TCP/IP Filtering is a component of the Security Policy Management snap-in, which is part of the Security Center product. Security Center provides a wizard that enables a security administrator to create, test, update, and maintain a TCP/IP security rules file. Security rules are applied by the TCP/IP network provider to all incoming and outgoing packets. By creating these rules, the security administrator can restrict access to and from the MCP environment.

TCP/IP Filtering can be used to manage security rules. In addition, Security Policy Management supports testing, but does not support deployment of the TCP/IP security rules file. If a rules file is created or updated through TCP/IP Filtering, and it has not been tested at least once, a warning dialog box appears to indicate that the rules file must be tested by using the TCP/IP Rules File Test wizard before deployment on an MCP server.

Security Center is the recommended product to create and maintain TCP/IP security rules. Refer to the Security Center Help for more information about Security Center and creating the TCP/IP security rules file.

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