The IPNetSentry Companion Application provides an interface which lets you control, setup, and register IPNetSentry. IPNetSentry is a Faceless Background Application (FBA) which protects your Macintosh from remote Internet intruders.
Control:
You can turn the IPNetSentry Faceless Background Application on and off with the ΓÇ£Turn OnΓÇ¥ and ΓÇ£Turn OffΓÇ¥ buttons.
IPNetSentry automatically starts upon each restart of your Macintosh (with the exception of the initial restart after installing). You must manually start IPNetSentry the first time you run it through the IPNetSentry Companion application.
You can permenantly disable IPNetSentry by either:
a. Using the Control Panel ΓÇ£Extensions MangerΓÇ¥ to remove the IPNetSentry FBA from your active Extensions list.
b. Putting a #quit statement at the beginning of your IPNetSentry Config file (which resides in your Preferences folder). You can edit this file with SimpleText or any text editor (although for most configurations we strongly urge you to use the Configure function).
Setup:
The ΓÇ£ConfigureΓÇ¥ button will take your browser to a web page where you can customize your IPNetSentry Configuration. There are more complete configuration instructions in our configuration web page, which guides you through a step-by-step setup. For most users our default IPNetSentry Configuration will suffice and provide excellent protection to your Macintosh.
Creating a new IPNetSentry Configuration file with the web interface will automatically download the file to your machine and restart the IPNetSentry FBA so that your new configuration will be active.
The ΓÇ£Test ΓÇ£ button will take your browser to a web page where you can test your IPNetSentry installation and setup. This page lets you act as an ΓÇ£intruderΓÇ¥ from one of our remote servers. Our Test IPNetSentry web page has step-by-step instructions on performing such tests.
View:
The ΓÇ£LogΓÇ¥ button lets you readily view the last 32K bytes of the IPNetSentry.log file in a separate Log window. It also displays new log events in real-time.
By holding down the "Shift" key when clicking the "Log" button, this will open the IPNetSentry log file with a text editor. The default text editor is SimpleText. Note, however, that log files can become quite large and may become too large for SimpleText. Hence, you may find it preferable to use another default text editor to open your log files. To set another default text editor, just save a file named ΓÇ£IPNetSentry.logΓÇ¥ in your Preferences Folder (within your System Folder) with this new text editor.
The ΓÇ£Aged FiltersΓÇ¥ button opens a new window displaying current aged filters which are used by IPNetSentry. This button also stops the IPNetSentry FBA from running. Aged filters are filters which are automatically invoked by IPNetSentry when an outside intruder hits an IPNetSentry trigger. Through the Aged Filter window you can view all current aged filters, view their specific expiration date and time, and get more information about a specific IP address which caused the aged filter entry. You can also delete aged filters. Each time IPNetSentry is restarted it re-loads the IPNetSentry Aged Filter file and restores these filters. When a filter reaches its expiration time, it is automatically removed from the IPNetSentry Aged Filter file.
Registration:
If you are running IPNetSentry during our 21 day trial mode, you will see the IPNetSentry registration fields.
You can securely register IPNetSentry online using a major credit card by clicking the ΓÇ£Register OnlineΓÇ¥ button. Or you can register via regular mail (check or money order) by using the ΓÇ£RegisterΓÇ¥ application in the IPNetSentry folder.
Once you receive your registration key, you can enter your registration information in the edit boxes. If you have registered online, you can simply enter all this information at once by simply copying and pasting the registration hex hash key into the ΓÇ£Reg KeyΓÇ¥ field. This hex hash key has all your information (Name, Org, Copies, Date, Reg Key) encoded into it.
In either case (entering individual data or using the hex hash key) you should then click the ΓÇ£Save RegistrationΓÇ¥ button to complete registration of IPNetSentry. Upon successful registration, the IPNetSentry Companion window will then collapse. The registration fields will no longer be displayed.
You can always view your IPNetSentry registration information at a later time through the ΓÇ£About IPNetSentry...ΓÇ¥ window.
Removal of IPNetSentry from your System:
We STRONGLY recommend that you use the "Uninstall" function within the IPNetSentry installer to remove all IPNetSentry components. The Uninstall function properly removes all uneeded IPNetSentry components and restores your original TCP/IP Preferences file.
IF you elect to manually uninstall IPNetSentry and all of its components, please make sure to dispose of your TCP/IP preferences file and then reconfigure your TCP/IP control panel. IF, HOWEVER, you run our IPNetMonitor or IPNetRouter applications, then you MUST NOT dispose of the OTModl$Proxy extension nor is there any need to dispose of your TCP/IP preferences file. IPNetSentry, IPNetRouter, and IPNetMonitor all use the same OTModl$Proxy extension.
