Desktop/Whiteboards/Firewall

The problem with a static firewall as Fedora currently ships with iptables/system-config-firewall is that it actively interferes with a lot of things that users want to do with their desktops:

• mDNS related sharing:
  • Discovering any remote services (music, screen, printer, etc. shares and .local hosts)
  • Music sharing (via DAAP, in Rhythmbox, Banshee, etc.)
  • Personal File sharing (WebDAV, through gnome-user-share)
  • Desktop sharing (VNC, through vinagre)
  • Remote disk management (udisks and gnome-disk-utility)
  • Local network chats (Pidgin, Empathy)

• UPNP related:
  • DLNA music/movies/photos sharing (in Rygel, mediatomb, etc.)

• Other:
  • Automatic discovery of printers and other services (CUPS specific)
  • ssh

Possible ways to improve the situation are:

• Just turn the firewall off. Rely on not running any unnecessary network-facing services, and lock the necessary services down using SELinux.
• Allow applications to poke holes in the firewall, under user-control
• Handle different situations differently: no firewall when on the trusted 'home network', but strict firewall when using coffee shop wifi

Related bugs

• Bug 179187 - gnome-user-share stymied by firewall
• Bug 444427 - Avahi blocked by Firewall
• Bug 440469 - RFE: Firewall: PolicyKit integration for desktop applications

Other OSes

• Ubuntu's firewall is disabled by default
• Mandriva's firewall has the same problem as Fedora's (they use shorewall)