Knowledge Base

Getting Started

What We Do

Are you Prepared to Defend your Critical Assets?

At Network Perception, we have combined our vast expertise of critical asset protection with next-gen technology to guide our customers on a path to cyber resiliency.

  • The journey starts with establishing a clear baseline and verifying that internal risk mitigation controls are followed.
  • The next step consists of gaining an accurate visibility of network architecture and cybersecurity posture.
  • Finally, developing a continuous monitoring approach to gain velocity and adapt quickly to disruptions.

Compliance Verification

Verify configurations and network segmentation

1. Policy Review
  • Easily review firewall access policies and object groups
  • Identify configuration risks automatically
  • Establish configuration change review process
2. Audit Assistance
  • Verify compliance with cybersecurity regulations and best practices
  • Seamlessly store evidence for compliance review
  • Easily prepare compliance reports
Risk Assessment Grading

Cybersecurity Visibility

Visualize vulnerability and risk exposure

3. Architecture Review
  • Visualize an accurate topology of the network architecture
  • Identify and label critical cyber assets and critical network zones
  • Easily review which devices are protecting which network zones
4. Network Risk Assessment
  • Assess accuracy of network segmentation
  • Identify risky network connectivity paths
  • Understand exposure of vulnerable assets
Cybersecurity Visibility

Operational Velocity

Accelerate risk mitigation and recover faster

5. Continuous Configuration Monitoring
  • Transition from point-in-time to 24/7 risk assessment with automated notification
  • Automate change review process using ticketing system integration and sandboxing
  • Leverage a time machine to navigate through the network evolution
6. Incident Response Preparation
  • Align network architecture understanding and break silos through a single pane of glass
  • Train first responders and harden defense via realistic attack scenario simulation
  • Prioritize vulnerability mitigation faster
Operational Velocity

Installing NP-View Desktop

NP-View is designed to run on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 with a recommended configuration of a 10th Gen Quad Core Processor and 16GB of RAM.  This configuration should be sufficient for processing large data files up to 500,000 lines.  Simultaneously loading and analyzing multiple devices with larger configuration files will maximize the use of available system resources and additional RAM may be required.

Installation Process

  • Sign up on the Portal website to download the latest version of NP-View Desktop and to download a license key.  A SHA256 checksum is supplied with each download.  You can calculate the checksum on the files you download to verify the integrity of the files:
    • Windows Powershell: Get-FileHash /the/full/path/to/your/filename.exe | Format-List
    • Linux: sha256sum /the/full/path/to/your/filename.Appimage
    • macOS 11: shasum -a 256 /full/path/to/your/filename.app
  • Windows 10/11:
    • Launch the Windows installer with a double click.
      • User may need to adjust UAC (User Access Controls) depending on security settings.
    • The only dependency required on Windows is .NET framework 4
    • Once installed, NP-View will automatically launch.
    • Allow ports for private/public network if prompted.

NP-View has been designed to run offline, which means that the network connections attempted towards a public NTP server, the local DNS server, and the Network Perception update server are optional and do not affect the system if the internet is unavailable. More information on configuring NP-View can be found here.

Configuring NP-View Desktop

System Performance

NP-View Desktop is a resource intensive application.  For best performance, please ensure your system’s Power plan is set to High performance.

If you have administrator access, you can enable Ultimate Performance by opening the command prompt as administrator and copy paste: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61 and press enter.

Windows control panel:

First Login

  • Upon first login, NP-View Desktop will require you to create an administrator account. Fill in the required information and click the “Create the NP-View administrator account” button. The password can be as simple or as complex as the user desires but needs to be at least 8 characters.
    • Local authentication is for users who wish to add an additional layer of protection. With this, the user can use whatever e-mail address and password they choose. If the user logs out of the system, the user id and password will be required upon subsequent application launches.  Otherwise, the session remains open and authentication is not required.
  • Read and accept the user agreement.
  • Next, you will need to enter your license key.  Once input, click the “Add license key” button.
  • Select your preferences for checking for automatic updates (requires internet access) and participation in our voluntary improvement program. Both selections use a slider that is default to off. To opt in, click the button and it will slide to the right. Click the save preferences button to complete.
  • Next click the get started button

User Menu

Access to the Help Center, License Manager, Update Manager and other administrative functions can be found on the User Menu located in the top-right corner of the Workspaces page.

Getting Started

On the Workspaces Page,  NP-View provides a demo workspace as well as the ability to start creating your own workspaces.  Click here to learn more about using workspaces.

Software Version

If you contact technical support, they will ask you for the software edition and version you are running. It can be found on the bottom left corner of the home screen.

Software Uninstall

To uninstall NP-View Desktop,

  • Windows 10/11: use the add or remove programs feature to remove the software
    • Use the add or remove programs feature to remove the software
    • Delete folder: ~AppData/Roaming/NP-View
    • Delete folder: ~AppData/Local/Programs/NP-View
    • Delete folder: ~AppData/Local/np-view-updater

Password Reset

Remove the file at the location listed below and restart the application to input your credentials.

  • Windows: Delete the file ~AppData/Roaming/NP-View/db/auth_provider.cfg and then restart NP-View.

License Changes / Upgrades

If you input a new license key from network perception, the user must log out and log back in for the changes to take effect. Note that the license key function is only available from the home screen (not from within a workspace).

Upload File Size Limit

NP-View enforces a maximum file size of 200MB by default. To change it, the config.ini file must be edited and the following row added:  MAX_IMPORT_SIZE=<size in bytes>. For example:  MAX_IMPORT_SIZE=209715200 which corresponds to 200MB.

  • Windows: the config.ini file can be found at:  ~AppData/Roaming/NP-View/config.ini

Windows Path/File Name Length Limit

Microsoft Windows has a MAX_PATH limit of 256 characters.  If the path and filename exceed 256 characters, the file import will fail.

For example:  C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\NP-View\db\workspace\<np-view-user>@<workspace>\devices\<filename>

Installing NP-View Server

NP-View Server has been designed to be easily installed by a single person who has moderate Linux skills. This article provides step-by-step instructions on the installation process, which includes:

  1. Provisioning a server
  2. Downloading NP-View server
  3. Installing NP-View server
  4. Installing a SSL Certificate

NP-View is accessed through a web browser (Edge, Chrome, Firefox) running on a modern operating system (Windows 10 or later, macOS 11 Big Sur or later, Ubuntu 20 or later) with a recommended configuration of a 10th Gen Quad Core Processor and 16GB of RAM.

Provisioning a Server

The following table documents the CPU, memory, and disk requirements based on the number of network device configuration files monitored by NP-View server:

Number of network devices monitored (firewall, router, switch) / concurrent users Min. CPU Memory Disk Space
Up to 50 devices / 3 concurrent users 4-core 16GB 200GB
Up to 100 devices / 5 concurrent users* 8-core 32GB 400GB
Up to 500 devices / 10 concurrent users 16-core 64GB 2TB
Up to 1,000 devices / 20 concurrent users 32-core 128GB 4TB

Greater than 1,000 devices please contact support to discuss requirements.

Recommended as the minimum for most Professional Server users.

Note: loading and analyzing devices utilizes the majority of the CPU and Memory capacity.  The higher the server capacity and the faster the CPU, the faster devices will load and be analyzed.

Network ports used by NP-View server

The following ports are used by NP-View server.  Please ensure these ports are open on your firewall for proper communication.

Required ports:

  • TCP/22: SSH server to provide secure console access to the NP-Live server
  • TCP/443: access to NP-View Web UI through HTTPS
  • TCP/8443: access to NP-View connectors Web UI through HTTPS

Optional ports:

  • TCP/80: access to NP-View Web UI through HTTP
  • TCP/389: access to Active Directory / LDAP for LDAPv3 TLS
  • TCP/445: access to NP-View SMB Connector
  • TCP/636: access to Active Directory / LDAPS for TLS/SSL
  • TCP/8080: access to NP-View connectors Web UI through HTTP

Firewall Rules

The source IP should be the client workstation that will access NP-View and the destination IP should be the NP-View Linux server.

Downloading NP-View Server

Sign up on the Portal website to download the latest version of NP-View server and the license key.  A SHA256 checksum is supplied with each download by clicking on the “show checksum” link.  You can calculate the checksum on the files you download to verify their integrity:

  • Windows 10/11 using Powershell: Get-FileHash /the/full/path/to/your/file/name/extension | Format-List
  • Linux: sha256sum /the/full/path/to/your/file/name/extension
  • MACOS: shasum -a 256 /full/path/to/your/file/name/extension

Installing NP-View Server

NP-View server is a Linux application. It can be installed on a virtual machine or physical hardware. There are 2 package formats available:

  • NP-View Virtual appliance (~2GB OVF) that works on all major hypervisor with support for the .vmdk disk format (e.g., VMWare ESXi).
  • NP-View Linux installer (~600MB) that works on all major Linux distributions on which Docker can be installed

The NP-View OVF uses Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS or later. Root access is provided (see the text file provided with the .OVF) so the operating system can be periodically updated. This option should be used for new installations. The NP-View Linux installer is used to update NP-View on an existing system or for a new install on a Linux server.

Note: Network Perception does not recommend running NP-View in a double virtualized environment (Linux VM encapsulated within a Windows VM) as the operation of connectors, notifications and external interfaces can be unpredictable.

Option 1: Using the NP-View Linux Installer

Once downloaded from the portal, follow the steps below to complete the install:

  1. Move installer to server – This may require ssh or other user account permissions
    1. Place the file in a location you can access from the terminal
    2. /tmp – this is a temp folder available at the root directory
    3. /opt/np-live – this is the default NP View server root directory
  2. You can use the “ls” command to see what is in your current directory
  3. Log into the terminal or use SSH (Putty, PowerShell, etc.) into the Linux server
  4. Set root level permission with the command (this will allow you type commands without adding “sudo” to each command)
    • sudo -I
  5. Navigate to the directory in which the NP-View Server Linux installer was placed
    • Use the ls command to verify file is in this directory
  6. Run the installer with the command (Docker must be installed before this step)
    • Example: sh NP-View_Full_Filename.sh (example: NP-View_Server_Linux_4.0.5-add6)
  7. The installer will begin by checking for a running instance of Docker and internet connection
    • If Docker is not installed and running the installer will stop and you will have to manually install the latest version of Docker before continuing
    • If an internet connection is available and Docker isn’t installed, the installer will automatically download and install the latest version of Docker
    • If an internet connection isn’t available but Docker is installed, the installer will continue offline (Most Common Scenario)
    • If you are installing NP-View Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, use the following commands to install docker:
      • yum update
      • dnf config-manager –add-repo=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
      • dnf install –nobest docker-ce
      • systemctl disable firewalld
      • systemctl enable –now docker
  8. Follow the prompts during installation
    • Prompt to continue with offline installation
    • Prompt for default directory (/opt/np-live) We recommend keeping the default directory but it can be changed if preferred
      • Note: If the default directory is changed, then it will need to be edited for each new release during the installation
  9. There will be a message once the installation is complete
  10. Launch a browser to navigate to the NP-View User InterfaceExample of transfer with WinSCP:
    • Load WinSCP – It should default to this screen:
    • Default “File Protocol:” to SFTP
    • Fill in Host name, User name, and Password.
      • Host name would be the same as your NP-View Server IP Address
      • User name and Password are the same as the sudo credentials you use to log into the NP-View Server terminal.
    • Find the NP-View Linux Server Installer file in the left window. Then in the right window from the “root” select the “tmp” folder. Once you have completed both steps then click “Upload”.
    • Click Ok to complete the transfer.

Option 2: Using the NP-View Virtual Appliance

Once the Virtual Appliance OVF file has been downloaded from the portal, follow the steps below to complete set up:

  1. Extract the .zip archive (right click on folder and choose extract all)
  2. Import OVF into hypervisor
  3. Update CPU/Memory/Disk Space to meet requirements stated in KB in the hypervisor settings
  4. Open README.txt from extracted folder for credentials
  5. Launch the appliance and log into terminal using credentials in README.txt
  6. NP-View Server shell script will guide you through updating the NP-Live password, the root password, and to reset encryption keys
  7. Once complete the NP menu will appear indicating the server is ready to use.
  8. Launch a browser to navigate to the NP-View User Interface

Note: A static IP may need to be configured before utilizing the user interface.

Installing a SSL Certificate

NP-View listens on both port TCP/80 (HTTP) and TCP/443 (HTTPS). For HTTPS, it uses a self-signed SSL certificate by default. Users can also provide their own SSL certificate by simply copying a valid .pem file into the NP-View db folder.  If using HTTPS, the best practice is to disable HTTP or forward HTTP to HTTPS.

The following command can be used to generate a valid .pem file:

openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out cert.pem -keyout cert.pem

To learn more about generating your own SSL certificate, please visit python documentation.

Please note that .pem file should include both the private key and the full certificate. If you received the private key and the certificate as two or more separate files, you can concatenate them into a single .pem file.

Setting the Virtual Appliance Time Zone

By default, the Virtual Appliance install creates the file `/opt/np-live/local-settings.yml`, set to America/Chicago.  This file needs to be updated to reflect your local time zone.  To change to a different time zone, log into the server using SSH and become root with the command sudo -i. You can then perform the following updates.

Update TZ= to a value from timedatectl list-timezones

version: '3.4'

x-environment-tz: &timezone    

     TZ=America/Chicago

services:  

      manager:    

           environment:        

                 - *timezone  

      report:      

           environment:        

                 - *timezone  

     webserver:      

           environment:        

                 - *timezone  

      redis:      

            environment:        

                 - *timezone  

     monitor:      

           environment:        

                 - *timezone

Once you have set the new time zone, you can restart NP-Live with the command /opt/np-live/stop_NP-Live.sh  and then /opt/np-live/start_NP-Live.sh

Additional Installation Information

Improving NP-View Server Performance

Please reference minimum requirements, the higher the resources the better the performance.

Troubleshooting Disk Space

If a server upgrade or restart fails due to lack of disk space, please perform the following clean-up procedure:

  1. sudo rm -f /opt/np-live/db/log/system/nplive.log.*
  2. sudo docker system prune –volumes
  3. sudo rm /opt/np-live/docker-compose.yml.backup

NP-View does not automatically delete log files, the Linux system admin may wish to schedule the above commands in a periodic CRON job to maintain optimal performance.

If server upgrade or restart issues continue to occur, please reach out to the Tech Support team.

Default Disk Encryption

As the NP-View OVF is typically installed within a secure environment, the disk is not encrypted by default for data at rest.  The Linux Admin can encrypt the system drive for increased security knowing that system performance will be slightly degraded to accommodate the data decryption and encryption.

Personalize the Login Page

To add a custom message to the login page, a NP-View administrator can edit the file /opt/np-live/docker-compose.yml with the following entry in the webserver environment section: “- banner=Welcome to NP-view”

For NP-View, the file ~/Documents/np-live/config.ini can be edited to add: “banner=Welcome to NP-View”

Upload File Size Limit

When users upload a file through the Web user interface, NP-View will enforce a maximum file size which is 200MB by default. To change it, a NP-View Linux administrator can edit the file /opt/np-live/docker-compose.yml with the following entry in the webserver environment section: “- MAX_IMPORT_SIZE=209715200”.  The value is in bytes, so 209715200 corresponds to 200MB.

Backing up the NP-View Server Database

  1. Stop the NP-View Server (you can use the script /opt/np-live/stop_nplive.sh)
  2. From the NP-View Server folder (by default: /opt/np-live/, run the command: tar -zcf db_backup_$(date '+%Y_%m_%d').tgz db (this command may take few minutes to complete)
  3. Run the new release installer, which will update the containers and then launch NP-View Server

Complete Removal of NP-View

If you wish to completely remove NP-View from you server to start with a fresh install, perform the following steps:

  • Stop NP-View using the script /opt/np-live/stop_NP-Live.sh
  • Remove Docker containers using the command docker system prune -a as root (WARNING: this will completely reset Docker, so if non NP-View containers have been added they will be deleted as well)
  • Remove the NP-View folder with the command rm -rf /opt/np-live as root (WARNING: the NP-View database will be permanently deleted)

Product Tutorials

1. Network Mapping

Network mapping provides the Networking Team (Network Engineer, Network Security) with capabilities that allow users to:

  • Visualize an accurate topology of the network architecture
  • Identify and label critical cyber assets and critical network zones
  • Easily review which devices are protecting which network zones

Visualize Topology

NP-View can be used to discover your network topology and the underlying control plane, including layer-2 and layer-3 configurations. Without leaving the topology map, you can review many aspects of the network’s design including Firewalls, Routers, Switches, Gateways, Networks, VPNs, Hosts and more.

Critical Assets and Zones

Each asset can be tagged with categories and criticalities as well as grouped into zones making it easy to review which devices are protecting which network zones.

Details On-demand

Selecting a node in the topology map will interactively display an information panel with detailed data about that node.

2. Firewall Ruleset Review

Firewall ruleset review provides Network Engineers, Network Security, and Compliance Analysts with functionality for:

  • Easy review of firewall access rules and object groups using the Access Rules and Object Groups reports.
  • Automatic identification of configuration risks using the Risks and Warnings report.
  • Validating recent policy modifications as part of a configuration change review process using the Change Tracking report.

How to Review Access Rules

An independent review of firewall policies has to be periodically conducted to ensure that network access rules are correctly implemented and documented. It is important because lack of access rule review leads to unexpected network access vulnerabilities.

  • Frequency: each time firewall policies are changed, and at least once a quarter
  • How to do it:
    • Step 1: given a workspace populated with network device configurations, open the Access Rule table from the main menu (top left)
    • Step 2: leverage the “Column Search” feature or the “Compare” feature to show the rules in scope of your verification
      • For instance, filter the “Device” column to only show rules for a specific device, or filter the “Binding (ACL)” column to only show rules bound to a specific interface, or use the “Compare” feature to only show rules added or removed recently
    • Step 3: review values for the source, destination, service, binding, risk, and description of each rule in scope
      • The “Description” column captures comment, description, or justification from the device configuration
      • The “Risk” and “Risk Criticality” columns are populated by NP-View during the automated risk analysis
    • Step 4: to identify rules that are not justified, sort the table by “Description”. Empty values will be shown at the bottom.
    • Step 5: to document your review process, double click on the “Comment” or “Comment Status” cells to add your own comment. The comment status can be either “Verified” or “To Review” or “To Revise”
    • Step 6: to save an evidence of your review process, export the table to Excel using the export options in the top right corner of the table

Access Rules Table

The Access Rules report provides the users with complete details on each Access Rule with the ability to add justifications and actions.

Object Groups

The Object Groups report provides the users with complete details on each Object Group with the ability to add justifications and actions.

Risks and Warnings

As modifications are made to the network, the Network Perception default Policies and Requirements identify potential risks.  The Risks and Warnings report provides the users with a summary of the potential risks and their criticality with the ability to add actions and comments.

Change Tracking

As modifications are made to the network and the updated configuration files are imported, the changes are logged in the Change Tracking table.

tracking table
3. Segmentation Verification

Segmentation verification provides the Networking Team and Audit Team with capabilities that allows users to:

  • Assess correctness of network segmentation
  • Identify risky network connectivity paths
  • Understand exposure of vulnerable assets

Network Segmentation Accuracy

NP-View be used to verify the accuracy of your network segmentation.

The connectivity matrix which is available from the device info panel can be used to verify open ports between devices.

Inbound and outbound connections can be verified for each network using the highlight paths function.

Identifying Risky Connectivity Paths

Using industry best practices, Network Perception automatically identifies potential risks related to network configurations. Using the Network Perception  Connectivity Path analysis, the user can review each of the highlighted risks and make a judgment on action.

organization table

Exposure of Vulnerable Assets – Vulnerability Analytics

NP-View provides your security team with a single pane of glass for reviewing network vulnerability exposure. With the addition of scanner data or data from a vulnerability data service, vulnerabilities can be tracked across your network.

Topology Display of Vulnerabilities

When scanned data has been added to a workspace, and a topology view is built that also includes that scan data, nodes on the topology of that view will be marked with a shield indicating the presence of vulnerabilities.

These shields can be toggled on and off using the topology settings menu.

Device Panel Display of Vulnerabilities

Firewalls, Gateways, and Hosts may contain vulnerability and service information imported from scans. Clicking on any of these nodes in a View that contains vulnerability information, will display it in the info panel that opens over the main menu.

Clicking on the Vulnerabilities link will present a pop out with the vulnerability details.

4. Audit Assistance

Performing a regular review of your compliance metrics is important for your organization.  Performing the review manually is time consuming and tedious. Audit assistance provides the Compliance Team (Auditor, Compliance Officer, Compliance Analyst, and Consultants) with capabilities that allow users to:

  • Verify compliance with cybersecurity regulations and best practices through Policy Review.
  • Seamlessly store evidence for compliance review with Change Tracking.
  • Easily prepare compliance reports using the Audit Assistants listed below:

Workspace Report (Standard)

The Workspace Report assistant is available within each workspace and will generate a report for a specific view that includes detailed information about configuration files that were imported and parsed including:

  • Configuration assessment report including risk alerts
  • Ports and Interfaces
  • Access rules
  • Object groups
  • Path analysis

Industry Best Practice (Premium)

The Best Practice assistant requires a license to activate. This report is available within each workspace to generate a report for a specific view that includes the following topics:

  • Parser Warnings and potential misconfigurations
  • Unused Object Groups
  • Access Rules missing a justification
  • Unnamed nodes
  • NP Best Practice Policies on access rules and CiS Benchmarks that have identified potential risks
  • ACL’s with no explicit deny by default rule

NERC CIP Compliance (Premium)

The NERC CIP assistant requires a license to activate this function and guides the user through the steps required to create a report covering CIP-005 requirements. The NERC CIP audit assistant is only available within a NERC-CIP workspace and allows audit teams to classify BES cyber assets as High, Medium, and Low based on the standards. We have added a category for untrusted (Internet, Corp, etc.) to tag non BES assets. NP-View allows compliance teams to collect and report evidence related to the following requirements:

  • CIP-002 – BES Cyber System Categorization; impact rating and 15-month review
  • CIP-003 – Security Management Control; cyber security policy
  • CIP-005 – Electronic Security Perimeter; remote access management
  • CIP-007 – System Security Management; ports and services
  • CIP-010 – Change Management and Vulnerability; configuration change management, configuration monitoring, vulnerability assessment

A demo workspace for the NERC CIP audit assistant is included with the software.  To see the audit assistant in action, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the demo workspace to build the topology.
  2. Create a custom view by selecting all of the firewalls, right click, Create View from Selection and give it a name.
  3. Once the view is generated, select Manage Zones from the left manu and click on the Auto Generate Zones button.
    • Red zones represent your high criticality assets.
    • Orange zones represent your medium criticality assets.
    • Yellow zones represent your low criticality assets.
    • Gray zones represent your untrusted assets.
  4. On the left menu, select Summary Reports and the NERC-CIP Compliance Report
  5. Click through the wizard, the defaults will represent the selections suggested by the auto group function.
  6. Click Generate Report to view the report in a new tab.

Feature Documentation

Manage Views

Overview

In NP-View there are three levels of segmentation that can be used to organize your assets. From the most general to most specific these are:

  1. Workspaces: Contain a group of devices
  2. Views: Segments the devices present in a workspace into multiple views
  3. Zones: Segments the devices present in a view into multiple visual zones

This article will focus on Views and the different functionality around them.

Home View

  • After creating a workspace and uploading 1 or more configuration files, NP-View will automatically generate the Home View.
  • The Home View presents a high level overview of the primary devices within the workspace (Firewalls, Routers, and Switches).  It is the starting point for all workspaces.
  • To view assets connected to the primary devices as well as path analysis a new view must be created. (All views other than the home view will contain all the assets connected to the selected primary devices along with path analysis data.

Manage Views

Manage Views: All View related functions can be accessed from the main menu under Manage Views and can be opened from:

  1. The main menu
  2. With the shortcut key “V”
  3. From the view navigation bar at the top of the map
  4. Right click on a node or group and using the right-click menu

Creating a View

When opening Manage Views in a workspace that contains only the Home View, you cannot edit the Home View, so a new view will need to be created.

  1. Open Manage Views
  2. Select Create New View
  3. Name the View
  4. Choose the Devices and/or Auxiliary Data to include in the new view
  5. Choose whether or not to include external paths (This can provide a more complete picture but significantly increases build time, and is not always necessary)
  6. Create View
  7. The view will be created in the background allowing continued use of the home view until the analysis has completed and the view has been built.
  8. Once completed, the topology map will switch to the newly created view with the view details.

Note: Devices can be connected by a solid or dotted line. A solid line indicates evidence of a direct connection. A dotted path represents a connection that is inferred from the information provided (e.g., a layer 2 connection). Additional configuration data is required to convert inferred to direct connections.

Server diagram'

Editing View

Existing views can be updated by opening Edit mode

  • Select the desired View
  • Click the kebab menu
  • Select Edit

From this point you can

  • Rename the view
  • Add or Remove devices from the view
  • Change Path Analysis used (will reprocess the view and topology)
  • Delete the view – Select the Trashcan from the kebab menu (only the view will be removed, not data will be deleted)

View Navigation

Navigation between views can be accessed in 2 ways

  1. From the topology: by opening the View Navigation dropdown
  2. From Manage Views by opening the menu navigating to manage views and selecting a View.

New in 5.0 [Release Notes] we’ve included:

  1. Now you can load and work with the details of a view without loading the view on the map
    1. Views are only loaded on the topology if the Play button is selected
    2. View details only are loaded if the row itself is clicked
  2. Views build and rebuild in the background allowing you to continue work while a view is being generated

Limitations

Devices per view are limited by the product purchased as outlined below:

  • Desktop: 15 devices per view
  • Server : 25 devices per view

The above limitations also depend on the size and complexity of the configuration files and the specifications of the system.  Lower powered system may reduce the capability to support the above limits. YMMV.

Manage Zones

Overview

In NP-View there are three levels of segmentation that can be used to organize your assets. From the most general to most specific these are:

  1. Workspaces: Contain a group of devices
  2. Views: Segments the devices present in a workspace into multiple views
  3. Zones: Segments the devices present in a view into multiple visual zones

This article will focus on Zones and the different functionality around them.

Zones – Defined

Zones in NP-View are the most granular form of segmentation that is offered. Zones are visual markers that group nodes together. They can be created by user’s on demand, or through the Auto Generate Zones function in Manage Zones, on the main menu. Zones can be named and assigned a criticality.

Below is an example of a Zone with a High Criticality, named EMS-Backup.

Adding Zones

Adding, Editing, and Deleting Zones can be done

  1. Manually – From the Topology
  2. Automatically – From the Main Menu >> Manage Zones

Manually – The Topology

  1. Hold Shift
  2. Select a group of nodes
  3. The Multi-Selection panel will open over the main menu
  4. In the middle of the panel there is a Save Selection as Zone segment
  5. Give the grouping a name and criticality
  6. Create Zone
  7. The Zone will appear on the Topology

Automatically – Manage Zones

From the Main Menu Manage Zones can be accessed. This is the primary place to work with Zones in NP-View. From Manage Zones you can Autogenerate Zones based on keywords found in the section below.

Autogenerate Keywords

+
Keyword Criticality Color Best Practice NERC-CIP PCI (Future)
bcc HIGH light red X
datacenter* HIGH light red X X X
dist HIGH light red X
dmz* HIGH light red X X
*ems* HIGH light red X
^esp HIGH light red X
pcc HIGH light red X
scada HIGH light red X
trust HIGH light red X
backoffice MEDIUM light yellow X X
bu* MEDIUM light yellow X
corp MEDIUM light yellow X X X
office LOW light blue X X
internet UNTRUSTED light gray X X X
remote UNTRUSTED light gray X X X

Manage Zones from menu

Auto generate zones only available if no zones have been created.

Zones will be automatically named and color coded based on asset keywords.

Once Zones have been generated they will appear on the map and each zone will be listed in manage zones. Clicking any zone, either on the Topology or from Manage Zones will open the details for the Zone

Edit/ Delete Zones

Once created, zones can be manually reclassified or deleted by clicking inside the zone space and selecting the appropriate option from the menu. If some devices are not properly included in a zone, the devices can be selected and manually (or right clicked on and added to a zone).

Once automatic zones are created, the Auto Generate Zones function is disabled until all zones are deleted.

For manual zone creation, the user can select two or more objects from the topology map and the zone panel will display.

From the panel, the user can create a zone, name it and assign a criticality. The user can also assign tags and criticalities to the selected devices.

For existing zones, the user can add / remove nodes from zones, edit the name or criticality or delete the selected zones.

Selecting a zone name displays the details for the zone. The user can rename the zone or reassign the criticality.  They can also perform a zone analysis of inbound and outbound paths.

Right clicking on any topology object will allow for the addition or removal of an object from a zone.

NAT Rules Report

When was it introduced?

  • Beginning with NP-View Version 5.0 (release notes) users will now have access to a new feature called the NAT Rules Report.

What does it do?

  • Displays all information available for NAT Rules on the selected Device.

Where is the Routes Report located?

Available from a selected Firewall’s Information Panel

Network Visualization

Network visualization is the most powerful feature of NP-View.  Create a workspace, import configuration files and supporting meta data, and NP-View’s visualization function will process the information into a usable network diagram.

Home View

The Home View shows the user a high level overview of the primary devices within a workspace (Firewalls, Routers and Switches).

The home view is the starting point for all workspaces. Devices can be connected by a solid or dotted line. A solid line indicates evidence of a direct connection.

From the home view, the user can:

  1. Select a single device (left click) to view details on the information panel.
  2. Select multiple devices and create zones. See more info on zone creation.
  3. Select one or more devices and create a view. See more info on view creation.

When objects are moved on the topology map, the ‘Save Topology’ button will become active.  Multiple objects can be moved prior to saving the topology.

If the user attempts to switch views before saving, a notification will be presented as follows:

The user can either cancel the operation and then select ‘Save Topology’ or proceed to the selected view without saving.  Selecting OK can also be used as an undo function.

Topology Network Map

From the topology view, the user can rearrange the objects on the canvas by selecting and dragging a device to a new location. Device location can be saved with the “Save Topology” button.

Devices can be assigned a category (colored text tag) and criticality (colored ring).

If a device has active alerts, the number of alerts is displayed in the top-right corner (red circle).

If a device has user entered comments pertaining to this device, the number of comments is displayed in the top-left corner (blue circle).

Multiple devices can be selected by holding the shift key down (the cursor changes to a + sign) and dragging the mouse to make the selection.  The Ctrl key can be used to select / deselect individual devices. Once selected, the devices can be assigned to a common category or criticality.  Alternatively, the devices can be assigned to a of zone. See more info on zone creation.

Unmapped hosts and networks indicate IP addresses that are external to the topology and could not be connected to primary networks. For a given networking device (e.g., a firewall), primary networks constitute the IP ranges defined by its interfaces. In other words, all the networks a device faces are called primary. Nonetheless, the device’s ruleset can refer to arbitrary IP spaces, not necessarily those within primary ranges. Consequently, NP-View identifies those external/unknown IP spaces as hosts, networks, or ranges, as defined in the config, and places them behind the Unmapped gateway.

Additional topology features include expand / collapse a node, auto arrange peers in a circle and pin / unpin a specific node. These features are available when clicking on a node and using the kebab menu on the info panel.

Tip: When importing a devices, the topology map attempts to place each node in an unused slot but may overlap nodes and paths.  By selecting unpin, moving one device, selecting center and then pin, the map will auto arrange.  For topologies with over 100 nodes, the hosts will automatically be collapsed to make the map easier to read. Each collapsed network can be individually expanded or the entire map can be expanded but for very large workspaces, this may take some time to expand.

Firewall Device Information

For Firewalls, Routers and Switches, when selecting a device, the device attributes will be displayed on the left device information menu.

The device panel will be displayed with the appropriate label. The device type is defined by heuristics.  If the device is misclassified, clicking on the drop down allows the user to reclassify the device as a firewall, router or switch.

The user can also assign a category and a device criticality. Additional information includes being able to review multiple version of configuration files and compare them with the diff viewer. Configuration files must have the same name for the diff viewer to identify and compare files.

A risk assessment grade is assigned for each firewall based on the number of open risks and warnings and their associated criticality.

The connectivity matrix shows all of the connections for the selected firewall and the IP rules for each connection. This is only available from within a custom view.

Risks and Warnings shows the active risks, warnings and the criticality for the selected device.

Access Rules shows the rules for the selected device with the ability to compare two sets of rules and display the differences.

Object groups shows the object groups for the selected device.

A summary of the number of routes and a table of the interfaces are also displayed.

Administrators and Workspace Admin’s can delete devices from the workspace using the delete option under the tree dot menu.

Host Information

For hosts, the following is displayed:

Users can assign a host icon, category and a criticality.

Display inbound / outbound connectivity paths as well as displaying stepping stone analysis.  Inbound and outbound connections are filtered to show the exact match for a given path. In some cases, no inbound or outbound paths will be displayed. (See below)

Display the services loaded from PCAP files.

Display vulnerabilities loaded from Vulnerability Scanner files.

Custom Views

Custom views are used to organize devices and analyze the paths between the devices. Path analysis and stepping stone analysis is only available from within a custom view. Additional information on custom view creation can be found here.

Network & Gateway Information

For networks and gateways, the panel to the left will be displayed.

Users can assign a category and a criticality.

Additional information includes being able to review the IP address of the connected hosts.

The user can also search the config file for the device.

Display inbound connectivity / outbound paths as well as displaying stepping stone analysis. When selecting Inbound or Outbound, all paths are highlighted in gray, selecting a specific protocol will highlight the path in orange.

Connectivity Paths

When displaying the device menu for a specific device, clicking on the arrow (>) will expand the inbound and outbound connections.  Clicking on any service or IP will highlight the path on the topology map.  Source objects are designated by blue circles (Src) and destination objects are highlighted by red circles (Dest).

Additional path information is shown including the rule associated with the path.  Clicking on the blue text will invoke the access rules with the associated information.  The user can also add a comment if required.

Stepping Stone Analysis

Stepping Stone Analysis is available on custom views for Networks and Endpoints. Click any node that is not a Firewall/ Router/ Switch and open the info panel.

Find the Accordion section named "Stepping Stone Analysis" and open to reveal options.

Run as Source or Run as Destination.

A user has clicked a node, opened its info panel, and selected Run as Destination for the Host in the bottom center of the map.

The colors reflect how many hops a way another node is from communicating with the analyzed node. The pie slices on the analyzed node show the distribution of nodes per number of hops.

Up close on a node with stepping stone analysis run

Path Block Analysis – Troubleshooting Path Blocking Issues

The above sections describe the different types of Path Analysis available in NP-View that will give information about connections in the Topology. But what if we want to confirm that a connection is blocked? For this NP-View offers Path Block Analysis.

Path Block Analysis allows a user to take two hosts/ two networks/ or one host and one network and to troubleshoot if the connection between is blocked, and if so why.

Open a Topology View that is not the Home View and select two nodes you wish to Troubleshoot Path Blocks on. When the two nodes are selected, right click on one of them and select “Troubleshoot Path Blocking Issue”

A dialog will slide out of the right side of the screen. The Source and Destination of the selected nodes will be entered and can be swapped. Protocol and Port are pre-populated and cannot be changed. Path Block analysis always searches using IP/any. Clicking Start will begin the analysis.

Path Block Found

When a Path Block is found the dialog will have a red notification, and the Blocked Paths window on the left side of the screen will be populated with the block information, including the reason why traffic is blocked. This information is not stored and will be erased as soon as ESC is pressed.

Path Block Not Found

When a Path Block is not found the dialog will present a green notification. The Blocked Paths window on the left side of the screen will be populated with a message that no blocks were found.

Supported Devices & Data

Auxiliary Data

NP-View can import auxiliary data from third party systems to enrich and augment analysis.  The data files listed below are supported and can be manually imported using drag and drop or through a shared network drive connector. We recommend importing configuration files first or at the same time as the auxiliary data files or a system error may occur. If auxiliary data is input after configuration files are processed, the auxiliary data will need to be added to a new or existing custom view(s) to be displayed

Host Files

Hosts can be identified from multiple sources including configuration files, network scan files, ARP tables, and hostname files. Once network device configuration files have been imported, one can import additional files to add metadata to the workspace. A hostname file is a simple text file with two columns: IP address and hostname separate by a tab.

Aux Data Loading Example

Note: This example applies to the loading of any Aux data file but is specific to creating and loading a host file.

First, load a firewall into a workspace and create a custom view with the firewall.

Notice that four hosts are not named.  To fix this, create a host file, named hosts.txt, to enrich the information.

The host file will add a name tied to each of the hosts and also includes hosts not currently displayed.

Let's use
172.30.90.50 Alice
172.30.90.51 Bob
172.30.90.42 Wendy
172.30.91.80 Sam
172.30.91.81 Carl

Note: Make sure any hosts added to the file do not conflict with firewall interfaces or they will be merged into the firewall.

Save the host file, and import it into the workspace.

The Manage Views function displaying a user adding both devices and multiple Auxiliary data files to a single view.

Once processed, proceed to the “Manage Views” menu and select a new or existing view to add Auxiliary data to.

Below the Select Devices box, is the Auxiliary Data box.

Choose any of the Auxiliary Data files you've added previously. (This image is not reflective of the example but to illustrate that users may select several Aux files).

For our example a user would see a single file called hosts.txt that would contain the names we've added.

Once the the view is created the updated assets will be displayed on the topology and in the Asset Inventory (on the main menu).

The view, seen here regenerated. Note the new hostnames applied to the endpoints.

To see how the previous example can be used as a repeatable process let's update those names again, with corrections.

First, update the Host file again. In this scenario, we rename “Carl” to “Carly” and “Sam” to “Sammy”. The updated file is as follows:


172.30.90.50 Alice
172.30.90.51 Bob
172.30.90.42 Wendy
172.30.91.80 Sammy
172.30.91.81 Carly

Load the file into the workspace and the custom views where auxiliary data has been applied. This will update the workspace.


The workspace, updated a second time

Note: Host data can come from multiple sources, also hosts can appear and disappear from the network. Host data is treated as replacement data for adding and deleting hosts over time.

Note: If for some reason a device has multiple names retrieved from multiple different file types, the additional names will be displayed in the Alias column of the Asset Inventory.

Network and Vulnerability Scanner Files

The output from network and vulnerability scanners can be imported into a workspace to add CVE information, hosts, attributes, and port information to the topology map. We support version 1.0 <?xml version=”1.0″ ?> of the below scanners:

When exporting the report, it should be saved using the XML format to properly import into NP-View. The data extracted and imported depends on the scanner used and the data available on the network.  Below is a list of data NP-View attempts to import.

  • hostnames
  • addresses
  • interfaces
  • local interface IP’s
  • local interface names
  • mac
  • domains
  • parent
  • operating systems
  • vlan

Multi-Home Host Files

Multi-Home hosts are endpoints that have multiple network interfaces. If NP-View identifies hosts with multiple interfaces, the host will be duplicated on the topology with each IP address. For example, the host called 'dual-homed' can be seen three times on the map below.

The host named 'dual-homed' repeated 3 times on the map

To resolve this, a 'multi_home_host.txt' file can be manually generated and loaded into NP-View as auxiliary data.

The file must be named 'multi_home_host.txt' and be of the following format:

192.168.135.115 dual-homed

192.168.135.114 dual-homed

192.168.135.113 dual-homed

Where the first field is the IP address and the second field is the name of the host.

When importing the 'multi_home_host.txt' and adding it to a view, the hosts will be connected as follows:

The hosts named 'dual-homed' have been consolidated

Note: The file can be named as *_multi_home_host.txt -where- *_ is anything preceding multi_home_host.txt.

For example:

tuesday_multi_home_host.txt

web_server_multi_home_host.txt

the_big_kahuna_multi_home_host.txt

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

ARP files can be used to add hosts as well as MAC addresses for the hosts.  The following formats are supported:

Cisco

Use commashow arp to export the ARP table.  The file format will be as follows:

<hostname># show arp  

outside 10.0.0.100 d867.da11.00c1 2  

inside 192.168.1.10 000c.295b.5aa2 21  

inside 192.168.1.12 000c.2933.561c 36  

inside 192.168.1.14 000c.2ee0.2b81 97

Cisco ARP Example

Using the data set from the Hosts example, a simple ARP table has been created in the Cisco format.

Distribution# show arp    

inside 172.30.90.50 d867.da11.00c1 2    

inside 172.30.90.51 000c.295b.5aa2 21    

inside 172.30.90.42 000c.2933.561c 36    

inside 172.30.91.80 000c.2ee0.2b81 97  

inside 172.30.91.81 000c.2ecc.2b82 95

Distribution#

Loading this data into NP-View will add the MAC addresses to each host which is visible in Asset inventory.

Windows

Use arp -a > arp_table.txt to export the ARP table.  The file format will be:

Interface: 192.168.86.29 --- 0x6  

Internet Address      Physical Address      Type  

192.168.86.1          88-3d-24-76-49-f2     dynamic    

192.168.86.25         50-dc-e7-4b-13-40     dynamic    

192.168.86.31         1c-fe-2b-30-78-e5     dynamic    

192.168.86.33         8c-04-ba-8c-dc-4d     dynamic

Linux

Use arp -a > arp_table.txt to export the ARP table.  The file format will be:

? (172.18.0.3) at 02:42:ac:12:00:03 [ether] on br-d497989bc64d

? (192.168.135.200) at 00:0c:29:f6:47:bb [ether] on ens160

? (172.17.0.2) at <incomplete> on docker0

? (192.168.135.178) at 00:0c:29:f3:e2:6b [ether] on ens160

Palo Alto

Use show arp all to export the ARP table.  The file format will be:

maximum of entries supported : 2500

default timeout: 1800 seconds

total ARP entries in table : 3

total ARP entries shown : 3

status: s - static, c - complete, e - expiring, i - incomplete

interface ip address hw address port status ttl

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ethernet1/1 192.0.2.10 00:0c:29:ac:30:19 ethernet1/1 c 295

ethernet1/2 198.51.100.10 00:0c:29:d7:67:09 ethernet1/2 c 1776

ethernet1/3 203.0.113.10 00:0c:29:b9:19:c9 ethernet1/3 c 1791

Route Tables

Route files are a special case in that they provide ruleset-specific enrichment data whereas the other auxiliary files listed above provide topology-specific enrichment data.

Route table – Cisco

The output of the command show route on Cisco devices can be imported into NP-View with associated configuration files.  For VRF’s, use the command show ip route vrf *. Cisco route files are handled a bit differently than the rest of the aux data as they are integrated upon import and are not considered as aux data when creating a view. Naming of the route files are not important as long as they are unique. The first row of the route file contains the <device name># command to link the route table with the correct device.

PCAP

IN V6.0 and later, PCAP and PCAPng files can be used to enrich the topology map. NP-View will add endpoints with IP's, MAC addresses and services to the topology map within a view. The max PCAP size is 200 MB per file.

Reference

Help Center

Help Center

The Help Center can be found on the system menu on the upper right corner of the topology.

The Help Center will display warnings or errors identified during the import of device files.

The information in the help center is designed to provide information for the tech support team to help diagnose the issues.

There are many types of possible errors including:

  1. Invalid file formats (e.g., .gif or .png)
  2. Improperly formatted files (files exported as text but loaded into a word processors where extra characters are added before saving).
  3. Incomplete set of files (many devices require more than one file for import this includes Palo Alto and IP tables)
  4. Misconfigured files where rules or objects are undefined.

As every customer has a different environment and possible device configurations are endless.  We sometimes run into a situation where the parser cannot handle the device as configured.  When this happens, we request the customer to sanitize the config file on the NP Poral and upload the file for debug purposes.  Support from our customers is important for us to quickly remediate parsing issues unique to a device or specific file.

The Help Center provides a download for the error log which can be submitted to technical support through the support portal.