Another Bug in macOS 13.2 Ventura - This time its the Firewall options

[iphonefreak450]

I just noticed that when I go into my Firewall settings, the Firewall is enabled but when under Options, I went to toggle ON the Stealth Mode and when I went back to the Firewall Options, the toggle switch for Stealth Mode was OFF.

Can someone please test this as well?

Just go into to the Firewall settings and under Options, toggle the Stealth Mode to ON.
Then, exit from the entire System Settings, and then go back to Firewall / Options to check if Stealth Mode remains ON or OFF?

I guess this is not an urgent issue because I am on my private Home network using a router which is actually a firewall as well. So I am protected. But I need the Firewall settings to work whenever I am on a Public Network.

 

[bogdanw]

My advice is to stop wasting time with macOS firewall, it’s useless. It doesn’t have options for outgoing connections.
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/firewall-security-seca0e83763f/web
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-firewall-settings-on-mac-mh11783/mac

Try Little Snitch https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
“Without a license key, Little Snitch runs in demo mode, which provides the same protection and functionality as the full version. The demo runs for three hours, and it can be restarted as often as you like.”
or LuLu https://objective-see.com/products/lulu.html

 

[iphonefreak450]

I understand , but I nee to know if this is a bug or not?
Can someone please test as mentioned in my first post?

 

[bogdanw]

Yes, it’s a bug. Sometimes it stays on, sometimes it doesn’t.
Turn Stealth mode on, turn Firewall off, close System Settings, open it again and turn Firewall on. It should be on.

To check from Terminal

sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist stealthenabled

1 is enabled, 0 is disabled.
To change the value from Terminal

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist stealthenabled 1

 

[iphonefreak450]

Thank you. That was all I needed to know.

With all these bugs in Ventura, I’m tempted to just roll back to Monterey…

 

[fisherking]

Thank you. That was all I needed to know.

With all these bugs in Ventura, I’m tempted to just roll back to Monterey…

what are 'all these bugs'?

on my 2 macs, everything is pretty great. i get the 'file not found' error sometimes (so far, only on the air), and occasional hiccups; nothing i haven't experienced in previous OSes.

just wondering what other issues you're experiencing, and why rolling back to monterey is a better idea that waiting for future updates & bug fixes... 🤔

 

[iphonefreak450]

bogdanw's suggestion worked. Many Thanks.

 

[bob_stan]

When I go to Updates, I don't even see an option to update from Ventura 13.1 to 13.2. Has it been withdrawn?

 

[bob_stan]

Never mind, I found it.

 

[svenmany]

I just noticed that when I go into my Firewall settings, the Firewall is enabled but when under Options, I went to toggle ON the Stealth Mode and when I went back to the Firewall Options, the toggle switch for Stealth Mode was OFF.

Can someone please test this as well?

Just go into to the Firewall settings and under Options, toggle the Stealth Mode to ON.
Then, exit from the entire System Settings, and then go back to Firewall / Options to check if Stealth Mode remains ON or OFF?

I guess this is not an urgent issue because I am on my private Home network using a router which is actually a firewall as well. So I am protected. But I need the Firewall settings to work whenever I am on a Public Network.

I see that bug too.

I've had other obvious bugs in System Settings, but this one is pretty bad. Yesterday, I couldn't get the "details..." button on my WiFi connection to show anything. Today it's OK. I've even had to force quit System Settings a couple of times when it hung.

 

[SouthernWaves]

I see that bug too.

I enabled before leaving the city, I have reached my location and I checked the firewall setting and it is VISIBLY OFF, however when I run the terminal command to check. It returns a value of 1.

 

[svenmany]

Hmm.

On another thread I said that the bug was fixed. I now rechecked and see it's still there.

 

[svenmany]

I enabled before leaving the city, I have reached my location and I checked the firewall setting and it is VISIBLY OFF, however when I run the terminal command to check. It returns a value of 1.

I don't get that behavior. After enabling stealth, and when it shows visibly off, then I can still ping the machine from another one and the terminal command returns 0. In addition, after setting the stealth value to 1 from the terminal, as @bogdanw instructed, displaying it from the terminal then returned 1. But, I can still ping the machine from another. I even restarted the firewall, confirmed that the plist value was 1, and I can still ping the machine.

 

[tomekwsrod]

Maci firewall is bugged in the newest version as well. Now I'm not sure even how to disabled it. I have switched the toggle but the ports are still filtered. And the bug from this thread is still valid.

 

[bogdanw]

Now I'm not sure even how to disabled it. I have switched the toggle but the ports are still filtered.

Close System Settings, from Terminal run

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist stealthenabled 0

log out or better reboot.