Stealth Ports Wizard: I can't understand its behaviour

Comodo Internet Security - CIS Firewall Help - CIS
1

Please see my scenario:

  • I need to use two computers in a big network;
  • they have CIS 5.10.228257.2253 installed;
  • on both, Stealth Ports Wizard was set to “Block all incoming connections and make my ports stealth for everyone”;
  • both systems use DropBox and Windows Live Mesh;
  • surprisingly, despite the stealth setting, each system warns when the other try to connect to one of those applications;
  • since it’s a convenient thing, I’ve allowed such connections, set CIS to remember those, and customized the resulting rules to get them somewhat more restrict;
  • when I tried to connect one system to another by Remote Desktop, I got no connection on the source side and no warning on the target side;
  • ok, that was expected, since CIS is set to stealth ports;
  • so I set Stealth Ports Wizard on the target machine to “Alert me to incoming connections and make my ports stealth on a per-case basis”;
  • I’ve got the alert, allowed the connection, remembered and customized the resulting rule;
  • Remote Desktop connection was established successfully;
  • then I reset Stealth Ports Wizard on the target machine to “Block all incoming connections and make my ports stealth for everyone”;
  • !!! the Remote desktop connection was broken and could not be restablished until I had reset Stealth Ports Wizard on the target machine to “Alert me to incoming connections and make my ports stealth on a per-case basis”;
  • now my target computer receives some alerts about other computers in the network trying to connect to it. Boring. :frowning:

Hence my questions:

  • Why did CIS warned about incoming connections to DropBox and Windows Live Mesh even when all ports were stealthed?
  • Shouldn’t an application rule override a global rule? Why the rule for svchost.exe that allows RDP connections is ignored when the ports are stealthed again?

Thanks in advance and forgive my poor English.

2

Your English is fine. I completely understand you not in the last place because of your well structured description.

What did the alerts you got from Dropbox and Windows Live Mesh say? Can you post a screenshot of the Firewall logs? They are under View Firewall Events.

3

Please see the screenshots in the attached file.

[attachment deleted by admin]

4

Hi EricJH!

I think I’ve got the point: my stealth setting to “Block all incoming connections and make my ports stealth for everyone” does the stealth only for untrusted networks. CIS has set my network as a trusted one on installation. I’ve learned that by looking at Global Rules. Since those rules still allow incoming connections from trusted network, CIS still asks me whether specific applications should allow those same connections.

The target computer for Remote Desktop, on the other hand, saw my network as public, blocking by global rule any incoming connection when I set CIS to stealth mode. And, contrary to what I thought, Global Rules | Comodo Internet Security | Comodo Internet Security v5.9/5.10 says that for incoming connections, global rules gets applied first, making pointless the application rule that allowed RDP connections.

Thanks for your interest in helping me.

5

Congratulations on figuring it out yourself. :-TU