Adding new Smoothwall Firewall rules

Notes:
  • Any address objects and object groups created here are also made available for use in future rules, or existing rule amendments.
  • You can't delete the Default rule in the Catch-all section.
  • Deleting the last rule in a section doesn't delete that section. You must delete the section separately.
  • Once Save is clicked, you can't undo the changes by clicking Cancel.

Prerequisite

  • Choose a section or add a new section, see our help topic, Adding sections.

Procedure

  1. On the NETWORK menu, under the Firewall submenu, click Firewall rules and either:
    • Place your mouse cursor over the section that you want to add a rule for, click Add rule and either click Top of section or Bottom of section.
    • Expand the section and place your mouse cursor over an existing rule within the section, click Add, and then either click Rule above or Rule Below.
  2. In the Add firewall rule dialog box, enter a meaningful Name for the rule.
  3. Select or search for the Source IP addresses and the Destination IP addresses for this rule and either click Include » or Exclude » to exclude IP addresses from this rule.
    • If you can't find the address object or object group, click Create to add them directly to this rule.
    • If an object was mistakenly added, click to remove the object.
  4. Select or search for the Inbound interfaces network traffic arrives at and the Outbound interfaces network traffic is routed out through and click Add ».
  5. Select or search for the Services for this rule and click Add ».
    • If you can't find the service object or object group click Create to add them directly to this rule.
    • If an object was mistakenly added, click to remove the object.
  6. To create a Drop or Reject rule, choose the Applications (Apps) that when detected, have their network traffic blocked.
  7. Select or search for the user Groups that network traffic originates from and click Add ».
  8. From the Action list, select if the network traffic is Accepted, silently Dropped or if it's Rejected and an ICMP destination-unreachable is sent back to the originator.
  9. To log matching network connections, select the Log option, enter a descriptive Comment for this rule and click Save changes.

WARNING: Selecting the Log option can generate a large amount of log data. We recommend that you only select this for "Drop" and "Reject" Smoothwall Firewall rules.

Follow-up tasks

  • Move the rule to the correct position in the list by clicking on the section or rule and drag it to the position that you want and click Save.
  • To edit a rule, click the section arrow to expand the view and place your mouse cursor over the rule and click Edit. Make your amendments and then click Save changes.
  • To delete a rule, place your cursor over the rule and click Delete.

WARNING: Deleting a rule that has a current established connection causes that connection to fail. We recommend that you delete rules when the Smoothwall Firewall is processing minimal traffic, such as overnight.