1

I'm confused about the status of my firewall. Using the Ubuntu Software Center, I have installed Gufw.

Problem:

When the Firewall is locked, it looks like it's inactive. But when I unlock it, it's always shown as active.

Do I need to leave the firewall GUI open all the time in order to enable it?

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3 Answers 3

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No, you don't. Your firewall is enabled. Just to be sure, you can run this command:

sudo ufw enable

If it says it is active, it is... Active and will stay active. Even if you have the firewall gui closed.

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  • Thanks for your answer! Is this a bug in the application, or is this behavior to be expected?
    – user24668
    May 7, 2012 at 9:59
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    this behavior is to be expected, it is not a bug.
    – blade19899
    May 7, 2012 at 10:06
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    Why is this no surprise?
    – user24668
    May 7, 2012 at 10:09
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check status by executing sudo ufw status in the terminal.

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  • status: active So is this a bug in the application?
    – user24668
    May 7, 2012 at 9:49
  • i actually don't know, and im not at home so i can see what it looks like for me
    – Kempe
    May 7, 2012 at 10:03
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Though it's been some time since the question was asked, I'd like to answer it ;) You phrased it correctly in your question when you wrote "it looks like it's inactive". The GUI shows you the firewall as inactive because it doesn't know any better.

As you've seen from the answers above, you need root privileges on the command line (sudo) to check the firewall status. It's the same for the GUI. You start the GUI program as the user you logged into your system with, so the GUI programs privileges are the same as that users privileges. That user probably has no business to know anything about the firewall, so the firewall isn't telling that user (and, in extension, the GUI) whether it's active or not. And because the GUI can't positively tell that the firewall is active, it rather shows it as inactive. It would give people a sense of false security if the GUI would just go, "I can't really tell, but let's just assume the firewall is doing its thing" ;) "Unlocking" actually means "providing the programm with root privileges", so now the GUI can ask the firewall about it status and show it correctly.

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