Maintaining the safety and security of your SDDC management infrastructure is critical. By default, the management gateway blocks traffic to all management network destinations from all sources.

When configuring access to the SDDC management infrastructure, it's important that you create management gateway firewall rules that allow only the necessary access to the SDDC management network.

If you can't use a dedicated high bandwidth, low latency connection or a VPN, and your hyperscale cloud provider supports access over the public Internet,you can access the SDDC vCenter Server directly over the Internet using public DNS and the vCenter Server public IP. If you do this, you must create management gateway firewall rules that prevent untrusted sources from accessing the management network. A VPN provides additional security through encryption and authentication protocols.

Management Gateway firewall rules specify actions to take on network traffic based on the source and destination addresses, and the service port. Either the source or destination must be a system-defined inventory group. See Working With Inventory Groups for information about viewing or modifying inventory groups.
Important: If your hyperscale cloud provider supports access over the public Internet, to provide appropriate security when accessing the Management Gateway over the public Internet, configure a management gateway firewall rule that allows traffic only from IP addresses you own or trust, and always limit the source IP ranges, both internal and external, to the smallest possible set. For example, an enterprise that accesses the internet from an address in the CIDR block 93.184.216.34/30 should create a management gateway firewall rule that allows only traffic with a Sources CIDR of 93.184.216.34/30 to access management destinations like the ones shown in Example Management Gateway Firewall Rules.

Procedure

  1. With CloudAdmin privileges, log in to NSX Manager.
  2. On the Gateway Firewall card, click Management Gateway, then click ADD RULE and give the new rule a Name.
  3. Enter the parameters for the new rule.
    Parameters are initialized to their default values (for example, Any for Sources and Destinations). To edit a parameter, move the mouse cursor over the parameter value and click the pencil icon ( pencil icon) to open a parameter-specific editor.
    Option Description
    Sources
    Enter any combination of source addresses (CIDR blocks or management group names).
    Important:

    Although you can select Any as the source address in a firewall rule, using Any as the source address in this firewall rule can enable attacks on your vCenter Server and may lead to compromise of your SDDC. As a best practice, configure this firewall rule to allow access only from trusted source addresses. See VMware Knowledge Base article 84154.

    Select System Defined Groups and select one of the following source options:

    • ESXi to allow traffic from your SDDC's ESXi hosts.
    • NSX Manager to allow traffic from your SDDC's NSX appliance.
    • vCenter to allow traffic from your SDDC's vCenter Server.
    • Other integrated services enabled in the SDDC.

    Select User Defined Groups to use a management group that you have defined. See Working With Inventory Groups.

    Destinations

    Select Any to allow traffic to any destination address or address range.

    Select System Defined Groups and select one of the following destination options:
    • ESXi to allow traffic to your SDDC's ESXi management.
    • NSX Manager to allow traffic to your SDDC's NSX appliance
    • vCenter to allow traffic to your SDDC's vCenter Server.
    • Other integrated services enabled in the SDDC.
    Services

    Select the service types that the rule applies to. The list of service types depends on your choices for Sources and Destinations.

    Action The only action available for a new management gateway firewall rule is Allow.
    The new rule is enabled by default. Slide the toggle to the left to disable it.
  4. Click PUBLISH to create the rule.

    The system gives the new rule an integer ID value, which is used in log entries generated by the rule.

    Firewall rules are applied in order from top to bottom. Because there is a default Drop rule at the bottom and the rules above are always Allow rules, management gateway firewall rule order has no impact on traffic flow.

Example: Create a Management Gateway Firewall Rule

To create a management gateway firewall rule that enables vMotion traffic from the on-premises ESXi hosts to the ESXi hosts in the SDDC:
  1. Create a management inventory group that contains the on-premises ESXi hosts that you want to enable for vMotion to the SDDC.
  2. Create a management gateway rule with source ESXi and destination on-premises ESXi hosts.
  3. Create another management gateway rule with source on-premises ESXi hosts group and destination ESXi with a vMotion service.

What to do next

You can view Rule Hits Statistics and Flow Statistics for any rule other than the Default Deny All rule.

  • Click the graph icon graph icon to view Rule Hits and Flow statistics for the rule.
    Table 1. Rule Hits Statistics
    Popularity Index Number of times the rule was triggered in the past 24 hours.
    Hit Count Number of times the rule was triggered since it was created.
    Table 2. Flow Statistics
    Packet Count Total packet flow through this rule.
    Byte Count Total byte flow through this rule.
    Statistics start accumulating as soon as the rule is enabled.