Any iptables record becomes part of the firewall ruleset. This means that each time you have a visit, the firewall will use this visit data to take appropriate action for all subsequent new visits.
Each time you update the ruleset, the firewall will mark all previous iptables records as obsolete. You can easily distinguish these records thanks to a "gear icon with a blue exclamation mark". They are also flagged as "reset".
The paragraph displayed on top of the dashboard iptables page, has two links to perform an iptables "cleanup".
"Flash Outdated Hits": This link will delete all records flagged as "reset".
"Flash All Hits": This link will delete all records (new and reset records).
When you update the ruleset of the firewall, the changes you make will affect the behavior of the firewall going forward. However, the existing iptables records or logs of past requests will not automatically reflect the updated ruleset. This is due to for many reasons:
Packet Processing Order: Iptables rules are processed in a sequential order from top to bottom. When a packet arrives, it is checked against each rule in the ruleset until a match is found. Once a match is found, the corresponding action is taken (e.g., allow, deny). The processing stops at the first match, and subsequent rules are not evaluated for that packet. Therefore, if you update the ruleset, the new rules will take effect for incoming packets, potentially leading to different firewall behavior than what is reflected in past iptables records.
Historical Data: Iptables records or logs typically capture information about past network traffic, including packet details, timestamps, and actions taken by the firewall. However, these records are static and do not dynamically update based on changes to the ruleset. They provide a historical view of the firewall's behavior at the time the packets were processed, based on the ruleset in effect at that time.
Configuration Snapshot: The iptables records or logs serve as a snapshot of the firewall's behavior during the period they were captured. If you update the ruleset after the logs were generated, the logs will not reflect the updated rules and may not accurately represent the current behavior of the firewall.
To have an accurate understanding of the firewall's current behavior, you need to consider the updated ruleset and any subsequent changes made to it. The iptables records can still be useful for historical analysis or troubleshooting, but they should be interpreted in the context of the ruleset that was in effect at the time the packets were processed.