by awarding points to helpful answers and summarising the solution for you.
This will help resolution of similar problems in the future.