Rules Management
Rules Management controls which Joomla user groups the Web Firewall rules apply to. Trusted groups bypass firewall filtering entirely, which is useful for administrators, editors, or any group whose members are known and reliable.
How it works
The page displays a table of all Joomla user groups, reflecting the full group hierarchy with child groups indented under their parents. Each row contains:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Group Title | The user group name, indented to show the hierarchy. |
| Rules Applied | Toggle switch. Yes means firewall rules are enforced for this group. No means members are trusted and bypass all firewall checks. |
| ID | The Joomla user group ID. |
| Last Change | Timestamp of the last time the Rules Applied setting was changed for this group. |
Guest users (unauthenticated visitors) are always subject to firewall rules regardless of this configuration. An informational callout on the page confirms this.
If a user belongs to multiple groups and at least one of those groups has Rules Applied set to No, that user is treated as trusted and bypasses firewall filtering.
Rules Logs
A Rules Logs section is available from the action bar. It records requests made by trusted users for audit purposes, allowing you to monitor what trusted group members are doing without blocking them.
The Rules Logs table contains the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| IP | IP address of the trusted user. |
| User | The Joomla user account name. |
| Last Entry | Timestamp of the most recent logged request from this user. |
| Reason | The firewall rule that would have been triggered if the user had not been trusted. |
