Firewalls, Routers, Switches

Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD)

BSD has three firewalls built into the base system: PF, IPFW, and IPFILTER, also known as IPF

FreeBSD

• Packet Filtering (PF): Rules located in file /etc/pf.conf
• IP Firewall (IPFW):  Default rules are found in /etc/rc.firewall. Custom firewall rules in any file provided through # sysrc firewall_script=”/etc/ipfw.rules”
• IP Filter also known as IPF: cross-platform, open source firewall which has been ported to several operating systems, including FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris™. Name of the ruleset file given via command ipf -Fa -f /etc/ipf.rules

OpenBSD

• Packet Firewall (PF): Rules located in file /etc/pf.conf

NetBSD

• NetBSD Packet Filter (NPF) for Packet Filter (PF): Rules located in file /etc/npf.conf
• IP Filter (IPF): Use /etc/ipf.conf to allow the IPFilter firewall

BSD and similar systems (e.g., Linux) will use the same names for interfaces (eth1, eth2, em1, em2, carp1, carp2, etc.). The parser might be confused if the user imports interface files and packet filter configs from different systems at the same time resulting in a combined system instead of individual devices. 

To prevent this, the user should group all files by host, making sure to name the ifconfig file after the hostname (i.e. host1_interfaces.txt). 

Free BSD Example

Below is an example of a 2 host FREE BSD system containing FW1, host1 and host2.  The user should import the files in each section as a separate import. 

fw1 – first data set import (all available files imported together)

• pf.conf (required file) (note, can be named differently, e.g., FW1.txt’)
• obsd_fw1_interfaces.txt (required file) (note that the parser keys on the “_interfaces” string”.  Text before “_interfaces” will be used to name the device. In tis example ‘obsd_fw1’)
• hostname.carp1
• hostname.carp2
• hostname.hvm2
• hostname.hvm3
• hostname.hvm4
• table1
• table2

host1 – second data set import (all available files imported together)

• pf.conf (required file) (note, can be named differently, e.g., host1.txt’)
• host1_interfaces.txt (required file) (note that the parser keys on the “_interfaces” string”.  Text before “_interfaces” will be used to name the device. In this example ‘host1’)
• hostname.em1
• hostname.carp1

host2 – third data set import (all available files imported together)

• pf.conf (required file) (note, can be named differently, e.g., Host2.txt’)
• host2_interfaces.txt (required file) (note that the parser keys on the “_interfaces” string”.  Text before “_interfaces” will be used to name the device. In this example ‘host2’)
• table1
• table2

The only required files are the config file (can be named something other than pf.conf) and the ifconfig file. hostname files are optional (unless they contain description of interfaces not in the ifconfig file).

Table files contain a list of IP addresses that can be manipulated without reloading the entire rule set. Table files are only needed if tables are used inside the config file. For example,

table persist { 198.51.100.0/27, !198.51.100.5 }

Panorama

If Panorama is used to centrally manage policies, the access rules and object groups can be retrieved from these devices in XML format (we do not support the import of unstructured text files). If using the Panorama connector, the required files will automatically be downloaded:

The Panorama file will only contain centrally managed access rules and object groups.  Locally defined access rules and object groups cannot be retrieved from Panorama and must be retrieved from each NGFW.

To manually download the .XML from the Panorama UI:

• Connect to the Web user interface of your Panorama device
• Go to Panorama > Operations > Export, and select “Export Panorama and devices config bundle” it may take a few minutes to generate the file.

• Once ready, the .XML file (e.g., Panorama_20230306.tgz) will automatically download to your local downloads folder in .tgz format.
• Open the .tgz file using the extraction program of your choice (e.g., 7zip)
  • The extracted folder will contain a compressed .tar file (e.g., Panorama_20230306.tar) which also needs to be extracted using the extraction program of your choice.
    • The extracted .tar file contains a folder which contains the extracted Panorama data.

• Import all of the extracted non 0 byte .XML files using the NP-View import function.

If your system contains .VSYS, an additional “mapping_config” file is require which can only be retrieved through the API using the “show devices connected” command.  The name of the file is “named_mapping_config.xml” where the named prefix needs to match the device name as shown in the UI when the running_config.xml is imported alone. All files should be imported at the same time as the Panorama config.xml.

The below links are to the Panorama documentation for the required commands with examples.

Get API Key

Get Panorama and device bundle Configuration

Get device mapping config

Next Gen Firewall (NGFW)

If using the PanOS connector is used to download files, the required files will automatically be downloaded:

The configuration information from the NGFW may be contained in several .xml files, <device-name>_merged_config.xml and <device-name>.vsys(n)_pushed_policy.xml.  There can be one vsys file per virtual interface. The naming of these files is important for the parser to merge them during import.  All files from a single firewall must be imported at the same time and in .xml format (we do not support the import of unstructured text files).  If any of the files are missing, improperly named or formatted, an error message will state that ‘File parsed but ruleset and topology were empty, aborting’ meaning they could not be linked to the other associated files.

An example of properly named files is below:

• • Chicago-IL-100-FW1_merged_config.xml
  • Chicago-IL-100-FW1.vsys1_pushed_policy.xml
  • Chicago-IL-100-FW1.vsys2_pushed_policy.xml

If the NGFW is an unmanaged/standalone Palo Alto device it will not have a pushed_policy file. In this situation, the configuration .xml file can be downloaded directly from the firewall and loaded into NP-View.  The file name need not be changed when loading the file from a standalone firewall.

To manually export configuration files from an unmanaged firewall:

If the NGFW is managed by a Panorama, the API will be required to secure the necessary files:

Get API Key

Get PANos Firewall full configuration

Get Managed Firewall configuration

Virtual Routers (vrf) – Experimental Support

Virtual router (vrf) is a software-based routing framework in Palo Alto NGFW that allows the host machine to perform as a typical hardware router over a local area network.

NP-View has added the experimental capability to detect Virtual Routers from Palo Alto devices (NGFW or Panorama) and present them in the Connector or Manual Import device selection screens.

Virtual Routers will be treated the same as physical routers and will require a device license.

This feature is disabled by default and must be enabled prior to importing configurations containing virtual routers.

To enable the feature the NP-View Server admin will need to make a change to a system variable.

• Stop the NP-View Server application.
• in the docker-compose.yml file, change the enableVirtualRouters=False to enableVirtualRouters=True in three places within the file.
• start the NP-View Server application.

For Desktop

• Close the NP-View application.
• In the file C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\NP-View\config.ini add enableVirtualRouters=True
• Restart the NP-View application

Once enabled, the user will be presented with the option to select virtual routers from the connector in the device selection or upon manual import.

Support for Palo Alto PanOS prior to V9.1 are no longer supported.  Please note that no upgrades to parsers will be made for unsupported devices.

Support for Check Point R77.30 ended in May of 2019. Please note that no upgrades to this parser will be supported if it fails to operate as expected. Below are the instruction for manually exporting R77 files.

Check Point R7x version store configuration information in flat files on the management server’s filesystem. The file location is different when using a multi-domain environment.

When using Checkpoint R77 management server, the required files can be found here:

• /etc/fw/conf/objects_5_0.C
• /etc/fw/conf/rulebases_5_0.fws
• /etc/fw/conf/identity_roles.C (optional)

Load all of the retrieved files at the same time into NP-View.

When using a Multi Domain environment, the required pairs of objects and rule base files are typically stored in: $MDSDIR/customers/

If you have trouble locating the files, you can use the command: find / -name “rulebases_5_0.fws” -ls to locate the files.

All configs in these 3 locations are required (not just one)

• One Global Database, located in directory: /var/opt/CPmds-R77/conf
• One Multi-domain Server (MDS) database, located in directory: /var/opt/CPmds-R77/conf/mdsdb
• The contents of the Domain Management Server databases (DMS), located in directory: /var/opt/CPmds-R77//CPsuite-R77/fw1/conf/ which include:
  • object
  • rulebase
  • /object…

Load all of the retrieved files at the same time into NP-View.

Support for Check Point R80 through R80.30 ended September of 2023. Please note that no upgrades to these parsers will be made for unsupported devices.

NP-View supports Cisco FTD through the output of “show running-config”command. However, it is important to note that Cisco FTD includes network filtering policies documented outside of the running configuration. This section explains where to find those policies.

As of version 6.1, Cisco FTD includes a Prefilter Policy feature that serves three main purposes:

• Match traffic based on both inner and outer headers
• Provide early Access Control which allows a flow to bypass Snort engine completely
• Work as a placeholder for Access Control Entries (ACEs) that are migrated from Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) migration tool.

The feature has 2 primary use cases:

• For use with Tunnel Rule Types
• For bypassing the Snort engine

These prefilter rules are part of the FTD configuration and are displayed via the “show running-config” command on the FTD. They manifest in the NP-View Access Rule table as a Permit IP with:

• Source = any
• Destination = any
• Service = IP/any to any

As a result, the NP-View Rule Policy engine flags these rules as a high risk alert.

In the operation of the FTD, if a packet meets the prefilter policy, it is then evaluated by a secondary set of rules in the Snort engine or applied directly to the tunnel. The Snort rules are not part of the output of the of the “show running-config” output from the FTD. These rules are established, maintained and viewed on the FMC (management server), but are not readily available via the FTD CLI interface.

In the context of an audit during which evidence around these prefilter rules is requested, we recommend documenting that these rules are a default configuration for the system and we also recommend generating a FMC PDF Policy report to explain the flows of traffic within the FTD configuration. For more information, please refer to the Cisco FTD Prefilter Policies documentation.

We support .exp files as the default SonicWall file format for v5.9 and v6.X of the SonicOS.

The main UI allows for export of the encoded .exp file as such:

To extract the file via command line, then the command to export is

export current-config sonicos ftp ftp://[USERNAME]:[PASSWORD]@[FTP IP/URL]/sonicwall.exp

Where the username/password/FTP IP or URL must be changed. The file “sonicwall.exp” will then be saved at the FTP location. As this file is encoded, there’s no way to echo or cat the data.