Enabling firewall without locking ourselves out

August 15, 2014 1.8k views
mario.guzzi
By:
mario.guzzi

Hello,
I am a new user of digital ocean. I have a droplet that is up but I have not turned on the firewall yet. I would like some advice on the correct process to turn on the firewall without closing access to ssh (which I only presume could happen).

My questions:
1) Does console access work regarless of firewall settings?
2) On Ubuntu 12.04, by default, will “ufw enable” close access to ssh (port 22)?
3) If so, will console still work for us to configure ufw properly?

Thanks in advance,
Mario G.

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1 Answer
kamaln7 MOD August 15, 2014

1) Does console access work regarless of firewall settings?

Yes. The remote console accesses your droplet through the hypervisor, so your firewall settings will not affect it.

2) On Ubuntu 12.04, by default, will “ufw enable” close access to ssh (port 22)?

It depends on ufw’s default policy (allow/deny). I would recommend temporarily adding a rule that allows all connections from your IP, and once you’re sure your firewall settings are correct, you can remove it:

sudo ufw allow from your-ip-address
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