In accordance with certain aspects of the present invention, improved methods and arrangements for controlling access to a network server in a client-server environment are provided. In accordance with certain implementations, user software selectively specifies a list of network interfaces or addresses on which connections are to be accepted. This "listing" is provided to the network server software and used to selectively filter (accept/reject) connection requests associated with a wildcard socket. The network server software essentially treats the wildcard socket as if the network server bound it not to the wildcard address, but instead to all of the network interfaces and/or addresses specified. The various methods and arrangements are applicable to file-sharing software, all TCP-based and UDP-based client-server software, including HTTP servers, digital media servers, DNS servers, database servers, etc.