Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I whitelist IP addresses ?
- How do I build the latest version from svn ?
- Where can I get a description of the various lists ?
- The GUI doesn't seem to start. "sudo ipblock -g" shows an exception.
- Does IPblock work with other firewall applications ?
- Some applications cannot connect to the internet.
- IPblock freezes (Ubuntu Hardy)
- IPblock and 100% CPU use (Ubuntu Intrepid)
- Loading lists takes very long.
- What does blocking connections mean ?
- Why do I get the message "error: update of list failed" ?
- Can I use IPblock on the command-line and the GUI ?
- I get an error message and/or it doesn't seem to work. Why ?
- How do I exclude a port range ?
- Why not use the build-in blocklist feature of my P2P application ?
How do I whitelist IP addresses ?
Create a p2p list in /var/cache/iplist/ and add the file to
ALLOW_LIST in /etc/ipblock.conf. Before editing the configuration
file the GUI needs to be closed.
A sample p2p list:
How do I build the latest version from svn ?
The following packages are required to build a deb package (Ubuntu, Debian): g++,
libnetfilter-queue-dev, zlib1g-dev, libpcre3-dev, fakeroot, debhelper.
cd iplist && make deb
Where can I get a description of the various lists ?
Checkout the bluetack blocklist FAQ.
The rest are country specific lists.
The GUI doesn't seem to start/work
Try to change the jre to sun's VM version 1.6 with
sudo update-alternatives --config java
Does IPblock work with other firewall applications ?
Yes. But IPblock needs to be started after other firewall applications.
Some applications cannot connect to the internet.
You could try whitelisting IPs or ports. HTTP and other common ports
can be set in the Settings tab.
IPblock freezes (Ubuntu Hardy)
gcj conflicts with sun's java and can cause such behavior. In order
to fix it I would remove every package that contains *gcj*
(especially gcj-4.1, gcj-4.2, java-gcj-compat). Most packages that
need gcj depend on a metapackage java2-runtime which is provided by
sun-java[5-6]-jre, so it shouldn't remove any wanted packages.
IPblock and 100% CPU use (Ubuntu Intrepid)
This bug seems to be related to CacaoVM. Using sun's VM should fix
it:
sudo update-alternatives --config java
Loading lists takes very long.
Try to convert the lists to IPL format with (as root)
What does blocking connections mean ?
In this case blocking means to reject outgoing or forwarded connections
with tcp-reset or icmp-port-unreachable. Packets of incoming connections
are dropped.
Why do I get the message "error: update of list failed" ?
This is normal. Sometimes the update server is temporary down or under heavy load.
Just try again later.
Can I use IPblock on the command-line and the GUI ?
Yes. The GUI can detect if IPblock is already running.
GUI does not stop blocking if you close it.
I get an error message and/or it doesn't seem to work. Why ?
Open a thread in the help forum and post /tmp/ipblockUI.log and the output of
How do I exclude a port range ?
The syntax for port ranges is e.g. 5000:5100 .
Why not use the build-in blocklist feature of my P2P application ?
P2P applications only block connections relevant to their process (transport layer).
However IPblock uses the operating system's firewall interface
(network layer) which has the advantage that all connections regardless of the
protocoll, host, process and content are filtered. Furthermore users of IPblock
are in "stealth mode" which prevents blocked hosts to determine wheter they are
online or not. Other features are: wide range of lists, auto-update, whitelists,
multi-threaded design, higly customizable, ...