LJMU Firewall

LJMU Firewall Policy

1. PLN operate a firewall which serves two main purposes:

i) Protects the university IT facilities from external threats.
ii) Provides a control mechanism for access to the internet.

2. The following basic services are provided:

i) Electronic mail (SMTP)
This is provided by the University's central email system. Email clients connect to the appropriate email server internally, emails are then transmitted from and received by this server. No direct SMTP access from other machines is permitted by default.

ii) File-transfer (FTP)
Users can establish an FTP session from any machine within LJMU to any external FTP service. External users can establish an FTP session with the CIS provided networked filestore only.

iii) Usenet news (NNTP).
No direct access to news services is permitted. PLN operate a news server. Users can request that additional news groups are added to this server.

iv) Remote terminal access (Telnet)
Users can establish a Telnet connection from any client within LJMU to any external service. No internal services are accessible from external sources using the Telnet service.

v) Hostname/address lookup (DNS).
This service underlies the five services listed above, and translates Internet hostnames to IP addresses and vice versa.

vi) Network Time Protocol (NTP).
A single time source for LJMU is synchronised with external time sources. All users requiring to synchronise time, should do so with the internal time source.

3. The firewall operates on a "block all" principle. Unless a service is explicitly permitted, it will be blocked.

4. All requests for changes to the policy should be sanctioned by the Director of School, Head of Service, or their nominated representative.

5. Each school or service may nominate one representative who should ideally have technical IT competence.

6. By requesting an additional service to be made available through the firewall, the users accept responsibility to maintain the integrity of the host machines. This means that:

i) all necessary software patches are applied in a timely manner
ii) virus detection software is kept up-to-date.
iii) Access Control lists (ACLs) are maintained.
iv) Password/Authentication systems are maintained.

7. By sanctioning a request, the Director of School/Service (or their nominated representative) accepts responsibility for ensuring compliance with this policy.

8. The policy must be re-affirmed on an annual basis. A copy of the current rules will be provided to the nominated contacts on 1st November each year. School Directors and Heads of Service will also be asked to confirm the validity of their nominated representatives.

9. PLN will not make changes to the firewall rule base that they consider will pose an unreasonable risk to the university.

Request a change to the LJMU Firewall

Appendix A – Nominated contacts for firewall policy

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