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Configuring your firewall for running a Quinn server

Quinn servers must be able to receive incoming network connections on the TCP ports 31459 thru 31463. (Quinn uses port 31459 by default, but switches to the other ports if it is in use.) To allow this, you must configure Mac OS X’s software firewall as described below. If you are behind a router, switch, gateway, or hardware firewall—that is, a device which performs Network Address Translation (NAT)—, you may also need to configure that device to do “port forwarding” on the ports named above. This generally includes all situations where multiple computers share one publicly-visible IP address, most commonly: computers on a home network sharing a cable or ADSL connection.

There’s usually nothing to do for Quinn clients. They only use outbound connections.

To configure Mac OS X’s software firewall:

  1. Open the System Preferences, and go to the Sharing pane.
  2. Select the Firewall tab.
  3. Click the New… button.
  4. In the dialog that appears, choose Other as Port Name. Enter “31459-31463” as TCP port numbers, and leave the field for UDP port numbers empty. In the description field, type an easily recognized name for the service, e.g. “Quinn server.”
  5. Click OK.