Hi, after upgrading to MacOS Sequoia, my connection to my local IP address does not work. The issue is with the PF (MacOS advanced firewall), as I confirmed that my local application works disabling it temporarily.
Does anyone know how can I do to solve this problem? As APP developer, this is a big problem for me.
Thanks in advance.
This feature is known as local network privacy, and there’s a bunch of information about it in TN3179 Understanding local network privacy.
The issue is with the PF (MacOS advanced firewall)
Can you clarify what you mean by this? How is PF a factor in this issue? Who is enabling it? And to what end?
For context, macOS’s built-in firewall, configured in System Settings > Network > Firewall, is know as the application firewall and isn’t based on PF.
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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
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Hi, System Settings > Network > Firewall is deactivated, bu t my application does not work. Only way of make my application work during few seconds is running the command 'pfctl -d'. So this means, the MacOS advanced firewall is interrupting my local ip connection to run my application.
Also, is not just running my local ip in my laptop, as most important is to use the local ip to debug&test my application from my iPhone pointing to my local app. So I need this working as it was in Sonoma, where we had no issues at all.
I’m very confused here. macOS does not have a built-in firewall based on PF. Various macOS facilities use PF internally, but not for firewall functionality [1].
If I take a stock macOS 15.0 system and try to disable PF on it, I see this:
% sudo pfctl -d
…
pfctl: pf not enabled
That is, PF started out disabled. So something on your system is enabling PF, and I encourage you to investigate what that is.
You mentioned that you’re unable to make local connections in your “app”. What sort of app is that? If it’s an iOS app running in the simulator, I recommend that you upgrade to macOS 15.6, which fixes a bug causing local network privacy problems in that case.
But if you’re referring to something else, I’d appreciate details as to what that is, because the best path forward is going to depend on your ultimate destination.
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
[1] The built-in firewall, aka the application firewall, doesn’t use PF, but is implemented on top of Network Extension infrastructure.