Remote Desktop with McAfee firewall

[Pamela D.]

Many thanks to all in this newsgroup - the info here has helped me get
mostly setup for using RD. As long as I turn off the McAffee firewall
(comes with VirusScan 6.0), RD works fine (except for the known problem with
McAfee and local drives...)

Unfortunately, as soon as I turn the firewall back on - I cannot connect. I
have tried tweeking the settings, but I am not getting very far. Is anyone
else using this software? Any ideas how to configure it to allow RD?

I don't know if it matters for this but my setup is this: My work PC runs
Windows XP Pro and this is the computer I am connecting to. My small office
is connected to the net via SDSL and a netopia router. My home PC runs
Windows 98SE. My home network uses a Linksys device that acts as a hub and
connects to the ADSL modem. I did not need to make any changes to the
equipment at my home. I changed the settings on my office router. As long
as I don't activate the firewall on my work PC, I am able to establish a VPN
connection and use RD. Once I activate the firewall, then the connection
"times out" (happens both within the office network or from home going
through the net and the router.)

McAfee's support is pretty lame, so I am hoping someone here may have
figured out how to configure the firewall.

I suppose another question is - how important is it to run a firewall when I
am already behind a router using NAT? Would the built-in firewall in XP be
sufficient in this case? If this is an option, I could just disable
McAfee's product and only use their VirusScan.

Thanks for any input,

P Darrah

[Bill Sanderson]

Was configuring the Netopia a challenge at all? There might be others who'd
be interested in how that's done.

I looked at Mcafee's site, and they claim there's some configurability of
the firewall, but no details are available without actually downloading and
installing the software, and I wasn't willing to go that far.

I would say, myself, that running a firewall behind a Nat is more than is
needed, but I'm an optimistic sort, and not very paranoid.

Some firewall software controls outgoing connections, as well as incoming.
The XP firewall controls incoming only. I don't know what McAfee does.

Doesn't running a firewall behind the NAT interfere with file/printer
sharing with other machines on the network? Generally, in that situation
the recommendation would be to use TCP/IP only and not use a second protocol
for file and print sharing, since the NAT provides some level of protection.

I hope someone else can chime in about how to configure the firewall--surely
that's possible!

"Pamela D." <pda...@sprynet.com> wrote in message
news:#a1va6AtBHA.2096@tkmsftngp05...

[Pamela D.]

> Was configuring the Netopia a challenge at all? There might be others
who'd be interested in how that's done.

Nope - My ISP (Megapath) actually has instructions on their site for this
type of thing. Netopia also has a lot of information on their site.
Basically, you just Telnet to the router from your PC and there is a menu
system. Pretty straight forward.

> Some firewall software controls outgoing connections, as well as incoming.
The XP firewall controls incoming only. I don't know what McAfee does.

The McAfee firewall controls both ways. When you first start using it, you
keep getting asked if you want to allow programs like Outlook and IE to have
access to the web! So far, I am not too impressed with this. I like
VirusScan, but their Firewall seems to be flakey and unsupported. I switched
to McAfee, because I was sick of being gouged by Norton. The "annual
subscription" for my anti-virus and firewall (sold together, but considered
separate products) would have cost more than buying the McAfee new. I am now
thinking of researching firewalls and picking out a different product!

> Doesn't running a firewall behind the NAT interfere with file/printer
sharing with other machines on the network? Generally, in that situation the
recommendation would be to use TCP/IP only and not use a second protocol for
file and print sharing, since the NAT provides some level of protection.

This is one thing the McAfee firewall was able to handle, there are some
simple settings that are actually documented that allow the internal
file/printer sharing to work. I just wish they had a straightforward method
for setting it so the VPN and RD would work!

Thanks for your reply - Hopefully, someone else is using McAfee's Firewall
and will post.

Regards,

Pamela