How can I tell if GW is doing anything?

I have GhostWall installed, it's running. It's keeping track of incoming and outgoing data. Other than that, it doesn't seem to do anything. I also have the SP2 Windows Firewall running, so I suppose I might not be seeing anything happening because it catches everything before GW would need to do anything?

I'm perfectly happy with having it work without bothering me, but at the same time it's comforting to have it pop up with "an attempt to contact you through X port was blocked".

 

Hi,

GW is not an 'application' based firewall which means you will not have pop ups requesting for your approval. In fact it is a 'packet' based one which means it allows all protocols/directions/ports and addresses as specified in its configuration. If it is configured to allow all outgoing/incoming traffics it will without a word.
However, you may still have an alert window clicking on Statistics/Blocked section showing if a connection was blocked/rejected - in other words that application has not got a specific rule yet or something nasty was trying to communicate to or from your machine. In both cases the attempts were/are/will be blocked till you create a rule for them.

So if you have a trusted prog that is not able to access the net it is advisable to check this blocked section and create a rule allowing all those parameters you can see blocked in the window.

One more suggestion. GW is more secure (protection against killing) and flexible (inbound/outbound) than WIN fw and has more features to contol your communications.
It is not recommended to run two fw apps simultaneously to avoid conflicts - not to mention that they are roughly of the same type. Better choose this or that.

 

Ah. Thanks for the explanation. So I should be able to just run it without configuration and not worry unless something isn't working?

 

Hi,

GW is being installed with the default rule set on your system by default.
However it is considered a bit permissive. You can fine tune (tighten) it according to your needs anytime if you wish.
And if you still feel like going into details you can find tons of info on this forum.
However, if you have not done it yet it is advisable to add one rule. See

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=148627

I mean Port 0&1 vulnerability rule. See the line in green.

 

Thanks. That actually helped me understand a lot better how GW works (the part about moving the rule to the top made me realise that the rules are in order of priority.