Firewalla Feature: Users

Firewalla's Users feature can help you to organize devices and network services by person. A User is like an enhanced device group with human characteristics. When you use the Firewalla AP7, you will be able to set up identity services to have the "user" participate in the zero trust network architecture.

Firewalla's Users feature can show you when, what, and for how long people are watching videos or playing games on your network. Additionally, you can set time limits to control how long a User has access to certain apps. 
 

For a quick video overview of what you can do with Firewalla Users, see our tutorial video.

1. What is a User?
2. How do I create a User?
3. User Identity
4. User Activity Tracking
5. User Activity Time Limits
6. Activity Information For Devices and Device Groups 
7. What Apps Can Firewalla Measure?

1. What is a User?

A User is Firewalla's representation of a person in your network. You can assign different devices to a User – for example, if your employee has a phone, a tablet, and a laptop, you can assign them all to one user.

Firewalla will track app usage across devices for each user, making it easy to see when and for how long someone is doing certain activities.

2. How do I create a User?

• User Activity and Flow Usage
• User Name and Avatars

To create a User, tap Create User. There are two ways to assign devices to a User:

• Create from scratch – manually add devices to your new User. If you add devices that already belong to other Device Groups or Users, they'll be removed to join the new user.
• Create from a group – select an existing Device Group to build your User from. All the devices in the group will be assigned to the User, and the group will retain all its rules, policies, and feature settings.

Finally, give your User a name and tap Save.

User Activity and Flow Usage

If you tap on a User, you'll see a chart of their app usage across devices. You can tap the Flows tab to see a summary of their Flows.

If you tap Activities, you'll see a chart of their app usage across devices over today. Swipe on the chart to see usage for different days. Tap on the Week tab to see app usage over the previous week.

Tapping on a specific app lets you drill down on when and for how long your User accessed the app. 

You can also see which device your User was using. To isolate a specific device, tap on All Devices in the top left corner and select a device.

User Name and Avatars

Tap Edit in the top right corner of a User's Detail Page. Here, you can manage:

• Name: The name for this User.
• Avatar: An image from your photo library to use as an Avatar, to make it easier to distinguish between Users at a glance.
  • User Avatars will appear wherever you can view or assign Users, including shortcuts on the main screen, Devices List, and more.

3. User Identity

User identity is the service that identifies users on the network.  User identity means the proof of who a person or device is. It is important because security decisions depend on knowing who is asking for access and whether they should be allowed or controlled.

3.1 Identity based on MAC addresses

When you are creating users, you add devices to the User group. Here, the MAC address of the device is identified as part of the User's group. This method works well for simple devices. 

3.2 Identity based on SSID

This will require Firewalla AP7 or Orange Wi-Fi. For this method to work, you will need to create each user's own SSID and then only tell the password to the person who "owns" the SSID. When the user joins the network, firewalla will automatically assign the user to the group mapped to the SSID. Here's a tutorial using Multiple SSIDs.

3.3 PPSK 

This will require Firewalla AP7.

PPSK stands for private pre-shared key. Here, you use the same SSID and then give each user their own unique password. And when they connect to the AP7, they can be mapped to the right group using their unique key. Here's a tutorial using PPSK.

3.4 WPA3-Enterprise

This will require Firewalla AP7 or Orange Wi-Fi. 

Everyone uses the same WPA3-Enterprise-enabled SSID, and each user is identified by their username and unique password. The login will go to a RADIUS server, and an authenticated user will be mapped to their user group. Devices can also be assigned to a specific network with dynamic VLANs. Here's a tutorial using WPA3-Enterprise.

Learn more about WPA Enterprise Wi-Fi (with RADIUS)

4. User Activity Tracking

Firewalla will show you how different Users are spending time on your network. For example, you can easily see if your employee is gaming during the workday.

Firewalla will also show real-time user activity. If a user is using a specific app, a blinking green dot will appear next to the app icon. Tapping on a user's detail page will tell you when the activity started, and you can tap on it to learn more.

App usage data from Users is generally accurate. However, some factors might affect what you see:

• User Activity Tracking won't double-count your activity time if you're using multiple apps or devices simultaneously. For example, if you play 1 hour of Fortnite while watching YouTube, you will only see 1 total hour of activity time. However, if you go into the usage details of each app, you'll see that you used each app for 1 hour.
• User Activity Tracking can only collect data on activities that go through your network. If someone is watching videos or gaming off the Firewalla network, that activity won't get tracked. For example, if someone has downloaded a video, it's impossible for Firewalla to know if a user is watching it.
• If you want to account for off-network activity, consider combining Users with a local application like Screen Time, which can track anything that happens on a device.

User Activity Tracking will work for both app and website streaming.

Users include activity detection and time limits for:

• Internet
• Netflix
• YouTube
• Fortnite
• Roblox 
• TikTok 
• Instagram 
• Facebook
• Disney Plus
• Amazon Prime
• Twitch
• Hulu 
• League of Legends
• And many more apps are planned – see the table at the end of this article.

5. User Activity Time Limits

• Creating a Time Limit Rule
• Internet Time Limits
• Time Limits for Multiple Apps
• After Limit: Block or Disturb

Creating a Time Limit Rule

You can control when and for how long each of your Users has access to certain apps with Time Limits. For example, you can limit users to a daily 1-hour limit of YouTube. There are two ways to set time limits for Users:

• Directly from the User's detail page
• By creating a new rule

To set a time limit from the User's detail page, scroll down and tap Add Time Limit under the activity chart, select an app, and set a daily or weekly time limit.

To set a time limit by creating a Rule, tap on Rules from your box's main screen, then tap Add Rule. Choose Time Limit as the action, select an app, select a User, and then set a daily or weekly time limit. Time Limits can only be applied to Users.

If you create a Time Limit and set the schedule for Every Week, the limit will apply to each day individually. For example, a 2-hour Roblox limit for Saturday and Sunday means that the user will have 2 hours of Roblox access each day.

Internet Time Limits

You can set a Time Limit on overall Internet usage for each User. On a new or existing Time Limit rule, tap Select apps > Choose Internet. 

When the limit is reached, all internet access is either blocked or disturbed (even if there are other existing Time Limits for specified apps).

Note: Internet time tracking is estimated. Due to factors like background traffic, reported usage time may vary by up to ~20% from actual activity. If you encounter any large discrepancies, please send us an email at help@firewalla.com. 

Time Limits for Multiple Apps

You can set a Time Limit across multiple apps. Activity on any specified app counts toward the same total limit. On a Time Limit Rule, tap Select apps > Specified Apps > Select all the apps you'd like to include. 

With this, Users can decide how to spend their time. For example, with a 1-hour limit for Fortnite and Roblox in the same rule, a user could spend 45 minutes on Fortnite and 15 minutes on Roblox, or use the full hour on just one app.

After Limit: Block or Disturb

On a Time Limit Rule, use the Advanced section to choose whether to Block or Disturb traffic. 

Disturb can gently disrupt traffic to certain apps without blocking them completely, offering a more flexible and healthy way to encourage healthy breaks. Learn more about Disturb here.

Disturb after a Time Limit is only available for Internet or single apps that support Disturb. 

• See the full list of Disturb apps here.
• We currently do not support Disturb for Time Limit Rules matching multiple apps.

6. Activity Information For Devices and Device Groups 

To see app usage activity information for individual devices and device groups, tap into the device/group detail page, then tap the Activities tab. You'll see when and for how long certain apps were used. Tap Activities at the bottom of the chart to see a detailed breakdown of app usage over time. 

If you don't see the Activities/Flows tabs on your device or device group detail pages, it means there has been no app activity detected over the past 7 days.

7. What Apps Can Firewalla Measure?

To access the features in early access, update your box using the instructions here. We'll update this table as we continue building this feature. We have even more apps planned!