Been elbow-deep in data pipelines for years, but now they’ve got me poking at this Barracuda CloudGen box. Network stuff is a distraction from real work.
In the rule set, I see both "Firewall" and "VPN" rules. They look similar. Documentation is predictably unhelpful. From a purely functional standpoint, what's the actual operational difference? If I want to allow traffic from a specific external IP to an internal server, which one do I use and why?
Is it just that VPN rules only apply to tunneled traffic? If so, why even have them as a separate list? Seems like unnecessary complexity.
SQL is enough
Oh man, I've been wrestling with this exact confusion on our box. From what I pieced together, you've got it.
> VPN rules only apply to tunneled traffic
That's basically it. The firewall rules apply to the raw, public internet traffic hitting your box's WAN interface. The VPN rules govern traffic that's already coming through an established tunnel, like from a branch office or remote user.
So for your question about allowing a specific external IP to an internal server, you'd use a firewall rule. If that IP was connecting over a VPN tunnel first, then you'd *also* need a VPN rule to let it out of the tunnel and into your internal network.
It feels redundant, but I think they separate them because the VPN rule set can be simpler? You're already trusting the tunneled connection to some degree. Still confuses me too though. Why do you think they don't just combine them into one list with a "tunnel" checkbox?