Windows Server 2. R2 Firewall Security Today's security model is all about layers. If your network suffers a breach, security layers can at least limit the scope of the attack or slow down the hacker. In my experience, Windows Server 2. R2 and Windows Server 2. Windows Server in which you can successfully keep your firewall enabled and still have the server work in a production environment. The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Firewall with Advanced Security snap- in is key to this capability. Only one of these profiles can be active at a time. This is the profile that's typically active, because most servers are members of an AD domain. Microsoft recommends more restrictive firewall settings for this profile than for the domain profile.
Microsoft recommends the most restrictive settings for this profile. Although Microsoft recommends that you can have different security settings based on the firewall profile, I typically configure the firewall as if a perimeter firewall doesn't exist. With this approach, if any ports are accidentally opened on perimeter firewalls, Server 2. Windows Firewall will block the traffic. Just as with previous versions of Windows Firewall, all inbound connections are blocked and all outbound connections from the server are allowed by default in Server 2. R2 (as long as there's no existing Deny rule). When we create a rule, we make it active for all three profiles. By using a firewall configuration that's consistent across all three domain profiles, we don't have to worry about exposing any unwanted ports in case the Windows Firewall profile changes. Domain isolation prevents the communication of a non- domain computer from connecting to a computer that's a domain member. When communication is established between two domain members, you can configure the firewall to encrypt all traffic between the two computers with IPsec. This configuration can be useful in an environment in which you have guests on the same network but you want to prevent them from accessing computers that are part of a domain. It can be used as an alternative or in addition to Virtual LANs (VLANs). For more information about domain isolation with IPsec tunnels, see the Microsoft Tech. Net article . Most applications are now smart enough to automatically open the necessary port on the firewall when they're installed, which eliminates the need to manually open inbound ports on the server. One of the main reasons to have the firewall up during installation is that it protects the OS before you have the chance to apply the latest updates. When a role or feature is added on the server, the firewall automatically opens the necessary inbound ports. SQL Server uses the default port of TCP 1. Therefore, you must manually create an inbound rule that allows TCP port 1. SQL Server. Fortunately, there are quite a few rules that are created but disabled by default for many popular Windows applications. If you find an existing rule, you can simply enable the rule and possibly change the default scope. If you don't find an existing rule, you can always create one from scratch. Windows 10 Firewall Control More >>> Screenshots Video Windows 10 Firewall Control: simple and exhaustive solution for applications network activity. For illustration purposes, I'll explain how to create a rule to allow inbound SQL Server traffic on TCP port 1. Microsoft Office Share. Antivirus & Firewall Antivirus & Anti-Spyware Engine. Detects and removes viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, bots and more. Independently tested to provide. You can actually control outbound traffic in the Windows 7 firewall, although you can’t have it prompt you when a program wants to access the Internet. When Windows Firewall is enabled with default settings, you can’t use the ping command from another device to see if your PC is alive. Here’s how to change that.Point Server front- end server. As Figure 1 shows, you can select Program, Port, Predefined, or Custom for the rule type. I typically select Custom, because this option prompts you to enter a scope for the rule. Click Next to continue. In my example, I selected All programs so that traffic will be controlled by the port number. Because remote ports are dynamic, I selected All Ports. I strongly recommend specifying a scope with every rule, in case the server is accidentally exposed to unwanted subnets. Next, you need to specify the profile(s) for which the rule will apply. As Figure 6 shows, I selected all the profiles (which is a best practice). Using a descriptive name makes it easier to identify what a rule does. Click Finish to create the new inbound rule. If you use the default settings, you don't need to open any outbound ports. Alternatively, you can block outbound traffic—but then you must open up the necessary outbound ports. You can use the Firewall with Advanced Security snap- into block outbound traffic on specific ports if the server becomes infected with a virus and attempts to attack other computers on specific ports. For more information about using Netsh to configure Windows Firewall, see the article . One of the easiest ways to push out a firewall rule with Group Policy is to use the Firewall with Advanced Security snap- in to create the rule, export it, and import it into the Group Policy Management Editor. Then you can use Group Policy to push out the rule to the appropriate computers. For more information about how to use Group Policy to control the Windows Firewall, see the article . By default, firewall logging isn't enabled. To enable firewall logging, right- click Windows Firewall with Advanced Security and select Properties. Click the Active Profile tab (Domain, Private, or Public) under the Logging section, and click Customize. When troubleshooting connectivity problems, I typically log only the dropped packets, as Figure 8 shows; otherwise, the logs can fill up with a lot of successful connection information. Open the log with Notepad to determine if any packets are getting dropped by the firewall. If you can establish a connection with the firewall disabled, open a command prompt and issue the command Netstat - AN to view the connection details. As long as the application is connecting with TCP, you can look at the local and foreign IP addresses with an Established state to determine the application's port(s). This can be especially helpful when you're not sure which port(s) a particular application uses to establish a connection. This tool provides detailed TCP connection information and can be helpful when troubleshooting connectivity issues. The trick is to leave the firewall enabled during installation of any programs on the server. This practice lets you test the server's connectivity before it goes into production. Use the Log dropped packets option to determine if any packets are getting dropped by the firewall. If you decide that you want to enable the firewall on the server after it's been in production for a while, I suggest that you establish a lab environment first to determine which ports are necessary to open on the firewall. Happy firewalling!
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November 2017
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