Comments on: Dumb Tech Journalist Quote of the Week http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/2007/07/15/dumb-tech-journalist-quote-of-the-week/ Written by Dr Thomas W Shinder, consultant to Microsoft, HP and many Fortune 500 companies on ISA firewall and Web proxy deployments this blog is where administrators get information about ISA Server Universal Threat Management firewalls. Topics include how to manage, deploy, and troubleshoot ISA Server as a network firewall, Web proxy/Web cache, remote access VPN server and VPN gateway to provide a high level of network security for all corporate computers. Fri, 5 Sep 2008 05:19:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU by: Dan Becker http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/2007/07/15/dumb-tech-journalist-quote-of-the-week/#comment-124303 Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:11:28 +0000 http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/2007/07/15/dumb-tech-journalist-quote-of-the-week/#comment-124303 I can understand where you're coming from. But the reporter's statement is, I think, accurate - if somewhat unclear. The important part of the reporter's quote is not the port bit, but this part: "according to the role that the administrator defines". (Server Role means something quite specific in Windows Server 2008 - see http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/servermanager/default.mspx) WF will have various ports open or closed depending on whether the server role that requires use of those ports is installed on the server or not. ISA doesn't automatically say "Oh, I have Windows 2008 servers with the following roles behind me: web server, file server, print server. I will open ports for those services automatically based upon knowing those roles are installed in Server Manager." Of course, I wouldn't WANT my firewall to *automatically* open ports to the services running on servers behind it. That'd be a Bad Idea(TM). I can understand where you’re coming from. But the reporter’s statement is, I think, accurate - if somewhat unclear.

The important part of the reporter’s quote is not the port bit, but this part: “according to the role that the administrator defines”.

(Server Role means something quite specific in Windows Server 2008 - see http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en...t.mspx)

WF will have various ports open or closed depending on whether the server role that requires use of those ports is installed on the server or not.

ISA doesn’t automatically say “Oh, I have Windows 2008 servers with the following roles behind me: web server, file server, print server. I will open ports for those services automatically based upon knowing those roles are installed in Server Manager.”

Of course, I wouldn’t WANT my firewall to *automatically* open ports to the services running on servers behind it. That’d be a Bad Idea(TM).

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