Originally posted by **Xispra** June 15, 2022
I installed ssh and tried to connect to my SL install, but the connection was refused. So was an effort to ping the IP address. When I went downstairs to my Spiral computer (not a box 7et, I still haven't put the components in a case) I couldn't even ping localhost as root! And I can't ssh even from localhost. I've never run into this before.
I looked around systemsettings5 & the menus but didn't see anything. ufw doesn't seem to be installed, that seems to be one of the more popular Linux firewalls.
I don't have much experience with firewalls, I haven't really used them since I stopped using Windows in the mid aughts. But I looked at Discover (which I'm not familiar with, I almost always use apt/apt-get, and synaptic when necessary), but didn't find anything. So I did a:
```
apt search firewall | grep installed
WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.
installed tests for firewalld
libnftables1/stable,now 0.9.8-3.1 amd64 [installed]
nftables/stable,now 0.9.8-3.1 amd64 [installed]
```
So nftables looks like some sort of firewall/packet filter. I don't want to break anything so I did a:
_systemctl stop nftables.service_
That seemed to kill the service.
```
systemctl status nftables.service
● nftables.service - nftables
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nftables.service; disabled; vendor preset: e>
Active: inactive (dead)
Docs: man:nft(8)
http://wiki.nftables.org
lines 1-5/5 (END)
```
Nonetheless I still can't ping localhost.
Is nftables what is causing this behavior?
Do I need to disable or uninstall the service and reboot? Will that muck anything up? I'm not running a net-facing server, just a local desktop machine.
Is there some GUI interface to control nftables that I overlooked?
If nftables is the issue, and inadvisable to remove, is there some web page you would recommend to get started? I need to enable ping, ssh & samba to my local network, and possibly some other stuff.
I am befuddled.
Discussed in https://github.com/orgs/SpiralLinux/discussions/15