Ruleset
3971·updated May 12, 2026A set of directives that govern the access control functionality of a firewall. The firewall uses these directives to determine how packets should be routed between its interfaces.
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, routers, gateways, and firewalls) that use rule sets or establishthe sentence this term was read in
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An ordered collection of discrete permit/deny conditions — specifying criteria such as source, destination, protocol, port, and action — that a security-enforcing device or system evaluates sequentially (or by priority) to determine how to handle each unit of traffic, access request, or policy decision. In access control contexts, an access control rule set defines the combination of attributes under which an access may take place; in network security contexts, a firewall rule set means the rules implemented on a device that govern traffic flowing through it. The field uses the term broadly across firewalls, routers, gateways, and access control engines alike — auditors are expected to ensure that all rule sets allow solely authorized services and ports — and it is subject to ongoing review, optimization, and compliance verification, as reviewing firewall rule sets is a standard part of technical verification against NIST and other frameworks.
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Proposed during multiword review of this document in the CKI mapping queue.
Attested in
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Variants
- plural
- rule setsRulesets
- possessive
- rule set'sRuleset's
- pluralpossessive
- rule sets'Rulesets'
Framework definitions
- §1
- A table of instructions used by a controlled interface to determine what data is allowable and how the data is handled between interconnected systems.
- §2 · sense_2_pending_review
- A set of directives that govern the access control functionality of a firewall. The firewall uses these directives to determine how packets should be routed between its interfaces.
- §1
- A table of instructions used by a controlled interface to determine what data is allowable and how the data is handled between interconnected systems.
- §1
- A table of instructions used by a controlled interface to determine what data is allowable and how the data is handled between interconnected systems.
- §1
- A set of directives that govern the access control functionality of a firewall. The firewall uses these directives to determine how packets should be routed between its interfaces.
- §1 · attested_usage_reviewer_confirmed
- No definition is given in NIST SP 800-171r3. The term is attested in use at 1 citation in that document; a definition is pending curation.Increment 2: attested in 800-171r3 without a glossary definition.
- §1 · legacy_primary
- A set of directives that govern the access control functionality of a firewall. The firewall uses these directives to determine how packets should be routed between its interfaces.DR-088 backfill from the noun definition column