A firewall is in use between ResNet and the rest of the world. Most questions involving the ResNet firewall should be answered below.

What does a Firewall do?

The firewall helps protect networked computers from intentional and unauthorized access including various forms of network based attacks against computers. A Firewall sits at the junction point or gateway between two networks, in our case between ResNet and the rest of the world including the Internet. The Firewall examines all traffic routed to and from ResNet to see if it meets certain criteria. If it does, the traffic is allowed to continue on its way, otherwise it is stopped. As a result of this added security, certain things will be affected by the Firewall.

How does this affect ResNet users?

To the end-user the ResNet firewall will work very similar to the way the firewall built into all “Cable or DSL routers” work when used with a broadband connection. Outbound connections established by ResNet users to Internet resources will be allowed through. Meanwhile connections established from other Internet users to ResNet users will in most cases be blocked by the firewall just like what the average home router does.

The biggest difference between the ResNet firewall and a home router is that we do not use NAT (Network Address Translation). This means that the IP address your computer has is the IP address that the outside world will see.

How does the firewall affect applications such as games?

Our firewall operates similar to how home routers (used with DSL or cable broadband connections) operate in respect to applications and games. The vast majority of Internet users today use such devices and thus all modern applications are programmed to support such environments. You should not need to do any special configuration.

However if you find a program that appears to have issues with the firewall you are urged to contact the Student Help Desk for support. The Student Help Desk will make an effort to help you diagnose such issues but cannot help if they are unfamiliar with the application or if the application is too old and badly programmed to be properly supported.

The only time you should have an issue with our firewall is if you are attempting to run a “server” or service on your personal computer which requires computers on the Internet to directly connect to you. We do not currently allow such services to be accessed from the outside world if the services are being run on ResNet. However, other ResNet users will still be able to connect to your service.

My game console is unable to access the Internet or join any online games, what can be done to fix this?

Please see the Game Consoles guide for more information.

Does the firewall deal with connections between ResNet users?

No. The firewall only deals with traffic either trying to enter or leave ResNet. All computers on ResNet will be able to connect to other ResNet users without any restrictions. It is strongly recommended ResNet users take advantage of the built-in software firewall that comes as part of recent versions of Windows to protect themselves from other computers on ResNet.