Performing firewall operations by sharing metadata between firewall processes

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide a novel method for performing firewall operations on a computer. The method of some embodiments instantiates first and second firewall processes on the computer. These two processes are two separate processes, which in some embodiments have separate memory allocations in the memory system of the computer. The method uses the first firewall process to examine a data message to determine whether an encryption based firewall policy (e.g., a TLS-based firewall policy) has to be enforced on the data message. Based on a determination that the encryption-based firewall policy has to be enforced on the data message, the method provides metadata, which is produced by the first firewall process in its examination of the data message, to the second firewall process. The second firewall process then uses the provided metadata to perform an encryption-based firewall operation based on the encryption-based firewall policy. In some embodiments, the data message is encrypted, the first firewall process cannot decrypt the data message, and the second firewall process performs a decryption operation (e.g., a TLS-based decryption operation) to decrypt the data message.