How to Use Wildcards with netsh advfirewall to Find Rules by Name Pattern in Windows

Windows' netsh advfirewall firewall commands provide powerful firewall management capabilities, but they lack pattern matching functionality when searching for rules. The standard syntax only allows exact rule name matching:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name="Exact Rule Name"

This becomes problematic when you need to:

Find all SQL-related rules without knowing exact names
Locate rules with similar naming conventions
Manage bulk rules matching specific patterns

While netsh doesn't support wildcards directly, here are effective workarounds:

Method 1: PowerShell Pipeline Filtering

The most robust solution combines netsh with PowerShell's filtering capabilities:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | Select-String "SQL"

For more advanced pattern matching:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | 
Where-Object { $_ -match "SQL.*Port" }

Method 2: findstr Command

For basic pattern matching without PowerShell:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | findstr /i "sql"

Key flags:

/i - case insensitive matching
/r - enable regex patterns

Exporting and Processing Rules

For complex rule management:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all > rules.txt
# Then process with preferred text editor/search tool

Using Windows Firewall with Advanced Security MMC

For GUI users:

Run wf.msc
Use the filter/search functionality

Finding All Rules for a Specific Application

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | 
Where-Object { $_ -match "chrome.exe" }

Listing Rules by Port Number

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | 
findstr "3389"

For frequent use, create a PowerShell function:

function Find-FirewallRule {
    param (
        [string]$Pattern
    )
    $rules = netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all
    $rules -split "rnrn" | Where-Object { $_ -match $Pattern }
}

# Usage:
Find-FirewallRule -Pattern "SQL.*TCP"

If you've worked with Windows Firewall rules through netsh advfirewall, you've probably encountered this limitation: the show rule command only accepts exact rule names. There's no built-in support for wildcards or regex patterns when querying firewall rules.

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name="SQL Server"  # Works
netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name="SQL*"        # Fails

The most practical solution is to pipe the full rules list through Windows' findstr command:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | findstr /i "sql"

This command:

Lists all firewall rules (name=all)
Pipes the output to findstr
Uses /i for case-insensitive matching
Searches for "sql" anywhere in the rule details

For more complex pattern matching, findstr supports basic regex:

# Match rules starting with "SQL"
netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | findstr /i /r "\


If you have PowerShell available, you can use more sophisticated filtering:
Get-NetFirewallRule | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -like "*SQL*"} | Format-Table -AutoSize

Or with regex matching:
Get-NetFirewallRule | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -match "^SQL.*Server$"} | Format-List *

For frequent use, create a batch file (findfwrule.bat):
@echo off
if "%1"=="" (
    echo Usage: findfwrule [search_pattern]
    exit /b 1
)
netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | findstr /i "%1"

Usage examples:
findfwrule "SQL"
findfwrule "Remote Desktop"
findfwrule "TCP.*1433"

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