Linux Firewall – Do You Actually Enable One on a Desktop PC?

[Unison]

Linux Firewall – Do You Actually Enable One on a Desktop PC?​

Most Linux distributions have firewall tools available, but I've often wondered how many people actually enable and configure one on a normal home desktop.

For example, on distributions using UFW you can check the firewall with:

sudo ufw status

Other systems may use firewalld or configure nftables directly.

For a home PC sitting behind a broadband router, it's easy to assume the router's firewall is enough.

But Linux machines can also have services listening on the local network, especially if you're running things such as SSH, media servers, file sharing or other network services.

You can see what's listening on your machine with:

ss -tulpn
That can sometimes reveal more network services than you realised were running.

So I'm curious what everyone does.

Do you run a firewall on your Linux desktop, rely mainly on your router, or use both?

 

[CyborJaX]

I will have to say yes I enable the Linux firewall app on all the installations I have done up to now, it does not appear to cause any problems but I will have to say I haven't monitored how effective it is maybe it something worth investigating ???.

 

[Unison]

I will have to say yes I enable the Linux firewall app on all the installations I have done up to now, it does not appear to cause any problems but I will have to say I haven't monitored how effective it is maybe it something worth investigating ???.

That's pretty much my thinking as well. I tend to enable the firewall and then forget about it because it never seems to cause any problems.

It would actually be interesting to investigate it properly — see what it's blocking, whether anything is trying to get through, and how much difference it makes on a normal home network.

Could be a good little Linux experiment for us to try.

 

[Janobi]

I used to run a firewall on a PC a long time ago, but nowadays, there's normally a hardware based firewall on your router. On linux you can use iptables to ensure only the desired traffic is allowed in/out.

 

[Unison]

I used to run a firewall on a PC a long time ago, but nowadays, there's normally a hardware based firewall on your router. On linux you can use iptables to ensure only the desired traffic is allowed in/out.

Yes, that’s pretty much how I understand it too. The router firewall is doing most of the work stopping unwanted incoming traffic from the internet.

I suppose the advantage of also having the Linux firewall enabled is that it gives another layer of protection on the PC itself, especially with other devices on the local network.

Although I’ve only been running Linux for a relatively short time, I’ve always enabled the firewall and so far it hasn’t caused me any problems.