I am used to manually configuring the ipfw firewall since 10.1. As reported in various sites on the net, I created an /etc/ipfw.conf file with all the rules I wanted. I also created an ipfw directory under /Library/StartupItems/, in which I placed two files: ipfw, containing these lines:
#!/bin/sh /usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.ip.fw.verbose=1 /usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.ip.fw.verbose_limit=500 /sbin/ipfw -q /etc/ipfw.confand StartupParameters.plist, containing these lines:
{
Description = "ipfw firewall";
OrderPreference = "None";
Provides = ("Firewall");
Requires = ("Resolver");
Messages =
{
start = "Sto avviando il firewall";
stop = "Sto disattivando il firewall";
};
}
In Panther, this configuration stopped working. At the login window, the beach ball started to spin indefinitely and I had to reboot in single user mode and disable the ipfw startup item. Finally, I changed Requires = ("Resolver"); to Requires = ("Super Server");, and now it works again. I tried several reboots without any problems -- I can login and the ipfw rules I defined are active.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031101095946403