Step 3: Create and apply a Network Firewall policy

After completing the prerequisites, you create an AWS Firewall Manager Network Firewall policy. A Network Firewall policy provides a centrally controlled AWS Network Firewall firewall for your entire AWS organization. It also defines the AWS accounts and resources that the firewall applies to.

For more information about how Firewall Manager manages your Network Firewall policies, see AWS Network Firewall policies.

To create a Firewall Manager Network Firewall policy (console)

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console using your Firewall Manager administrator account, and then open the Firewall Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/wafv2/fmsv2. For information about setting up a Firewall Manager administrator account, see AWS Firewall Manager prerequisites.

   Note

   For information about setting up a Firewall Manager administrator account, see AWS Firewall Manager prerequisites.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security policies.

3. If you haven't met the prerequisites, the console displays instructions about how to fix any issues. Follow the instructions, and then return to this step, to create a Network Firewall policy.

4. Choose Create security policy.

5. For Policy type, choose AWS Network Firewall.

6. For Region, choose an AWS Region.

7. Choose Next.

8. For Policy name, enter a descriptive name.

9. The policy configuration allows you to define the firewall policy. This is the same process as the one you use in the AWS Network Firewall console. You add the rule groups that you want to use in your policy and provide the default stateless actions. For this tutorial, configure this policy as you would a firewall policy in Network Firewall.

   Note

   Auto remediation happens automatically for AWS Firewall Manager Network Firewall policies, so you won't see an option to choose not to auto remediate here.

10. Choose Next.

11. For Firewall endpoints, choose Multiple firewall endpoints. This option provides high availability for your firewall. When you create the policy, Firewall Manager creates a firewall subnet in each Availability Zone where you have public subnets to protect.

12. For AWS Network Firewall route configuration, choose Monitor to have Firewall Manager monitor your VPCs for route configuration violations and alert you with remediation suggestions to help you to bring the routes into compliance. Optionally, if you don't want to have your route configurations monitored by Firewall Manager and receive these alerts, choose Off.

    Note

    Monitoring provides you with details about non-compliant resources due to faulty route configuration, and suggests remediation actions from the Firewall Manager GetViolationDetails API. For example, Network Firewall alerts you if traffic is not routed through the firewall endpoints that are created by your policy.

    Warning

    If you choose Monitor, you can't change it to Off in the future for the same policy. You must create a new policy.

13. For Traffic type, select Add to firewall policy to route traffic through the internet gateway.

14. AWS accounts affected by this policy allows you to narrow the scope of your policy by specifying accounts to include or exclude. For this tutorial, choose Include all accounts under my organization.

15. The Resource type for a Network Firewall policy is always VPC.

16. Resources allows you to narrow the scope of your policy by specifying resource tags for inclusion or exclusion. To use tagging, you need to first tag your resources. For more information about tagging your resources, see Working with Tag Editor. For this tutorial, choose Include all resources that match the selected resource type.

17. Choose Next.

18. Review your policy settings, and then choose Create policy.

    In the AWS Firewall Manager policies pane, your policy should be listed. The creation of a policy can take several minutes. Until the creation process is complete, the policy indicates that it's pending. When the policy is ready, the status updates with the count of in-scope accounts. You can choose the policy name to explore the compliance status of the accounts and resources. For information, see Viewing compliance information for an AWS Firewall Manager policy

19. When you are finished exploring, if you don't want to keep the policy that you created for this tutorial, choose the policy name, choose Delete, choose Clean up resources created by this policy., and finally choose Delete.

For more information about Firewall Manager Network Firewall policies, see AWS Network Firewall policies.