How to make inaccessible from outside?

[jonwondering]

Guys, hi, I looked everywhere for a secure way to simply disallow access for anybody other than localhost, and all I found was either complex Mac OS X firewall rules or something not useful. Is there a way to make all of XAMPP parts - Apache, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, and ProFTP work only for localhost?! (I am not talking about running XAMPP security script, and I am not behind a firewall or router. This is just a simple development laptop that really doesn't need ANY outside connections.)

Thanks.

[caltuna]

If you are behind a router you are already safe because it will not let anyone hitting port 80 to get into your local IP addresses (i.e. localhost which is 127.0.0.1)

[jonwondering]

Okay thanks for that, but this is exactly why I wrote:

and I am not behind a firewall or router

[Wiedmann]

This is just a simple development laptop that really doesn't need ANY outside connections.)

Maybe just unplug your network cable?

Is there a way to make all of XAMPP parts - Apache, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, and ProFTP work only for localhost?

- Apache: you can change the "Listen" directives
- MySQL: you can completely disable TCP/IP networking
- PHPMyAdmin: is not a server
- ProFTP: can also be configured to bind only to 127.0.0.1

and all I found was either complex Mac OS X firewall rules

Well, don't have a Mac, but is OS X's built-in Personal Firewall not easy to configure?

[jonwondering]

Hi Wiedmann,

Thanks for your reply. I've been slowly getting information about all of this and was going to post what I found but you beat me to it

Maybe just unplug your network cable?

My webapp uses APIs heavily so I often need to check how it works so that's why I can't really unplug (although it'd be nice).

- Apache: you can change the "Listen" directives

For anyone else that might be interested: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Apach ... g%20Apache
For MySQL, scroll down to "--bind-address=127.0.0.1": http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/ ... erver.html (although read a few posts that it might not help)

is OS X's built-in Personal Firewall not easy to configure?

Yeah it looks so, I've gotten my first one just a few days ago, but I wasn't sure if the 3rd option "Set access for specific services and applications" gives you a choice of allowing only certain IP's (like 127.0.0.1), or simply allowing/disallowing traffic for a specific app.

Looks like now I'll be on my way setting up all of this. Thanks once again for all your help guys/gals!
Cheers!