Little Snitch enables you to create rules in many different ways and on many different hierarchical levels. This may lead to redundant rules or invalid rules. Suggestions help you with cleaning up your existing rule set, as well as with creating new rules. Rules become invalid when the targeted app was moved or uninstalled.
Rule group subscriptions use a
.lsrules
file, which is a JSON format specified in this chapter. Such files can be exported using Little Snitch Configuration or created using a text editor or a script.A simple example
Let’s start with a simple example that specifies a single rule for allowing software updates for LaunchBar:
Blocklists
A common use case for rule group subscriptions are blocklists that contain a lot of domains, hosts, or IP addresses for which access should be flat out denied. Using the above syntax, you’d have to repeat
'process': 'any'
and 'action': 'deny'
for each domain, host, or IP address. For thousands of rules, that can lead to unnecessarily large files that in turn lead to unnecessarily large downloads for every single subscriber.Starting in Little Snitch 4.2, you can use a more compact format that looks like this:
Top-level keys
The top level of an
.lsrules
file is a JSON dictionary with the following keys:Key | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
name | String | The name of the group. |
description | String | A description of the rule grouop. |
rules | Array of Dictionaries | The list of rules. See below for rule-level keys. |
To efficiently support blocklists, the following keys were added in Little Snitch 4.2:
Key | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
denied-remote-domains | Array of Strings | A list of domain names. |
denied-remote-hosts | Array of Strings | A list of hostnames. |
denied-remote-addresses | Array of Strings | A list of IP addresses. See Anatomy of a rule > Server (remote computer) for supported syntax. |
denied-remote-notes | String | The notes that should be repeated for each rule. The placeholder %REMOTE% will be replaced with the respective domain, host, or IP-address for each rule. |
You can mix all of these keys in a single
.lsrules
file, i.e. you can define arbitrary rules in a rules
array next to a list of domains in denied-remote-domains
and a list of IP addresses in denied-remote-addresses
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Rule keys
Each rule defined in the file is a JSON dictionary with the following keys:
Specifying the process
To define which processes a rule should match, you specify the executable of the process using the following keys:
- To match any process, use:
'process': 'any'
- To match a specific process, use:
'process'
(String): A String containing the full path to the executable. For apps, this is path to the app’s executable, not the app wrapper. For example:/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
'via'
(String, optional): If the rule should only match if the executable uses a specific helper tool, you can specify its path. For example, you could create a rule that matches “Terminal via ping” by setting'path'
to Terminal’s path and'via'
to ping’s path. Note that a rule for Terminal that has no'via'
will also match connections of “Terminal via ping”.
Specifying the remote
The remote for the rule can be specified in multiple ways. You can only provide one of the following keys:
'remote-addresses'
: A String containing one or more IP addresses in the format described in Anatomy of a rule > Server (remote computer).'remote-hosts'
: Either a String with a hostname, or an Array of Strings of hostnames.'remote-domains'
: Either a String with a domain name, or an Array of Strings of domain names.'remote'
: A String with exactly one of the following values. For a description of each of these values, see Anatomy of a rule > Server (remote computer).'any'
'local-net'
'multicast'
'broadcast'
'bonjour'
'dns-servers'
'bpf'
(Berkeley Packet Filter, available starting in Little Sntich 4.4.3)
Other keys
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Key | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
direction | String, optional | The connection direction. 'incoming' or 'outgoing' , defaults to 'outgoing' . |
action | String, optional | The rule action. 'allow' , 'deny' , or 'ask' . Defaults to 'ask' . |
priority | String, optional | The rule priority. 'regular' or 'high' . Defaults to 'regular' . |
disabled | Boolean, optional | Whether or not the rule is disabled by default. Defaults to false . |
ports | String, optional | The ports the rule matches. Can be 'any' for any port (the default), a single port (e.g. '443' ), or a range of ports (e.g. '123-456' ). |
protocol | String, optional | The protocol the rule matches. Can be a numeric value as defined in /etc/protocols , like '6' for TCP, or the actual protocol name, like 'tcp' . Defaults to any protocol. |
notes | String, optional | The notes for the rule. |
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© 2016-2020 by Objective Development Software GmbH
© 2016-2020 by Objective Development Software GmbH
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The Good
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The Bad
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Mind this chatter
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Chatter from your Mac isn't all bad. In fact, most of it is good and necessary. Your Mac regularly checks the App Store to make sure your apps and OS are up to date. You stream music and movies from iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora. You send and receive email, messages, and files all as a part of your normal work and play.
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I wouldn't normally think of a firewall as something fun. It's business, pal. Just business. But that's not true of Little Snitch. Not only is it a great firewall application, it's educational and super fun to use. If you need something more than Apple's built-in firewall or if you need better insight into which applications are sending information from your Mac to servers on the Internet, Little Snitch is the best app I've seen, which makes it the best app for you.
Who goes there?
Hardware? Software? No-ware? How do you make sure your Mac's locked down and keeping your secrets to itself? Sound off in the comments below.
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