📄️ About Virtual Firewall Instances
The Firewall Instance module describes how users can create and manage virtual firewalls using specialized Linux or Windows images, thereby protecting network traffic in the cloud. It includes easy-to-understand graphs to monitor activity, tools to manage storage (volumes), and alerts to warn about security issues or unusual behavior. This makes it easy to keep your cloud network secure, organized, and running smoothly all from one place in Apiculus. The module also explains how to use snapshots for quick restoration of the Virtual Firewall and covers network management features for connecting the Virtual Firewall to associated private networks. Additionally, it provides guidance on reconfiguring the Virtual Firewall and includes basic operations such as restart, force stop, delete, and rename.
📄️ Creating a Virtual Firewall
Creating a virtual firewall allows you to deploy a firewall instance to secure and manage network traffic for your cloud resources. It helps protect your environment by applying the required security configuration and traffic control policies during deployment.
📄️ Viewing Virtual Firewalls
The virtual firewalls list provides you a centralized view of all configured virtual firewall appliances within the cloud environment. Virtual Firewalls are software-defined firewall appliances that help protect cloud instances and networks by controlling and securing network traffic.
📄️ Viewing Virtual Firewalls Details
Firewall instance details give a simple overview of the system. They show its current status, basic identifiers, and network connections. This information is important because it helps you track resources, manage connectivity, and keep communication secure.
📄️ Viewing Graphs
Graphs display key performance metrics of your Virtual Firewall instance. You can view CPU, RAM, network traffic, and disk activity on a 24‑hour time scale with a 30‑day trend line. Graphs help you track utilization patterns and configure custom alerts to manage performance effectively.
📄️ Managing Alerts
Alerts help you monitor the health and performance of your virtual firewall by notifying you when predefined conditions are met. You can create, view, modify, or delete alerts and manage email recipients to ensure the appropriate users receive notifications. Managing alerts enables you to proactively monitor your virtual firewall and respond promptly to important events.
📄️ Viewing Utilization
Utilisation reports provide historical usage details for your Virtual Firewall instance. You can view daily maximum, minimum, and average readings across all supported parameters. The utilisation table presents this information in a clear date‑wise format, and you can download the report as a .csv file for further analysis.
📄️ Managing Volumes
Manage volumes to monitor and protect the storage resources attached to your instances. Volume management allows you to view attached disks, create disk restore points to safeguard data before changes, and create custom images for rapid instance deployment and recovery. These operations help ensure data protection, simplify backup and restoration, and maintain consistent storage configurations across your cloud environment.
📄️ Networking Management
Networking management keeps your virtual firewall instance connected securely and ensures smooth traffic flow. It involves expanding connectivity when needed, assigning extra addresses for flexibility, and removing unused interfaces to keep configurations clean.
📄️ Reconfiguring Virtual Firewall
Reconfigure a virtual firewall to replace its current firewall appliance with a different one that better meets your operational and security requirements. This operation updates the firewall configuration by applying the selected appliance.
📄️ Managing Firewall Instance Operations
Managing virtual firewall operations allows you to perform essential administrative tasks on your Virtual Firewall, such as restarting, force stopping, renaming, and deleting it. These operations help you maintain the firewall, manage its lifecycle, and ensure efficient administration of your cloud resources.
📄️ Adding Instances to a VFI-based Network
Instances can be created and placed in the L2-LAN (Free Networks) created by the Virtual Firewall. These Instances use special Linux OS images, which are available as a separate OS Collection. Users can create Linux Instances, and choose the appropriate options/controls to create an Instance in the Virtual Firewall network.
📄️ Deploying VNF and VM Within VNF
This section provides a step-by-step guide for deploying a Virtual Network Function (VNF)—specifically a virtual firewall—and provisioning a Virtual Machine (VM) behind it using the Apiculus Cloud platform. This setup allows users to route VM traffic through the VNF, enabling secure and segmented network environments.