NETWORKS
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Network ACL processing algorithms — optimizing firewall's performance
A firewall is an important component in protecting a network from attacks. It allows configuration of what kind of traffic is allowed inside the network. So in a sense, a firewall is a barrier that can reject all suspicious connections at the very entrance to the network, making potential attacks significantly more difficult. There are many types of firewalls. In this article, we will focus only on simple stateless firewalls that work in the 3rd and 4th layer of the OSI model (L3 + L4 firewalls). Typically, a firewall uses a user-specified access control list (ACL) to decide which packets to let through and which to block.