Firewall

The ENS driver provides WinGate with a network layer firewall to protect the internal LAN from unwanted and malicious network attacks. It examines all TCP and UDP based traffic that is received by a network interface on the WinGate server, and can control each packet based on a range of security measures. These include:

1. Interface classification

   WinGate will classify what type of network each of its network interfaces are connected to, based on the IP address details that have been set on the interface. This helps the firewall to determine the usage of the interface (what type of network it is connected to) and how the traffic should be handled, whether a connection should be trusted, allowed through the firewall, allowed to proceed etc.

2. Connection types

   ENS defines 5 different types of connections that WinGate can receive. These connection types are based on number of factors which include the network interface the connection was received on, and the address details in each packet. The connection types are used by the firewall to determine how each connection will be handled. e.g. allowed, denied, redirected etc. When configuring port security filters, you are required to choose the connection type that the filter will apply to.

3. Port Security filters

   You can create security filters for the firewall that can allow, deny, or redirect packets based on the protocol being used (TCP or UDP) and the port specified in the connection.

Firewall modes

In the General tab of the Extended Network Driver properties, there is an option to select which mode you would like the firewall to operate in. Each option determines how the firewall will be initially configured. All of these options can be altered as you require from within the Port Security tab in the Extended Network Driver properties.

Note

Firewall configuration

The Firewall tab found in the Extended Network Driver properties, allows you to set certain conditions on how the firewall will operate.

Viewing firewall activity

All firewall activity information is provided by the WinGate NAT source and logged to the WinGate NAT usage log file by default. The WinGate NAT log file can be viewed from the Log Files tab, located at Control Panel > Logging in the WinGate Management console.