Allow Camlane through your firewall

Why it works anyway

Desktop firewalls usually drop the phone’s incoming connection: ufw on Ubuntu, firewalld on Fedora, Windows Firewall on networks marked Public, and most company laptops. The phone still finds the computer, but can’t connect to it.

When that happens, the phone listens and the computer dials it, which firewalls allow because it’s an outgoing connection. It takes about a second and needs no setup. The phone shows Connected (via fallback), and the desktop app offers Allow phones on my local network.

Opening the firewall for your local network makes connecting faster and works with older Camlane versions too.

The ports

Port	Protocol	Used for
47393	TCP	The stream, phone to computer
47392	UDP	The discovery probe
5353	UDP	mDNS discovery

Allow your local network only, for example 192.168.1.0/24. The Dashboard’s “This computer” address shows yours. Never forward these ports from your router to the internet.

One click in the desktop app

Click Allow phones on my local network on the Dashboard. Camlane asks for your password and runs one fixed command for your subnet (ufw or firewalld on Linux, Windows Firewall on Windows). Nothing else changes.

Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint (ufw)

1. Check that ufw is on: sudo ufw status shows Status: active.

2. With the Camlane .deb installed, one rule is enough, because the package adds a ufw profile:

   sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any app Camlane
   

3. With the AppImage, add the ports:

   sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 47393 proto tcp comment Camlane
   sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 47392 proto udp comment Camlane
   sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 5353 proto udp comment Camlane
   

4. Check with sudo ufw status numbered. To undo, sudo ufw delete <number> for each Camlane rule.

Fedora, RHEL, openSUSE (firewalld)

1. Check that firewalld runs: sudo firewall-cmd --state prints running.

2. With the Camlane package, which adds a camlane service:

   sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=camlane && sudo firewall-cmd --reload
   

3. Without it, open the ports:

   sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=47393/tcp --add-port=47392/udp --add-port=5353/udp
   sudo firewall-cmd --reload
   

4. Check with sudo firewall-cmd --list-all. To undo, repeat with --remove-service or --remove-port.

Windows

The .exe installer adds a Windows Firewall rule named Camlane for private and domain networks, and removes it when you uninstall. The .msi doesn’t, so use the in-app button or one of these:

• Settings: Windows Security → Firewall & network protection → Allow an app through firewall → Change settings → Allow another app → Camlane.exe (usually in C:\Program Files\Camlane\) → tick Private.

• Command line, in PowerShell or Command Prompt as administrator:

  netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Camlane" dir=in action=allow program="C:\Program Files\Camlane\Camlane.exe" profile=private,domain enable=yes
  

  To undo: netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="Camlane".

Windows blocks most incoming connections on Public networks. Set your Wi-Fi to Private: Settings → Network & internet → Wi-Fi → your network → Private network.

macOS

The first time a phone connects, macOS asks whether Camlane may accept incoming network connections. Click Allow. If you clicked Deny: System Settings → Network → Firewall → Options → Camlane → Allow incoming connections.

Company and school computers

Managed firewalls often can’t be changed without IT. The fallback still works because the computer dials out to the phone. If even that fails, the network blocks devices from talking to each other; use a phone hotspot.