Manage classic firewalls

Classic firewalls implementation

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.

Source or destination	New rule created using....
Any/Internal/External/All	A Network object. "Any" or "All" maps to ''VSE''
object:vcloudUrn (e.g. the internal providerId of a vm) Also ''IP Sets'' or ''Security Groups'', aggregations in NSX/vCloud, configured in orgVdc / Security	A VM (for example) object - (source or destination restricted to specific virtual machine)
IP or IPstart-IPend or network CIDR	A single IP, a IP range or an IP network specification
Comma separated list of the above values, e.g. 10.60.1.0,object:vmInternalProvidrId,10.60.2.0/24	An IP, a VM, and a network CIDR

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.

Onboard classic firewalls

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:

Go to Virtual datacenters → Locations
Select a region
Go to Network → Classic firewalls
At the bottom of the Classic firewalls list, click the double-arrow synchronize button
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.

Classic firewalls in location view

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

Edit a classic firewall

To edit a classic firewall:

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

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

Edit classic firewall

View the provider ID of a classic firewall

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

Change the sequence of rules in a classic 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.

Create and edit the rules of a classic firewall

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

The last rule in the sequence is the default rule in the Edge. In vCloud Director, If you disable the default rule, this will disable the firewall service in the Edge. This will mean that the rules will exist in the Edge but they will not be active.

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

Field	Description
Sequence	Position in the order of evaluation of rules, which is from lowest to highest with the default rule at the end. Create rules using existing sequence numbers and the platform will reorder the rules to fit around the new rule.
Protocols	Optionally select from the list of common protocols
Source ports	The firewall rule will apply to this inclusive range of ports
Source	Source can be in the following formats: IP address, CIDR, IP range, 'any', 'internal', and 'external'
Destination ports	The firewall rule will apply to this inclusive range of ports
Destination	Destination can be in the following formats: IP address, CIDR, IP range, 'any', 'internal', and 'external'
Description	Describe the classic firewall rule
Action	Select "Allow" or "Deny".
Logged	Select to use logging. Optional
Enabled	Select to enable the rule. The last rule is the default. To disable the firewall in the Edge, disable the default rule. The rules will still be present, but the Edge will not apply them

Manage classic firewalls with the API

API Documentation

For the Abiquo API documentation of this feature, see Abiquo API Resources and the page for this resource ClassicFirewallsResource.