Quick Tip: Color Coding Rules

Firewall policies can be long and complex which often makes them difficult to read. To help make it easier to quickly look at a rule and know what category of rule it is Firewall Builder provides color coding for rules.

There are lots of ways you can set up your color coding, here are a few common examples.

• Use different colors for each security zone (inside, outside, dmz)
• Use different colors for each interface (eth0, eth1, etc.)
• Use different colors for server rules, workstation rules and other rules

For this example we are going to color code our rules based on the direction and security zone the rule applies to. The firewall configuration is based on one of the built-in templates that comes with Firewall Builder.

Security Zone & Direction	Color
Inside Trusted to Internet	Red
Inside Trusted to DMZ	Blue
Outside Untrusted to DMZ	Yellow
DMZ to Internet	Grey
All other	default White

Set Rule Color

To set the color of a rule, right-click on the rule number and select Change color from the menu options. Click on the desired

Rule Color Example

After we color code our rules based on the color mapping defined above our rules would look something like this:

NOTE: You can set the color for multiple rules at the same time by selecting multiple rules, then right-clicking on one of the selected rules and setting the color.