Searching for Rules

You can use search to help you find rules, especially when you have a large number of them.

When you search for an IP address in the source or destination network (but not as a simple text search), the system returns rules that will match the address. This includes not only exact matches, but also subnet matches. For example, searching for 10.1.1.1 will include rules for 10.1.1.0/24.

Procedure


Step 1

When editing an access control policy, build the search string by clicking in the Search box.

  • For a simple text string search, type the string. The search returns rules that have that string in any column. You cannot do a string search in conjunction with a tag search, such as combining a string search with a Source Networks search.

  • To search on a specific column, start typing the name of the column until the system prompts you with the full name, such as Source Networks, or select the name from the list of searchable fields. When you select the search tag, you can then enter the search string for that tag. For example, Source Networks 10.1.1.1.

  • After your first search, clicking in the search box prompts you with recent searches and tags. You can quickly repeat a search by selecting it, or build similar searches by selecting previous searches or tags and building on them.

  • When building a search string with multiple tags, do not include spaces between the tags.

  • When you select a tag, you are prompted with values that appear in those columns. Select the values you want to search for.

  • You can quickly filter based on some common features by clicking the filter icon to the left of the search box and selecting to show rules with any combination of the following: Allow, Block, Monitor, Intrusion Policy, Time Range, Conflicts, Warnings, Errors, Disabled rules.

  • To see the rules that apply to a specific device or set of devices, click the filter icon and select the devices. Rules apply to a device if they use security zones that contain at least one interface on the device, or if they do not include security zones.

Step 2

With your cursor at the end of the search string in the search box, press Enter.

The rules that satisfy the search string are highlighted and non-matching rules are hidden. You can deselect Show Only Matching Rules to see the entire table, with the highlighted rules within the table. This lets you see the surrounding rules.

Beside the Show Only Matching Rules checkbox is a summary of the total number of rules in the policy compared to the number that match the search string.

Step 3

To close the search and return to the unfiltered and unhighlighted table, click the X at the right of the search box. You can also put your cursor at the end of the search string and press the Esc key.