[cobalt-users] Port 137 Question: Revisited

[Wayne Sagar <wsagar@xxxxxxxx>]

This one has been discussed but in reviewing my messages and collecting my
thoughts on the subject I'm not sure I've ever gotten a definitive answer...

As probably does everyone, I get a LOT of rejected connections on port
137.. I've been told that we do not operate any services on that port and
disarming portsenty for that port would be fine.. and also told that I
should ignore the warnings and leave it protected by portsentery...

The net effect of leaving it protected is I'm adding a lot of likely
innocent machines into my hosts.deny file... 

For whatever reason, it seems a lot of windoze boxes try to connect to that
port... be it the vbs virus that some have or misconfigured machines or
what have you...

Is there any way to just disable port 137? Turn it off completely...

Or indeed, are we safe telling portsentry to ignore connects at that
port... I have a feeling I'm harming my traffic to the site by denying all
those machines... we're at several hundred entries into hosts.deny from
port 137 connects alone and I'm seeing some reduction in overall traffic....

Please.. anyone.. can we safely turn off monitoring port 137 or can we
totally tell apache to close that port?

Wayne Sagar