SoftPerfect Personal Firewall Manual

General information

The SoftPerfect Personal Firewall is a free network firewall designed to protect your PC against attacks from the Internet or via a local area network. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall offers customizable security using user-defined rules for packet filtering. It works at a low level and also allows you to create rules based on non-IP protocols such as ARP.

The SoftPerfect Personal Firewall supports multiple network adapter configurations. This allows you to apply a rule, for example, for just a modem connection or you could apply separate rules for each system interface. With a flexible filtering system, trusted MAC address checking feature and separate network adapter configuration you can even use it on a router or a server.

The SoftPerfect Personal Firewall has a learning mode, which prompts you for required actions when it detects an unknown packet. This helps you to create customized rules quickly. The program is easy to use, comes with a set of predefined rules and it is completely free. Additional features include password protection, logging and more.

Please be aware that the SoftPerfect Personal Firewall is not designed for novices and requires some networking knowledge from you for a correct configuration.

Main features

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall has a powerful traffic filtering system using user-defined processing rules.

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall supports configuration for multiple network adapters.

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall has a learning mode and comes with a set of predefined rules.

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall filters IP and non-IP traffic.

License agreement

This software is provided "AS IS", without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software at no cost for any purpose.

Getting started

After you have installed SoftPerfect Personal Firewall, you should reboot your PC. After system startup, you will see a firewall dialog window asking you which preset rules you would like to use. The predefined set includes some frequently used rules for WWW browsing, E-Mail, etc. The ARP, ICMP and DNS preset rules are required for correct network operation. You can modify these rules later.

If you need to access the firewall to change the configuration settings, use the system tray pop-up menu shown below. Click Open Firewall to open the main window. Set the Learning Mode item to enable learning mode. In Learning Mode the firewall will ask you what to do when it detects an unknown packet. After a period of use in learning mode the program will be ready for use in a working mode. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall runs in three working modes: The Allow All mode allows everything through. The Block All mode stops any network activity. The Filter mode applies the rules you have set to any network packet exchange. If there is no rule defined for the packet and learning mode is off the packet will be blocked.

The firewall control center is shown below.

In the left hand pane, you can access network interface information, rules and the firewall event log. Use the toolbar buttons to access various program features. The right hand pane displays further information about selected items. In this case, the rules list is displayed. The rules are applied in the order that they are specified. If no matching rule is found the firewall denies the packet. You can temporary disable a rule in the list by unchecking the mark next to it.

Firewall rules

Click Add or Modify in the rules page to add or modify a firewall rule. In the General page, you can setup a rule action, direction, protocol and an interface.

The source and destination tabs are only active for IP-based protocols like TCP, UDP and ICMP. They allow you to specify a packet source and destination address and/or port(s).

The advanced rule properties include additional ICMP processing and various other settings. Please note that the Destination Unreachable message should be always be passed through the firewall otherwise, network performance can be degraded.

Trusted MAC address management

If you are in a local area network or a wireless LAN and you would like to communicate only with the workstations and/or servers that you trust then you can specify their hardware addresses (MAC addresses) here. This instructs the firewall to reject any traffic except the trusted hosts you have specified and makes you invulnerable to certain types of network attack, such as ARP-spoofing.

Learning mode

The firewall learning mode helps you to setup rules quickly and easily. For example, if there is no matching rule and learning mode is enabled when you are trying to open a web-site you will see a firewall alert like this. You have an option to block or pass the packet or you may create a rule that will accept or deny the packets.

Firewall log

Firewall messages are stored in the system log. You can specify what kind of events it must log. Double-click on a log entry to see details.

Firewall settings

You can use the settings dialog to customize certain firewall settings. For example, you can set an access password or change logging options.

Version history

Release notes

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall works at the NDIS level and it is not able to determine what application is trying to access the Internet or a network resource. However, it is able to catch non-IP packets such as ARP or NETWARE.

The configuration files are stored as XML files so you can modify or generate them yourself.

Any local host communications are permitted by the firewall.

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