How to PF Firewall Ruleset Optimization

OpenBSD journal has published excellent PF Firewall Ruleset Optimization tutorial.

From the article:
"This is the first installment in a series of three articles about PF. I originally wrote them as chapters for a book, but then publication was cancelled. Luckily, the rights could be salvaged, and now you get to enjoy them as undeadly.org exclusives."

Firewall Ruleset Optimization topics:

• Goals
• The significance of packet rate
• When pf is the bottleneck
• Filter statefully
• The downside of stateful filtering
• Ruleset evaluation
• Ordering rulesets to maximize skip steps
• Use tables for address lists
• Use quick to abort ruleset evaluation when rules match
• Anchors with conditional evaluation
• Let pfctl do the work for you
• Testing Your Firewall (read)
• Firewall Management (upcoming)

Read more at OpenBSD journal...

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