Introducing free Basic Firewall functionality for Leaseweb Cloud Express

As part of our continuous work to add exciting new functionality and further improve our products, we just released a new feature for the Leaseweb Express Cloud product. As of today, you can find a new section our Customer Portal: Firewall Management for Cloud!

You ask, we deliver
After surveying our customers asking for the most-wanted features, firewalling was one of the requests, so we decided to build it as it offers an additional layer of security. Configuring a software firewall on your server can be difficult and time-intensive, and a single mistake can easily lock you out of your own server (trust me, I know this firsthand). We wanted to add basic filtering capabilities to the Express Cloud product, to allow you to protect your Cloud server through an easy-to-use interface.

We named it Basic Firewall
Basic Firewall functionality is a free feature of all Leaseweb Express Cloud instances ordered after the 19th of March. Cloud instances ordered before that date were delivered on a different platform, which unfortunately does not support firewall functionality. If you are unsure when you ordered your Express Cloud instance, check the ‘network’ section for the firewall icon (it might be that you have to reboot your Cloud instance for the icon to appear).

So how does it work?
Basically, we connect a firewall to your Cloud instance to provide the filtering functionality. The beauty of this system is that you can also (continue to) use any existing software firewall on your Cloud instance.

By default the Basic Firewall is switched off. After it is switched on, all incoming IPv4 connections to your Cloud instance will be blocked, with the exception of specifically allowed connections. Already established connections will remain active and functioning until terminated. Rules to specify allowed traffic can be configured in the same screen. Supported protocols are TCP, UDP and ICMP, and source addresses can be configured either by specifying a single IP or a CIDR range:

Future development
We will continue to add more features to the firewall service. But for now, we hope you enjoy the new firewall functionality, and welcome any suggestions or feedback!