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UFW

List UFW Firewall Rules

Troubleshooting network issues? Checking the firewall rules is one of the common steps.

List UFW firewall rules in Ubuntu

Checking firewall rules is one of the most common steps while troubleshooting network connections.

Ubuntu comes with the UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) built-in. There is no dedicated command to list firewall rules in UFW. That doesn't mean you cannot see the rules.

List firewall rules in UFW

To list the UFW firewall rules, you will have to check the status of ufw firewall.

When you check the status, it also prints the existing UFW firewall rules for your machine: 

sudo ufw status
list ufw firewall rules in ubuntu

But for some users, UFW might show the inactive status as follows:

ufw firewall inactive

This is likely because you don't have the firewall enabled.

You may enable the firewall and display the rules with the above method. But if you just want to see which rules have been added to the firewall, there is a better way.

List rules when the firewall is disabled

This method will show the user added rules even if the firewall is inactive. This is a better way because you should be checking the rules before you turn on the firewall.

sudo ufw show added

If you are accessing the server through SSH and for some reason, you have added rule blocking all incoming traffic, you won't be able to access the server via SSH if you enable the firewall.

Get additional details apart from UFW Firewall rules

Similarly, if you want additional details apart from the rules, you can append the verbose flag with the previous status command:

sudo ufw status verbose
get detailed status of ufw firewall in ubuntu

So when you go for verbose output, it gives you details about:

  • The default policy of the UFW firewall
  • Logging level

The default policy of UFW indicates how it will deal with network traffics without any tweaks by the user:

  • Routing is disabled by default
  • Incoming network packets will also be denied
  • Only outgoing connections are allowed

Now, let's have a look at the logging aspect.

There are five different levels of logs that you can achieve using the UFW firewall.

Being a broad topic, we have a dedicated guide on how you can use different levels of logging including what logs indicate in various scenarios:

How to Check Firewall Logs in Ubuntu
Checking the firewall logs can tell you about the critical details for network security. Here’s how to check UFW firewall logs in Ubuntu.
Learn UbuntuSagar Sharma