If you’ve just bought one of our brand new VPS, or are considering making the purchase, you may have a few questions you’d like answered. 

One of these topics might include how to use a VPS firewall. This blog post will cover everything you need to know about VPS firewalls, including how to edit a VPS firewall policy.

Where to find your firewall policies

The first step in finding your firewall policies is to log into your Fasthosts account. If you’ve recently bought a VPS with us, you’ll already be familiar with the Control Panel.

Firewall policies let you control which types of network traffic can access your VPS, and the Cloud Panel firewall controls inbound traffic. All of our VPS products sit behind a firewall in the Cloud Panel.

To find your firewall policies, follow these steps:

  • Once in your account, click on ‘Virtual Private Servers’.
  • Select your server from the list. This will load the Cloud Panel.
  • Click ‘Network’, then ‘Firewall Policies’
  • You’ll then see a list with your firewall policy. You should also see the following:
    • Name – the name given to the policy, which can be changed at any time
    • Status – the current status of the policy. This will either be active (the firewall policy is enabled), disabled (the firewall policy is disabled), being configured (the configuration of the firewall policy is being changed) or removed (the firewall policy is being deleted).
    • Port(s) – ports that are enabled in the firewall policy for incoming requests
  • Click on your policy to open more information. Here you’ll see:
    • Action – specifies that traffic defined in the firewall rule is allowed
    • Allowed IP – IP address(es) that incoming traffic is allowed
    • Protocol – protocol which the data connection is established
    • Port(s) – port used for the data connection
    • Description – the description of the firewall rule
    • Created on – date when the firewall policy was created
    • Assigned IP – the IP(s) which the firewall policy applies to

Now that you know how to find your firewall policy, let’s take a look at how to edit one.

Editing your VPS firewall policy

To start, follow steps 1-3 from above. Then, once you see the list of firewall policies, click on the one you want to edit. There are a few different things you can edit with your firewall policy.

Rule name and description

This is the simplest area to edit. To edit the rule name and description, click on the pencil icon next to either and type in whatever text you like.

Adding a new rule

To add a new rule to your policy, you’ll need to:

  • Enter the following at the end of your current rules:
    • Allowed IP – enter an IP that you want your rule to apply to. You could also leave this blank to apply your rule to the internet
    • Protocol – select the protocol for your rule from the dropdown
    • Port(s) – enter the port number(s) for your rule
    • Description – enter a description for your rule. This is optional.
  • When you’ve completed all of these, click the ‘tick’ icon to add your new rule.

Editing a rule

  • Click ‘edit’ next to the rule you want
  • Make any edits you like to the allowed IP, protocol, port(s) or description.
  • Click the ‘tick’ icon when you’re done.

Removing a rule

Another simple thing to edit – click the ‘minus’ icon next to the rule you want to remove.

The next generation of VPS

Now that you know all there is to know about finding and editing VPS firewalls in our Control Panel, why not get a brand new VPS to go with it (if you haven’t already, that is!).

With our new range of VPS, you’ll get more power and performance than ever before. That includes unlimited traffic, free Plesk Web Host Edition with every model, up to 1.5TB NVMe storage and up to 64GB RAM – plus so much more.

If you’ve got any questions or are thinking about making a purchase, get in touch. Give us a call on 0800 0612 153 or message via live chat.