Skip to content
Field Notes

E9 · Com2us Platform · Feb 2023 – Feb 2026

Redesigning a tangle of firewall rules

Cleaning up policy across Tencent Cloud and GCP for 600 servers and 70 databases

600 Servers / 70 DBs

  • Firewall
  • Tencent Cloud
  • GCP
  • Network Security
WebGameDBAdmin
The remaining lines fall into four groups: web, game, DB, and admin.

In one line

Reviewed every firewall rule across Tencent Cloud and GCP for 600 servers and 70 databases, then redesigned them around server roles.

Background

Summoners War: Sky Arena ran across Tencent Cloud and GCP, with 600 servers and 70 databases.

Over years of operation, firewall rules were only ever added. Several rules allowed the same traffic, and others were no longer used.

What I did

I reviewed the rules against four criteria.

  1. Duplicates: multiple rules allowing the same source, destination, and port, or a wide rule that already covers a narrow one
  2. Excessive scope: rules opening wider ranges or ports than needed
  3. Unused: rules whose target server is gone or that carry no real traffic
  4. Consistency: servers with the same role but different rules in each cloud

Using these criteria I removed unnecessary rules and regrouped the rest by server role (web, game, DB, admin).

Result

The policy became simpler, easier to review and change, and the exposed attack surface shrank.

Open to work · Cloud infrastructure and security