Configuring firewall and securing services

Part 5 of the Series: Windows 11 on Your Root Server: RDP, Tailscale & VPN for a Free Internet

Now we need to configure the firewall so that certain ports — especially for RDP — are only accessible via Tailscale.

Download the firewall scripts from my GitHub repository: Download ZIP

Extract the archive into a directory of your choice.

Then open Windows PowerShell with administrator privileges to run the scripts.

Click Start and type PowerShell into the search field. Then either:

• Right-click Windows PowerShell → Run as administrator,

or

• Right-click the entry in the list and select Run as administrator.

First, allow the execution of PowerShell scripts in Windows. Enter the following command and press Enter:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Confirm the prompt with Y (or J on German keyboards).

This allows locally created scripts to run, while downloaded scripts require a valid signature.

Next, use the cd command to navigate to the directory where you saved the extracted files.

There you’ll find three scripts. Use firewall-verification.ps1 to check which ports are currently open and which services are accessible from the internet.

Then run firewall-configuration.ps1 to activate the firewall rules.

After the script runs, you’ll be prompted to restart your PC.

Once the system has rebooted, run firewall-verification.ps1 again – it should now confirm that all rules have been successfully applied.

You can now close PowerShell.

In the next section, we’ll activate Windows and minimize data transfer to Microsoft.