Send Receive on new machine

[Martin]

We need help with one decision please:

New computer in our office, old project, Fieldworks freshly installed, latest version. On Win 11. Not my computer.

When doing "Send / Receive" for the first time onto a fresh USB-drive, there is a text about all the known send/receive-introduction by Fieldworks. That is known and fine.

BUT: At this moment, Win 11 was popping-up an unexpected security-window:

====quote====

Windows Security

Do you want to allow public and private networks to access this app?

Windows Firewall has blocked some features of FLExBridge onall public and private networks.

[icon] FLExBridge

Publisher SIL

button:Allow    button:Cancel


[note: the message is in German, translated by DeepL]

====end-quote===

Questions:
1. Why does FLEXBridge notify Windows 11 for its network-access? Does it offer any "services" for incoming requests. (We are aware that Send/Receive can use external services like Chorus-Hub or Web-Database, but we have never noticed that FLEXBridge triggers our firewalls which is normally about incoming requests.)

2. Since we did not find the documentation about this issue, we have opted for the button "Cancel". Did we pick the wrong option? What are the consequences for local use of Fieldworks on this PC? We want to use Send/Receive via USB-drive and via a Chorus-Hub inside the local office-network. Do we need to correct our choice in the Windows 11 firewall settings?

3. Is there a difference between FLEXBridge (as installed in context of a full Fieldworks9.2 installation on Win 11) and Chorus-Hub? (This is a related question, but not for the computer mentioned above, because on my own computer, I plan to install and operate a fresh Chorus-Hub soon. So far we only have a Chorus-Hub for Paratext in this office, but on yet another machine.) I believe for Chorus-Hub we always had to open the Windows Firewall for the local network. So if those tools are similar or related, it would provide an indirect answer to my question 1. above.


A different way of asking:
I am aware that we are asking about the entire inner workings of send/receive for Flex. We have found via > help > ressources > "Technical Notes on Fieldworks Send/Receive" and have browsed the document. But inside we could not find explanation about the aspects of the Windows 11 firewall.

If you would please point me to specific documentation, I am muchly willing to read up and learn.


Thank you.

[Martin]

I have found one answer, so I note it here, as a "note to self":

Seems FLEXBridge is separate from Chorus-Hub. FB ist a part of Fieldworks, CH is a server, running somewhere on a network.

I have tested Send/Receive and found that use of Chorus-Hub does not work, with the automatic firewall-blocking, as done by Windows 11 during install or first use of Fieldworks.


So the solution is this: Find the local firewall management tool and find the entries for incoming rules. There are two rules for FLEXBridge, for two protocols.

I can edit those rules and allow incoming trafic for FLEXBridge, but I can fine-tune it so, that only the IP-address of our machine running our Chorus-Hub is authorized. And of course only allowed when my own machine is on a (the) private network of our office.

Once I made these edits to my fw rules, I could do Send/Receive to our local Chorus-Hub in the building next door. Nice.<

[So my question can be tagged as solved.]



Feedback to the Fieldworks Developper-Team:  
It was a surprise when during installation (or first use) Windows OS popps a note about just having blocked something called FLEXBridge. Normally Windows-security is doing fine and when Windows things blocking is in order I take that seriously. So I am hesitant to click on "Allow" without having seen instructions from the Fieldworks-Installer about this aspect.

Take a note from many Android-App installers: They inform the users about warnings that will come up during the installation and they give clear instructions or suggestions for the Android-settings to make their app work. That would be nice for the next Fieldworks-installer and for Send/Receive.