WFP APIs to export/import rules, instead of about to be deprecated netsh command like - netsh advfirewall export "C:\firewall-rules.wfw"

Prokash Sinha 81

Is there a programmatic way to export/import firewall rules without using netsh cmd and using Windows security App ?

Thanks,
Prokash

Jeanine Zhang-MSFT 11,356 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2022-02-16T02:48:39.117+00:00

@Prokash Sinha

Is there a programmatic way to export/import firewall rules

You could try to use Export-Csv and Import-Csv to export/import firewall rules. Refer to the thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41005840/export-firewall-rules-to-excel-using-powershell-v2
Sinha Prokash 46 Reputation points

2022-02-23T17:40:24.023+00:00

@Jenny Feng ,

Let me rephrase the question ...

Do U think if I use netsh advfirewall <export | import> from .exe ( like the way it's been currently done ) I should be fine ( even though all the rules we programmed are WFP API based) ???

If we can not have a set of APIs for export/import, we can at least use netsh ( until to a point when netsh is really depricated ). Later we can think of executing power-shell based commands from our app ( *.exe ).

I've tried the "netsh wfp show filters c:\Users\Auser\Test\fwrules.xml", "rt" using _popen and it works in the sense I get the filters ( but it is not really and export that can be imported later). -- Think snapshotting !

If I know that the old methode which is using advfirewall command as above should work, then I will leave it there....

Thanks,
Prokash

1 answer

Sinha Prokash 46 Reputation points

2022-02-21T14:44:14.577+00:00

From Firewall module ( *.exe ) there seems to be no APIs to dump and retrieve these from/to file. We need to shell out to cmd / powershell !

Was looking for a set of APIs ( WFP based ).

Thanks,
Prokash
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