Firewalls, Routers, Switches

BSD Firewalls

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

• • FreeBSD – (who focus on covering as many purposes as possible)

    • • PF. Rules located in file /etc/pf.conf

      • IPFW. Default rules are found in /etc/rc.firewall. Custom firewall rules in any file provided through # sysrc firewall_script=”/etc/ipfw.rules”
      • IPFILTER also known as IPF, is a 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 – (who focus on security, sometimes at the expense of performance)
  • • • PF. Rules located in file /etc/pf.conf
• NetBSD – (who focus on portability, running on pretty much any hardware)
  • • • NPF for PF. Rules located in file /etc/npf.conf
      • IPF – Use /etc/ipf.conf to allow the IPFilter firewall

Linux and similar systems 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 pf configs of different systems at the same time. Instead of creating separate devices, they might all be combined into one. 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). In the example of 2 hosts host1 and host2, the user would import these 2 directories together:

host1

• host1_interfaces.txt (note that the parser keys on the “_interfaces” string”.  Text before “_interfaces” will be used to name the device.
• pf.conf
• hostname.em1
• hostname.carp1

host2

• host2_interfaces.txt (note that the parser keys on the “_interfaces” string”.  Text before “_interfaces” will be used to name the device.
• pf.conf
• table1
• table2

fw1

• hostname.carp1
• hostname.carp2
• hostname.hvm2
• hostname.hvm3
• hostname.hvm4
• obsd_fw1_interfaces.txt
• pf.conf
• 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 }

Check Point R80 or later

Starting with version R80, Check Point is replacing flat files with a database. We support the database loading using the NP Check Point R80 Exporter (PDF documentation, video).

Check Point R77 or earlier

With version R77 or earlier, Check Point has been storing the required information in two flat files named: objects_5_0.C and rulebases_5_0.fws. Those two files can usually be found in the folder /etc/fw/conf of the Check Point Management Server. In the case of a multi-domain environment, the following command can help locate the correct set of files: find / -name "rulebases_5_0.fws" -ls. Usually each domain is a subdirectory under $MDSDIR/customers/on the Check Point Multi-Domain Management Server (MDS) management station.

Once the files have been identified, they can transferred to your workstation using scp or WinSCP.

Optionally, from each Check Point host, one can extract firewall specific route information using netstat:

 netstat -rn > /root/`hostname`.txt

The following files should be imported together:

• objects_5_0.C
• rulebases_5_0.fws or multiple .W policy files
• (optional) hostname.txt
• (optional) identity_roles.C

We provide support for the following CISCO devices:

• ASA 55xx IOS 9.1.x+
• ASAv IOS 9.15
• FTD/vFTD FXOS 6.7+
• Catalyst IOS 3750

For Cisco devices running FirePower, please run show running-config on the command line terminal of each device you’d like to import.

Panorama

If Panorama is used to centrally manage policies, the access rules and object groups can be retrieved from the running configuration XML file. 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 download the .XML from the panorama UI:

1. Connect to the Web user interface of your Panorama device
2. Go to Panorama > Setup > Operations, and select “Export Configuration Version” it may take a few minutes to generate the file.
3. Once ready, the .XML file will automatically download to your local workstation.
4. Import the .XML file using the import function.

If your system contains .VSYS, an additional "mapping_config" file is require which can only be retrieved through the CLI using the “show devices connected” command.  The name of the file is “mapped_config_.xml”. and should be imported at the same time as the panorama config.xml

Next Gen Firewall (NGFW)

The configuration information from the NGFW is contained in several files, _merged_config.xml and .vsys(n)_pushed_policy.xml.  There will 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.  If the files are improperly named, an error message will show that the files have parsed but are empty 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

To download the .XML:

1. Connect to the Web user interface of your NGFW device
2. Go to Device > Setup > Operations and select “Export Configuration Version” it may take a few minutes to generate the file.
3. Once ready, the .XML file will automatically download to your local workstation.
4. Import the .XML file using the import function.