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I integrated a small http server in my software distribution, intended to allow access to my installed application from the customer's LAN.

Right now, the customer has to manually update the firewall's list of trusted applications. I want to either open a hole in the firewall at install-time, or to ensure that the firewall prompts the user to allow my web server as a trusted application, able to receive inbound traffic.

Any solution should work with the built-in Windows Firewall at minimum.

Suggestions?

Sheng Jiang 蒋晟
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user497032
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    Question does not contain enough information to provide a useful answer. What kind of firewall? What operating system? Is the firewall part of your "distribution" of software (as it would be if this were, for instance, a custom Linux distro or a virtual appliance)? – Charles Duffy Dec 26 '10 at 19:44
  • My software faces individual customers on windows platform, so I'm not sure which kind of firewall installed on their computers, but at least windows firewall will be there. When my http server listening and customer try to connect it, how to make windows firewall give a warning message and let customer to decide yes/no to add my software to trust list. And if the http server runs as services, will the warning message popup by windows firewall? – user497032 Dec 27 '10 at 00:04
  • Updated the question and tags to include this feedback. (In the future, you can do so yourself rather than just adding extra info as a comment). – Charles Duffy Dec 27 '10 at 13:03
  • By the way, I modified the question a little -- you implied you were ONLY willing to accept an answer which prompted the user / updated the firewall on first-access, whereas you probably would be just as happy with a way to update the firewall at install time. – Charles Duffy Dec 27 '10 at 13:05

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I would start out by reading up on the following sections on MSDN. This should give you enough background to know what you need. In short you could be looking to talk to the INetFwMgr COM object.

XP

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366453%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Vista or later INetFwPolicy2

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff956124(v=vs.85).aspx

David Christiansen
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