Getting Started with your Firewalla

Thank you for purchasing Firewalla;  here is a quick guide to help you get to know your unit better.  For a more complete guide, please see https://firewalla.com/pages/user-manual

If you are running into any issues running Firewalla please see our troubleshooting guide

 

Learn about the App

Firewalla is controlled via the iOS or Android app.  Here is a good 3 mins overview of what it can do.

 

 

 

Learn more about your network

Devices

Once the Firewalla box is installed, it will automatically discover devices on your network.  It may take the box up to a couple of hours to fully learn the names of the devices. 
How to manage Devices

If you want to change the names of your devices, here is how.  (If the default device name is cryptic, wait a couple of hours, they may get better. 
Rename connected devices

You can also group several devices together, and manage the group similar to managing a device, including adding rules, viewing network history, etc. 
Learn more about device group 

 

Bandwidth Usage Insights

The top graph shows the bandwidth usage of your network, in the 60 minutes, 24 hours and 30 days intervals. Tap anywhere on the "last 24 hours" graph, you can see the detail activity list.

If you want to see the bandwidth usages of a single device, just locate the device from the device list, tap the device -> "Network Flows". 
Learn more about bandwidth graph

Bandwidth Usage Alarms

Worried about overusing your internet?
Learn more about Bandwidth Usage Monitoring 

 

 

Manage your network 

Firewalla Gold can divide your network into physical partitions with dynamic and static policies/rules. These subnetworks can be used to give you better security and in some cases help you to speed up the network. Network Manager is only available on the Firewalla Gold.

Use cases for network segmentation include:

• Create a network segment for kids or employees with their own rules and policies. You can limit access to the internet, filter activities, and more.
• Isolate critical devices into their own network. For instance, only permit devices like security cameras to talk within their own network. 
• Create a secure guest network, in order to apply high-level protection to your guests, and manage their activities in real-time.

Learn more about Network Manager 

Network Segmentation Usecases
Example: How to Segment Guest Network with VLAN

 

 

Defend your network

Open Ports

Firewalla can detect any UDP or TCP ports on your router that are open to the world.  On the main UI of Firewalla Box, tap the open ports button, it will show you all the ports that are reachable from the internet.  If you are not sure what the open port is for, Firewalla can help you to block it.
Learn more about Open ports

If Firewalla detects any port opened by the UPnP protocol, an Open Port Alarm will be triggered.
How to handle Open Ports Alarms

 

Blocking Rules 

With Geo-IP Filtering, you can block any country, or any region in the world to prevent hackers from attacking your family and business.  This feature is only available on the Firewalla Blue.
Learn more about Geo-IP Filtering

The Active Protect feature is enabled by default, it creates Active Protect rules in the rules list. Active Protect rules are dynamic, Firewalla actively monitors and detects suspicious connections 24x7, and automatically block the connections that are very sure to be "bad".
Learn more about Active Protect

Firewalla also includes many sophisticated ways to manipulate the network.  You can apply rules to an individual device or globally to all devices, to block connections by IP, domain or activity type.
Learn more about Blocking Rules

 

Security Alarm 

Firewalla monitors your network and alarms you when detecting malicious activity vulnerabilities. Alarm detail helps you to make a decision on whether you should block a site for future access.
Learn more about Alarms  

 

 

Parental and activity control

Whether you are at home managing kid's internet access or at work managing employee activities, we want you to have complete visibility and control. The control can be applied to a specific device or globally to all devices.

 

Parenting with Ease

Firewalla integrates with the capability of keeping adult or offensive content out of the search results, works with Google, Youtube, Bing, and Duckduckgo.  
Learn more about Safe Search

Family Protect helps you automatically block adult and offensive content on any device.
Learn more about Family Protect

Firewalla is committed to taking back family time from social networks. The “Social Hour” feature blocks all social networks for one-hour increments, giving you more time to spend with family. 

 

Activity Block

You can create blocking rules by different categories of activity, including social networking, video, gaming, porn, gambling, and p2p.
Learn more about Blocking Rules

 

Scheduling Block

The active time of a blocking rule can be scheduled to be active during a certain period in every day or certain days throughout every week. For example, to prevent your kids from scrolling through Facebook late at night, you can block a device's from accessing Facebook every night from 9 PM to 7 AM(next day). 
Learn more about Scheduling Block Rules

 

Activity Alarm

Firewalla can also alarm you when people are playing games, watching videos or porn. These alarms are enabled by default. If you don’t want to receive a certain type of alarm, you can mute it from alarm settings.
Tune the Alarm Settings

 

 

Privacy Protect

Say Goodbye to Annoying Ads

The Ad block feature supported by the Firewalla box will block ads for both web pages and mobile Apps.
Learn more about Ad Block

 

DNS Over HTTPS

Use DNS over HTTPS feature to secure and encrypt your DNS lookups.
Learn more about DNS over HTTPS 

 

Make Your Privacy a Priority with VPN

If you are outside and on a public network, Firewalla VPN Server, allows you to tunnel back home.  It hides (encrypts) your traffic and gives you the same level of security protection while on the go.
Learn more about Firewalla VPN Server

 

If you want to hide your IP location and data from your ISP, you can use the Firewalla VPN Client. (You will need to have your own VPN Server account.)  The client allows you to tunnel traffic from any device on your network (even those that can not install VPN software) to a remote location.
Learn more about VPN Client

 

 

For your convenience 

Firewalla includes a free DDNS service, which you can use to locate your home IP address dynamically.
Learn more about DDNS

If you have multiple Firewalla box installed, you can rename the box to something that can be easily identified. 
Rename Firewalla Box

One app can manage many Firewalla's and one Firewalla can be managed by multiple phones.  Here is how:
Add another Phone to Firewalla

Support using the local domain to access your devices instead of IP address.
Device Domain usage example

 

For Power Users

The Firewalla Web interface is to complement (not replace) the mobile app.  This interface is currently in beta.  The interface officially supports Firewalla Blue and Firewalla Gold.

How to Access the Web Interface

 

Troubleshooting

Running into trouble with Firewalla? We can help! The following articles will help you solve most common problems you might run into.
Troubleshooting While Running Firewalla 

 

Videos

If you like video tutorials, they are available on YouTube.

 

Community

• Important Announcements
• Facebook Page (lots of discussions there)
• Reddit
• Youtube
• FAQ