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Global

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The general presets include rules for application types rather then individual applications. The General presets can be used as rules for applications that don't have their own presets or you can use them as a starting point for creating your own rules for an application. There are preset rules for the following types of applications:

Allow DNS
Allow Ident

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Allow DNS

Protocol: UDP
Remote Port(s): DNS (53)
Action: Allow It

What it's for

This rule is used whenever an application tries to contact a host (like if your put www.google.com in to your browsers address bar, your browser will then perform a DNS query to discover the IP address associated with the domain name www.google.com).

To optimize

Add an Event for 'Remote Host' and specify the 'Remote Host' as your ISP's DNS servers. Most ISP's will have more then one DNS server .You can either e-mail your ISP for there DNS server details or try and browse the Internet and check either your Allowed log or the DNS Cache log both of which should give you the IP number or host name of your providers DNS servers. Then enter the domain names of the servers as 'Remote Host'.
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Allow Ident

This rule is turned off by default
Protocol: TCP
Direction: Inbound
Local Port(s): AUTH (113)
Action: Allow It

What it's for

This rule allows others to identify you using the AUTH service. Servers (like POP and SMTP) do this to identify a user of a particular TCP connection. It can be used to retrieve your OS name and the character set you are using as well as other things.

To optimize

Your e-mail provider may use this service to verify who you are when you try and collect mail. If you find your e-mail collection is slowed down after installing Outpost and don't want to turn on the Global Ident rule create this rule for your e-mail client if it asks to use this service and it should fix the problem.
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Outpost and the Outpost logo are ©Agnitum Software

This is an unofficial guide, the information expressed here may differ from Agnitum's. There is a support forum (no longer run by Agnitum, but by users) if you need more help this is a good place to start. Where information here conflicts with what Agnitum have told you always go with the information given to you by Agnitum.

Guide/site and images ©Stephen Cox