Patent ID: 8595347

Claim:
A method executing in a processing system, the processing system including one or more processors, the method comprising: displaying a service panel, wherein the service panel indicates whether a particular traffic flow through a given interface is allowed or denied; displaying a policy diagram panel having a graphical network interface policy diagram including: a device icon, wherein the device icon corresponds to a device in a network, the device having a plurality of interfaces; a plurality of interface indicia icons associated with traffic flow through the plurality of interfaces and connected to the device icon; and a pair of traffic indicia icons that indicate a direction of traffic flow with respect to the plurality of interface indicia icons and the device icon, wherein each of the traffic indicia icons indicates a direction; receiving a signal from a user input device to indicate selection of an interface indicium icon from the plurality of interface indicia icons; and in response to receiving the signal from the user input device, rendering, on the graphical network interface policy diagram, at least one policy icon representing policy information of an interface represented by at least one of the interface indicia icons in accordance with the direction of traffic flow, the at least one policy icon positioned in relation to the at least one of the interface indicia icons representing the interface, wherein the steps above are implemented by the one or more processors.