Adding Additional Rules to the Packet Firewall
Katelyn Russell
If you need to add additional rules to the macOS Packet Firewall beyond those provided in the EPM installation, there is a folder setup in the installation that will allow those to automatically load at startup. You would only need to make sure the file with those rules is placed in the /etc/pf.anchors/edu.utexas.shared.pf.d folder on the system.
Adding firewall rules via scripting
If you are writing a script to generate the custom rule file you will want to write it similar to this example:
#!/bin/bash # setup location for file file_location=/etc/pf.anchors/edu.utexas.shared.pf.d/customrules.file #check for existing copy of file if [ -e $policy ]; then echo "That custom rules file already exists, nothing done!" else #create file if it does not already exist cat > $file_location <<EOF # ===================================================== # Custom Rules to do stuff # ===================================================== # Allow DHCP #pass in log inet proto udp from any port 67 to any port 68 EOF fi #set proper permissions for the custom rule file /bin/chmod 644 $file_location /bin/chown root:wheel $file_location #restart packet fire wall to ensure changes are loaded /usr/local/bin/pf-restart.sh
Adding firewall rules via package
A package can be constructed to deliver the custom rules file to the /etc/pf.anchors/edu.utexas.shared.pf.d folder on the system.
The included UTexas-PacketFirewall-ExtraRules.zip archive uses the Whitebox Packages application to construct the package.
EPM is available to IT Support Organizations (ITSOs) with any endpoint management questions. If you have a question about a specific endpoint client, please reach out to your local endpoint client support organization.
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