Check existing ufw firewall rules without enabling it

Solution 1:

There is currently not a way to show the rules you have entered before enabling the firewall via the CLI command. You can inspect the rules files directly however. /lib/ufw/user*.rules contain the rules controlled via the 'ufw' CLI command. Eg

sudo grep '^### tuple' /lib/ufw/user*.rules

This will show output like the following

sudo grep '^### tuple' /lib/ufw/user*.rules
/lib/ufw/user6.rules:### tuple ### allow any 22 ::/0 any ::/0 in
/lib/ufw/user.rules:### tuple ### allow any 22 0.0.0.0/0 any 0.0.0.0/0 in

The 'tuple' is the shorthand used internally by ufw to keep track of rules

Or more detailed with

  sudo cat /lib/ufw/user.rules

*filter
:ufw-user-input - [0:0]
:ufw-user-output - [0:0]
:ufw-user-forward - [0:0]
:ufw-before-logging-input - [0:0]
:ufw-before-logging-output - [0:0]
:ufw-before-logging-forward - [0:0]
:ufw-user-logging-input - [0:0]
:ufw-user-logging-output - [0:0]
:ufw-user-logging-forward - [0:0]
:ufw-after-logging-input - [0:0]
:ufw-after-logging-output - [0:0]
:ufw-after-logging-forward - [0:0]
:ufw-logging-deny - [0:0]
:ufw-logging-allow - [0:0]
:ufw-user-limit - [0:0]
:ufw-user-limit-accept - [0:0]
### RULES ###

### tuple ### allow any 22 0.0.0.0/0 any 0.0.0.0/0 in
-A ufw-user-input -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT
-A ufw-user-input -p udp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT

### END RULES ###

### LOGGING ###
-A ufw-after-logging-input -j LOG --log-prefix "[UFW BLOCK] " -m limit --limit 3/min --limit-burst 10
-A ufw-after-logging-forward -j LOG --log-prefix "[UFW BLOCK] " -m limit --limit 3/min --limit-burst 10
-I ufw-logging-deny -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j RETURN -m limit --limit 3/min --limit-burst 10
-A ufw-logging-deny -j LOG --log-prefix "[UFW BLOCK] " -m limit --limit 3/min --limit-burst 10
-A ufw-logging-allow -j LOG --log-prefix "[UFW ALLOW] " -m limit --limit 3/min --limit-burst 10
### END LOGGING ###

### RATE LIMITING ###
-A ufw-user-limit -m limit --limit 3/minute -j LOG --log-prefix "[UFW LIMIT BLOCK] "
-A ufw-user-limit -j REJECT
-A ufw-user-limit-accept -j ACCEPT
### END RATE LIMITING ###
COMMIT

Like I say "tuple" is rules witch you are set via cli, rest are the default rules, chains ...

Solution 2:

2707974's grep worked for me, but on my system the files were in /etc/ufw/, not /lib/ufw/.

In case it helps anyone in the future, I tracked it down with

sudo find / -type f -iname 'user*rules' -ipath '*ufw*'