Export & Import

easywall can export and import all firewall rules as a single JSON file. Use this for backups before major changes, migrating rule sets between servers, and keeping your firewall configuration in version control.

Exporting Rules

1. Navigate to Dashboard
2. Click Export Rules
3. Your browser downloads a file named easywall-rules-YYYY-MM-DD.json

The exported file contains the staged rule set — the current state of all pending changes. If you want to export the actively running rules, apply your staged changes first, then export.

Importing Rules

1. Navigate to Dashboard
2. Click Import Rules
3. Select a previously exported .json file
4. easywall validates the file contents — invalid port numbers, malformed IPs, and unknown protocols are rejected
5. On success, the rules are loaded as staged rules
6. Go to Apply to activate them with the two-step confirmation

Warning

Importing replaces all staged rules. The currently running (applied) firewall rules are not changed until you explicitly apply the import.

File Format

The export format is a flat JSON object with one array per rule type:

{
  "tcp": [
    {"port": "22",  "description": "SSH",   "ssh": true},
    {"port": "80",  "description": "HTTP",  "ssh": false},
    {"port": "443", "description": "HTTPS", "ssh": false}
  ],
  "udp": [
    {"port": "53", "description": "DNS", "ssh": false}
  ],
  "blacklist": [
    "192.0.2.1",
    "198.51.100.0/24"
  ],
  "whitelist": [
    "203.0.113.10"
  ],
  "forwarding": [
    {"protocol": "tcp", "source_port": 2222, "dest_port": 22}
  ],
  "custom": [
    "iif eth0 ip protocol udp udp dport 1194 accept"
  ]
}

Field Reference

Field	Type	Description
tcp	array	TCP port rules — port (string), description (string), ssh (bool)
udp	array	UDP port rules — same structure as tcp
blacklist	array of strings	Blocked IPs/CIDRs (IPv4 and IPv6)
whitelist	array of strings	Trusted IPs/CIDRs (bypass all rules)
forwarding	array	Port forwarding rules — protocol, source_port, dest_port
custom	array of strings	Raw nftables match expressions appended to the input chain

All fields are optional — an empty array [] means no rules for that type.

Use Cases

Server Migration

1. Export rules from the old server
2. Transfer the JSON file to the new server
3. Import on the new server
4. Apply with two-step confirmation — verify connectivity before confirming

Pre-Change Backup

Before making significant changes, export the current rules. If something goes wrong, you can re-import from the backup without manually recreating every rule.

Version Control

Commit your exported JSON to git alongside your Ansible playbooks or Terraform configs:

# Export via API or manually, then commit
git add easywall-rules-production.json
git commit -m "chore: update firewall rules — open port 8080 for staging"

Automation via Command Line

The rules JSON can be constructed programmatically and POSTed to the web API. Combine with your infrastructure-as-code workflow:

# Example: generate rules.json from a template and import via curl
curl -k -b cookies.txt \
  -F "file=@rules.json" \
  https://server:12227/import

Validation

easywall validates every import before staging it. Rejected conditions:

• Port numbers outside 1–65535
• Malformed CIDR notation (e.g. 192.168.1.1/33)
• Invalid IP addresses
• Unknown forwarding protocol (only tcp and udp are accepted)
• Forwarding ports outside valid range

Validation errors are shown inline — no partial imports occur.