Windows Firewall Ruleset

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• Windows Firewall Ruleset
  • Table of Contents
  • About Windows Firewall Ruleset
    • Firewall rules
    • Firewall framework
  • Core benefits of this firewall
  • License
  • Requirements
    • Requirements details
    • I don't meet the requirements
  • First time user
    • Warning
    • Note
    • Quick start
  • Firewall management
    • Automated and interactive firewall deployment
    • Manage GPO rules
    • Deploying individual rulesets
    • Deleting rules
    • Export\Import rules
  • Remote firewall deployment
  • Checking for updates
    • Using GitHub Desktop app
    • Manual release download
    • Manual beta download
    • Using git command
    • Which update method is the best
  • Contributing or suggestions
  • Support
  • Customization
  • The future

About Windows Firewall Ruleset

This project consists of 2 major parts, firewall rules and firewall framework as follows:

Firewall rules

Windows firewall rules sorted into individual PowerShell scripts according to:

• Rule group
• Traffic direction (ex. inbound, outbound or IPSec)
• Software type and publisher
• IP version (IPv4 / IPv6)

Such as for example:

• ICMP traffic
• Browser rules
• Built in OS software
• Store apps
• Windows services
• Multiplayer Games
• Microsoft programs
• 3rd party programs
• broadcast traffic
• multicast traffic

Firewall framework

• Firewall framework consists of a number of PowerShell modules, scripts and documentation used to gather environment information relevant to build and deploy firewall specialized for target system such as:

  • Computers on network
  • Installed programs
  • IP subnet math
  • Remote or local system users
  • Network configuration
  • Firewall management
  • Quick analysis of packet trace and audit logs
  • Various firewall, system, troubleshooting and network utility functions

• Meaning this repository is a good base to easily extend your firewall to include more rules and functionalities.

• Currently there are some 800+ firewall rules, 10+ modules with 100+ functions, several scripts and a bunch of useful documentation.

• You can choose which rules you want, and deploy only those or deploy them all with master script to your firewall.

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Core benefits of this firewall

1. Detailed firewall configuration is time consuming process, takes a lot of troubleshooting, changes require testing and security auditing and it only gets worse if you need to deploy firewall to hundreds or thousands of remote computers, for example not all computers might have same software or restriction requirements.

2. Unlike firewall rules in control panel, these rules are loaded into GPO firewall (Local Group Policy), meaning system settings changes or random programs which install rules as part of their installation process will have no effect on firewall unless you explicitly make an exception.

3. Rules based on programs and services will have their involved executable file checked for digital signature, for security reasons rule is not created or loaded into firewall if this verification fails. (can be forced)

4. Default outbound is "block" unless there is a rule to allow network traffic, in most firewalls this is not possible unless you maintain rules for every possible program or service, thanks to this collection of rules, setting default outbound to block requires very little or no additional work.

5. Unlike in usual scenario, you will know which rules no longer have an effect or are redundant due to ex. uninstalled program, a missing system service which no longer exists, renamed executable after Windows update and similar reasons.

6. Unlike predefined Windows firewall rules, these rules are more restrictive such as, tied to explicit user accounts, rules apply to specific ports, network interfaces, specific executables, services etc. all of which is learned automatically from target system.

7. Updating, filtering or searching rules and attributes such as ports, addresses and similar is much easier since these rules are in scripts, you can use editor tools such as regex, multicursor or CTRL + F to perform bulk operations on your rules, doing this in any firewall UI is not always possible due to interface limitations.

8. A good portion of code is dedicated to provide automated solution to build and define firewall specialized for target system and users, minimizing the need to do something manually thus saving you much valuable administration time.

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License

This project Windows Firewall Ruleset is licensed under the MIT license.

License and Copyright notices are maintained "per file".

Requirements

Following table lists currently tested operating systems

1. Windows PowerShell 5.1 or PowerShell Core 7.1 Download PowerShell Core
2. .NET Framework 4.5 (Windows PowerShell only) Download Net Framework
3. Git (Optional) Download Git
4. Visual Studio Code (Recommended) Download VSCode
5. PowerShell Support for VSCode (Recommended) Download extension
6. PSScriptAnalyzer (Recommended) Download PSScriptAnalyzer

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Requirements details

• All Windows 10.0 systems (Major 10, Minor 0) are supported, but only those editions listed in the table above are actively tested.
  The "Version" column lists tested releases, however only latest OS builds continue to be tested.
  A list of other untested but supported systems and features is in The future
• PowerShell "Core" is not built into Windows, you will need to install it separately or use Windows PowerShell which is part of operating system.
• .NET Framework version 4.5 is required if using Windows PowerShell (Desktop edition) instead of PowerShell Core.
  Windows 10 ships with min .NET 4.6 (which includes .NET 4.5)
• You might want to have git to check out for updates, to easily switch between branches or to contribute code.
• VS Code is preferred and recommended editor to navigate project and edit scripts for your own needs or contribution.
• If you get VSCode, you'll also need PowerShell extension for code navigation and PowerShell language features.
• To navigate and edit code with VSCode PSScriptAnalyzer is requirement, otherwise editing experience may behave really odd due to various repository settings.
• There are no hardware requirements but if you plan to write code recommendation is min. 8GB of memory and SSD drive to comfortably work on project, otherwise to just deploy rules to your personal firewall less than that will work just fine.

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I don't meet the requirements

At the moment this firewall is tested and designed for most recent Windows Desktop/Servers and that is known to work, to make use of it on older systems requires additional work.

Testing is done on 64 bit Windows, a small fraction of rules won't work for 32 bit system and need adjustment, full functionality for 32 bit system is work in progress.
For now you can load rules on 32 bit system just fine with the exception of few rules probably not relevant at all for your configuration.

For information on how to make use of this firewall on older Windows systems such as Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 see Legacy Support

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First time user

Following are brief warnings and notes first time user should be aware of

Warning

• You might loose internet connectivity for some of your programs or in rare cases even lose internet connectivity completely, if that happens, you can either temporarily allow outbound network traffic or run Scripts\Reset-Firewall.ps1, to reset GPO firewall to system defaults and remove all rules.
• Inside Readme folder there is a ResetFirewall.md, a guide on how to do it manually, by hand, if for some reason you're unable to run the script, or the script doesn't solve your problems.
• Your existing rules will not be deleted unless you have rules in GPO with exact same group names as rules from this ruleset, however this does not apply to Scripts\Reset-Firewall.ps1 which will clear GPO rules completely and leave only those in control panel.
• If you want to be 100% sure please export your GPO rules as explained in Export\Import rules
• You will be asked which rules to load, to minimize internet connectivity trouble you should deploy at least all generic networking and OS related rules such as "CoreNetworking", "ICMP", "WindowsSystem", "WindowsServices", "Multicast" including all rules for which you have programs installed on system, also do not ignore IPv6, Windows indeed needs IPv6 even if you're on IPv4 network.
  It will be easy to delete what you don't need in GPO, rather than later digging through code finding what you have missed.
• Default configuration will set global firewall behavior which is not configurable in GPO, such as Stateful FTP and PPTP or global IPSec settings, if you need specific setup please visit Scripts\Complete-Firewall.ps1 and take a look at Set-NetFirewallSetting.
  Note that Scripts\Complete-Firewall.ps1 is automatically called by Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1
• Some scripts require network adapter to be connected to network, for example to determine IPv4 broadcast address. (Otherwise errors may be generated without completing the task)

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Note

• Loading rules into an empty GPO should be very fast, however loading into GPO which already contains rules will be significantly slower (depends on number of existing rules)
• All errors and warnings will be saved to Logs directory, you can review these logs later if you want to fix some problem, most warnings can be safely ignored but errors should be resolved.
• Any rule that results in "Access is denied" while loading should be reloaded by executing specific script again, see FAQ for more information on why this may happen.
• If the project was manually downloaded, transferred from another computer or media then you should
  unblock all files in project first to avoid YES/NO spam questions for every executing script, by running Scripts\Unblock-Project.ps1
  Master script Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1 does this in case if you forget, but initial YES/NO questions will still be present in that case.
• If you download code to location that is under "Ransomware protection" (in Windows Defender), make sure to whitelist either pwsh.exe (Core edition) or powershell.exe (Desktop edition) otherwise doing anything may be blocked.
  PowerShell console may need to be restarted for "Controlled folder access" changes to take effect.
• It's important to understand these rules are designed to be used as "Standard" user, not as user that is Administrator, if you're Administrator on your computer you'll have to either create standard user account and use that for your everyday life or modify code to allow Administrator online access.
  See FAQ for more information why using Administrator account is not recommended for security reasons.
• Software or Windows updates may rename executables or their locations, also user accounts may be renamed by Administrator, therefore it's important to reload specific rules from time to time as needed to update firewall for system changes that may happen at any time.

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Quick start

1. If you don't have ssh keys and other setup required to clone via SSH then either clone with HTTPS or just download released zip file from Releases, and then for latest release under "assets" download zip file.
   These steps here assume you have downloaded a zip file from "assets" section under "Releases".

2. Extract downloaded archive somewhere, these steps assume you've extracted the zip file (project root directory) into C:\ root drive directly.

3. If you would like to use Windows PowerShell instead of PowerShell Core see:
   How to open Windows PowerShell

4. Otherwise the procedure for both PowerShell Core and Windows PowerShell is similar:
   Open up extracted folder, right click into an empty space and there is an option to run PowerShell Core as Administrator (Assumes you enabled context menu during installment of PowerShell Core) if not open it manually.

5. If you don't have PowerShell context menu then move to C:\ root drive by executing following 2 lines (type or copy/paste following commands and hit enter for each), this is where you extracted your downloaded zip file

   c:
   cd \
   

6. cd into downloaded folder, of course update command below if your extracted folder is called something else:

   cd WindowsFirewallRuleset-master
   

7. To see current execution policy run following command:
   (hint: you can use TAB key to auto complete commands)

   Get-ExecutionPolicy
   

   Remember what is the output of the above command, note that PowerShell Core defaults to RemoteSigned while Windows PowerShell defaults to Restricted on non server editions.

8. Set execution policy to unrestricted to be able to unblock project files, (Note that RemoteSigned will work only once scripts are unblocked)

   Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
   

   You may be prompted to accept execution policy change, if so type Y and press enter to accept.
   For more information see About Execution Policies

9. At this point you should "unblock" all project files first by executing the script called Scripts\Unblock-Project.ps1, btw. project files were blocked by Windows to prevent users from running untrusted script code downloaded from internet:

   .\Scripts\Unblock-Project.ps1
   

   If asked, make sure your answer is R that is [R] Run once as many times as needed to unblock project. (approx. up to 8 times)

10. Once project files are unblocked set execution policy to RemoteSigned:

    Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
    

    You may be again prompted to accept execution policy change, type Y and press enter to accept.

11. Rules for programs such as your web browser, games etc. depend on installation variables.
    Most paths are auto-searched and variables are updated, otherwise you get warning and description on how to fix the problem.
    If needed, you can find these installation variables in individual scripts inside Rules folder.
    It is recommended to close down all other programs before running master script in the next step.

12. Back to PowerShell console and run Deploy-Firewall command below:

    .\Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1
    

    Hit enter and you'll be asked questions such as what kind of rulesets you want.
    If you need help to decide whether to run some ruleset or not, type ? when prompted to run ruleset and press enter to get more info.

13. Follow prompt output, (ex. hit enter to accept default action), it will take at least 15 minutes of your attention.

14. If you encounter errors, you can either ignore errors or update script that produced the error then re-run that specific script once again later.

15. When done you might want to adjust some of the rules in Local Group Policy, not all rules are enabled by default or you might want to toggle default Allow/Block behavior.
    Rules may not cover all programs installed on your system, in which case missing rules need to be made.

16. Now go ahead and test your internet connection (ex. with a browser or some other program), If you're unable to connect to internet after deploying these rules you have several options:

    • Temporarily open outbound firewall in GPO or Disable Firewall
    • Troubleshoot problems: Network troubleshooting detailed guide
    • You can Reset Firewall to previous state
    • Take a look into Readme folder for more troubleshooting options and documentation

17. As a prerequisite to deploy firewall, some system services have been started and set to automatic start, inside Logs directory you'll find Services_DATE.log to help you restore these services to default if desired.
    For example Windows Remote Management service should not run if not needed (The default is "Manual" startup)

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Firewall management

Following section gives some hints to manage firewall with ease

Automated and interactive firewall deployment

Deploy-Firewall.ps1 script supports several parameters to let you customize deployment automation as follows:

• To automatically run all rules without prompt but only for programs which exist on system run:

.\Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1 -Force -Quiet

• To go step by step and be prompted for confirmation on which rulesets to load and to attempt to resolve issues on the fly run:

.\Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1 -Interactive

• To be prompted only for ruleset selection run Deploy-Firewall without any parameters:

.\Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1

To learn the meaning of parmaters to be able to combine them on your own see Deploy-Firewall.ps1 script comment or run following command:

Get-Help .\Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1 -Detailed

Manage GPO rules

There are 2 mothods to manage GPO rules:

1. Using Local Group Policy, this method gives you limited freedom on what you can do with rules from this repository, such as disabling them, changing some attributes or adding new rules.
   For more information see: Manage GPO Firewall

2. Editing PowerShell scripts, this method gives you full control, you can change or remove existing rules with no restriction or add new ones.

What ever your plan or setup is, you will surely want to perform additional work such as customizing rules, or adding new rules for programs not yet covered by this firewall.

Rules are loaded into local group policy, if during firewall setup you accepted creating shortcut to personalized firewall management console you can run the schortcut, otherwise follow steps below to open local group policy.

1. Press Windows key and type: secpol.msc
2. Right click on secpol.msc and click Run as administrator
3. If prompted for password, enter administrator password and click "Yes" to continue
4. Expand node: Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security
5. Expand node: Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security - Local Group Policy Object
6. Click on either Inbound, Outbound or Windows Defender Firewall... node to view and manage rules and settings applied with PowerShell.

For more information about GPO see: Configure security policy settings

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Deploying individual rulesets

If you want to deploy only specific rules there are 2 ways to do this:

1. Execute Scripts\Deploy-Firewall.ps1 and chose Yes only for rulesets you want, otherwise chose No and hit enter to skip current ruleset.

2. In PowerShell console navigate cd to directory containing ruleset script you want and execute individual script.
   For example cd .\Rules\IPv4\Outbound\Software followed by .\Adobe.ps1 to load rules for Adobe.

You might want to run Scripts\Complete-Firewall.ps1 afterwards to apply default firewall behavior if it's not already set, or you can do it manually in GPO but with limited power. "limited power" means Scripts\Complete-Firewall.ps1 configures some firewall parameters which can't be adjusted in firewall GUI.

In both cases all rules that match ruleset display group will be deleted before loading rules into GPO.

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Deleting rules

At the moment there are 3 options to delete firewall rules:

1. The easiest way is to select all rules you want to delete in GPO, right click and delete.

2. To delete rules according to file there is a function for this purpose, located in:
   Modules\Ruleset.Firewall\Public\Remove-FirewallRule.ps1
   however you're advised to perform some tests before using it due to it's experimental state.

3. To revert to your old firewall state (the one in control panel), you'll need to delete all off the rules from GPO, and set all properties to Not configured after right click on node:
   Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security - Local Group Policy Object

Deleting all rules or revetting to previous state can also be done with Scripts\Reset-Firewall.ps1
Note that you'll also need to re-import your exported GPO rules if you had them.

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Export\Import rules

If you want to export rules from GPO there are 2 methods available:

1. Export in local group policy by clicking on Export Policy... menu, after right click on node:
   Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security - Local Group Policy Object

2. To export using PowerShell run Scripts\Backup-Firewall.ps1 which is much slower process but unlike method from point 1 you can customize your export in almost any way you want.

If you want to import rules, importing by using GPO is same as for export, and to import with PowerShell just run Scripts\Restore-Firewall.ps1 which will pick up your previous export file.

To customize your export\import please take a look into Modules\Ruleset.Firewall\Public, which is where you'll find description on how to use export\import module functions.

NOTE: Method 2 is experimental and really slow, you're advised to verify results.

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Remote firewall deployment

This section and functionality is currently under construction and incomplete

In remote firewall deployment there are at least 2 computers involved,
one is management computer (client) and all others are managed computers (servers).

Scripts are executed by administrator on management computer, and firewall is then deployed to or configured on multiple server computers simultaneously.

At the moment following rudimentary remoting capabilities are implemented:

1. Automatic creation of PS and CIM sessions
2. Drilling registry remotely
3. Configuring WinRM service
4. Establishing encrypted session to remote host

For implementation details see Modules\Ruleset.Remote module

NOTE: Remoting functionality is not exclusive to remote firewall deployment, deployment to localhost by design requires working WinRM and PS remoting configuration as well.

Before remote deployment can be performed, remote computer (server) needs to be configured to accept connection, example on how to establish SSL connection as follows:

• To configure WinRM service and remote registry on server computer, run:

# On server computer
cd C:\Path\to\WindowsFirewallRuleset
Import-Module .\Modules\Ruleset.Remote
Enable-WinRMServer -Protocol HTTPS -Confirm:$false
Enable-RemoteRegistry -Confirm:$false

After performing these steps, inside \Exports directory you'll find SSL certificate (*.cer) file which needs to be copied to management computer also into \Exports directory.

NOTE: Configuring server computer manually is performed only once for initial setup, you don't need to repeat it for subsequent deployments.

• Next step is to move on to management computer and run scripts as wanted, for example:

# On management computer
cd C:\Path\to\WindowsFirewallRuleset
Deploy-Firewall -Domain "Server01"

This is how remote deployment is going to work once this functionality gets fully implemented.

Remote deployment can be customized in a great detail in the following locations:

• To customize WinRM service see: Modules\Ruleset.Remote\Scripts\WinRMSettings.ps1\
• To customize WSMan session configuration see: Modules\Ruleset.Remote\Scripts\Enable-WinRMServer.ps1
• To customize self signed SSL certificate see: Modules\Ruleset.Remote\Scripts\Register-SslCertificate.ps1
• To customize PS and CIM session configuration see: Config\RemoteFirewall.pssc

For additional information and troubleshooting tips see also Remoting help

Checking for updates

Just like any other software on your computer, this firewall will go out of date as well, become obsolete, and may no longer function properly.

This repository consists of 2 branches, master (stable) and develop (possibly unstable).
The "develop" branch is where all updates directly go, so it's work in progress, unlike "master" branch which is updated from develop once in a while and not before all scripts are thoroughly tested on fresh installed systems, which is what makes master brach stable.

If you want to experiment with development version to check out new stuff, switch to "develop" branch and try it out, however if it produces errors, you can either fix problems or switch back to "master".

There are at least 4 methods to be up to date with this firewall, each with it's own benefits:

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Using GitHub Desktop app

This method is similar to git command, but instead you'll use a graphical interface which you can get from here: GitHub Desktop

The benefit of using GitHub Desktop is that you easily see code changes on you desktop for each individual update.

To use it you will need github account and a fork of this repository in your GitHub account.

To configure GitHub Desktop see GitHub Desktop Documentation or search for some tutorial online.

Manual release download

This method requires you to simply download released zip file which can be found in Releases, this is always from "master" branch

Manual beta download

This method is good if you want to download from "develop" branch, to do so, use the branch button here on this site and switch to develop branch, next use Code button and either clone or download zip.

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Using git command

This method is similar to GitHub Desktop above but good if you need specific git features.
In addition to 2 mentioned requirements for GitHub Desktop you will also need git and optionally (but recommended) SSH keys

Follow steps below to check for updates once you installed git and cloned your own fork:

• Right click on Start button in Windows
• Click Windows PowerShell to open PowerShell
• First navigate to folder where your instance of Windows Firewall Ruleset instance is, for example:
• Type: dir to list directories, cd SomeDirectoryName to move to some directory or cd .. to go one directory back
• Type: cd WindowsFirewallRuleset to move into WindowsFirewallRuleset folder

Following 2 sets of commands are typed only once for initial setup:

1. If you cloned your fork with SSH then run following command:

   git remote add upstream [email protected]:metablaster/WindowsFirewallRuleset.git

2. Otherwise if you cloned your fork with HTTPS run:

   git remote add upstream https://github.com/metablaster/WindowsFirewallRuleset.git

Next 2 sets of commands are typed each time you want to check for updates:

1. To get updates from master branch run:

   • Type: git checkout master
   • Type: git fetch upstream
   • Type: git merge upstream/master

2. Otherwise to get updates from develop branch run:

   • Type: git checkout develop
   • Type: git fetch upstream
   • Type: git merge upstream/develop

For this to work, you need to make sure your working tree is "clean", which means you need to save and upload your modifications to your fork, for example:

git add .
git commit -m "my changes"
git push

You can switch from one branch to another with git in PowerShell as many times as you want and all files will be auto updated without the need to re-download or re-setup anything.

For more information on how to use git see git documentation
There are also many great tutorials online to learn how to use git.

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Which update method is the best

If your goal is to just get updates then GitHub Desktop is the best, otherwise if your goal is firewall customization, using git command would be more productive because it offers specific functionalities that you might need.

You can have both setups in same time and use them as needed in specific situation.
There is no benefit with manual zip download in comparison with git or GitHub Desktop.

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Contributing or suggestions

Do you want to suggest new rules, features, report problems or contribute by writing code?

Here are brief notes for requesting new rules or features.
If you would like to contribute by writing code you should also read CONTRIBUTING.md

You are most welcome to suggest or contribute new rules or improvements for existing rules or scripts.

Please try to abide to notices below:

1. If possible provide some documentation or links (preferably official) for your rules or design changes so that it can be easy to verify these rules or changes don't contain mistakes.
   ex. for ICMP rules you would provide a link to IANA with relevant reference document.

2. To report problems, suggest new rules or various rule and code design improvements, please open new issue and provide relevant details as outlined in "Get started".

3. To contribute your own already made rules, it is desired that each rule contains good description of it's purpose, when the user clicks on rule in firewall GUI he/she wants to see what this rule is about to easily conclude whether to enable/disable rule or allow/block network traffic.
   If possible, the rule should be specific and not generic, that means specifying protocol, IP addresses, ports, system user, interface type and other relevant information.

If you lack some of the details, no problem but please try to collect as much information as possible.

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Support

Inside Readme folder you will find useful information not only about this project but also general information on how to troubleshoot firewall and network problems, or to gather other relevant information.

It might answer some of your questions, for example Monitoring Firewall explains how to monitor firewall in real time.

If you have random questions that don't fit anywhere else or you just want to say something then you're most welcome to open new discussion in Discussions

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Customization

If you would like to customize how scripts run, such as force loading rules and various defaults then visit Config\ProjectSettings.ps1 and there you'll find global variables which are used for this.

If you would like to customize project code or add more firewall rules to suit your private or corporate interests then first step is to set up development environment and learn about best practices used by this repository all of which is explained in CONTRIBUTING.md

Depending on your situation and target platform you might also want to read Legacy Support

These 2 documents are bare minimum to get you started customizing this repository.

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The future

Following features are desired and might be available at some point in the future:

1. Remote firewall administration

   • Deploying firewall configuration to one or multiple remote computers on domain or home networks

2. Comprehensive firewall rulesets for Windows Server editions and dedicated gateway systems.

3. On demand or scheduled registry scan to validate integrity of active firewall filtering policy

   • Any firewall rule in the registry that is not part of this repository is reported for review
   • Because, malware, hackers and even trusted software can attempt to bypass firewall at any time

4. Full functionality for the following not yet tested editions of Windows 10.0

   • Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
   • Windows 10 IoT Core Blast
   • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
   • Windows 10 S

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