Firewalla Box Release 1.970, Device Groups, Allow Rule, Domain Blocking and More!

New Features: 

1. Device Group

Device Group allows you to manage a set of devices together with the same rules and features. You can create a device group from the Devices screen,  and manage the device group similar to managing a device, including adding rules, viewing network history, etc. 

When a device is added to a group, all of its existing rules will be removed, and the device will follow the rules defined for the group.

2. Allow Rule

Firewalla now supports an option to "Allow" in addition to "Block" when creating a rule. For example, you can limit internet access on a device but allow certain connections as exceptions. 

"Allow" rules will always take precedence over "Block" rules.

3. Device Open Port Detection

Firewalla is able to discover ports that are open on devices. They are associated with services connected to the device. You can investigate why they are open and if they are necessary.    

(This feature is currently on iOS production and Android beta release.)

4. Domain-only Blocking

For domain and category block rules, Firewalla allows you to switch between default blocking and domain only blocking. Domain-only blocking is less restrictive than the default blocking mode. 

If unwanted blocking occurs, you can try to adjust the setting for individual block rule.

5. Rule Diagnostic Tools

5.1 Emergency Access

Emergency Access suspends all rules and features on Firewalla that block your devices from accessing the internet. 

In case of an emergency situation where you need the whole network or a particular device to have full access to the internet, you can turn on Emergency Access globally (Rules -> "…" on the top right corner -> Emergency Access), or on the device (Device detail -> scroll down). 

5.2 Rule Diagnostics

Rule diagnostics tool helps you to look for rules that block your device from accessing certain sites. 

For example, if you are having trouble accessing a gaming site " king.com" on your iPhone, you may not be able to find any rules by simply searching for "king.com" or "My iPhone". Unlike the traditional searching function, rule diagnostics will run a deep check and discover that the connection is, in fact, blocked by a gaming blocking rule that applies to the entire network. 

6. Security Info Lookup

Supports security info lookup on Cisco Talos, Google Safe Browsing and Whois, for alarm and network flow destination details.   

Improvements and bug fixes:

• Improved performance and stability on booting up
• Added expiration time on UPnP open ports
• Ability to generate alarms when devices are using VPN
• Fixed a bug that ping command on Red may consume too much CPU

Known Issues: 

• Issue: If Firewalla gets a non-private IP address in your private network, it will automatically disable monitoring and your devices and rules may disappear from the Firewalla App.
  How to Fix: Change the IP to be allocated from the private IP address range will solve the issue. 
  
  
• Issue: In advanced simple mode (use Firewalla Gold to monitoring multiple WAN networks,
  1) Devices on some WAN networks may encounter DNS resolution error;
  2) connections between WAN networks may not work properly. 
  How to Fix: Upgrade to 1.971 Early access version. 
  
  
• Issue:  When changing the Domain Name for local networks, the new domain name will be saved, but may not be displayed correctly on the App (still shown as "lan"). 
  How to Fix: Upgrade to 1.971 Early access version will solve the display error. 
  
  
• Issue: IPTV function on FRITZ!Box may not be working properly with Firewalla 1.970. 
  How to Fix: The issue will be resolved on 1.971 Early access version soon.

• Issue: When editing category domain list (e.g. All Gaming Sites, All Social Sites), some of the pre-loaded domain can not be removed. 
  How to Fix: Upgrade to 1.971 Early access version. 
• Issue: Monthly Data Plan in Data Usage Page, the reset cycle and data usage may not be shown correctly. Monthly Data Plan alarms will not be affected. 
  How to Fix: Upgrade to 1.971 version.