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What is an ACL?

An Access Control List (ACL) is an ordered list that matches traffic based on specific characteristics. Each line in the list is an Access Control Entry (ACE). Each ACE contains a condition to match and an action to take when traffic that matches that condition. A packet that does not match an ACE in an ACL is dropped. This process is referred to as the implicit deny all on an ACL.

An ACE can filter on:

Note: ACLs provide additional filtering options that are beyond the scope of this document.

An ACE follows the format:

Action protocol source [port] destination [port]

Where the source [port] is the source IP address or subnet and Layer 4 port.

Each ACE is directional and uses an inverse network mask notation. To permit traffic in both directions for a host or network, you need two ACEs. The following example shows the ACEs necessary to permit TCP port 80 traffic traveling from and to a 24-bit subnet.

permit tcp 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255 eq 80 any
permit tcp any 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255 eq 80