How to turn on Leopard’s firewall

Although there are very few known viruses for the mac it is still very important to keep your mac secure. The easiest way of doing this is to turn on the built in firewall that comes with your mac.

Open System Preferences

To get to your firewall, go to System Preferences

This is the Preferences Panel in Leopard

The firewall can be found in System Preferences – Security

Click On Firewall Tab

Unlock Permissions To Make Changes

1. If the center panel is greyed out, checked to see if the lock is locked.

2. If it is, click to unlock.

Click To Unlock & Enter Admin Details

1. Click on lock and when pop up box appears

2. Enter administrator’s name and

3. Password

Firewall Options

There are 3 options in the firewall. You can read a full explaination about all options here

I recommend option 3.

Option 1 will not give you any protection as it will allow any and all connections into your computer and that’s what you’re trying to stop.

Set Access for Specific Service & Applications

Click on Plus Sign

Find or Service And to Firewall

1. Navigate to applications folder,

2. Choose application that you wish to add to firewall.

3. Click Add

Option to Allow or Block Incoming Connection

My application is now added to the firewall along with the my other applications . There is a drop down menu option here within the firewall. This controls how the application connects to the internet.

Allow incomning connections - means that the application will connect without asking permission

Block incoming connections – means that the application must ask permission each time before connecting to the internet.

How to Change Connection Permissions in Firewall

Connection permissions can be changed by clicking on the drop down box next to each application on the firewall.

Options Given If Application Is Blocked to Incoming Connections

If you don’t allow incoming connections to an application this pop up dialog box will appear each time you lauch that applicaiton. You control all connections for that program or service.

Your options are;

Allow option will give that application permission to connect online once. BEST OPTION FOR MOST APPLICATIONS.

Deny option will deny that application access to the internet or online connection.

Always Allow will change the firewall’s permission to - Allow Incoming Connections

Firewall Advanced Features

For extra protection – click on the advanced tab.

Here you can turn on Firewall Logging & Enable Stealth Mode. Stealth mode will enhance your security but may cause issues in some circumstances so you can play with this option. It really depends on what programs you have accessing the internet. If you have it enabled and experienced problems turn it off and see if that resolves them.

And that’s all there is to turning on the firewall on your Mac in Leopard.