What is RuleForge?
RuleForge is a visual firewall builder and network simulator. You draw your network — routers, firewalls, load balancers, zones — configure iptables-style rules on each device, and then fire simulated packets through it to see exactly what gets accepted, dropped, or rewritten, and why.
It exists because firewall mistakes are invisible until they aren't. Testing rule logic on production hardware is slow and risky; RuleForge lets you verify the logic first, in a sandbox that behaves like the real thing.
It's built for sysadmins, DevOps engineers, and homelab enthusiasts — and it is free to use, forever. Everything runs in your browser; projects live in your local storage.
Features
Visual Network Design
Drag-and-drop network topology builder
Firewall Rule Management
Configure iptables-style rules with chains and policies
Packet Simulation
Trace packet paths through your network and see which rules apply
Load Balancer Forwarding
L4 load balancing to backend pools with round-robin, ip-hash algorithms
Security Groups
AWS-style allow/deny by group or CIDR; attach to devices
Export & CLI Testing
Export projects and run simulations from the command line
Roadmap
Changelog
- Site Redesign — New landing page with the live engine as demo, About & Help pages, dark network-ops theme
- Security Groups — AWS-style inbound/outbound rules; sourceCidrs and sourceGroupIds
- Security Groups UI — Shield panel to manage groups; attach to devices in Properties
- Drop Visualization — BLOCKED popup, persistent path glow, SG badge on devices
- Security Groups Demo — Demo project with NAT on router, external via public IP only
- Load Balancer Forwarding — L4 load balancing to backend pools; NAT → LB → backend flow
- Backend Pools UI — Configure pools, members, listener ports in Properties panel
- CLI Test Fixtures — Load balancer demo project and tests for CLI validation
- Rule Validation — Detect shadowed, conflicting, and redundant firewall rules
- Visual Indicators — Warning/error icons and colored borders on problematic rules
- Validation Tests — 68 new tests for rule validation logic (240 total, 88%+ coverage)
- Import/Export — Import and export projects as JSON with full network topology
- Import Dialog — File validation, custom project names, create new or replace existing
- Export Tests — 82 new tests for import/export logic (168 total, 84%+ coverage)
- Simulation Tests — 97%+ test coverage for simulation engine with 86 unit tests
- CIDR Matching — Full CIDR notation support in firewall rules (10.0.0.0/8, 0.0.0.0/0)
- Test Fixtures — Reorganized fixtures with demo projects and CLI test expectations
- CLI Tool — Internal command-line tool for diagnosing issues and testing new features
- Core Refactor — Extracted simulation logic to shared core library
- Single Source of Truth — Web app and CLI now use the same simulation engine
- Advanced Demo — Cloud microservices architecture demo with multi-tier zones
- Improved NAT — Better DNAT/SNAT handling in simulations
- Keyboard Shortcuts — Added shortcuts for common actions
- Initial Release — Visual network topology editor with firewall rules and packet simulation