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What firewall rules do I need to apply to block MSN Messenger? I've applied the following:

msgr.hotmail.com
messenger.hotmail.com
gateway.messenger.hotmail.com
login.live.com

I've also blocked all traffic on port 1863.

Still able to sign-in.

Any suggestions?

7 Answers 7

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Far better to prevent MSN Messenger from being run; it's stopping the problem at source.

Blocking some of those sites - particularly login.live.com - could impact on other services, such as your ability to access https://licensing.microsoft.com, MSDN or Technet.

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Blocking traffic on the specific port will do little as the basics of MSN Messenger can operate over HTTP these days, so only blocking the relevant hosts (or ranges of hosts) will work.

To find out what hosts it is communicating with you can use a tool such as tcpdump, though this may be a cat-and-mouse chase as you block a couple of hosts and it uses another until you've got them all covered.

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  • As David says; MSN Messenger can operate over Port 80 if all it's "normal" ports are blocked. Good for the user but a nightmare for the SysAdmin. Aug 4, 2009 at 9:33
  • This link is quite old but might be useful - at least it provides alternatives to Port Blocking: novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/3241.html Aug 4, 2009 at 9:41
  • IME, the very most foolproof method is to block the known ports and then proxy filter HTTP.
    – Dan Carley
    Aug 4, 2009 at 10:00
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if you are using a applciation proxy you can block messenger there, or you can create a GPO with software restrictions to prevent messenger from running.

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Use tcpdump to find out what type of traffic does MSN messenger generate. Than block it ;)

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Add MSN Messenger TCP - 1863,6891-6900,6901, UDP - 1863,5190,6901 to your firewall rules.

Also block access to the web messenger service.

You can also block it from being run via group policy or simply remove it from offending machines.

This doesn't even hit the tip of the iceberg when you have proxies and VPNs to deal with.

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I Tried to block with HTTP Headder inspections from TMG and the solution not worked. It's basically complex to block this though it's microsoft product. What I did was prevent it running using a GPO. That killed it from the root.

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