Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

Hello All,

Just a few days ago I ran into the following:

quote
quote
(I found that a few days ago when trying to visit UAT web server binded to
port 87, and then both Chrome and Firefox refused to connect, and I can only
visit with IE)
/quote
Wait, what? So you gave "http://uat.example.com:87/some/page/or/other.html"
and both Chrome and Firefox barfed, but IE worked?
/quote

I just tried it, and indeed got the "for your protection ..." message. Is
there any way to tell FF to *ask* instead of bluntly refuse (about:config
suggestions are welcome)?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

R.Wieser wrote:
Hello All,

Just a few days ago I ran into the following:

quote
quote
(I found that a few days ago when trying to visit UAT web server binded to
port 87, and then both Chrome and Firefox refused to connect, and I can only
visit with IE)
/quote
Wait, what? So you gave "http://uat.example.com:87/some/page/or/other.html"
and both Chrome and Firefox barfed, but IE worked?
/quote

I just tried it, and indeed got the "for your protection ..." message. Is
there any way to tell FF to *ask* instead of bluntly refuse (about:config
suggestions are welcome)?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser



They actually have you add a preference to about:config .

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1083282

network.security.ports.banned.override

https://prod-cdn.sumo.mozilla.net/up...-30-d45faa.png

Paul

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

Paul,

They actually have you add a preference to about:config .

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1083282

Thanks.

I *almost* wrote that my version of FF doesn't have that setting, but than I
read that the setting would be needed to be added by hand ... whistle

A thing though: It enables me to alow a *single* port. Any idea how to
extend this to multiple ones ? A range of ports maybe ? The link you
provided doesn't mention anything like it.


And I would still like to know how I would instruct FF to ask me what to do
though. Maybe in the same way it always warns about meddeling with
about:config ? (a simple pop-up box would be fine though, even better if it
would be valid for just the current browsing session).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

On Thu, 26 Apr 2018 15:53:08 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Paul,

They actually have you add a preference to about:config .

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1083282

Thanks.

I *almost* wrote that my version of FF doesn't have that setting, but than I
read that the setting would be needed to be added by hand ... whistle

A thing though: It enables me to alow a *single* port. Any idea how to
extend this to multiple ones ? A range of ports maybe ? The link you
provided doesn't mention anything like it.

From the link

network.security.ports.banned.override

Possible values and their effects

A comma delimited list of port numbers to allow.


And I would still like to know how I would instruct FF to ask me what to do
though. Maybe in the same way it always warns about meddeling with
about:config ? (a simple pop-up box would be fine though, even better if it
would be valid for just the current browsing session).


Dunno.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

R.Wieser wrote:
Paul,

They actually have you add a preference to about:config .

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1083282

Thanks.

I *almost* wrote that my version of FF doesn't have that setting, but than I
read that the setting would be needed to be added by hand ... whistle

A thing though: It enables me to alow a *single* port. Any idea how to
extend this to multiple ones ? A range of ports maybe ? The link you
provided doesn't mention anything like it.


And I would still like to know how I would instruct FF to ask me what to do
though. Maybe in the same way it always warns about meddeling with
about:config ? (a simple pop-up box would be fine though, even better if it
would be valid for just the current browsing session).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser



http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.se...anned.override

"A comma delimited list of port numbers to allow"

The right-click menu in about:config has some options.
You'd add a new entry, such as the named one, and declare it
as type string. Then enter the comma separated list. In a sense
it's a lot like Regedit. Only populated with Linux/Unix format
preferences.

As is typical of Mozilla documentation, it doesn't give a full
description, such as if it accepts a hyphen separated port range.
Once you know it accepts strings, you'll have to test.

And if you were thinking "I'll just search through the source
tarball for this preference", I don't think it's quite that easy.
Don't expect "Network.security.ports.banned.override" to be printed
in a single line in a .c or .h file.

That's a trick we used to use with Unix binaries. Is search for
text strings like the above in the binary. We used to build
lists of preferences, based on what we'd find in the binary.
These would be things like Xresources.

I can tell you from first experience, you don't want to *delete*
entries in a hurry. Take your time. Because, there's no undo.
And if you didn't write down or copy the entry name before deletion,
you could be left guessing later "now, what did I delete exactly ?"
You'd think they would have a save or commit or other mechanism
as a "gross undo". But once you edit, it'd edited. I may have
hit the wrong key by accident one day, and out of the corner of my
eye, I could see a couple entries disappear. Then the fun part
was figuring out what happened. The interface doesn't take
prisoners and is on the nasty side.

Paul

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

Shadow,

Possible values and their effects

A comma delimited list of port numbers to allow.

No such phrases exist in the page I got from Paul. But thank you. While
re-reading the page I found that it indeed mentions the addition of another
port by using a comma between them. No idea how I could have overlooked it
:-\

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

Paul,

As is typical of Mozilla documentation, it doesn't give a full
description

:-) More companies are guilty of that. Even on their MSDN pages it
sometimes goes wrong. :-\

description, such as if it accepts a hyphen separated port range.
Once you know it accepts strings, you'll have to test.

Agreed. I just opted to check if the info is available, before perhaps
spending unneccessary time on it (and keep wondering if what I find is
official or not).

That's a trick we used to use with Unix binaries. Is search for
text strings like the above in the binary.

Jup. Did the same when looking for the domain names FF 5.5 calls out to
(services, telemetry, etc.). Didn't find them. Got a hint they might be in
a certain .JS file (compressed most likely, which might explain why I missed
them). Still need to check it out though.

I can tell you from first experience, you don't want to *delete*
entries in a hurry. Take your time. Because, there's no undo.

Agreed. But I'm not really in the habit of deleting stuff when I have no
idea what the effect might be while not having made a backup of the involved
files. And as in this case that is as simple as copying the current profile
folder to somewhere else ...

You'd think they would have a save or commit or other mechanism
as a "gross undo".

I also looked for the submit button after I changed stuff in the config.
Still feels odd to just leave that page without doing it (but everything
seems to stick). The latter ? That is what that "copy to another folder"
(or its big brother) backup is ment for. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Firefox "helpully" refusing to connect to certain ports
 

On Thu, 26 Apr 2018 08:55:01 -0400, Paul wrote:

They actually have you add a preference to about:config .

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1083282

network.security.ports.banned.override

https://prod-cdn.sumo.mozilla.net/up...-30-d45faa.png

Paul

Nice.

For Chrome and clones, use the "--explicitly-allowed-ports" switch. e.g.

chrome.exe --explicitly-allowed-ports=87

For Opera Blink, if the "--ran-launcher" switch is used, that
"--ran-launcher" switch must be specified last. i.e.

opera.exe --explicitly-allowed-ports=87 --ran-launcher