Why does my firewall reply to pings sent to its inside IP address when I ping from the Internet, even though there are no firewall rules to allow ping through the firewall?

Problem description

My firewall has a public IP address on the outside interface and a private IP address on the inside interface. If I try to ping the inside IP address from a computer located outside the firewall, it replies to ping even when no firewall rules have been set up.

Explanation

Rules in the firewall only affect traffic addressed through the firewall, not traffic to the firewall. The firewall always listens for traffic to all its IP addresses on all interfaces. It replies to ping in the described manner because the setting Policy For Ping to Your Ingate Firewall is set to Reply to ping to all IP addresses. If you want the outside interface to only reply to ping to the public outside IP address, you should change the setting into Only reply to ping to the same interface. If you don't want the firewall to reply to ping at all, select Never reply to ping.

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