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    Firewall rule won't block World of Warcraft / XBox360

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Firewalling
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    • E
      Emjay111
      last edited by

      Hi there,

      New to these forums, and need a bit of help!  :)

      I've set up a rule to block internet traffic from specific LAN addresses based on a schedule. This is working fine.

      However, I'm unable to block traffic created by World of Warcraft from the same IP.

      In the rule, I selected ANY traffic type (as opposed to TCP/UDP) and ANY port. I thought this would cover WoW etc, but it doesn't.

      I do have Squid running, and UPnP as well, and I was wondering if this is why the IP address that can't access the net, can still run Warcraft?

      Any ideas or suggestions would be gratefully received.

      Thanks,

      MJ

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      • M
        Metu69salemi
        last edited by

        So if you use block any from one source, is it still able to play wow?

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        • E
          Emjay111
          last edited by

          Hhhm - interesting question!

          Looks like I can't block any XBox360 or WoW traffic even if I choose ANY for SOURCE, and ANY for PROTOCOL.

          Taking the schedule out of it for now, something must be passing those particular packets through the firewall, ignoring the rules.

          Squid?, SquidGuard (disabled for now with no improvement)?,  UPnP?

          ???

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          • M
            Metu69salemi
            last edited by

            Try also disable upnp and check what happens

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            • E
              Emjay111
              last edited by

              @Metu69salemi:

              Try also disable upnp and check what happens

              No difference. I've disabled UPnP and it has no effect.

              However, I do have UPnP enabled on my router, which is the on the WAN side of pFSense.

              Would that also need to be disabled?

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                Metu69salemi
                last edited by

                Can you view screenshots of your rules

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                • E
                  Emjay111
                  last edited by

                  @Metu69salemi:

                  Can you view screenshots of your rules

                  Sorry for the late reply.

                  It's not a rule problem, I don't believe.

                  I've turned off UPnP on the router, AND within pfSense, and that does indeed block WoW and XBox360.

                  If any one of the UPnP services is running, the ports required by these games can find a way through.

                  I guess Steve Gibson was right about UPnP being a bit of a vulnerability!

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                  • M
                    Metu69salemi
                    last edited by

                    Is this solved?

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                    • E
                      Emjay111
                      last edited by

                      @Metu69salemi:

                      Is this solved?

                      Well, it explains why WoW and XBox360 traffic gets through using UPnP.

                      It still leaves me with a problem.

                      I can't see a simple way to block traffic of this type on a schedule. I need to Port Forward a long list of ports so that WoW and XBoxLive etc works only when I want (ie has a cut off time during school nights etc).

                      By default, this type of traffic doesn't easily get through the pfSense firewall unless UPnP is on, or the exact ports are forwarded.

                      Am I looking for a complicated solution when there is a simpler way?

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                      • M
                        Metu69salemi
                        last edited by

                        how about having way around the problem

                        1. static ip's with dhcp reservation for this wow machine and xbox
                        2. create alias for blocking these devices
                        3. create block rule with schedule and this newly done alias
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                        • E
                          Emjay111
                          last edited by

                          @Metu69salemi:

                          how about having way around the problem

                          1. static ip's with dhcp reservation for this wow machine and xbox
                          2. create alias for blocking these devices
                          3. create block rule with schedule and this newly done alias

                          Hi again,

                          That's what I tried to do, but without UPnP enabled, it doesn't work very well. XBox requires UPnP to function correctly I reckon (it's a M$ thing).

                          If I don't enable UPnP, sure I can block the apps, but they wont run very well when the rule is off (ie schedule allows the ports open).

                          Was wondering whether my WAN interface should be the DMZ of my home router, and let pfSense do all the work? The crappy router supplied by my ISP uses MER (MAC encapsulated routing) so I can't easily change it (its not a cable router either).

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                          • B
                            Bai Shen
                            last edited by

                            @Emjay111:

                            Well, it explains why WoW and XBox360 traffic gets through using UPnP.

                            It still leaves me with a problem.

                            I can't see a simple way to block traffic of this type on a schedule. I need to Port Forward a long list of ports so that WoW and XBoxLive etc works only when I want (ie has a cut off time during school nights etc).

                            By default, this type of traffic doesn't easily get through the pfSense firewall unless UPnP is on, or the exact ports are forwarded.

                            Am I looking for a complicated solution when there is a simpler way?

                            I ran WoW just fine without any changes to the pfSense firewall.  The only thing I had to open a port for was the updates.  If I didn't, they were really slow.  Not sure why yours isn't working without uPnP.

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                              Metu69salemi
                              last edited by

                              @Bai Shen: we're trying to block it

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                                Emjay111
                                last edited by

                                @Metu69salemi:

                                @Bai Shen: we're trying to block it

                                Yep - and preferably - with a schedule.

                                Out of both applications, WoW should be OK without UPnP, but the XBox definitely isn't. It's a known problem, and there are many posts about it.

                                This one is helpful, but again, it requires UPnP.

                                http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=13887.0

                                I don't there is a way around the UPnP issue, unless Microsoft redesigns the way the thing works.

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