Is a PC dedicated to just one program, UT2004, safe w/o a firewall?

[bupkus]

Is a PC which is connected to the Internet behind a router, dedicated to just one program, UT2004, safe w/o a firewall?
Since this pc has only 512MB DDR I'm trying to keep it lean. Perhaps there's a website devoted to trimming down an OS; I have both W2k pro or WXP pro.

 

[spyordie007]

If that router is stopping traffic from hitting the PC directly from the internet (as most NAT devices will do) than it means that machine is not directly accessable to the internet and you're probably fine running without a software firewall.

If the machine is directly accessable to the internet than yes you would want some sort of firewall so that the Windows services are not exposed to the outside. XP SP2's firewall should be just fine for this application.

 

[Smilin]

if properly locked down, yes it's safe without a firewall.

Thing is, do you know how to properly lock it down? Ideally you should be able to run a "netstat -ano" and see only UT2004 listening on the network.

 

[PingSpike]

I'd load win2k if you're concerned about memory usage.

If you're behind a router I'd say you were fine.

 

[bupkus]

Originally posted by: Smilin
if properly locked down, yes it's safe without a firewall.

Thing is, do you know how to properly lock it down? Ideally you should be able to run a "netstat -ano" and see only UT2004 listening on the network.

netstat seems pretty cool, but its results may be beyond my grasp.
I display only 3 IPs,
0.0.0.0:xxx
127.0.0.1:xxx
192.168.0.100:xxxx

However, under "Foreign Address" I have an IP that isn't my internet IP or even close. They( actually 2 entries) are listed as ESTABLISHED with a shared PID. Should I be concerned?

 

[spyordie007]

However, under "Foreign Address" I have an IP that isn't my internet IP or even close. They( actually 2 entries) are listed as ESTABLISHED with a shared PID. Should I be concerned?

Those would be addresses that you (local address) are currently connected to.

 

[bupkus]

I did netstate with a "?" and then with -bv, or was it -vb. Anyway, those IPs I couldn't recognize had something to do with my symantec stuff.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: bupkus

Originally posted by: Smilin
if properly locked down, yes it's safe without a firewall.

Thing is, do you know how to properly lock it down? Ideally you should be able to run a "netstat -ano" and see only UT2004 listening on the network.

netstat seems pretty cool, but its results may be beyond my grasp.
I display only 3 IPs,
0.0.0.0:xxx
127.0.0.1:xxx
192.168.0.100:xxxx

However, under "Foreign Address" I have an IP that isn't my internet IP or even close. They( actually 2 entries) are listed as ESTABLISHED with a shared PID. Should I be concerned?

It is probably best if you run a personal firewall. You aren't going to take a performance hit and running safely without one requires someone to have a pretty firm grasp on this stuff. I myself would feel pretty safe doing this but I would run a firewall anyway simply because I wouldn't feel like investing the time and effort into checking everything just to run an UT2004 server.

FYI, although the IPs matter in that netstat command it's really the ports you should be interested in (the part you left out with the xxx's) If you want someone to interpret the output for you, post the whole thing along with an "ipconfig /all" and a "tasklist".