Manage classic firewalls

Abiquo implements vCloud firewall policies and classic firewalls at the Edge level, which is the distributed virtual firewall in vCenter and NSX.

First, when the user assigns a firewall to a deployed VM, the platform creates a new rule with the source or destination that points to the VM object.

Secondly, when a user creates a classic firewall rule, the platform will implement it as described in the following table.

When using a NAT IP in a VM, the platform also creates a firewall rule. And when using a public IP or NAT IP as a load balancer address, the platform also creates a firewall rule.

To restore the previous configuration with the firewall at the vApp network level, set the "abiquo.vcd.firewall.vappnetwork" property to true.

Abiquo enables you to onboard and edit Classic firewalls from vCloud Director. A classic firewall is the firewall service in the orgVdc Edge. Users work with classic firewalls at the public cloud region level. In the platform there is no association between classic firewalls and virtual datacenters or classic firewalls and VMs, so you may need to onboard classic firewalls separately.

To onboard classic firewalls:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → Locations
2. Select a region
3. Go to Network → Classic firewalls
4. At the bottom of the Classic firewalls list, click the double-arrow synchronize button
5. For each classic firewall that you want to onboard, select the classic firewall and click the double-arrow synchronize button next to the firewall name. The platform will retrieve the classic firewall and its rules.

To synchronize a firewall that you onboarded earlier, click the synchronize double-arrow button beside the firewall name.

Troubleshooting: If the classic firewall tab does not display as expected, check that your platform has the correct UI configuration for this feature

To edit a classic firewall:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → All → Network → Classic firewalls 
2. Select the firewall and click the pencil edit button.

Change the name and description as required, then click Save.

View the provider ID of a classic firewall

To view the provider ID of a classic firewall, edit the firewall.

In vCloud Director, when traffic arrives at the firewall, the Edge will attempt to match the rules from rule 0 to the end of the list of rules. The Edge will use the last rule (with the highest sequence number) as the default rule. The default rule must cover all ports from any source or destination and you cannot move an invalid rule into the last position.

The platform will maintain the rules in order with no gaps.

To change the order of rules, click the pencil edit button beside a Sequence number, then enter a new Sequence number and click ok. The platform will move the other rules to fit around the changed rule.

For example, to move a rule from position 1 to position 2, enter 2 and click "ok".

The platform will now move the rule that was in position 2 to position 1. 

You can edit existing rules and create new rules for classic firewalls. 

To create a firewall rule, click the + add button and complete the following dialog.

For more details see GUI Create classic firewall rule