New plug-in : nsisFirewall

[Wizou]

nsisFirewall is a small NSIS plugin that allows you to perform easily 2 tasks :
* Add an application to Windows Firewall exception list
* Remove an application from Windows Firewall exception list

There exist already 2 NSIS plugins that deal with Windows built-in Firewall :
* A big one providing a lot of functionalities : Most of them you will probably never use
* A small one that can only disable/enable the firewall globally : This is a completely insecure idea !!! (nsisFirewall is even smaller than this one)

But what most installers requires is only a simple way to ensure the application about to be installed will be able to access Internet. And in particular :
* You don't want to wonder if this version of Windows has a built-in Firewall : nsisFirewall can be used on all version of Windows and will report gracefully if the action could not be performed
* You don't want to wonder if the built-in Firewall is currently enabled or not : Just register your application. So if the Firewall gets activated, you can still access Internet
* You don't want to disable the Firewall globally, even temporarily : This is insecure ! Do you think the user would be happy with that ?
* You don't need to open a specific port : By registering your application, you give it already full right to access Internet and listen to incoming connection

So check out my nsisFirewall Homepage

[Afrow UK]

Nice! Please make a Wiki page at:
http://nsis.sf.net/nsisFirewall_plug-in

Stu

[Wizou]

already done hehe...

(why did the my URL turn into "URL submitted by user")

http://wiz0u.free.fr/prog/nsisFirewall/

[Afrow UK]

It's an anti-spam feature of the forum for newly registered users.

Stu

[Backland]

Excellent, thanks for sharing!

[Wizou]

new version

1.1 : Correctly handle 2 errors cases

http://wiz0u.free.fr/prog/nsisFirewall/

[liftarn]

Sometimes I get error code 0x80040154 and wonder what this is? Perhaps the firewall isn't running.

[Wizou]

According to some Google research, this error code might be returned when MS Firewall is not enabled. So I guess it is safe to ignore this error.

see http://fmepedia.safe.com/articles/Er...ror-0x800706d9
and http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/can...9-t444446.html

[TrifonovS]

Hi!
I need an advice. I'm using this plug-in for my installer, but I got some error reports and now I'm trying to investigate the reason. I saw that when I exclude an application from the Firewall's exception list, it is excluded only for Public networks. But this is not what I really want. I want to exclude it for Home and especially for Domain networks. How can I control this? How this plug-in decides to which type of network must apply the exception?

[Wizou]

maybe LiteFirewall Plugin will better suits your needs ?

[TrifonovS]

liteFirewall plug-in is also not a solution for me. From the documentation I see that it recognizes automatically the current profile and makes adds exception to this profile. But I want to add the firewall exception to all profile. So I must have a parameter that selects it.