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Widget Description
Charts available: treemap, line
Blocked Activity—Focuses on traffic that was prevented from coming into the network
Blocked Application
Activity
Displays the applications that were denied on your network, and
allows you to view the threats, content, and URLs that you kept out of
your network.
Sort attributes: threats, content, URLs
Charts available: treemap, area, column
Blocked User
Activity
Displays user requests that were blocked by a match on an Antivirus,
Anti-spyware, File Blocking or URL Filtering profile attached to
Security policy rule.
Sort attributes: threats, content, URLs
Charts available: bar, area, column
Blocked Threats Displays the threats that were successfully denied on your network.
These threats were matched on antivirus signatures, vulnerability
signatures, and DNS signatures available through the dynamic content
updates on the firewall.
Sort attributes: threats
Charts available: bar, area, column
Blocked Content Displays the files and data that was blocked from entering the
network. The content was blocked because security policy denied
access based on criteria defined in a File Blocking security profile or a
Data Filtering security profile.
Sort attributes: files, data
Charts available: bar, area, column
Security Policies
Blocking Activity
Displays the security policy rules that blocked or restricted traffic
into your network. Because this widget displays the threats, content,
and URLs that were denied access into your network, you can use
it to assess the effectiveness of your policy rules. This widget does
not display traffic that blocked because of deny rules that you have
defined in policy.
Sort attributes: threats, content, URLs
Charts available: bar, area, column
GlobalProtect Activity—Displays information of user activity in your GlobalProtect
deployment.
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Widget Description
Successful
GlobalProtect
Connection Activity
Displays a chart view of GlobalProtect connection activity over the
selected time period. Use the toggle at the top of the chart to switch
between connection statistics by users, portals and gateways, and
location.
Sort attributes: users, portals/gateways, location
Charts available: bar, line
Unsuccessful
GlobalProtect
Connection Activity
Displays a chart view of unsuccessful GlobalProtect connection
activity over the selected time period. Use the toggle at the top of
the chart to switch between connection statistics by users, portals
and gateways, and location. To help you identify and troubleshoot
connection issues, you can also view the reasons chart or graph. For
this chart, the ACC indicates the error, source user, public IP address
and other information to help you identify and resolve the issue
quickly.
Sort attributes: users, portals/gateways, reasons, location
Charts available: bar, line
GlobalProtect
Deployment Activity
Displays a chart view summary of your deployment. Use the toggle at
the top of the chart to view the distribution of users by authentication
method, GlobalProtect app version, and operating system version.
Sort attributes: auth method, globalprotect app version, os
Charts available: bar, line
GlobalProtect
Quarantine Activity
Displays a chart view summary of devices that have been quarantined.
Use the toggle at the top of the chart to view the quarantined devices
by the actions that caused GlobalProtect to quarantine the device, the
reason GlobalProtect quarantined the device, and the location of the
quarantined devices.
Sort attributes: actions, reason, location
Charts available: bar, line
SSL Activity—Displays information about SSL/TLS activity in your network.
Traffic Activity Shows SSL/TLS activity compared to non-SSL/TLS activity by total
number of sessions or bytes.
SSL/TLS Activity Shows successful TLS connections by TLS version and application or
SNI. This widget helps you understand how much risk you are taking
on by allowing weaker TLS protocol versions. Identifying applications
and SNIs that use weak protocols enables you to evaluate each
one and decide whether you need to allow access to it for business
reasons. If you don’t need the application for business purposes, you
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Widget Description
may want to block the traffic instead of allowing it. Click an application
or an SNI to drill down and see detailed information.
Decryption Failure
Reasons
Shows the reasons for decryption failures, such as certificate or
protocol issues, by SNI. Use this information to detect problems
caused by Decryption policy or profile misconfiguration or by traffic
that uses weak protocols or algorithms. Click a failure reason to drill
down and isolate the number of sessions per SNI or click an SNI to see
the failures for that SNI.
Successful TLS
Version Activity
Shows the amount of decrypted and non-decrypted traffic by sessions
or bytes. Traffic that was not decrypted may be excepted from
decryption by policy, policy misconfiguration, or by being on the
Decryption Exclusion List (Device > Certificate Management > SSL
Decryption Exclusion).
Successful Key
Exchange Activity
Shows successful key exchange activity per algorithm, by application
or by SNI. Click a key exchange algorithm to see the activity for just
that algorithm or click an application or SNI to view the key exchange
activity for that application or SNI.
ACC Filters
The graphs and tables on the ACC widgets allow you to use filters to narrow the scope of data
that is displayed, so that you can isolate specific attributes and analyze information you want to
view in greater detail. The ACC supports the simultaneous use of widget and global filters.
• Widget Filters—Apply a widget filter, which is a filter that is local to a specific widget. A widget
filter allows you to interact with the graph and customize the display so that you can drill down
in to the details and access the information you want to monitor on a specific widget. To create
a widget filter that is persistent across reboots, you must use the Set Local Filter option.
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• Global filters—Apply global filters across all the tabs in the ACC. A global filter allows you
to pivot the display around the details you care about right now and exclude the unrelated
information from the current display. For example, to view all events relating to a specific user
and application, you can apply the username and the application as a global filter and view only
information pertaining to the user and the application through all the tabs and widgets on the
ACC. Global filters are not persistent.
You can apply global filters in three ways:
• Set a global filter from a table—Select an attribute from a table in any widget and apply the
attribute as a global filter.
• Add a widget filter to a global filter—Hover over the attribute and click the arrow icon to
the right of the attribute. This option allows you to elevate a local filter used in a widget,
and apply the attribute globally to update the display across all the tabs on the ACC.
• Define a global filter—Define a filter using the Global Filters pane on the ACC.
See Interact with the ACC for details on using these filters.
Interact with the ACC
To customize and refine the ACC display, you can add, delete, export and import tabs, add and
delete widgets, set local and global filters, and interact with the widgets.
Add a tab.
1. Select the icon along the list of tabs.
2. Add a View Name. This name will be used as the name for the tab. You can add up to
five tabs.
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Edit a tab.
Select the tab, and click the pencil icon next to the tab name, to edit the tab. For example
.
Editing a tab allows you to add or delete or reset the widgets that are displayed in the tab. You
can also change the widget layout in the tab.
To save the tab as the default tab, select .
Export and Import tabs.
1. Select the tab, and click the pencil icon next to the tab name, to edit the tab.
2. Select the icon to export the current tab as a .txt file. You can share this .txt file with
another administrator.
3. To import the tab as a new tab on another firewall, select the icon along the list of
tabs, and add a name and click the import icon, browse to select the .txt file.
See what widgets are included in a tab.
1. Select the tab, and click on the pencil icon to edit it.
2. Select the Add Widget drop-down and verify the widgets that have the check boxes
selected.
Add a widget or a widget group.
1. Add a new tab or edit a predefined tab.
2. Select Add Widget, and then select the check box that corresponds to the widget you
want to add. You can select up to a maximum of 12 widgets.
3. (Optional) To create a 2-column layout, select Add Widget Group. You can drag and
drop widgets into the 2-column display. As you drag the widget into the layout, a
placeholder will display for you to drop the widget.
You cannot name a widget group.
Delete a tab or a widget group/ widget.
1. To delete a custom tab, select the tab and click the X icon.
You cannot delete a predefined tab.
2. To delete a widget group/widget, edit the tab and in the workspace section, click the [X]
icon on the right. You cannot undo a deletion.
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Reset the default widgets in a tab.
On a predefined tab, such as the Blocked Activity tab, you can delete one or more widgets. If
you want to reset the layout to include the default set of widgets for the tab, edit the tab and
click Reset View.
Zoom in on the details in an area, column, or line graph.
Watch how the zoom-in capability works.
Click and drag an area in the graph to zoom in. For example, when you zoom into a line graph,
it triggers a re-query and the firewall fetches the data for the selected time period. It is not a
mere magnification.
Use the table drop-down to find more information on an attribute.
1. Hover over an attribute in a table to see the drop-down.
2. Click into the drop-down to view the available options.
• Global Find—Use Global Find to Search the Firewall or Panorama Management Server
for references to the attribute (username/IP address, object name, policy rule name,
threat ID, or application name) anywhere in the candidate configuration.
• Value—Displays the details of the threat ID, or application name, or address object.
• Who Is—Performs a domain name (WHOIS) lookup for the IP address. The lookup
queries databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource.
• Search HIP Report—Uses the username or IP address to find matches in a HIP Match
report.
Set a widget filter.
You can also click an attribute in the table (below the graph) to apply it as a widget
filter.
1. Select a widget and click the icon.
2. Click the icon to add the filters you want to apply.
3. Click Apply. These filters are persistent across reboots.
The active widget filters are indicated next to the widget name.
Negate a widget filter
1. Click the icon to display the Setup Local Filters dialog.
2. Add a filter, and then click the negate icon.
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Set a global filter from a table.
Hover over an attribute in the table below the chart and click the arrow icon to the right of the
attribute.
Set a global filter using the Global Filters pane.
Watch global filters in action.
1. Locate the Global Filters pane on the left side of the ACC.
2. Click the icon to view the list of filters you can apply.
Promote a widget filter to a global filter.
1. On any table in a widget, click the link for an attribute. This sets the attribute as a widget
filter.
2. To promote the filter to be a global filter, select the arrow to the right of the filter.
Remove a filter.
Click the icon to remove a filter.
• For global filters: It is located in the Global Filters pane.
• For widget filters: Click the icon to display the Setup Local Filters dialog, then select the
filter, and click the icon.
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Clear all filters.
• For global filters: Click the Clear All button under Global Filters.
• For widget filters: Select a widget and click the icon. Then click the Clear All button in the
Setup Local Filters dialog.
See what filters are in use.
• For global filters: The number of global filters applied are displayed on the left pane under
Global Filters.
• For widget filters: The number of widget filters applied on a widget are displayed next to
the widget name. To view the filters, click the icon.
Reset the display on a widget.
• If you set a widget filter or drill into a graph, click the Home link to reset the display in the
widget.
Use Case: ACC—Path of Information Discovery
The ACC has a wealth of information that you can use as a starting point for analyzing network
traffic. Let’s look at an example on using the ACC to uncover events of interest. This example
illustrates how you can use the ACC to ensure that legitimate users can be held accountable for
their actions, detect and track unauthorized activity, and detect and diagnose compromised hosts
and vulnerable systems on your network.
The widgets and filters in the ACC give you the capability to analyze the data and filter the views
based on events of interest or concern. You can trace events that pique your interest, directly
export a PDF of a tab, access the raw logs, and save a personalized view of the activity that you
want to track. These capabilities make it possible for you to monitor activity and develop policies
and countermeasures for fortifying your network against malicious activity. In this section, you
will Interact with the ACC widgets across different tabs, drill down using widget filters, and pivot
the ACC views using global filters, and export a PDF for sharing with incidence response or IT
teams.
At first glance, you see the Application Usage and User Activity widgets in the ACC > Network
Activity tab. The User Activity widget shows that user Marsha Wirth has transferred 154
Megabytes of data during the last hour. This volume is nearly six times more than any other user
on the network. To see the trend over the past few hours, expand the Time period to the Last 6
Hrs, and now Marsha’s activity has been 1.7 Gigabytes over 1,500 sessions and has triggered 455
threats signatures.
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Because Marsha has transferred a large volume of data, apply her username as a global filter (ACC
Filters) and pivot all the views in the ACC to Marsha’s traffic activity.
The Application Usage tab now shows that the top application that Martha used was rapidshare,
a Swiss-owned file-hosting site that belongs to the file-sharing URL category. For further
investigation, add rapidshare as a global filter, and view Marsha’s activity in the context of
rapidshare.
Consider whether you want to sanction rapidshare for company use. Should you allow
uploads to this site and do you need a QoS policy to limit bandwidth?
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To view which IP addresses Marsha has communicated with, check the Destination IP Activity
widget, and view the data by bytes and by URLs.
To find out which countries Marsha communicated with, sort on sessions in the Destination
Regions widget.
From this data, you can confirm that Marsha, a user on your network, has established sessions in
Canada, Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. She logged 2 threats in her
sessions with each destination country.
To look at Marsha’s activity from a threat perspective, remove the global filter for rapidshare.
In the Threat Activity widget on the Threat Activity tab, view the threats. The widget displays
that her activity had triggered a match for 452 vulnerabilities in the brute force, information leak,
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portable executable (PE) and spyware threat category. Several of these vulnerabilities are of
critical severity.
To further drill-down into each vulnerability, click into the graph and narrow the scope of your
investigation. Each click automatically applies a local filter on the widget.
To investigate each threat by name, you can create a global filter for say, WordPress Login
Brute Force Attack. Then, view the User Activity widget in the Network Activity tab. The tab
is automatically filtered to display threat activity for Marsha (notice the global filters in the
screenshot).
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Notice that this Microsoft code-execution vulnerability was triggered over email, by the imap
application. You can now establish that Martha has IE vulnerabilities and email attachment
vulnerabilities, and perhaps her computer needs to be patched. You can now either navigate
to the Blocked Threats widget in the Blocked Activity tab to check how many of these
vulnerabilities were blocked.
Or, you can check the Rule Usage widget on the Network Activity tab to discover how many
vulnerabilities made it into your network and which security rule allowed this traffic, and navigate
directly to the security rule using the Global Find capability.
Then, drill into the attackers using web-browsing to attack target destination. Consider modifying
the security policy rule to restrict these malicious IP addresses or more narrowly defining which IP
addresses can access your network resources.
To review if any threats were logged over web-browsing, check Marsha’s activity in the WildFire
Activity by Application widget in the Threat Activity tab. You can confirm that Marsha had no
malicious activity, but to verify that other no other user was compromised by the web-browsing
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application, negate Marsha as a global filter and look for other users who triggered threats over
web-browsing.
Click into the bar for imap in the graph and drill into the inbound threats associated with the
application. To find out who an IP address is registered to, hover over the attacker IP address and
select the Who Is link in the drop-down.
Because the session count from this IP address is high, check the Blocked Content and Blocked
Threats widgets in the Blocked Activity tab for events related to this IP address. The Blocked
Activity tab allows you to validate whether or not your policy rules are effective in blocking
content or threats when a host on your network is compromised.
Use the Export PDF capability on the ACC to export the current view (create a snapshot of the
data) and send it to an incidence response team. To view the threat logs directly from the widget,
you can also click the icon to jump to the logs; the query is generated automatically and only
the relevant logs are displayed onscreen (for example in Monitor > Logs > Threat Logs).
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You have now used the ACC to review network data/trends to find which applications or users
are generating the most traffic, and how many application are responsible for the threats seen
on the network. You were able to identify which application(s), user(s) generated the traffic,
determine whether the application was on the default port, and which policy rule(s) allowed the
traffic into the network, and determine whether the threat is spreading laterally on the network.
You also identified the destination IP addresses, geo-locations with which hosts on the network
are communicating with. Use the conclusions from your investigation to craft goal-oriented
policies that can secure users and your network.
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Use the App Scope Reports
The App Scope reports provide visibility and analysis tools to help pinpoint problematic behavior,
helping you understand changes in application usage and user activity, users and applications that
take up most of the network bandwidth, and identify network threats.
With the App Scope reports, you can quickly see if any behavior is unusual or unexpected. Each
report provides a dynamic, user-customizable window into the network; hovering the mouse over
and clicking either the lines or bars on the charts opens detailed information about the specific
application, application category, user, or source on the ACC. The App Scope charts on Monitor >
App Scope give you the ability to:
• Toggle the attributes in the legend to only view chart details that you want to review. The
ability to include or exclude data from the chart allows you to change the scale and review
details more closely.
• Click into an attribute in a bar chart and drill down to the related sessions in the ACC. Click
into an Application name, Application Category, Threat Name, Threat Category, Source IP
address or Destination IP address on any bar chart to filter on the attribute and view the
related sessions in the ACC.
• Export a chart or map to PDF or as an image. For portability and offline viewing, you can
Export charts and maps as PDFs or PNG images.
The following App Scope reports are available:
• Summary Report
• Change Monitor Report
• Threat Monitor Report
• Threat Map Report
• Network Monitor Report
• Traffic Map Report
Summary Report
The App Scope Summary report (Monitor > App Scope > Summary) displays charts for the top
five gainers, losers, and bandwidth consuming applications, application categories, users, and
sources.
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Change Monitor Report
The App Scope Change Monitor report (Monitor > App Scope > Change Monitor) displays
changes over a specified time period. For example, the following chart displays the top
applications that gained in use over the last hour as compared with the last 24-hour period. The
top applications are determined by session count and sorted by percent.
The Change Monitor Report contains the following buttons and options.
Button Description
Top 10 Determines the number of records with the highest
measurement included in the chart.
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Button Description
Application Determines the type of item reported: Application,
Application Category, Source, or Destination.
Gainers Displays measurements of items that have increased
over the measured period.
Losers Displays measurements of items that have decreased
over the measured period.
New Displays measurements of items that were added over
the measured period.
Dropped Displays measurements of items that were discontinued
over the measured period.
Filter Applies a filter to display only the selected item. None
displays all entries.
Determines whether to display session or byte
information.
Sort Determines whether to sort entries by percentage or
raw growth.
Export Exports the graph as a .png image or as a PDF.
Compare Specifies the period over which the change
measurements are taken.
Threat Monitor Report
The App Scope Threat Monitor report (Monitor > App Scope > Threat Monitor) displays a count
of the top threats over the selected time period. For example, the following figure shows the top
10 threat types over the last 6 hours.
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Each threat type is color-coded as indicated in the legend below the chart. The Threat Monitor
report contains the following buttons and options.
Button Description
Top 10 Determines the number of records with the highest
measurement included in the chart.
Threats Determines the type of item measured: Threat, Threat
Category, Source, or Destination.
Filter Applies a filter to display only the selected type of
items.
Determines whether the information is presented in a
stacked column chart or a stacked area chart.
Export Exports the graph as a .png image or as a PDF.
Specifies the period over which the measurements are
taken.
Threat Map Report
The App Scope Threat Map report (Monitor > App Scope > Threat Map) shows a geographical
view of threats, including severity. Each threat type is color-coded as indicated in the legend
below the chart.
The firewall uses geolocation for creating threat maps. The firewall is placed at the bottom of
the threat map screen, if you have not specified the geolocation coordinates (Device > Setup >
Management, General Settings section) on the firewall.
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The Threat Map report contains the following buttons and options.
Button Description
Top 10 Determines the number of records with the highest
measurement included in the chart.
Incoming threats Displays incoming threats.
Outdoing threats Displays outgoing threats.
Filer Applies a filter to display only the selected type of
items.
Zoom In and Zoom Out Zoom in and zoom out of the map.
Export Exports the graph as a .png image or as a PDF.
Indicates the period over which the measurements are
taken.
Network Monitor Report
The App Scope Network Monitor report (Monitor > App Scope > Network Monitor) displays
the bandwidth dedicated to different network functions over the specified period of time. Each
network function is color-coded as indicated in the legend below the chart. For example, the
image below shows application bandwidth for the past 7 days based on session information.
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The Network Monitor report contains the following buttons and options.
Button Description
Top 10 Determines the number of records with the highest
measurement included in the chart.
Application Determines the type of item reported: Application,
Application Category, Source, or Destination.
Filter Applies a filter to display only the selected item. None
displays all entries.
Determines whether to display session or byte
information.
Export Exports the graph as a .png image or as a PDF.
Determines whether the information is presented in a
stacked column chart or a stacked area chart.
Indicates the period over which the change
measurements are taken.
Traffic Map Report
The App Scope Traffic Map (Monitor > App Scope > Traffic Map) report shows a geographical
view of traffic flows according to sessions or flows.
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The firewall uses geolocation for creating traffic maps. The firewall is placed at the bottom of
the traffic map screen, if you have not specified the geolocation coordinates (Device > Setup >
Management, General Settings section) on the firewall.
Each traffic type is color-coded as indicated in the legend below the chart. The Traffic Map report
contains the following buttons and options.
Buttons Description
Top 10 Determines the number of records with the highest
measurement included in the chart.
Incoming threats Displays incoming threats.
Outgoing threats Displays outgoing threats.
Determines whether to display session or byte
information.
Zoom In and Zoom Out Zoom in and zoom out of the map.
Export Exports the graph as a .png image or as a PDF.
Indicates the period over which the change
measurements are taken.
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Use the Automated Correlation Engine
The automated correlation engine is an analytics tool that uses the logs on the firewall to detect
actionable events on your network. The engine correlates a series of related threat events that,
when combined, indicate a likely compromised host on your network or some other higher level
conclusion. It pinpoints areas of risk, such as compromised hosts on the network, allows you to
assess the risk and take action to prevent exploitation of network resources. The automated
correlation engine uses correlation objects to analyze the logs for patterns and when a match
occurs, it generates a correlated event.
The following models support the automated correlation engine:
• Panorama—M-Series appliances and virtual appliances
• PA-7000 Series firewalls
• PA-5400 Series firewall
• PA-5200 Series firewalls
• PA-3400 Series firewalls
• PA-3200 Series firewalls
• Automated Correlation Engine Concepts
• View the Correlated Objects
• Interpret Correlated Events
• Use the Compromised Hosts Widget in the ACC
Automated Correlation Engine Concepts
The automated correlation engine uses correlation objects to analyze the logs for patterns and
when a match occurs, it generates a correlated event.
• Correlation Object
• Correlated Events
Correlation Object
A correlation object is a definition file that specifies patterns to match against, the data sources
to use for the lookups, and time period within which to look for these patterns. A pattern is a
boolean structure of conditions that queries the following data sources (or logs) on the firewall:
application statistics, traffic, traffic summary, threat summary, threat, data filtering, and URL
filtering. Each pattern has a severity rating, and a threshold for the number of times the pattern
match must occur within a defined time limit to indicate malicious activity. When the match
conditions are met, a correlated event is logged.
A correlation object can connect isolated network events and look for patterns that indicate a
more significant event. These objects identify suspicious traffic patterns and network anomalies,
including suspicious IP activity, known command-and-control activity, known vulnerability
exploits, or botnet activity that, when correlated, indicate with a high probability that a host on
the network has been compromised. Correlation objects are defined and developed by the Palo
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Alto Networks Threat Research team, and are delivered with the weekly dynamic updates to
the firewall and Panorama. To obtain new correlation objects, the firewall must have a Threat
Prevention license. Panorama requires a support license to get the updates.
The patterns defined in a correlation object can be static or dynamic. Correlated objects that
include patterns observed in WildFire are dynamic, and can correlate malware patterns detected
by WildFire with command-and-control activity initiated by a host that was targeted with the
malware on your network or activity seen by a Traps protected endpoint on Panorama. For
example, when a host submits a file to the WildFire cloud and the verdict is malicious, the
correlation object looks for other hosts or clients on the network that exhibit the same behavior
seen in the cloud. If the malware sample had performed a DNS query and browsed to a malware
domain, the correlation object will parse the logs for a similar event. When the activity on a host
matches the analysis in the cloud, a high severity correlated event is logged.
Correlated Events
A correlated event is logged when the patterns and thresholds defined in a correlation object
match the traffic patterns on your network. To Interpret Correlated Events and to view a
graphical display of the events, see Use the Compromised Hosts Widget in the ACC.
View the Correlated Objects
You can view the correlation objects that are currently available on the firewall.
STEP 1 | Select Monitor > Automated Correlation Engine > Correlation Objects. All the objects in the
list are enabled by default.
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STEP 2 | View the details on each correlation object. Each object provides the following information:
• Name and Title—The name and title indicate the type of activity that the correlation object
detects. The name column is hidden from view, by default. To view the definition of the
object, unhide the column and click the name link.
• ID— A unique number that identifies the correlation object; this column is also hidden by
default. The IDs are in the 6000 series.
• Category—A classification of the kind of threat or harm posed to the network, user, or host.
For now, all the objects identify compromised hosts on the network.
• State—Indicates whether the correlation object is enabled (active) or disabled (inactive). All
the objects in the list are enabled by default, and are hence active. Because these objects
are based on threat intelligence data and are defined by the Palo Alto Networks Threat
Research team, keep the objects active in order to track and detect malicious activity on
your network.
• Description—Specifies the match conditions for which the firewall or Panorama will analyze
logs. It describes the sequence of conditions that are matched on to identify acceleration or
escalation of malicious activity or suspicious host behavior. For example, the Compromise
Lifecycle object detects a host involved in a complete attack lifecycle in a three-step
escalation that starts with scanning or probing activity, progressing to exploitation, and
concluding with network contact to a known malicious domain.
For more information, see Automated Correlation Engine Concepts and Use the Automated
Correlation Engine.
Interpret Correlated Events
You can view and analyze the logs generated for each correlated event in the Monitor >
Automated Correlation Engine > Correlated Events tab.
Correlated Events includes the following details:
Field Description
Match Time The time the correlation object triggered a match.
Update Time The time when the event was last updated with evidence on the
match. As the firewall collects evidence on pattern or sequence
of events defined in a correlation object, the time stamp on the
correlated event log is updated.
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Field Description
Object Name The name of the correlation object that triggered the match.
Source Address The IP address of the user/device on your network from which the
traffic originated.
Source User The user and user group information from the directory server, if
User-ID is enabled.
Severity
To
configure
the
firewall
or
Panorama
to send
alerts
using
email,
SNMP
or syslog
messages
for a
desired
severity
level,
see Use
External
Services
for
Monitoring.
A rating that indicates the urgency and impact of the match. The
severity level indicates the extent of damage or escalation pattern,
and the frequency of occurrence. Because correlation objects are
primarily for detecting threats, the correlated events typically relate
to identifying compromised hosts on the network and the severity
implies the following:
• Critical—Confirms that a host has been compromised based on
correlated events that indicate an escalation pattern. For example,
a critical event is logged when a host that received a file with a
malicious verdict by WildFire exhibits the same command-andcontrol activity that was observed in the WildFire sandbox for that
malicious file.
• High—Indicates that a host is very likely compromised based on
a correlation between multiple threat events, such as malware
detected anywhere on the network that matches the commandand-control activity generated by a particular host.
• Medium—Indicates that a host is likely compromised based
on the detection of one or multiple suspicious events, such as
repeated visits to known malicious URLs, which suggests a scripted
command-and-control activity.
• Low—Indicates that a host is possibly compromised based on the
detection of one or multiple suspicious events, such as a visit to a
malicious URL or a dynamic DNS domain.
• Informational—Detects an event that may be useful in aggregate
for identifying suspicious activity, but the event is not necessarily
significant on its own.
Summary A description that summarizes the evidence gathered on the
correlated event.
Click the icon to see the detailed log view, which includes all the evidence on a match:
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Tab Description
Object Details: Presents information on the Correlation Object that triggered the
match.
Match
Information
Match Details: A summary of the match details that includes the match time, last
update time on the match evidence, severity of the event, and an event summary.
Match
Evidence
Presents all the evidence that corroborates the correlated event. It lists detailed
information on the evidence collected for each session.
Use the Compromised Hosts Widget in the ACC
The compromised hosts widget on ACC > Threat Activity, aggregates the Correlated Events
and sorts them by severity. It displays the source IP address/user who triggered the event, the
correlation object that was matched and the number of times the object was matched. Use the
match count link to jump to the match evidence details.
For more details, see Use the Automated Correlation Engine and Use the Application Command
Center.
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Take Packet Captures
All Palo Alto Networks firewalls allow you to take packet captures (pcaps) of traffic that traverses
the management interface and network interfaces on the firewall. When taking packet captures
on the dataplane, you may need to Disable Hardware Offload to ensure that the firewall captures
all traffic.
Packet capture can be very CPU intensive and can degrade firewall performance. Only
use this feature when necessary and make sure you turn it off after you have collected the
required packets.
• Types of Packet Captures
• Disable Hardware Offload
• Take a Custom Packet Capture
• Take a Threat Packet Capture
• Take an Application Packet Capture
• Take a Packet Capture on the Management Interface
Types of Packet Captures
There are different types of packet captures you can enable, depending on what you need to do:
• Custom Packet Capture—The firewall captures packets for all traffic or for specific traffic
based on filters that you define. For example, you can configure the firewall to only capture
packets to and from a specific source and destination IP address or port. You then use the
packet captures for troubleshooting network#related issues or for gathering application
attributes to enable you to write custom application signatures or to request an application
signature from Palo Alto Networks. See Take a Custom Packet Capture.
• Threat Packet Capture—The firewall captures packets when it detects a virus, spyware, or
vulnerability. You enable this feature in Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Vulnerability Protection
security profiles. A link to view or export the packet captures will appear in the second
column of the Threat log. These packet captures provide context around a threat to help you
determine if an attack is successful or to learn more about the methods used by an attacker.
You can also submit this type of pcap to Palo Alto Networks to have a threat re-analyzed if you
feel it’s a false-positive or false-negative. See Take a Threat Packet Capture.
• Application Packet Capture—The firewall captures packets based on a specific application
and filters that you define. A link to view or export the packet captures will appear in the
second column of the Traffic logs for traffic that matches the packet capture rule. See Take an
Application Packet Capture.
• Management Interface Packet Capture—The firewall captures packets on the management
interface (MGT). The packet captures are useful when troubleshooting services that traverse
the interface, such as firewall management authentication to External Authentication Services,
software and content updates, log forwarding, communication with SNMP servers, and
authentication requests for GlobalProtect and Authentication Portal. See Take a Packet
Capture on the Management Interface.
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• GTP Event Packet Capture—The firewall captures a single GTP event, such as GTP-in-GTP,
end user IP spoofing, and abnormal GTP messages, to make GTP troubleshooting easier for
mobile network operators. Enable packet capture in a Mobile Network Protection profile.
Disable Hardware Offload
Packet captures for traffic passing through the network data ports on a Palo Alto Networks
firewall are performed by the dataplane CPU. To capture traffic that passes through the
management interface, you must Take a Packet Capture on the Management Interface, in which
case the packet capture is performed on the management plane.
When a packet capture is performed on the dataplane, the packet capture filter is used differently
by the ingress stage, compared to the firewall, drop, and egress capture stages. The ingress stage
uses the packet capture filter to copy individual packets that match the filter to the capture file.
Packets that fail packet-parsing checks are dropped before being captured. The firewall, drop, and
egress capture stages use the same packet capture filter to mark all new sessions that match the
filter. Because each session, as recorded in the session tables, identifies both client-to-server and
server-to-client connections, any traffic, in either direction, that matches to the flagged session
will be copied to the firewall-stage and transmit-stage capture files. Likewise, any dropped traffic
(post receive stage) in either direction that matches to a flagged session will be copied to the
drop-stage capture file.
On firewall models that include a network processor, traffic that meets certain pre-determined
criteria by Palo Alto Networks may be offloaded for handling by the network processor. Such
offloaded traffic will not reach the dataplane CPU and will, therefore, not be captured. To capture
offloaded traffic, you must use the CLI to turn off the hardware offload feature.
Common types of traffic that may be offloaded include non-decrypted SSL and SSH traffic (which
being encrypted cannot be usefully inspected beyond the initial SSL/SSH session setup), network
protocols (such as OSPF, BGP, RIP), and traffic that matches an application-override policy. Some
types of traffic will never be offloaded, such as ARP, all non-IP traffic, IPSec, and VPN sessions.
Individual SYN, FIN, and RST packets, even for session traffic that has been offloaded, will never
be offloaded, and will always be passed through to the dataplane CPU, once recognized as such
by the network processor.
Hardware offload is supported on the following firewalls: PA-3200 Series, PA-5200
Series, PA-5450, and PA-7000 Series firewall.
Disabling hardware offload may increase the dataplane CPU usage. If dataplane CPU
usage is already high, you may want to schedule a maintenance window before disabling
hardware offload.
STEP 1 | Disable hardware offload by running the following CLI command:
admin@PA-7050>set session offload no
STEP 2 | After the firewall captures the required traffic, enable hardware offload by running the
following CLI command:
admin@PA-7050>set session offload yes
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Take a Custom Packet Capture
Custom packet captures allow you to define the traffic that the firewall will capture. To ensure
that you capture all traffic, you may need to Disable Hardware Offload.
STEP 1 | Before you start a packet capture, identify the attributes of the traffic that you want to
capture.
For example, to determine the source IP address, source NAT IP address, and the destination
IP address for traffic between two systems, perform a ping from the source system to the
to the destination system. After the ping is complete, go to Monitor > Traffic and locate the
traffic log for the two systems. Click the Detailed Log View icon located in the first column of
the log and note the source address, source NAT IP, and the destination address.
The following example shows how to use a packet capture to troubleshoot a Telnet
connectivity issue from a user in the Trust zone to a server in the DMZ zone.
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STEP 2 | Set packet capture filters, so the firewall only captures traffic you are interested in.
Using filters makes it easier for you to locate the information you need in the packet capture
and will reduce the processing power required by the firewall to take the packet capture. To
capture all traffic, do not define filters and leave the filter option off.
For example, if you configured NAT on the firewall, you will need to apply two filters. The first
one filters on the pre-NAT source IP address to the destination IP address and the second one
filters traffic from the destination server to the source NAT IP address.
1. Select Monitor > Packet Capture.
2. Click Clear All Settings at the bottom of the window to clear any existing capture
settings.
3. Click Manage Filters and click Add.
4. Select Id 1 and in the Source field enter the source IP address you are interested in and
in the Destination field enter a destination IP address.
For example, enter the source IP address 192.168.2.10 and the destination IP address
10.43.14.55. To further filter the capture, set Non-IP to exclude non-IP traffic, such
as broadcast traffic.
5. Add the second filter and select Id 2.
For example, in the Source field enter 10.43.14.55 and in the Destination field enter
10.43.14.25. In the Non-IP drop-down menu select exclude.
6. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Set Filtering to On.
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STEP 4 | Specify the traffic stage(s) that trigger the packet capture and the filename(s) to use to
store the captured content. For a definition of each stage, click the Help icon on the packet
capture page.
For example, to configure all packet capture stages and define a filename for each stage,
perform the following procedure:
1. Add a Stage to the packet capture configuration and define a File name for the resulting
packet capture.
For example, select receive as the Stage and set the File name to telnet-test-received.
2. Continue to Add each Stage you want to capture (receive, firewall, transmit, and drop)
and set a unique File name for each stage.
STEP 5 | Set Packet Capture to ON.
The firewall or appliance warns you that system performance can be degraded; acknowledge
the warning by clicking OK. If you define filters, the packet capture should have little impact
on performance, but you should always turn Off packet capture after the firewall captures the
data that you want to analyze.
STEP 6 | Generate traffic that matches the filters that you defined.
For this example, generate traffic from the source system to the Telnet-enabled server by
running the following command from the source system (192.168.2.10):
telnet 10.43.14.55
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STEP 7 | Turn packet capture OFF and then click the refresh icon to see the packet capture files.
Notice that in this case, there were no dropped packets, so the firewall did not create a file for
the drop stage.
STEP 8 | Download the packet captures by clicking the filename in the File Name column.
STEP 9 | View the packet capture files using a network packet analyzer.
In this example, the received.pcap packet capture shows a failed Telnet session from the
source system at 192.168.2.10 to the Telnet-enabled server at 10.43.14.55. The source
system sent the Telnet request to the server, but the server did not respond. In this example,
the server may not have Telnet enabled, so check the server.
STEP 10 | Enable the Telnet service on the destination server (10.43.14.55) and turn on packet capture
to take a new packet capture.
STEP 11 | Generate traffic that will trigger the packet capture.
Run the Telnet session again from the source system to the Telnet-enabled server
telnet 10.43.14.55
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STEP 12 | Download and open the received.pcap file and view it using a network packet analyzer.
The following packet capture now shows a successful Telnet session from the host user at
192.168.2.10 to the Telnet-enabled server at 10.43.14.55.
You also see the NAT address 10.43.14.25. When the server responds, it does so to
the NAT address. You can see the session is successful as indicated by the three-way
handshake between the host and the server and then you see Telnet data.
Take a Threat Packet Capture
To configure the firewall to take a packet capture (pcap) when it detects a threat, enable packet
capture on Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Vulnerability Protection security profiles.
Threats that are detected using the advanced Inline Cloud Analysis engines do not
generate packet capture data.
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STEP 1 | Enable the packet capture option in the security profile.
Some security profiles allow you to define a single-packet capture or an extended-capture. If
you choose extended-capture, define the capture length. This will allow the firewall to capture
more packets to provide additional context related to the threat.
If the action for a given threat is allow, the firewall does not trigger a Threat log and
does not capture packets. If the action is alert, you can set the packet capture to
single-packet or extended-capture. All blocking actions (drop, block, and reset actions)
capture a single packet. The content package on the device determines the default
action.
1. Select Objects > Security Profiles and enable the packet capture option for the
supported profiles as follows:
• Antivirus—Select a custom antivirus profile and in the Antivirus tab select the Packet
Capture check box.
• Anti-Spyware—Select a custom Anti-Spyware profile, click Signature Policies,
Signature Exceptions, or the DNS Policies tab and in the Packet Capture drop-down,
select single-packet or extended-capture.
Signature Policies packet captures apply to multiple signatures across a
specified category or matching threat name, while Signature Exceptions
packet captures apply to a specific signature.
• Vulnerability Protection—Select a custom Vulnerability Protection profile and in the
Rules tab, click Add to add a new rule, or select an existing rule. Set Packet Capture
to single-packet or extended-capture.
If the profile has signature exceptions defined, click the Exceptions tab and
in the Packet Capture column for a signature, set single-packet or extendedcapture.
2. (Optional) If you selected extended-capture for any of the profiles, define the extended
packet capture length.
1. Select Device > Setup > Content-ID and edit the Content-ID Settings.
2. In the Extended Packet Capture Length (packets) section, specify the number of
packets that the firewall will capture (range is 1-50; default is 5).
3. Click OK.
STEP 2 | Add the security profile (with packet capture enabled) to a Security Policy rule.
1. Select Policies > Security and select a rule.
2. Select the Actions tab.
3. In the Profile Settings section, select a profile that has packet capture enabled.
For example, click the Antivirus drop-down and select a profile that has packet capture
enabled.
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STEP 3 | View/export the packet capture from the Threat logs.
1. Select Monitor > Logs > Threat.
2. In the log entry that you are interested in, click the green packet capture icon in the
second column. View the packet capture directly or Export it to your system.
Take an Application Packet Capture
The following topics describe two ways that you can configure the firewall to take application
packet captures:
• Take a Packet Capture for Unknown Applications
• Take a Custom Application Packet Capture
Take a Packet Capture for Unknown Applications
Palo Alto Networks firewalls automatically generate a packet capture for sessions that contain an
application that the firewall cannot identify. Typically, the only applications that are classified as
unknown traffic—tcp, udp, or non-syn-tcp—are commercially available applications that do not yet
have App-ID signatures, are internal or custom applications on your network, or potential threats.
You can use these packet captures to gather more context related to the unknown application
or use the information to analyze the traffic for potential threats. You can also Manage Custom
or Unknown Applications by controlling them through security policy or by writing a custom
application signature and then creating a security rule based on the custom signature. If the
application is a commercial application, you can submit the packet capture to Palo Alto Networks
to have an App-ID signature created.
STEP 1 | Verify that unknown application packet capture is enabled (this option is enabled by default).
1. To view the unknown application capture setting, run the following CLI command:
admin@PA-220>show running application setting | match “Unknown
capture”
2. If the unknown capture setting option is off, enable it:
admin@PA-220>set application dump-unknown yes
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STEP 2 | Locate unknown TCP and UDP applications by filtering the traffic logs.
1. Select Monitor > Logs > Traffic.
2. Click Add Filter, create the unknown TCP portion of the filter (Connector = “and”,
Attribute = “Application”, Operator = “equal”, and enter “unknown-tcp” as the Value),
and then click Add to add the query to the filter.
3. Create the unknown UDP portion of the filter (Connector = “or”, Attribute =
“Application”, Operator = “equal”, and enter “unknown-udp” as the Value), and then click
Add to add the query to the filter.
4. Click Apply to place the filter in the log screen query field.
STEP 3 | Click the Apply Filter arrow next to the query field to run the filter and then click the packet
capture icon to view the packet capture or Export it to your local system.
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Take a Custom Application Packet Capture
You can configure a Palo Alto Networks firewall to take a packet capture based on an application
name and filters that you define. You can then use the packet capture to troubleshoot issues with
controlling an application. When configuring an application packet capture, you must use the
application name defined in the App-ID database. You can view a list of all App-ID applications
using Applipedia or from the web interface on the firewall in Objects > Applications.
STEP 1 | Using a terminal emulation application, such as PuTTY, launch an SSH session to the firewall.
STEP 2 | Turn on the application packet capture and define filters.
admin@PA-220>set application dump on application <application-name>
rule <rule-name>
For example, to capture packets for the linkedin-base application that matches the security
rule named Social Networking Apps, run the following CLI command:
admin@PA-220>set application dump on application linkedin-base rule
"Social Networking Apps"
You can also apply other filters, such as source IP address and destination IP address.
STEP 3 | View the packet capture output to ensure that the correct filters are applied. The output
displays after you enable the packet capture.
The following output confirms that application capture filtering is now based on the linkedinbase application for traffic that matches the Social Networking Apps rule.
STEP 4 | Access linkedin.com from a web browser and perform some LinkedIn tasks to generate
LinkedIn traffic, and then run the following CLI command to turn off application packet
capture:
admin@PA-220>set application dump off
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STEP 5 | View/export the packet capture.
1. Log in to the web interface on the firewall and select Monitor > Logs > Traffic.
2. In the log entry that you are interested in, click the green packet capture icon .
3. View the packet capture directly or Export it to your computer. The following screen
capture shows the linkedin-base packet capture.
Take a Packet Capture on the Management Interface
The tcpdump CLI command enables you to capture packets that traverse the management
interface (MGT) on a Palo Alto Networks firewall.
Each platform has a default number of bytes that tcpdump captures. The PA-220
firewalls capture 68 bytes of data from each packet and anything over that is truncated.
The PA-7000 Series firewalls and VM-Series firewalls capture 96 bytes of data from each
packet. To define the number of packets that tcpdump will capture, use the snaplen
(snap length) option (range 0-65535). Setting the snaplen to 0 will cause the firewall to
use the maximum length required to capture whole packets.
STEP 1 | Using a terminal emulation application, such as PuTTY, launch an SSH session to the firewall.
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STEP 2 | To start a packet capture on the MGT interface, run the following command:
admin@PA-220>tcpdump filter “<filter-option> <IP-address>” snaplen
length
For example, to capture the traffic that is generated when and administrator authenticates
to the firewall using RADIUS, filter on the destination IP address of the RADIUS server
(10.5.104.99 in this example):
admin@PA-220>tcpdump filter “dst 10.5.104.99” snaplen 0
You can also filter on src (source IP address), host, net, and you can exclude content. For
example, to filter on a subnet and exclude all SCP, SFTP, and SSH traffic (which uses port 22),
run the following command:
admin@PA-220>tcpdump filter “net 10.5.104.0/24 and not port 22”
snaplen 0
Each time tcpdump takes a packet capture, it stores the content in a file named
mgmt.pcap. This file is overwritten each time you run tcpdump.
STEP 3 | After the traffic you are interested in has traversed the MGT interface, press Ctrl + C to stop
the capture.
STEP 4 | View the packet capture by running the following command:
admin@PA-220> view-pcap mgmt-pcap mgmt.pcap
The following output shows the packet capture from the MGT port (10.5.104.98) to the
RADIUS server (10.5.104.99):
09:55:29.139394 IP 10.5.104.98.43063 > 10.5.104.99.radius: RADIUS,
Access Request (1), id: 0x00 length: 89
09:55:29.144354 arp reply 10.5.104.98 is-at 00:25:90:23:94:98 (oui
Unknown)
09:55:29.379290 IP 10.5.104.98.43063 > 10.5.104.99.radius: RADIUS,
Access Request (1), id: 0x00 length: 70
09:55:34.379262 arp who-has 10.5.104.99 tell 10.5.104.98
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STEP 5 | (Optional) Export the packet capture from the firewall using SCP (or TFTP). For example, to
export the packet capture using SCP, run the following command:
admin@PA-220>scp export mgmt-pcap from mgmt.pcap
to <username@host:path>
For example, to export the pcap to an SCP enabled server at 10.5.5.20 to a temp folder named
temp-SCP, run the following CLI command:
admin@PA-220>scp export mgmt-pcap from mgmt.pcap to
admin@10.5.5.20:c:/temp-SCP
Enter the login name and password for the account on the SCP server to enable the firewall to
copy the packet capture to the c:\temp-SCP folder on the SCP-enabled.
STEP 6 | You can now view the packet capture files using a network packet analyzer, such as
Wireshark.
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Monitor Applications and Threats
All Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls come equipped with the App-ID technology,
which identifies the applications traversing your network, irrespective of protocol, encryption, or
evasive tactic. You can then Use the Application Command Center to monitor the applications.
The ACC graphically summarizes the data from a variety of log databases to highlight the
applications traversing your network, who is using them, and their potential security impact. ACC
is dynamically updated, using the continuous traffic classification that App-ID performs; if an
application changes ports or behavior, App-ID continues to see the traffic, displaying the results
in ACC. Additional visibility into URL categories, threats, and data provides a complete and wellrounded picture of network activity. With ACC, you can very quickly learn more about the traffic
traversing the network and then translate that information into a more informed security policy
You can also Use the Dashboard to monitor the network.
Review the Content Delivery Network Infrastructure to check whether logged events on the
firewall pose a security risk. The AutoFocus intelligence summary shows the prevalence of
properties, activities, or behaviors associated with logs in your network and on a global scale,
as well as the WildFire verdict and AutoFocus tags linked to them. With an active AutoFocus
subscription, you can use this information to create customized AutoFocus Alerts that track
specific threats on your network.
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View and Manage Logs
A log is an automatically generated, time-stamped file that provides an audit trail for system
events on the firewall or network traffic events that the firewall monitors. Log entries contain
artifacts, which are properties, activities, or behaviors associated with the logged event, such
as the application type or the IP address of an attacker. Each log type records information for
a separate event type. For example, the firewall generates a Threat log to record traffic that
matches a spyware, vulnerability, or virus signature or a DoS attack that matches the thresholds
configured for a port scan or host sweep activity on the firewall.
• Log Types and Severity Levels
• View Logs
• Filter Logs
• Export Logs
• Use Case: Export Traffic Logs for a Date Range
• Configure Log Storage Quotas and Expiration Periods
• Schedule Log Exports to an SCP or FTP Server
Log Types and Severity Levels
You can see the following log types in the Monitor > Logs pages.
• Traffic Logs
• Threat Logs
• URL Filtering Logs
• WildFire Submissions Logs
• Data Filtering Logs
• Correlation Logs
• Tunnel Inspection Logs
• Config Logs
• System Logs
• HIP Match Logs
• GlobalProtect Logs
• IP-Tag Logs
• User-ID Logs
• Decryption Logs
• Alarms Logs
• Authentication Logs
• Unified Logs
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Traffic Logs
Traffic logs display an entry for the start and end of each session. Each entry includes the
following information: date and time; source and destination zones, source and destination
dynamic address groups, addresses and ports; application name; security rule applied to the traffic
flow; rule action (allow, deny, or drop); ingress and egress interface; number of bytes; and session
end reason.
A dynamic address group only appears in a log if the rule the traffic matches includes a
dynamic address group. If an IP address appears in more than one dynamic address group,
the firewall displays up to five dynamic address groups in logs along with the source IP
address
The Type column indicates whether the entry is for the start or end of the session. The Action
column indicates whether the firewall allowed, denied, or dropped the session. A drop indicates
the security rule that blocked the traffic specified any application, while a deny indicates the rule
identified a specific application. If the firewall drops traffic before identifying the application,
such as when a rule drops all traffic for a specific service, the Application column displays notapplicable.
Click beside an entry to view additional details about the session, such as whether an ICMP
entry aggregates multiple sessions between the same source and destination (in which case the
Count column value is greater than one).
When the Decryption log introduced in PAN-OS 10.2 is disabled, the firewall sends
HTTP/2 logs as Traffic logs. However, when the Decryption logs are enabled, the firewall
sends HTTP/2 logs as Tunnel Inspection logs (when Decryption logs are disabled, HTTP/2
logs are sent as Traffic logs), so you need to check the Tunnel Inspection logs instead of
the Traffic logs for HTTP/2 events.
Threat Logs
Threat logs display entries when traffic matches one of the Security Profiles attached to a security
rule on the firewall. Each entry includes the following information: date and time; type of threat
(such as virus or spyware); threat description or URL (Name column); source and destination
zones, addresses, source and destination dynamic address groups, and ports; application name;
alarm action (such as allow or block); and severity level.
A dynamic address group only appears in a log if the rule the traffic matches includes a
dynamic address group. If an IP address appears in more than one dynamic address group,
the firewall displays up to five dynamic address groups in logs along with the source IP
address
To see more details on individual Threat log entries:
• Click beside a threat entry to view details such as whether the entry aggregates multiple
threats of the same type between the same source and destination (in which case the Count
column value is greater than one).
• If you configured the firewall to Take Packet Captures, click beside an entry to access the
captured packets.
The following table summarizes the Threat severity levels:
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Severity Description
Critical Serious threats, such as those that affect default installations of widely
deployed software, result in root compromise of servers, and the exploit code
is widely available to attackers. The attacker usually does not need any special
authentication credentials or knowledge about the individual victims and the
target does not need to be manipulated into performing any special functions.
High Threats that have the ability to become critical but have mitigating factors; for
example, they may be difficult to exploit, do not result in elevated privileges, or do
not have a large victim pool.
WildFire Submissions log entries with a malicious verdict and an action set to allow
are logged as High.
Medium Minor threats in which impact is minimized, such as DoS attacks that do not
compromise the target or exploits that require an attacker to reside on the same
LAN as the victim, affect only non-standard configurations or obscure applications,
or provide very limited access.
• Threat log entries with a malicious verdict and an action of block or alert, based
on the existing WildFire signature severity, are logged as Medium.
Low Warning-level threats that have very little impact on an organization's
infrastructure. They usually require local or physical system access and may often
result in victim privacy or DoS issues and information leakage.
• Data Filtering profile matches are logged as Low.
• WildFire Submissions log entries with a grayware verdict and any action are
logged as Low.
InformationalSuspicious events that do not pose an immediate threat, but that are reported to
call attention to deeper problems that could possibly exist.
• URL Filtering log entries are logged as Informational.
• WildFire Submissions log entries with a benign verdict and any action are
logged as Informational.
• WildFire Submissions log entries with any verdict and an action set to block and
forward are logged as Informational.
• Log entries with any verdict and an action set to block are logged as
Informational.
URL Filtering Logs
URL filtering logs (Monitor > Logs > URL Filtering) display comprehensive information about
traffic to URL categories monitored in Security policy rules. Attributes or properties recorded for
each session include receive time, category, URL, from zone, to zone, source,
and source user. You can customize your log view so that only the attributes you are most
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interested in display. The firewall generates URL filtering log entries in the following cases, with
exceptions noted:
• Traffic matches a Security policy rule with a URL category as match criteria. The rule enforces
one of the following actions for the traffic: deny, drop, or reset (client, server,
both).
URL filtering logs are only generated when an action results from a URL category
match. If you have Security policy rules with applications as match criteria, a URL can
be blocked due to an application (App-ID) rather than a URL category match. This
behavior depends on how packets in the session are parsed.
For example, suppose you have a Security policy rule that blocks the socialnetworking category and another rule that blocks a specific social media application.
Traffic to the social media website could result in a Security policy lookup that hits
an App-ID rule instead of a URL filtering rule. In this case, a URL filtering log isn't
generated.
• Traffic matches a Security policy rule with a URL Filtering profile attached. Site Access for
categories in the profile is set to alert, block, continue, or override.
By default, categories set to allow do not generate URL filtering log entries. The exception
is if you configure log forwarding.
If you want the firewall to log traffic to categories that you allow but would like more
visibility into, set Site Access for these categories to alert in your URL Filtering profiles.
WildFire Submissions Logs
The firewall forwards samples (files and emails links) to the WildFire cloud for analysis based on
WildFire Analysis profiles settings (Objects > Security Profiles > WildFire Analysis). The firewall
generates WildFire Submissions log entries for each sample it forwards after WildFire completes
static and dynamic analysis of the sample. WildFire Submissions log entries include the firewall
Action for the sample (allow or block), the WildFire verdict for the submitted sample, and the
severity level of the sample.
The following table summarizes the WildFire verdicts:
Verdict Description
Benign Indicates that the entry received a WildFire analysis verdict of benign. Files
categorized as benign are safe and do not exhibit malicious behavior.
Grayware Indicates that the entry received a WildFire analysis verdict of grayware. Files
categorized as grayware do not pose a direct security threat, but might display
otherwise obtrusive behavior. Grayware can include, adware, spyware, and
Browser Helper Objects (BHOs).
Phishing Indicates that WildFire assigned a link an analysis verdict of phishing. A phishing
verdict indicates that the site to which the link directs users displayed credential
phishing activity.
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Verdict Description
Malicious Indicates that the entry received a WildFire analysis verdict of malicious. Samples
categorized as malicious are can pose a security threat. Malware can include
viruses, C2 (command-and-control), worms, Trojans, Remote Access Tools (RATs),
rootkits, and botnets. For samples that are identified as malware, the WildFire
cloud generates and distributes a signature to prevent against future exposure.
C2 samples are classified as C2 in the WildFire analysis report and
other Palo Alto Networks products that rely on WildFire analysis data;
however, that verdict is translated and categorized as malicious by the
firewall.
Data Filtering Logs
Data Filtering logs display entries for the security rules that help prevent sensitive information
such as credit card numbers from leaving the area that the firewall protects. See Data Filtering for
information on defining Data Filtering profiles.
This log type also shows information for File Blocking Profiles. For example, if a rule blocks .exe
files, the log shows the blocked files.
Correlation Logs
The firewall logs a correlated event when the patterns and thresholds defined in a Correlation
Object match the traffic patterns on your network. To Interpret Correlated Events and view a
graphical display of the events, see Use the Compromised Hosts Widget in the ACC.
The following table summarizes the Correlation log severity levels:
Severity Description
Critical Confirms that a host has been compromised based on correlated events that
indicate an escalation pattern. For example, a critical event is logged when a
host that received a file with a malicious verdict by WildFire, exhibits the same
command-and control activity that was observed in the WildFire sandbox for that
malicious file.
High Indicates that a host is very likely compromised based on a correlation between
multiple threat events, such as malware detected anywhere on the network that
matches the command and control activity being generated from a particular
host.
Medium Indicates that a host is likely compromised based on the detection of one or
multiple suspicious events, such as repeated visits to known malicious URLs that
suggests a scripted command-and-control activity.
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Severity Description
Low Indicates that a host is possibly compromised based on the detection of one or
multiple suspicious events, such as a visit to a malicious URL or a dynamic DNS
domain.
InformationalDetects an event that may be useful in aggregate for identifying suspicious
activity; each event is not necessarily significant on its own.
Tunnel Inspection Logs
Tunnel inspection logs are like traffic logs for tunnel sessions; they display entries of nonencrypted tunnel sessions. To prevent double counting, the firewall saves only the inner flows
in traffic logs, and sends tunnel sessions to the tunnel inspection logs. The tunnel inspection
log entries include Receive Time (date and time the log was received), the tunnel ID, monitor
tag, session ID, the Security rule applied to the tunnel session, number of bytes in the session,
parent session ID (session ID for the tunnel session), source address, source user and source zone,
destination address, destination user, and destination zone.
When the Decryption logs introduced in PAN-OS 10.2 are enabled, the firewall sends
HTTP/2 logs as Tunnel Inspection logs (when Decryption logs are disabled, HTTP/2
logs are sent as Traffic logs), so you need to check the Tunnel Inspection logs instead of
the Traffic logs for HTTP/2 events. In this case, you must also enable Tunnel Content
Inspection to obtain the App-ID for HTTP/2 traffic.
Click the Detailed Log view to see details for an entry, such as the tunnel protocol used, and the
flag indicating whether the tunnel content was inspected or not. Only a session that has a parent
session will have the Tunnel Inspected flag set, which means the session is in a tunnel-in-tunnel
(two levels of encapsulation). The first outer header of a tunnel will not have the Tunnel Inspected
flag set.
Config Logs
Config logs display entries for changes to the firewall configuration. Each entry includes the date
and time, the administrator username, the IP address from where the administrator made the
change, the type of client (Web, CLI, or Panorama), the type of command executed, the command
status (succeeded or failed), the configuration path, and the values before and after the change.
System Logs
System logs display entries for each system event on the firewall. Each entry includes the date
and time, event severity, and event description. The following table summarizes the System log
severity levels. For a partial list of System log messages and their corresponding severity levels,
refer to System Log Events.
Severity Description
Critical Hardware failures, including high availability (HA) failover and link failures.
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Severity Description
High Serious issues, including dropped connections with external devices, such as LDAP
and RADIUS servers.
Medium Mid-level notifications, such as antivirus package upgrades.
Low Minor severity notifications, such as user password changes.
InformationalLog in/log off, administrator name or password change, any configuration change,
and all other events not covered by the other severity levels.
HIP Match Logs
The GlobalProtect Host Information Profile (HIP) matching enables you to collect information
about the security status of the end devices accessing your network (such as whether they
have disk encryption enabled). The firewall can allow or deny access to a specific host based on
adherence to the HIP-based security rules you define. HIP Match logs display traffic flows that
match a HIP Object or HIP Profile that you configured for the rules.
GlobalProtect Logs
GlobalProtect logs display the following logs related to GlobalProtect:
• GlobalProtect system logs.
GlobalProtect authentication event logs remain in Monitor > Logs > System; however, the
Auth Method column of the GlobalProtect logs display the authentication method used for
logins.
• LSVPN/satellite events.
• GlobalProtect portal and gateway logs.
• Clientless VPN logs.
IP-Tag Logs
IP-tag logs display how and when a source IP address is registered or unregistered on the
firewall and what tag the firewall applied to the address. Additionally, each log entry displays
the configured timeout (when configured) and the source of the IP address-to-tag mapping
information, such as User-ID agent VM information sources and auto-tagging. See how to
Register IP Address and Tags Dynamically for more information.
User-ID Logs
User-ID logs display information about IP address-to-username mappings and Authentication
Timestamps, such as the sources of the mapping information and the times when users
authenticated. You can use this information to help troubleshoot User-ID and authentication
issues. For example, if the firewall is applying the wrong policy rule for a user, you can view the
logs to verify whether that user is mapped to the correct IP address and whether the group
associations are correct.
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Decryption Logs
Decryption logs display entries for unsuccessful TLS handshakes by default and can display
entries for successful TLS handshakes if you enable this option in decryption policy rules. If you
enable entries for successful handshakes, make sure that you have the system resources (log
space) for the logs.
Decryption logs include a vast amount of information to help you troubleshoot decryption and
monitor decryption activity. There are 62 columns of different types of information you can
enable in the logs, and you can select any individual log ( , magnifying glass) and see the details
in a single Detail view. You can view certificate, cipher suite, and error information such as:
subject common name, issuer common name, root common name, root status, certificate key
type and size, certificate start and end date, certificate serial number, certificate fingerprint,
TLS version, key exchange algorithm, encryption algorithm, negotiated EC curve, authentication
algorithm, SNI, proxy type, errors information (cipher, HSM, resource, resume, protocol, feature,
certificate, version), and error indexes (codes that you can look up to get more error information).
Alarms Logs
An alarm is a firewall-generated message indicating that the number of events of a particular type
(for example, encryption and decryption failures) has exceeded the threshold configured for that
event type. To enable alarms and configure alarm thresholds, select Device > Log Settings and
edit the Alarm Settings.
When generating an alarm, the firewall creates an Alarm log and opens the System Alarms dialog
to display the alarm. After you Close the dialog, you can reopen it anytime by clicking Alarms
( ) at the bottom of the web interface. To prevent the firewall from automatically opening the
dialog for a particular alarm, select the alarm in the Unacknowledged Alarms list and Acknowledge
the alarm.
Authentication Logs
Authentication logs display information about authentication events that occur when end users
try to access network resources for which access is controlled by Authentication Policy rules. You
can use this information to help troubleshoot access issues and to adjust your Authentication
policy as needed. In conjunction with correlation objects, you can also use Authentication logs to
identify suspicious activity on your network, such as brute force attacks.
Optionally, you can configure Authentication rules to log timeout events. These timeouts relate to
the period when a user need authenticate for a resource only once but can access it repeatedly.
Seeing information about the timeouts helps you decide if and how to adjust them (for details, see
Authentication Timestamps).
System logs record authentication events relating to GlobalProtect and to administrator
access to the web interface.
Unified Logs
Unified logs are entries from the Traffic, Threat, URL Filtering, WildFire Submissions, and Data
Filtering logs displayed in a single view. Unified log view enables you to investigate and filter the
latest entries from different log types in one place, instead of searching through each log type
separately. Click Effective Queries ( ) in the filter area to select which log types will display
entries in Unified log view.
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The Unified log view displays only entries from logs that you have permission to see. For example,
an administrator who does not have permission to view WildFire Submissions logs will not see
WildFire Submissions log entries when viewing Unified logs. Administrative Role Types define
these permissions.
When you Set Up Remote Search in AutoFocus to perform a targeted search on the
firewall, the search results are displayed in Unified log view.
View Logs
You can view the different log types on the firewall in a tabular format. The firewall locally stores
all log files and automatically generates Configuration and System logs by default. To learn more
about the security rules that trigger the creation of entries for the other types of logs, see Log
Types and Severity Levels.
To configure the firewall to forward logs as syslog messages, email notifications, or Simple
Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps, Use External Services for Monitoring.
STEP 1 | Select a log type to view.
1. Select Monitor > Logs.
2. Select a log type from the list.
The firewall displays only the logs you have permission to see. For example,
if your administrative account does not have permission to view WildFire
Submissions logs, the firewall does not display that log type when you access the
logs pages. Administrative Role Types define the permissions.
STEP 2 | (Optional) Customize the log column display.
1. Click the arrow to the right of any column header, and select Columns.
2. Select columns to display from the list. The log updates automatically to match your
selections.
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STEP 3 | View additional details about log entries.
• Click the spyglass ( ) for a specific log entry. The Detailed Log View has more information
about the source and destination of the session, as well as a list of sessions related to the
log entry.
• (Threat log only) Click next to an entry to access local packet captures of the threat. To
enable local packet captures, see Take Packet Captures.
• (Traffic, Threat, URL Filtering, WildFire Submissions, Data Filtering, and Unified logs only)
View AutoFocus threat data for a log entry.
1. Enable AutoFocus.
Enable AutoFocus in Panorama to view AutoFocus threat data for all Panorama
log entries, including those from firewalls that are not connected to AutoFocus
and/or are running PAN-OS 7.0 and earlier release versions (Panorama > Setup
> Management > AutoFocus).
2. Hover over an IP address, URL, user agent, threat name (subtype: virus and wildfire-virus
only), filename, or SHA-256 hash.
3. Click the drop-down ( ) and select AutoFocus.
4. Content Delivery Network Infrastructure.
Next Steps...
• Filter Logs.
• Export Logs.
• Configure Log Storage Quotas and Expiration Periods.
Filter Logs
Each log has a filter area that allows you to set a criteria for which log entries to display. The
ability to filter logs is useful for focusing on events on your firewall that possess particular
properties or attributes. Filter logs by artifacts that are associated with individual log entries.
For example, filtering by the rule UUID makes it easier to pinpoint the specific rule you want to
locate, even among many similarly-named rules. If your ruleset is very large and contains many
rules, using the rule’s UUID as a filter spotlights the particular rule you need to find without
having to navigate through pages of results.
STEP 1 | (Unified logs only) Select the log types to include in the Unified log display.
1. Click Effective Queries ( ).
2. Select one or more log types from the list (traffic, threat, url, data, and wildfire).
3. Click OK. The Unified log updates to show only entries from the log types you have
selected.
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STEP 2 | Add a filter to the filter field.
If the value of the artifact matches the operator (such as has or in), enclose the value
in quotation marks to avoid a syntax error. For example, if you filter by destination
country and use IN as a value to specify INDIA, enter the filter as ( dstloc eq
“IN” ).
• Click one or more artifacts (such as the application type associated with traffic and the
IP address of an attacker) in a log entry. For example, click the Source 10.0.0.25 and
Application web-browsing of a log entry to display only entries that contain both artifacts in
the log (AND search).
• To specify artifacts to add to the filter field, click Add Filter ( ).
• To add a previously saved filter, click Load Filter ( ).
STEP 3 | Apply the filter to the log.
Click Apply Filter ( ). The log will refresh to display only log entries that match the current
filter.
STEP 4 | (Optional) Save frequently used filters.
1. Click Save Filter ( ).
2. Enter a Name for the filter.
3. Click OK. You can view your saved filters by clicking Load Filter ( ).
Next Steps...
• View Logs.
• Export Logs.
Export Logs
You can export the contents of a log type to a comma-separated value (CSV) formatted report. By
default, the report contains up to 2,000 rows of log entries.
STEP 1 | Set the number of rows to display in the report.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management, then edit the Logging and Reporting Settings.
2. Click the Log Export and Reporting tab.
3. Edit the number of Max Rows in CSV Export (up to 1048576 rows).
4. Click OK.
STEP 2 | Download the log.
1. Click Export to CSV ( ). A progress bar showing the status of the download appears.
2. When the download is complete, click Download file to save a copy of the log to your
local folder. For descriptions of the column headers in a downloaded log, refer to Syslog
Field Descriptions.
Next Step...
Schedule Log Exports to an SCP or FTP Server.
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Use Case: Export Traffic Logs for a Date Range
This example provides information and tips for filtering and exporting traffic logs for a specific
date range. Examples of date range filters for Traffic logs are:
• All Traffic for a specific date (yyyy/mm/dd) and time (hh:mm:ss)
• All Traffic received on or before the date (yyyy/mm/dd) and time (hh:mm:ss)
• All Traffic received on or after the date (yyyy/mm/dd) and time (hh:mm:ss)
• All Traffic received between the date-time range of yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss and yyyy/mm/dd
hh:mm:ss (this use case)
To filter for traffic received between a date and time range,
STEP 1 | Select Monitor > Logs.
STEP 2 | Select the Traffic log type.
STEP 3 | Add the filter to the filter field.
For example, to export Traffic logs from 08/03/2023 to 08/04/2023, add (receive_time
geq '2023/08/03 00:00:00') and (receive_time leq '2023/08/04
23:59:59') to the filter field and Apply Filter.
STEP 4 | Export to CSV.
Use smaller date ranges or reduce the Max Rows in CSV Export if your exported log
file does not include the complete results expected.
STEP 5 | Download the exported file.
Configure Log Storage Quotas and Expiration Periods
The firewall automatically deletes logs that exceed the expiration period. When the firewall
reaches the storage quota for a log type, it automatically deletes older logs of that type to create
space even if you don’t set an expiration period.
If you want to manually delete logs, select Device > Log Settings and, in the Manage Logs
section, click the links to clear logs by type.
STEP 1 | Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the Logging and Reporting Settings.
STEP 2 | Select Log Storage and enter a Quota (%) for each log type. When you change a percentage
value, the dialog refreshes to display the corresponding absolute value (Quota GB/MB
column).
STEP 3 | Enter the Max Days (expiration period) for each log type (range is 1-2,000). The fields are
blank by default, which means the logs never expire.
The firewall synchronizes expiration periods across high availability (HA) pairs. Because
only the active HA peer generates logs, the passive peer has no logs to delete unless
failover occurs and it starts generating logs.
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STEP 4 | Click OK and Commit.
Schedule Log Exports to an SCP or FTP Server
You can schedule exports of Traffic, Threat, URL Filtering, Data Filtering, HIP Match, and WildFire
Submission logs to a Secure Copy (SCP) server or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server. Perform this
task for each log type you want to export.
You can use Secure Copy (SCP) commands from the CLI to export the entire log
database to an SCP server and import it to another firewall. Because the log database is
too large for an export or import to be practical on the following platforms, they do not
support these options: PA-7000 Series firewalls (all PAN-OS releases), Panorama virtual
appliance running Panorama 6.0 or later releases, and Panorama M-Series appliances (all
Panorama releases).
STEP 1 | Select Device > Scheduled Log Export and click Add.
STEP 2 | Enter a Name for the scheduled log export and Enable it.
STEP 3 | Select the Log Type to export.
STEP 4 | Select the daily Scheduled Export Start Time. The options are in 15-minute increments for a
24-hour clock (00:00 - 23:59).
STEP 5 | Select the Protocol to export the logs: SCP (secure) or FTP.
STEP 6 | Enter the Hostname or IP address of the server.
STEP 7 | Enter the Port number. By default, FTP uses port 21 and SCP uses port 22.
STEP 8 | Enter the Path or directory in which to save the exported logs.
STEP 9 | Enter the Username and, if necessary, the Password (and Confirm Password) to access the
server.
STEP 10 | (FTP only) Select Enable FTP Passive Mode if you want to use FTP passive mode, in which
the firewall initiates a data connection with the FTP server. By default, the firewall uses FTP
active mode, in which the FTP server initiates a data connection with the firewall. Choose
the mode based on what your FTP server supports and on your network requirements.
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STEP 11 | (SCP only) Click Test SCP server connection. Before establishing a connection, the firewall
must accept the host key for the SCP server.
(PAN-OS 10.2.4 and later releases) A pop-up window is displayed requiring you to
enter a clear text Passwordand then to Confirm Password in order to test the SCP
server connection and enable the secure transfer of data.
The firewall does not establish and test the SCP server connection until you enter and
confirm the SCP server password. If the firewall is in an HA configuration, perform this
step on each HA peer so that each one can successfully connect to the SCP server. If
the firewall can successfully connect to the SCP server, it creates and uploads the test
file named ssh-export-test.txt.
If you use a Panorama template to configure the log export schedule, you must
perform this step after committing the template configuration to the firewalls. After
the template commit, log in to each firewall, open the log export schedule, and click
Test SCP server connection.
STEP 12 | Click OK and Commit.
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Monitor Block List
There are two ways you can cause the firewall to place an IP address on the block list:
• Configure a Vulnerability Protection profile with a rule to Block IP connections and apply the
profile to a Security policy, which you apply to a zone.
• Configure a DoS Protection policy rule with the Protect action and a Classified DoS Protection
profile, which specifies a maximum rate of connections per second allowed. When incoming
packets match the DoS Protection policy and exceed the Max Rate, and if you specified a
Block Duration and a Classified policy rule to include source IP address, the firewall puts the
offending source IP address on the block list.
In the cases described above, the firewall automatically blocks that traffic in hardware before
those packets use CPU or packet buffer resources. If attack traffic exceeds the blocking capacity
of the hardware, the firewall uses IP blocking mechanisms in software to block the traffic.
The firewall automatically creates a hardware block list entry based on your Vulnerability
Protection profile or DoS Protection policy rule; the source address from the rule is the source IP
address in the hardware block list.
Entries on the block list indicate in the Type column whether they were blocked by hardware (hw)
or software (sw). The bottom of the screen displays:
• Count of Total Blocked IPs out of the number of blocked IP addresses the firewall supports.
• Percentage of the block list that the firewall has used.
To view details about an address on the block list, hover over a Source IP address and click the
down arrow link. Click the Who Is link, which displays the Network Solutions Who Is feature,
providing information about the address.
For information on configuring a Vulnerability Protection profile, see Customize the Action and
Trigger Conditions for a Brute Force Signature. For more information on block list and DoS
Protection profiles, see DoS Protection Against Flooding of New Sessions.
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View and Manage Reports
The reporting capabilities on the firewall allow you to keep a pulse on your network, validate your
policies, and focus your efforts on maintaining network security for keeping your users safe and
productive.
• Report Types
• View Reports
• Configure the Expiration Period and Run Time for Reports
• Disable Predefined Reports
• Custom Reports
• Generate Custom Reports
• Generate Botnet Reports
• Generate the SaaS Application Usage Report
• Manage PDF Summary Reports
• Generate User/Group Activity Reports
• Manage Report Groups
• Schedule Reports for Email Delivery
• Manage Report Storage Capacity
Report Types
The firewall includes predefined reports that you can use as-is, or you can build custom reports
that meet your needs for specific data and actionable tasks, or you can combine predefined and
custom reports to compile information you need. The firewall provides the following types of
reports:
• Predefined Reports—Allow you to view a quick summary of the traffic on your network. A
suite of predefined reports are available in four categories—Applications, Traffic, Threat, and
URL Filtering. See View Reports.
• User or Group Activity Reports—Allow you to schedule or create an on-demand report on the
application use and URL activity for a specific user or for a user group. The report includes the
URL categories and an estimated browse time calculation for individual users. See Generate
User/Group Activity Reports.
• Custom Reports—Create and schedule custom reports that show exactly the information
you want to see by filtering on conditions and columns to include. You can also include query
builders for more specific drill down on report data. See Generate Custom Reports.
• PDF Summary Reports—Aggregate up to 18 predefined or custom reports/graphs from Threat,
Application, Trend, Traffic, and URL Filtering categories into one PDF document. See Manage
PDF Summary Reports.
• Botnet Reports—Allow you to use behavior-based mechanisms to identify potential botnetinfected hosts in the network. See Generate Botnet Reports.
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• Report Groups—Combine custom and predefined reports into report groups and compile a
single PDF that is emailed to one or more recipients. See Manage Report Groups.
Reports can be generated on demand, on a recurring schedule, and can be scheduled for email
delivery.
View Reports
The firewall provides an assortment of over 40 predefined reports that it generates every day.
You can view these reports directly on the firewall. You can also view custom reports and
summary reports.
About 200 MB of storage is allocated for saving reports on the firewall. This limit can be
reconfigured for PA-7000 series and PA-5200 series firewalls only. For all other firewall models,
you can Configure the Expiration Period and Run Time for Reports to allow the firewall to delete
reports that exceed the period. Keep in mind that when the firewall reaches its storage limit, it
automatically deletes older reports to create space even if you don’t set an expiration period.
Another way to conserve system resources on the firewall is to Disable Predefined Reports.
For long-term retention of reports, you can export the reports (as described below) or Schedule
Reports for Email Delivery.
Unlike other reports, you can’t save User/Group Activity reports on the firewall. You must
Generate User/Group Activity Reports on demand or schedule them for email delivery.
STEP 1 | (VM-50, VM-50 Lite, and PA-200 firewalls only) Enable generation of predefined reports.
By default, predefined reports are disabled on VM-50, VM-50 Lite, and PA-200
firewalls to save resources.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management and edit Logging and Reporting.
2. Select Pre-Defined Reports and enable (check) Pre-Defined Reports.
3. Check (enable) the predefined reports you want to generate and click OK
4. Commit your configuration changes.
5. Access the firewall CLI to enable predefined reports.
This step is required for local predefined reports and predefined reports pushed from a
Panorama™ management server.
admin> debug predefined-default enable
STEP 2 | Select Monitor > Reports.
The reports are grouped into sections (types) on the right-hand side of the page: Custom
Reports, Application Reports, Traffic Reports, Threat Reports, URL Filtering Reports, and PDF
Summary Reports.
STEP 3 | Select a report to view. The reports page then displays the report for the previous day.
To view reports for other days, select a date in the calendar at the bottom right of the page
and select a report. If you select a report in another section, the date selection resets to the
current date.
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STEP 4 | To view a report offline, you can export the report to PDF, CSV or to XML formats. Click
Export to PDF, Export to CSV, or Export to XML at the bottom of the page, then print or
save the file.
Configure the Expiration Period and Run Time for Reports
The expiration period and run time are global settings that apply to all Report Types. After running
new reports, the firewall automatically deletes reports that exceed the expiration period.
STEP 1 | Select Device > Setup > Management, edit the Logging and Reporting Settings, and select
the Log Export and Reporting tab.
STEP 2 | Set the Report Runtime to an hour in the 24-hour clock schedule (default is 02:00; range is
00:00 [midnight] to 23:00).
STEP 3 | Enter the Report Expiration Period in days (default is no expiration; range is 1 is 2,000).
You can’t change the storage that the firewall allocates for saving reports: it is
predefined at about 200 MB. When the firewall reaches the storage maximum, it
automatically deletes older reports to create space even if you don’t set a Report
Expiration Period.
STEP 4 | Click OK and Commit.
Disable Predefined Reports
The firewall includes about 40 predefined reports that it automatically generates daily. If you do
not use some or all of these, you can disable selected reports to conserve system resources on the
firewall.
Make sure that no report group or PDF summary report includes the predefined reports you will
disable. Otherwise, the firewall will render the PDF summary report or report group without any
data.
STEP 1 | Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the Logging and Reporting Settings.
STEP 2 | Select the Pre-Defined Reports tab and clear the check box for each report you want to
disable. To disable all predefined reports, click Deselect All.
STEP 3 | Click OK and Commit.
Custom Reports
In order to create purposeful custom reports, you must consider the attributes or key pieces of
information that you want to retrieve and analyze, such as threats, as well as the best way to
categorize the information, such as grouping by rule UUID, which will allow you to see the rule
that applies to each threat type. This consideration guides you in making the following selections
in a custom report:
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Selection Description
Database You can base the report on one of the following database types:
• Summary databases—These databases are available for Application
Statistics, Traffic, Threat, URL Filtering, and Tunnel Inspection logs.
The firewall aggregates the detailed logs at 15-minute intervals. To
enable faster response time when generating reports, the firewall
condenses the data: duplicate sessions are grouped and incremented
with a repeat counter, and some attributes (columns) are excluded
from the summary.
• Detailed logs—These databases itemize the logs and list all the
attributes (columns) for each log entry.
Reports based on detailed logs take much longer to run and
are not recommended unless absolutely necessary.
Attributes The columns that you want to use as the match criteria. The attributes
are the columns that are available for selection in a report. From the list
of Available Columns, you can add the selection criteria for matching
data and for aggregating the details (the Selected Columns).
Sort By/ Group By The Sort By and the Group By criteria allow you to organize/segment
the data in the report; the sorting and grouping attributes available vary
based on the selected data source.
The Sort By option specifies the attribute that is used for aggregation. If
you do not select an attribute to sort by, the report will return the first
N number of results without any aggregation.
The Group By option allows you to select an attribute and use it as an
anchor for grouping data; all the data in the report is then presented in
a set of top 5, 10, 25 or 50 groups. For example, when you select Hour
as the Group By selection and want the top 25 groups for a 24-hr time
period, the results of the report will be generated on an hourly basis
over a 24-hr period. The first column in the report will be the hour and
the next set of columns will be the rest of your selected report columns.
The following example illustrates how the Selected Columns and Sort
By/Group By criteria work together when generating reports:
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Selection Description
The columns circled in red (above) depict the columns selected, which
are the attributes that you match against for generating the report.
Each log entry from the data source is parsed and these columns are
matched on. If multiple sessions have the same values for the selected
columns, the sessions are aggregated and the repeat count (or sessions)
is incremented.
The column circled in blue indicates the chosen sort order. When the
sort order (Sort By) is specified, the data is sorted (and aggregated) by
the selected attribute.
The column circled in green indicates the Group By selection, which
serves as an anchor for the report. The Group By column is used as a
match criteria to filter for the top N groups. Then, for each of the top
N groups, the report enumerates the values for all the other selected
columns.
For example, if a report has the following selections:
The output will display as follows:
The report is anchored by Day and sorted by Sessions. It lists the 5 days
(5 Groups) with maximum traffic in the Last 7 Days time frame. The
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Selection Description
data is enumerated by the Top 5 sessions for each day for the selected
columns—App Category, App Subcategory and Risk.
Time Frame The date range for which you want to analyze data. You can define a
custom range or select a time period ranging from the last 15 minutes
to the last 30 days. The reports can be run on demand or scheduled to
run at a daily or weekly cadence.
Query Builder The query builder allows you to define specific queries to further
refine the selected attributes. It allows you see just what you want in
your report using and and or operators and a match criteria, and then
include or exclude data that matches or negates the query in the report.
Queries enable you to generate a more focused collation of information
in a report.
Generate Custom Reports
You can configure custom reports that the firewall generates immediately (on demand) or on
schedule (each night). To understand the selections available to create a purposeful custom
report, see Custom Reports.
After the firewall has generated a scheduled custom report, you risk invalidating the past
results of that report if you modify its configuration to change its future output. If you
need to modify a scheduled report configuration, the best practice is to create a new
report.
STEP 1 | Select Monitor > Manage Custom Reports.
STEP 2 | Click Add and then enter a Name for the report.
To base a report on an predefined template, click Load Template and choose the
template. You can then edit the template and save it as a custom report.
STEP 3 | Select the Database to use for the report.
Each time you create a custom report, a log view report is automatically created. This
report show the logs that were used to build the custom report. The log view report
uses the same name as the custom report, but appends the phrase (Log View) to the
report name.
When creating a report group, you can include the log view report with the custom report. For
more information, see Manage Report Groups.
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STEP 4 | Select the Scheduled check box to run the report each night. The report is then available for
viewing in the Reports column on the side.
To generate a scheduled custom report using logs stored in Strata Logging Service on
the Panorama™ management server, Cloud Service plugin 1.8 or later release must be
installed on Panorama.
STEP 5 | Define the filtering criteria. Select the Time Frame, the Sort By order, Group By preference,
and select the columns that must display in the report.
STEP 6 | (Optional) Select the Query Builder attributes if you want to further refine the selection
criteria. To build a report query, specify the following and click Add. Repeat as needed to
construct the full query.
• Connector—Choose the connector (and/or) to precede the expression you are adding.
• Negate—Select the check box to interpret the query as a negation. If, for example, you
choose to match entries in the last 24 hours and/or are originating from the untrust zone,
the negate option causes a match on entries that are not in the past 24 hours and/or are
not from the untrust zone.
• Attribute—Choose a data element. The available options depend on the choice of database.
• Operator—Choose the criterion to determine whether the attribute applies (such as =). The
available options depend on the choice of database.
• Value—Specify the attribute value to match.
For example, the following figure (based on the Traffic Log database) shows a query that
matches if the Traffic log entry was received in the past 24 hours and is from the untrust zone.
STEP 7 | To test the report settings, select Run Now. Modify the settings as required to change the
information that is displayed in the report.
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STEP 8 | Click OK to save the custom report.
Examples of Custom Reports
If you want to set up a simple report in which you use the traffic summary database from the
last 30 days, and sort the data by the top 10 sessions and these sessions are grouped into 5
groups by day of the week. You would set up the custom report to look like this:
And the PDF output for the report would look as follows:
Now, if you want to use the query builder to generate a custom report that represents the top
consumers of network resources within a user group, you would set up the report to look like
this:
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The report would display the top users in the product management user group sorted by bytes.
Generate Botnet Reports
The botnet report enables you to use heuristic and behavior-based mechanisms to identify
potential malware- or botnet-infected hosts in your network. To evaluate botnet activity and
infected hosts, the firewall correlates user and network activity data in Threat, URL, and Data
Filtering logs with the list of malware URLs in PAN-DB, known dynamic DNS domain providers,
and domains registered within the last 30 days. You can configure the report to identify hosts that
visited those sites, as well as hosts that communicated with Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers or
that used unknown applications. Malware often use dynamic DNS to avoid IP blocking, while IRC
servers often use bots for automated functions.
The firewall requires Threat Prevention and URL Filtering licenses to use the botnet report.
You can Use the Automated Correlation Engine to monitor suspicious activities based
on additional indicators besides those that the botnet report uses. However, the botnet
report is the only tool that uses newly registered domains as an indicator.
• Configure a Botnet Report
• Interpret Botnet Report Output
Configure a Botnet Report
You can schedule a botnet report or run it on demand. The firewall generates scheduled botnet
reports every 24 hours because behavior-based detection requires correlating traffic across
multiple logs over that timeframe.
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STEP 1 | Define the types of traffic that indicate possible botnet activity.
1. Select Monitor > Botnet and click Configuration on the right side of the page.
2. Enable and define the Count for each type of HTTP Traffic that the report will include.
The Count values represent the minimum number of events of each traffic type that
must occur for the report to list the associated host with a higher confidence score
(higher likelihood of botnet infection). If the number of events is less than the Count, the
report will display a lower confidence score or (for certain traffic types) won’t display
an entry for the host. For example, if you set the Count to three for Malware URL visit,
then hosts that visit three or more known malware URLs will have higher scores than
hosts that visit less than three. For details, see Interpret Botnet Report Output.
3. Define the thresholds that determine whether the report will include hosts associated
with traffic involving Unknown TCP or Unknown UDP applications.
4. Select the IRC check box to include traffic involving IRC servers.
5. Click OK to save the report configuration.
STEP 2 | Schedule the report or run it on demand.
1. Click Report Setting on the right side of the page.
2. Select a time interval for the report in the Test Run Time Frame drop-down.
3. Select the No. of Rows to include in the report.
4. (Optional) Add queries to the Query Builder to filter the report output by attributes such
as source/destination IP addresses, users, or zones.
For example, if you know in advance that traffic initiated from the IP address 10.3.3.15
contains no potential botnet activity, add not (addr.src in 10.0.1.35) as a
query to exclude that host from the report output. For details, see Interpret Botnet
Report Output.
5. Select Scheduled to run the report daily or click Run Now to run the report immediately.
6. Click OK and Commit.
Interpret Botnet Report Output
The botnet report displays a line for each host that is associated with traffic you defined as
suspicious when configuring the report. For each host, the report displays a confidence score of
1 to 5 to indicate the likelihood of botnet infection, where 5 indicates the highest likelihood. The
scores correspond to threat severity levels: 1 is informational, 2 is low, 3 is medium, 4 is high, and
5 is critical. The firewall bases the scores on:
• Traffic type—Certain HTTP traffic types are more likely to involve botnet activity. For example,
the report assigns a higher confidence to hosts that visit known malware URLs than to hosts
that browse to IP domains instead of URLs, assuming you defined both those activities as
suspicious.
• Number of events—Hosts that are associated with a higher number of suspicious events will
have higher confidence scores based on the thresholds (Count values) you define when you
Configure a Botnet Report.
• Executable downloads—The report assigns a higher confidence to hosts that download
executable files. Executable files are a part of many infections and, when combined with the
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other types of suspicious traffic, can help you prioritize your investigations of compromised
hosts.
When reviewing the report output, you might find that the sources the firewall uses to evaluate
botnet activity (for example, the list of malware URLs in PAN-DB) have gaps. You might also find
that these sources identify traffic that you consider safe. To compensate in both cases, you can
add query filters when you Configure a Botnet Report.
Generate the SaaS Application Usage Report
The SaaS Application Usage PDF report is a two-part report that allows you to easily explore
SaaS application activity by risk and sanction state. A sanctioned application is an application
that you formally approve for use on your network. A SaaS application is an application that has
the characteristic SaaS=yes in the applications details page in Objects > Applications, all other
applications are considered as non-SaaS. To indicate that you have sanctioned a SaaS or non-SaaS
application, you must tag it with the predefined tag named Sanctioned. The firewall and Panorama
consider any application without this predefined tag as unsanctioned for use on the network.
• The first part of the report presents the key findings for the SaaS applications on your
network during the reporting period with a comparison of the sanctioned versus unsanctioned
applications and lists the top applications based on sanction state by usage, compliance, and
data transfers. To help you identify and explore the extent of high risk application usage,
the applications with risky characteristics section of the report lists the SaaS applications
with the following unfavorable hosting characteristics: certifications achieved, past data
breaches, support for IP-based restrictions, financial viability, and terms of service. You
can also view a comparison of sanctioned versus unsanctioned SaaS applications by total
number of applications used on your network, bandwidth consumed by these applications,
the number of users using these applications, top user groups that use the largest number of
SaaS applications, and the top user groups that transfer the largest volume of data through
sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS applications. This first part of the report also highlights
the top SaaS application subcategories listed in order by maximum number of applications
used, the number of users, and the amount of data (bytes) transferred in each application
subcategory.
• The second part of the report focuses on the detailed browsing information for SaaS and
non-SaaS applications for each application subcategory listed in the first-part of the report.
For each application in a subcategory, it also includes information about the top users who
transferred data, the top blocked or alerted file types, and the top threats for each application.
In addition, this section of the report tallies samples for each application that the firewall
submitted for WildFire analysis, and the number of samples determined to be benign and
malicious.
Use the insights from this report to consolidate the list of business-critical and approved SaaS
applications and to enforce policies for controlling unsanctioned and risky applications that pose
unnecessary risks for malware propagation and data leaks.
The predefined SaaS application usage report is still available as a daily View Reports
that lists the top 100 SaaS applications (which means applications with the SaaS
application characteristic, SaaS=yes) running on your network on a given day. This report
does not give visibility into applications you have designated as sanctioned, but rather
gives visibility into all of the SaaS applications in use on your network.
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STEP 1 | Tag applications that you approve for use on your network as Sanctioned.
For generating an accurate and informative report, you need to tag the sanctioned
applications consistently across firewalls with multiple virtual systems, and across
firewalls that belong to a device group on Panorama. If the same application is tagged
as sanctioned in one virtual system and is not sanctioned in another or, on Panorama,
if an application is unsanctioned in a parent device group but is tagged as sanctioned
in a child device group (or vice versa), the SaaS Application Usage report will report the
application as partially sanctioned and will have overlapping results.
Example: If Box is sanctioned on vsys1 and Google Drive is sanctioned on vsys2, Google Drive
users in vsys1 will be counted as users of an unsanctioned SaaS application and Box users
in vsys2 will be counted as users of an unsanctioned SaaS application. The key finding in the
report will highlight that a total of two unique SaaS applications are discovered on the network
with two sanctioned applications and two unsanctioned applications.
1. Select Objects > Applications.
2. Click the application Name to edit an application and select Edit in the Tag section.
3. Select Sanctioned from the Tags drop-down.
You must use the predefined Sanctioned tag ( ). If you use any other tag to
indicate that you sanctioned an application, the firewall will fail to recognize the tag and
the report will be inaccurate.
4. Click OK and Close to exit all open dialogs.
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STEP 2 | Configure the SaaS Application Usage report.
1. Select Monitor > PDF Reports > SaaS Application Usage.
2. Click Add, enter a Name, and select a Time Period for the report (default is Last 7 Days).
By default, the report includes detailed information on the top SaaS and nonSaaS application subcategories, which can make the report large by page count
and file size. Clear the Include detailed application category information in
report check box if you want to reduce the file size and restrict the page count
to 10 pages.
3. Select whether you want the report to Include logs from:
In PAN-OS 10.0.2 and later releases, reports generated from logs in the Strata
Logging Service only support including logs from the Selected Zone.
• All User Groups and Zones—The report includes data on all security zones and user
groups available in the logs.
If you want to include specific user groups in the report, select Include user group
information in the report and click the manage groups link to select the groups you
want to include. You must add between one and up to a maximum of 25 user groups,
so that the firewall or Panorama can filter the logs for the selected user groups. If
you do select the groups to include, the report will aggregate all user groups in to one
group called Others.
• Selected Zone—The report filters data for the specified security zone, and includes
data on that zone only.
If you want to include specific user groups in the report, select Include user group
information in the report and click the manage groups for selected zone link to select
the user groups within this zone that you want to include in the report. You must
add between one and up to a maximum of 25 user groups, so that the firewall or
Panorama can filter the logs for the selected user groups within the security zone. If
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you do select the groups to include, the report will aggregate all user groups in to one
group called Others.
• Selected User Group—The report filters data for the specified user group only, and
includes SaaS application usage information for the selected user group only.
4. Select whether you want to include all the application subcategories in the report
(the default) or Limit the max subcategories in the report to the top 10, 15, 20 or 25
categories (default is all subcategories).
5. Click Run Now to generate the report on-demand for the last 7-day and the last 30-day
time period. Make sure that the pop-up blocker is disabled on your browser because the
report opens in a new tab.
6. Click OK to save your changes.
STEP 3 | Schedule Reports for Email Delivery.
The last 90-days report must be scheduled for email delivery.
On the PA-220R and the PA-800 Series firewalls, the SaaS Application Usage report is not sent
as a PDF attachment in the email. Instead, the email includes a link that you must click to open
the report in a web browser.
Manage PDF Summary Reports
PDF summary reports contain information compiled from existing reports, based on data for the
top 5 in each category (instead of top 50). They also contain trend charts that are not available in
other reports.
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STEP 1 | Set up a PDF Summary Report.
1. Select Monitor > PDF Reports > Manage PDF Summary.
2. Click Add and then enter a Name for the report.
3. Use the drop-down for each report group and select one or more of the elements to
design the PDF Summary Report. You can include a maximum of 18 report elements.
Selecting Top Threats is displayed as top-attacks in the Predefined Widgets
column for the PDF Summary Report.
• To remove an element from the report, click the x icon or clear the selection from the
drop-down for the appropriate report group.
• To rearrange the reports, drag and drop the element icons to another area of the
report.
4. Click OK to save the report.
5. Commit the changes.
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STEP 2 | View the report.
To download and view the PDF Summary Report, see View Reports.
The following summary sections refer to the following PDF Summary Report elements:
• Top 5 Attacks—Refers to the Top threats element.
• Top 5 Threats—Refers to the High risk user - Top threats element.
• Top Threats report—Refers to the full list of threats from the Top threats element.
Generate User/Group Activity Reports
User/Group Activity reports summarize the web activity of individual users or user groups. Both
reports include the same information except for the Browsing Summary by URL Category and
Browse time calculations, which only the User Activity report includes.
You must configure User-ID on the firewall to access the list of users and user groups.
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STEP 1 | Configure the browse times and number of logs for User/Group Activity reports.
Required only if you want to change the default values.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management, edit the Logging and Reporting Settings, and
select the Log Export and Reporting tab.
2. For the Max Rows in User Activity Report, enter the maximum number of rows that
the detailed user activity report supports (range is 1-1048576, default is 5000). This
determines the number of logs that the report analyzes.
3. Enter the Average Browse Time in seconds that you estimate users should take to
browse a web page (range is 0-300, default is 60). Any request made after the average
browse time elapses is considered a new browsing activity. The calculation uses
container pages (logged in the URL Filtering logs) as the basis and ignores any new web
pages that are loaded between the time of the first request (start time) and the average
browse time. For example, if you set the Average Browse Time to two minutes and a
user opens a web page and views that page for five minutes, the browse time for that
page will still be two minutes. This is done because the firewall can’t determine how long
a user views a given page. The average browse time calculation ignores sites categorized
as web advertisements and content delivery networks.
4. For the Page Load Threshold, enter the estimated time in seconds for page elements
to load on the page (default is 20). Any requests that occur between the first page load
and the page load threshold are assumed to be elements of the page. Any requests that
occur outside of the page load threshold are assumed to be the user clicking a link within
the page.
5. Click OK to save your changes.
STEP 2 | Generate the User/Group Activity report.
1. Select Monitor > PDF Reports > User Activity Report.
2. Click Add and then enter a Name for the report.
3. Create the report:
• User Activity Report—Select User and enter the Username or IP address (IPv4 or
IPv6) of the user.
• Group Activity Report—Select Group and select the Group Name of the user group.
4. Select the Time Period for the report.
5. (Optional) Select the Include Detailed Browsing check box (default is cleared) to include
detailed URL logs in the report.
The detailed browsing information can include a large volume of logs (thousands of logs)
for the selected user or user group and can make the report very large.
6. To run the report on demand, click Run Now.
7. To save the report configuration, click OK. You can’t save the output of User/Group
Activity reports on the firewall. To schedule the report for email delivery, see Schedule
Reports for Email Delivery.
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Manage Report Groups
Report groups allow you to create sets of reports that the system can compile and send as a single
aggregate PDF report with an optional title page and all the constituent reports included.
Set up report groups.
You must set up a Report Group to email report(s).
1. Create an Email server profile.
2. Define the Report Group. A report group can compile predefined reports, PDF Summary
reports, custom reports, and Log View report into a single PDF.
1. Select Monitor > Report Group.
2. Click Add and then enter a Name for the report group.
3. (Optional) Select Title Page and add a Title for the PDF output.
4. Select reports from the left column and click Add to move each report to the report
group on the right.
The Log View report is a report type that is automatically created each time you
create a custom report and uses the same name as the custom report. This report will
show the logs that were used to build the contents of the custom report.
To include the log view data, when creating a report group, add your custom report
under the Custom Reports list and then add the log view report by selecting the
matching report name from the Log View list. The report will include the custom
report data and the log data that was used to create the custom report.
5. Click OK to save the settings.
6. To use the report group, see Schedule Reports for Email Delivery.
Schedule Reports for Email Delivery
Reports can be scheduled for daily delivery or delivered weekly on a specified day. Scheduled
reports are executed starting at 2:00 AM, and email delivery starts after all scheduled reports
have been generated.
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STEP 1 | Select Monitor > PDF Reports > Email Scheduler and click Add.
STEP 2 | Enter a Name to identify the schedule.
STEP 3 | Select the Report Group for email delivery. To set up a report group; see Manage Report
Groups.
STEP 4 | For the Email Profile, select an Email server profile to use for delivering the reports, or click
the Email Profile link to Create an Email server profile.
STEP 5 | Select the frequency at which to generate and send the report in Recurrence.
STEP 6 | The Override Email Addresses field allows you to send this report exclusively to the
specified recipients. When you add recipients to the field, the firewall does not send the
report to the recipients configured in the Email server profile. Use this option for those
occasions when the report is for the attention of someone other than the administrators or
recipients defined in the Email server profile.
STEP 7 | Click OK and Commit.
Manage Report Storage Capacity
By default, firewalls contain 200MB of dedicated storage for reports generated by the firewall.
In some instances, especially for PA-7000 series and PA-5200 series firewalls, you may need
to increase the capacity of available report storage space in order to successfully generate new
reports.
STEP 1 | Access the firewall CLI.
STEP 2 | Confirm the current report storage capacity of the firewall:
The command output displays the report storage size in bytes. For this procedure, the firewall
has the default 200MB report storage capacity.
STEP 3 | Verify you have sufficient storage across the firewall to allocate toward expanding the report
storage capacity:
admin> show system disk-space
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STEP 4 | Increase the report storage capacity as needed:
For example, we are increasing the report storage size to 1GB.
admin> request report-storage-size set size <0-4>
STEP 5 | Verify that the report storage capacity is increased to the amount set in the previous step:
admin> request report-storage-size show
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View Policy Rule Usage
View the number of times a Security, NAT, QoS, policy-based forwarding (PBF), Decryption,
Tunnel Inspection, Application Override, Authentication, or DoS protection rule matches
traffic to help keep your firewall policies up to date as your environment and security needs
change. To prevent attackers from exploiting over-provisioned access, such as when a server is
decommissioned or when you no longer need temporary access to a service, use the policy rule hit
count data to identify and remove unused rules.
Policy rule usage data enables you to validate rule additions and rule changes and to monitor
the time frame when a rule was used. For example, when you migrate port-based rules to appbased rules, you create an app-based rule above the port-based rule and check for any traffic that
matches the port-based rule. After migration, the hit count data helps you determine whether it
is safe to remove the port-based rule by confirming whether traffic is matching the app-based
rule instead of the port-based rule. The policy rule hit count helps you determine whether a rule is
effective for access enforcement.
You can reset the rule hit count data to validate an existing rule or to gauge rule usage within a
specified period of time. Policy rule hit count data is not stored on the firewall or Panorama so
that data is no longer available after you reset (clear) the hit count.
After filtering your policy rulebase, administrators can take action to delete, disable, enable, and
tag policy rules directly from the policy optimizer. For example, you can filter for unused rules
and then tag them for review to determine whether they can be safely deleted or kept in the
rulebase. By enabling administrators to take action directly from the policy optimizer, you reduce
the management overhead required to further assist in simplifying your rule lifecycle management
and ensure that your firewalls are not over-provisioned.
The rule hit count data is not synchronized across firewalls in a high availability (HA)
deployment so you need to log in to each firewall to view the policy rule hit count data for
each firewall or use Panorama to view information on the HA firewall peers.
Policy rule usage data is also useful when using Security Policy Rule Optimization to
determine which rules to migrate or clean up first.
STEP 1 | Launch the Web Interface.
STEP 2 | Verify that Policy Rule Hit Count is enabled.
1. Navigate to Policy Rulebase Settings (Device > Setup > Management).
2. Verify that Policy Rule Hit Count is enabled.
STEP 3 | Select Policies.
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STEP 4 | View the policy rule usage for each policy rule:
• Hit Count—The number of times traffic matched the criteria you defined in the policy rule.
Persists through reboot, dataplane restarts, and upgrades unless you manually reset or
rename the rule.
• Last Hit—The most recent timestamp for when traffic matched the rule.
• First Hit—The first instance when traffic was matched to this rule.
• Modified—The date and time the policy rule was last modified.
• Created—The date and time the policy rule was created.
If the rule was created when Panorama was running PAN-OS 8.1 and the Policy
Rule Hit Count setting is enabled, the First Hit date and time is used as the Created
date and time on upgrade to PAN-OS 9.0. If the rule was created in PAN-OS 8.1
when the Policy Rule Hit Count setting was disabled or if the rule was created when
Panorama was running PAN-OS 8.0 or an earlier release, the Created date for the
rule will be the date and time you successfully upgraded Panorama to PAN-OS 9.0
STEP 5 | In the Policy Optimizer dialog, view the Rule Usage filter.
STEP 6 | Filter rules in the selected rulebase.
Use the rule usage filter to evaluate the rule usage within a specified period of time.
For example, filter the selected rulebase for Unused rules within the last 30 days.
You can also evaluate rule usage with other rule attributes, such as the Created and
Modified dates, which enables you to filter for the correct set of rules to review. You
can use this data to help manage your rule lifecycle and to determine if a rule needs to
be removed to reduce your network attack surface.
1. Select the Timeframe you want to filter on or specify a Custom time frame.
2. Select the rule Usage on which to filter.
3. (Optional) If you have reset the rule usage data for any rules, check for Exclude rules
reset during the last <number of days> days and decide when to exclude a rule based
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on the number of days you specify since the rule was reset. Only rules that were reset
before your specified number of days are included in the filtered results.
4. (Optional) Specify search filters based on rule data
1. Hover your cursor over the column header and Columns.
2. Add any additional columns you want to display or use for filter.
3. Hover your cursor over the column data that you would like to filter on Filter. For
data that contain dates, select whether to filter using This date, This date or earlier, or
This date or later.
4. Apply Filter ( ).
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STEP 7 | Take action on one or more unused policy rules.
1. Select one or more unused policy rules.
2. Perform one of the following actions:
• Delete—Delete one or more selected policy rules.
• Enable—Enable one or more selected policy rules when disabled.
• Disable—Disable one or more selected policy rules.
• Tag—Apply one or more group tags to one or more selected policy rules. The group
tag must already exist in order to tag policy rule.
• Untag—Remove one or more group tags from one or more selected policy rules.
3. Commit your changes.
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Use External Services for Monitoring
Using an external service to monitor the firewall enables you to receive alerts for important
events, archive monitored information on systems with dedicated long-term storage, and
integrate with third-party security monitoring tools. The following are some common scenarios for
using external services:
For immediate notification about important system events or threats, you can Monitor
Statistics Using SNMP, Forward Traps to an SNMP Manager, or Configure Email Alerts.
To send an HTTP-based API request directly to any third-party service that exposes an API to
automate a workflow or an action. You can, for example, forward logs that match a defined
criteria to create an incidence ticket on ServiceNow instead of relying on an external system to
convert syslog messages or SNMP traps to an HTTP request. You can modify the URL, HTTP
header, parameters, and the payload in the HTTP request to trigger an action based on the
attributes in a firewall log. See Forward Logs to an HTTP(S) Destination.
For long-term log storage and centralized firewall monitoring, you can Configure Syslog
Monitoring to send log data to a syslog server. This enables integration with third-party
security monitoring tools such as Splunk or ArcSight.
For monitoring statistics on the IP traffic that traverses firewall interfaces, you can Configure
NetFlow Exports to view the statistics in a NetFlow collector.
You can Configure Log Forwarding from the firewalls directly to external services or from the
firewalls to Panorama and then configure Panorama to forwardlogs to the servers. Refer to Log
Forwarding Options for the factors to consider when deciding where to forward logs.
You can’t aggregate NetFlow records on Panorama; you must send them directly from the
firewalls to a NetFlow collector.
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Configure Log Forwarding
In an environment where you use multiple firewalls to control and analyze network traffic, any
single firewall can display logs and reports only for the traffic it monitors. Because logging in
to multiple firewalls can make monitoring a cumbersome task, you can more efficiently achieve
global visibility into network activity by forwarding the logs from all firewalls to Panorama or
external services. If you Use External Services for Monitoring, the firewall automatically converts
the logs to the necessary format: syslog messages, SNMP traps, email notifications, or as an
HTTP payload to send the log details to an HTTP(S) server. In cases where some teams in your
organization can achieve greater efficiency by monitoring only the logs that are relevant to their
operations, you can create forwarding filters based on any log attributes (such as threat type or
source user). For example, a security operations analyst who investigates malware attacks might
be interested only in Threat logs with the type attribute set to wildfire-virus.
By default, logs are forwarded over the management interface unless you configure a dedicated
service route to forward logs. Forwarded logs have a maximum log record size of 4,096 bytes. A
forwarded log with a log record size larger than the maximum is truncated at 4,096 bytes while
logs that do not exceed the maximum log record size are not.
Log forwarding is supported only for supported log fields. Forwarding logs that contain
unsupported log fields or pseudo-fields causes the firewall to crash.
You can forward logs from the firewalls directly to external services or from the firewalls
to Panorama and then configure Panorama to forward logs to the servers. Refer to Log
Forwarding Options for the factors to consider when deciding where to forward logs.
You can use Secure Copy (SCP) commands from the CLI to export the entire log
database to an SCP server and import it to another firewall. Because the log database is
too large for an export or import to be practical on the PA-7000 Series firewall, it does not
support these options. You can also use the web interface on all platforms to View and
Manage Reports, but only on a per log type basis, not for the entire log database.
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STEP 1 | Configure a server profile for each external service that will receive log information.
You can use separate profiles to send different sets of logs, filtered by log attributes, to
a different server. To increase availability, define multiple servers in a single profile.
Configure one or more of the following server profiles:
• (Required for SMTP over TLS) If you have not already done so, create a certificate profile
for the email server.
• 2 To enable the SNMP manager (trap server) to interpret firewall traps, you must load the
Palo Alto Networks Supported MIBs into the SNMP manager and, if necessary, compile
them. For details, refer to your SNMP management software documentation.
• If the syslog server requires client authentication, you must also 5
• Configure an HTTP server profile (see Forward Logs to an HTTP/S Destination).
Log forwarding to an HTTP server is designed for log forwarding at low frequencies
and is not recommend for deployments with a high volume of log forwarding. You
may experience log loss when forwarding to an HTTP server if your deployment
generate a high volume of logs that need to be forwarded.
STEP 2 | Create a Log Forwarding profile.
The profile defines the destinations for Traffic, Threat, WildFire Submission, URL Filtering,
Data Filtering, Tunnel and Authentication logs.
1. Select Objects > Log Forwarding and Add a profile.
2. Enter a Name to identify the profile.
If you want the firewall to automatically assign the profile to new security rules and
zones, enter default. If you don’t want a default profile, or you want to override
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an existing default profile, enter a Name that will help you identify the profile when
assigning it to security rules and zones.
If no log forwarding profile named default exists, the profile selection is set
to None by default in new security rules (Log Forwarding field) and new security
zones (Log Setting field), although you can change the selection.
3. Add one or more match list profiles.
The profiles specify log query filters, forwarding destinations, and automatic actions such
as tagging. For each match list profile:
1. Enter a Name to identify the profile.
2. Select the Log Type.
3. In the Filter drop-down, select Filter Builder. Specify the following and then Add each
query:
• Connector logic (and/or)
• Log Attribute
• Operator to define inclusion or exclusion logic
• Attribute Value for the query to match
4. Select Panorama if you want to forward logs to Log Collectors or the Panorama
management server.
5. For each type of external service that you use for monitoring (SNMP, Email, Syslog,
and HTTP), Add one or more server profiles.
4. (Optional, GlobalProtect Only) If you are using a log forwarding profile with a security
policy to automatically quarantine a device using GlobalProtect, select Quarantine in the
Built-in Actions area.
5. Click OK to save the Log Forwarding profile.
STEP 3 | Assign the Log Forwarding profile to policy rules and network zones.
Security, Authentication, and DoS Protection rules support log forwarding. In this example, you
assign the profile to a Security rule.
Perform the following steps for each rule that you want to trigger log forwarding:
1. Select Policies > Security and edit the rule.
2. Select Actions and select the Log Forwarding profile you created.
3. Set the Profile Type to Profiles or Group, and then select the security profiles or Group
Profile required to trigger log generation and forwarding for:
• Threat logs—Traffic must match any security profile assigned to the rule.
• WildFire Submission logs—Traffic must match a WildFire Analysis profile assigned to
the rule.
4. For Traffic logs, select Log At Session Start and/or Log At Session End.
Log At Session Start consumes more resources than logging only at the session end. In
most cases, you only Log At Session End. Enable both Log At Session Start and Log At
Session End only for troubleshooting, for long-lived tunnel sessions such as GRE tunnels
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(you can't see these sessions in the ACC unless you log at the start of the session), and to
gain visibility into Operational Technology/Industrial Control Systems (OT/ICS) sessions,
which are also long-lived sessions.
5. Click OK to save the rule.
STEP 4 | Configure the destinations for System, Configuration, Correlation, GlobalProtect, HIP Match,
and User-ID logs.
Panorama generates Correlation logs based on the firewall logs it receives, rather than
aggregating Correlation logs from firewalls.
1. Select Device > Log Settings.
2. For each log type that the firewall will forward, see Step Add one or more match list
profiles.
STEP 5 | (PA-7000 Series firewalls with Log Cards only) Configure a log card interface to perform log
forwarding.
As of PAN-OS 10.1, you can no longer forward system logs and other Management
plane logs using the Management interface or service routes. The only way to forward
system logs from a PA-7000 Series firewall with a LFC running PAN-OS 10.1 or later is
by configuring a log card interface
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet and click Add Interface.
2. Select the Slot and Interface Name.
3. Set the Interface Type to Log Card.
4. Enter the IP Address, Default Gateway, and (for IPv4 only) Netmask.
5. Select Advanced and specify the Link Speed, Link Duplex, and Link State.
These fields default to auto, which specifies that the firewall automatically
determines the values based on the connection. However, the minimum
recommended Link Speed for any connection is 1000 (Mbps).
6. Click OK to save your changes.
STEP 6 | (PA-5450 firewall only) Configure a log interface to perform log forwarding.
This step is not required if you are forwarding logs to a Panorama or Strata Logging
Service using the management interface. The management interface handles log
forwarding by default and does not require the log interface to be configured.
• (PAN-OS 10.2.0 and 10.2.1) The management interface handles log forwarding by default
unless you configure a specific service route for log forwarding.
• (PAN-OS 10.2.2 and later releases) The management interface handles log forwarding by
default unless you configure the log interface or a specific service route for log forwarding.
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If a log interface is configured and committed, all internal logging, Strata Logging Service,
SNMP, HTTP, and Syslog will be forwarded by the log interface.
Ensure that the log interface you are configuring is not in the same subnetwork as the
management interface. Configuring both interfaces in the same subnetwork can cause
connectivity issues and result in the wrong interface being used for log forwarding.
LOG-1 and LOG-2 are bundled as a single logical interface called bond1. Bond1 uses
LACP (link aggregation control protocol) as IEEE 802.3ad. Set the Mode for LACP
status queries to Active and the Transmission Rate for LACP query and response
exchanges to Slow.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management.
2. Select the settings gear on the top menu bar of Log Interface.
3. Fill in the IP Address, Netmask, and Default Gateway fields.
If your network uses IPv6, fill in the IPv6 Address and IPv6 Default Gateway fields
instead.
When the log interface is configured with an IP address, communication
between the firewall and Panorama automatically switches from being handled
by the management interface (default) to the log interface.
4. Specify the Link Speed, Link Duplex, and Link State. These fields default to auto, which
specifies that the firewall automatically determines the values based on the connection.
5. Click OK to save your changes.
STEP 7 | Commit and verify your changes.
1. Commit your changes.
2. Verify the log destinations you configured are receiving firewall logs:
• Panorama—If the firewall forwards logs to a Panorama virtual appliance in Panorama
mode or to an M-Series appliance, you must configure a Collector Group before
Panorama will receive the logs. You can then verify log forwarding.
• Email server—Verify that the specified recipients are receiving logs as email
notifications.
• Syslog server—Refer to your syslog server documentation to verify it’s receiving logs
as syslog messages.
• SNMP manager—Use an SNMP Manager to Explore MIBs and Objects to verify it’s
receiving logs as SNMP traps.
• HTTP server—Forward Logs to an HTTP/S Destination.
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Configure Email Alerts
You can configure email alerts for System, Config, HIP Match, Correlation, Threat, WildFire
Submission, and Traffic logs. You can use separate profiles to send email notifications for each log
type to a different server. To increase availability, define multiple servers (up to four) in a single
profile.
As a best practice, configure transport layer security (TLS) to require the firewall to
authenticate with the email server before the firewall relays email to the server. This helps
prevent malicious activity, such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) relay, which can
be used to send spam or malware, and email spoofing, which can be used for phishing
attacks.
STEP 1 | (Required for SMTP over TLS) If you have not already done so, create a certificate profile for
the email server.
STEP 2 | Select Device > Server Profiles > Email.
STEP 3 | Add an email server profile and enter a Name.
STEP 4 | From the read-only window that appears, Add the email server and enter a Name.
STEP 5 | If the firewall has more than one virtual system (vsys), select the Location (vsys or Shared)
where this profile is available.
STEP 6 | (Optional) Enter an Email Display Name to specify the name to display in the From field of
the email.
STEP 7 | Enter the email address From which the firewall sends emails.
STEP 8 | Enter the email address To which the firewall sends emails.
STEP 9 | (Optional) If you want to send emails to a second account, enter the address of the
Additional Recipient. You can add only one additional recipient. For multiple recipients, add
the email address of a distribution list.
STEP 10 | Enter the IP address or hostname of the Email Gateway to use for sending emails.
STEP 11 | Select the Type of protocol to use to connect to the email server:
• Unauthenticated SMTP—Use SMTP to connect to the email server without authentication.
The default Port is 25, but you can optionally specify a different port. This protocol does
not provide the same security as SMTP over TLS, but if you select this protocol, skip the
next step.
• SMTP over TLS—(Recommended) Use TLS to require authentication to connect to the email
server. Continue to the next step to configure the TLS authentication.
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STEP 12 | (SMTP over TLS only) Configure the firewall to use TLS authentication to connect to the
email server.
1. (Optional) Specify the Port to use to connect to the email server (default is 587).
2. TLS Version—Specify the TLS version (1.1 or 1.2).
Palo Alto Networks strongly recommends using the latest TLS version.
3. Select the Authentication Method for the firewall and the email server:
• Auto—Allow the firewall and the email server to determine the authentication
method.
• Login—Use Base64 encoding for the username and password and transmit them
separately.
• Plain—Use Base64 encoding for the username and password and transmit them
together.
4. Select a Certificate Profile to authenticate with the email server.
5. Enter the Username and Password of the account that sends the emails, then Confirm
Password.
6. (Optional) To confirm that the firewall can successfully authenticate with the email
server, you can Test Connection.
STEP 13 | Click OK to save the Email server profile.
STEP 14 | (Optional) Select the Custom Log Format tab and customize the format of the email
messages. For details on how to create custom formats for the various log types, refer to the
Common Event Format Configuration Guide.
STEP 15 | Configure email alerts for Traffic, Threat, and WildFire Submission logs.
1. See Create a Log Forwarding profile.
1. Select Objects > Log Forwarding, click Add, and enter a Name to identify the profile.
2. For each log type and each severity level or WildFire verdict, select the Email server
profile and click OK.
2. See Assign the Log Forwarding profile to policy rules and network zones.
STEP 16 | Configure email alerts for System, Config, HIP Match, and Correlation logs.
1. Select Device > Log Settings.
2. For System and Correlation logs, click each Severity level, select the Email server profile,
and click OK.
3. For Config and HIP Match logs, edit the section, select the Email server profile, and click
OK.
4. Click Commit.
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Use Syslog for Monitoring
Syslog is a standard log transport mechanism that enables the aggregation of log data from
different network devices—such as routers, firewalls, printers—from different vendors into a
central repository for archiving, analysis, and reporting. Palo Alto Networks firewalls can forward
every type of log they generate to an external syslog server. You can use TCP or TLS (TLSv1.2
only) for reliable and secure log forwarding, or UDP for non-secure forwarding.
• Configure Syslog Monitoring
• Syslog Field Descriptions
Configure Syslog Monitoring
To Use Syslog for Monitoring a Palo Alto Networks firewall, create a Syslog server profile and
assign it to the log settings for each log type. Optionally, you can configure the header format
used in syslog messages and enable client authentication for syslog over TLSv1.2.
For CEF-formated syslog events collection, you must edit the default syslog
configuration. The default syslog monitoring configuration is not supported for CEF syslog
events collection.
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STEP 1 | Configure a Syslog server profile.
You can use separate profiles to send syslogs for each log type to a different server. To
increase availability, define multiple servers (up to four) in a single profile.
1. Select Device > Server Profiles > Syslog.
2. Click Add and enter a Name for the profile.
3. If the firewall has more than one virtual system (vsys), select the Location (vsys or
Shared) where this profile is available.
4. For each syslog server, click Add and enter the information that the firewall requires to
connect to it:
• Name—Unique name for the server profile.
• Syslog Server—IP address or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the syslog server.
If you configure an FQDN and use UDP transport, if the firewall cannot
resolve the FQDN, the firewall uses the existing IP address resolution for the
FQDN as the Syslog Server address.
• Transport—Select TCP, UDP, or SSL (TLS) as the protocol for communicating with the
syslog server. For SSL, the firewall supports only TLSv1.2.
• Port—The port number on which to send syslog messages (default is UDP on port
514); you must use the same port number on the firewall and the syslog server.
• Format—Select the syslog message format to use: BSD (the default) or IETF.
Traditionally, BSD format is over UDP and IETF format is over TCP or SSL/TLS.
• Facility—Select a syslog standard value (default is LOG_USER) to calculate the priority
(PRI) field in your syslog server implementation. Select the value that maps to how
you use the PRI field to manage your syslog messages.
5. (Optional) To customize the format of the syslog messages that the firewall sends, select
the Custom Log Format tab. For details on how to create custom formats for the various
log types, refer to the Common Event Format Configuration Guide.
6. Click OK to save the server profile.
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STEP 2 | Configure syslog forwarding for Traffic, Threat, and WildFire Submission logs.
1. Configure the firewall to forward logs. For more information, see Step Create a Log
Forwarding profile.
1. Select Objects > Log Forwarding, click Add, and enter a Name to identify the profile.
2. For each log type and each severity level or WildFire verdict, select the Syslog server
profile and click OK.
2. Assign the log forwarding profile to a security policy to trigger log generation and
forwarding. For more information, See Step Assign the Log Forwarding profile to policy
rules and network zones.
1. Select Policies > Security and select a policy rule.
2. Select the Actions tab and select the Log Forwarding profile you created.
3. For Traffic logs, select one or both of the Log at Session Start and Log At Session End
check boxes, and click OK.
For detailed information about configuring a log forwarding profile and assigning the
profile to a policy rule, see Configure Log Forwarding.
STEP 3 | Configure syslog forwarding for System, Config, HIP Match, and Correlation logs.
1. Select Device > Log Settings.
2. For System and Correlation logs, click each Severity level, select the Syslog server
profile, and click OK.
3. For Config, HIP Match, and Correlation logs, edit the section, select the Syslog server
profile, and click OK.
STEP 4 | (Optional) Configure the header format of syslog messages.
The log data includes the unique identifier of the firewall that generated the log. Choosing
the header format provides more flexibility in filtering and reporting on the log data for some
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) servers.
This is a global setting and applies to all Syslog server profiles configured on the firewall.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the Logging and Reporting Settings.
2. Select the Log Export and Reporting tab and select the Syslog HOSTNAME Format:
• FQDN (default)—Concatenates the hostname and domain name defined on the
sending firewall.
• hostname—Uses the hostname defined on the sending firewall.
• ipv4-address—Uses the IPv4 address of the firewall interface used to send logs. By
default, this is the MGT interface.
• ipv6-address—Uses the IPv6 address of the firewall interface used to send logs. By
default, this is the MGT interface.
• none—Leaves the hostname field unconfigured on the firewall. There is no identifier
for the firewall that sent the logs.
3. Click OK to save your changes.
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582 | Monitoring
STEP 5 | Create a certificate to secure syslog communication over TLSv1.2.
Required only if the syslog server uses client authentication. The syslog server uses the
certificate to verify that the firewall is authorized to communicate with the syslog server.
Ensure the following conditions are met:
• The private key must be available on the sending firewall; the keys can’t reside on a
Hardware Security Module (HSM).
• The subject and the issuer for the certificate must not be identical.
• The syslog server and the sending firewall must have certificates that the same trusted
certificate authority (CA) signed. Alternatively, you can generate a self-signed certificate on
the firewall, export the certificate from the firewall, and import it in to the syslog server.
• The connection to a Syslog server over TLS is validated using the Online Certificate Status
Protocol (OCSP) or using Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL) so long as each certificate in the
trust chain specifies one or both of these extensions. However, you cannot bypass OCSP
or CRL failures so you must ensure that the certificate chain is valid and that you can verify
each certificate using OCSP or CRL.
1. Select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates > Device Certificates and click
Generate.
2. Enter a Name for the certificate.
3. In the Common Name field, enter the IP address of the firewall sending logs to the
syslog server.
4. In Signed by, select the trusted CA or the self-signed CA that the syslog server and the
sending firewall both trust.
The certificate can’t be a Certificate Authority nor an External Authority (certificate
signing request [CSR]).
5. Click Generate. The firewall generates the certificate and key pair.
6. Click the certificate Name to edit it, select the Certificate for Secure Syslog check box,
and click OK.
STEP 6 | Commit your changes and review the logs on the syslog server.
1. Click Commit.
2. To review the logs, refer to the documentation of your syslog management software.
You can also review the Syslog Field Descriptions.
STEP 7 | (Optional) Configure the firewall to terminate the connection to the syslog server upon
FQDN refresh.
When you configure a syslog server profile using a FQDN, the firewall maintains its connection
to the syslog server by default in the event of an FQDN name change.
For example, you have replaced an existing syslog server with a new syslog server that uses
a different FQDN name. If you want the firewall to connect to the new syslog server using a
new FQDN name, you can configure the firewall to automatically terminate its connection to
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the old syslog server and establish a connection to the new syslog server using the new FQDN
name.
1. Log in to the firewall CLI.
2. Configure the firewall to terminate the connection to the syslog server upon FQDN
refresh.
admin> set syslogng fqdn-refresh yes
Syslog Field Descriptions
The following topics list the standard fields of each log type that Palo Alto Networks firewalls
can forward to an external server, as well as the severity levels, custom formats, and escape
sequences. To facilitate parsing, the delimiter is a comma: each field is a comma-separated value
(CSV) string. The FUTURE_USE tag applies to fields that are of no use to syslog ingestion.
WildFire Submissions logs are a subtype of Threat log and use the same syslog format.
• Traffic Log Fields
• Threat Log Fields
• URL Filtering Log Fields
• Data Filtering Log Fields
• HIP Match Log Fields
• GlobalProtect Log Fields
• IP-Tag Log Fields
• User-ID Log Fields
• Decryption Log Fields
• Tunnel Inspection Log Fields
• SCTP Log Fields
• Config Log Fields
• Authentication Log Fields
• System Log Fields
• Correlated Events Log Fields
• GTP Log Fields
• Audit Log Fields
• Custom Log/Event Format
• Escape Sequences
Traffic Log Fields
Format: FUTURE_USE, Receive Time, Serial Number, Type, Threat/Content Type, FUTURE_USE,
Generated Time, Source Address, Destination Address, NAT Source IP, NAT Destination IP, Rule
Name, Source User, Destination User, Application, Virtual System, Source Zone, Destination Zone,
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Inbound Interface, Outbound Interface, Log Action, FUTURE_USE, Session ID, Repeat Count,
Source Port, Destination Port, NAT Source Port, NAT Destination Port, Flags, Protocol, Action,
Bytes, Bytes Sent, Bytes Received, Packets, Start Time, Elapsed Time, Category, FUTURE_USE,
Sequence Number, Action Flags, Source Country, Destination Country, FUTURE_USE, Packets
Sent, Packets Received, Session End Reason, Device Group Hierarchy Level 1, Device Group
Hierarchy Level 2, Device Group Hierarchy Level 3, Device Group Hierarchy Level 4, Virtual
System Name, Device Name, Action Source, Source VM UUID, Destination VM UUID, Tunnel ID/
IMSI, Monitor Tag/IMEI, Parent Session ID, Parent Start Time, Tunnel Type, SCTP Association
ID, SCTP Chunks, SCTP Chunks Sent, SCTP Chunks Received, Rule UUID, HTTP/2 Connection,
App Flap Count, Policy ID, Link Switches, SD-WAN Cluster, SD-WAN Device Type, SD-WAN
Cluster Type, SD-WAN Site, Dynamic User Group Name, XFF Address, Source Device Category,
Source Device Profile, Source Device Model, Source Device Vendor, Source Device OS Family,
Source Device OS Version, Source Hostname, Source Mac Address, Destination Device Category,
Destination Device Profile, Destination Device Model, Destination Device Vendor, Destination
Device OS Family, Destination Device OS Version, Destination Hostname, Destination Mac
Address, Container ID, POD Namespace, POD Name, Source External Dynamic List, Destination
External Dynamic List, Host ID, Serial Number, Source Dynamic Address Group, Destination
Dynamic Address Group, Session Owner, High Resolution Timestamp, A Slice Service Type, A
Slice Differentiator, Application Subcategory, Application Category, Application Technology,
Application Risk, Application Characteristic, Application Container, Tunneled Application,
Application SaaS, Application Sanctioned State, Offloaded
Field Name Description
Receive Time (receive_time
or cef-formattedreceive_time)
Time the log was received at the management plane.
Serial Number (serial) Serial number of the firewall that generated the log.
Type (type) Specifies the type of log; value is TRAFFIC.
Threat/Content Type
(subtype)
Subtype of traffic log; values are start, end, drop, and deny
• Start—session started
• End—session ended
• Drop—session dropped before the application is identified
and there is no rule that allows the session.
• Deny—session dropped after the application is identified
and there is a rule to block or no rule that allows the
session.
Generated Time
(time_generated or cefformatted-time_generated)
Time the log was generated on the dataplane.
Source Address (src) Original session source IP address.
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Field Name Description
Destination Address (dst) Original session destination IP address.
NAT Source IP (natsrc) If Source NAT performed, the post-NAT Source IP address.
NAT Destination IP (natdst) If Destination NAT performed, the post-NAT Destination IP
address.
Rule Name (rule) Name of the rule that the session matched.
Source User (srcuser) Username of the user who initiated the session.
Destination User (dstuser) Username of the user to which the session was destined.
Application (app) Application associated with the session.
Virtual System (vsys) Virtual System associated with the session.
Source Zone (from) Zone the session was sourced from.
Destination Zone (to) Zone the session was destined to.
Inbound Interface
(inbound_if)
Interface that the session was sourced from.
Outbound Interface
(outbound_if)
Interface that the session was destined to.
Log Action (logset) Log Forwarding Profile that was applied to the session.
Session ID (sessionid) An internal numerical identifier applied to each session.
Repeat Count (repeatcnt) Number of sessions with same Source IP, Destination IP,
Application, and Subtype seen within 5 seconds.
Source Port (sport) Source port utilized by the session.
Destination Port (dport) Destination port utilized by the session.
NAT Source Port (natsport) Post-NAT source port.
NAT Destination Port
(natdport)
Post-NAT destination port.
Flags (flags) 32-bit field that provides details on session; this field can be
decoded by AND-ing the values with the logged value:
• 0x80000000—session has a packet capture (PCAP)
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Field Name Description
• 0x40000000—option is enabled to allow a client to use
multiple paths to connect to a destination host
• 0x20000000—indicates whether a sample has been
submitted for analysis using the WildFire public or private
cloud channel
• 0x10000000—enterprise credential submission by end user
detected
• 0x08000000— source for the flow is on the allow list and
not subject to recon protection
• 0x02000000—IPv6 session
• 0x01000000—SSL session is decrypted (SSL Proxy)
• 0x00800000—session is denied via URL filtering
• 0x00400000—session has a NAT translation performed
• 0x00200000—user information for the session was
captured through Authentication Portal
• 0x00100000—application traffic is on a non-standard
destination port
• 0x00080000 —X-Forwarded-For value from a proxy is in
the source user field
• 0x00040000—log corresponds to a transaction within a
http proxy session (Proxy Transaction)
• 0x00020000—Client to Server flow is subject to policy
based forwarding
• 0x00010000—Server to Client flow is subject to policy
based forwarding
• 0x00008000—session is a container page access (Container
Page)
• 0x00002000—session has a temporary match on a rule for
implicit application dependency handling. Available in PANOS 5.0.0 and above.
• 0x00000800—symmetric return is used to forward traffic
for this session
• 0x00000400—decrypted traffic is being sent out clear text
through a mirror port
• 0x00000100—payload of the outer tunnel is being
inspected
IP Protocol (proto) IP protocol associated with the session.
Action (action) Action taken for the session; possible values are:
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Field Name Description
• allow—session was allowed by policy
• deny—session was denied by policy
• drop—session was dropped silently
• drop ICMP—session was silently dropped with an ICMP
unreachable message to the host or application
• reset both—session was terminated and a TCP reset is sent
to both the sides of the connection
• reset client—session was terminated and a TCP reset is sent
to the client
• reset server—session was terminated and a TCP reset is
sent to the server
Bytes (bytes) Number of total bytes (transmit and receive) for the session.
Bytes Sent (bytes_sent) Number of bytes in the client-to-server direction of the
session.
Bytes Received
(bytes_received)
Number of bytes in the server-to-client direction of the
session.
Packets (packets) Number of total packets (transmit and receive) for the session.
Start Time (start) Time of session start.
Elapsed Time (elapsed) Elapsed time of the session.
Category (category) URL category associated with the session (if applicable).
Sequence Number (seqno) A 64-bit log entry identifier incremented sequentially; each log
type has a unique number space.
Action Flags (actionflags) A bit field indicating if the log was forwarded to Panorama.
Source Country (srcloc) Source country or Internal region for private addresses;
maximum length is 32 bytes.
Destination Country (dstloc) Destination country or Internal region for private addresses.
Maximum length is 32 bytes.
Packets Sent (pkts_sent) Number of client-to-server packets for the session.
Packets Received
(pkts_received)
Number of server-to-client packets for the session.
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Field Name Description
Session End Reason
(session_end_reason)
The reason a session terminated. If the termination had
multiple causes, this field displays only the highest priority
reason. The possible session end reason values are as follows,
in order of priority (where the first is highest):
• threat—The firewall detected a threat associated with a
reset, drop, or block (IP address) action.
• policy-deny—The session matched a security rule with a
deny or drop action.
• decrypt-cert-validation—The session terminated
because you configured the firewall to block SSL
forward proxy decryption or SSL inbound inspection
when the session uses client authentication or when
the session uses a server certificate with any of the
following conditions: expired, untrusted issuer, unknown
status, or status verification time-out. This session
end reason also displays when the server certificate
produces a fatal error alert of type bad_certificate,
unsupported_certificate, certificate_revoked, access_denied,
or no_certificate_RESERVED (SSLv3 only).
• decrypt-unsupport-param—The session terminated
because you configured the firewall to block SSL forward
proxy decryption or SSL inbound inspection when the
session uses an unsupported protocol version, cipher,
or SSH algorithm. This session end reason is displays
when the session produces a fatal error alert of type
unsupported_extension, unexpected_message, or
handshake_failure.
• decrypt-error—The session terminated because you
configured the firewall to block SSL forward proxy
decryption or SSL inbound inspection when firewall
resources or the hardware security module (HSM) were
unavailable. This session end reason is also displayed when
you configured the firewall to block SSL traffic that has
SSL errors or that produced any fatal error alert other than
those listed for the decrypt-cert-validation and decryptunsupport-param end reasons.
• tcp-rst-from-client—The client sent a TCP reset to the
server.
• tcp-rst-from-server—The server sent a TCP reset to the
client.
• resources-unavailable—The session dropped because of a
system resource limitation. For example, the session could
have exceeded the number of out-of-order packets allowed
per flow or the global out-of-order packet queue.
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Field Name Description
• tcp-fin—Both hosts in the connection sent a TCP FIN
message to close the session.
• tcp-reuse—A session is reused and the firewall closes the
previous session.
• decoder—The decoder detects a new connection within
the protocol (such as HTTP-Proxy) and ends the previous
connection.
• aged-out—The session aged out.
• unknown—This value applies in the following situations:
• Session terminations that the preceding reasons do not
cover (for example, a clear session all command).
• For logs generated in a PAN-OS release that does not
support the session end reason field (releases older
than PAN-OS 6.1), the value will be unknown after an
upgrade to the current PAN-OS release or after the logs
are loaded onto the firewall.
• In Panorama, logs received from firewalls for which the
PAN-OS version does not support session end reasons
will have a value of unknown.
• n/a—This value applies when the traffic log type is not end.
Device Group Hierarchy
(dg_hier_level_1 to
dg_hier_level_4)
A sequence of identification numbers that indicate the device
group’s location within a device group hierarchy. The firewall
(or virtual system) generating the log includes the identification
number of each ancestor in its device group hierarchy. The
shared device group (level 0) is not included in this structure.
If the log values are 12, 34, 45, 0, it means that the log was
generated by a firewall (or virtual system) that belongs to
device group 45, and its ancestors are 34, and 12. To view the
device group names that correspond to the value 12, 34 or 45,
use one of the following methods:
API query:
/api/?type=op&cmd=<show><dg-hierarchy></dghierarchy></show>
Virtual System Name
(vsys_name)
The name of the virtual system associated with the session;
only valid on firewalls enabled for multiple virtual systems.
Device Name (device_name) The hostname of the firewall on which the session was logged.
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Field Name Description
Action Source (action_source) Specifies whether the action taken to allow or block an
application was defined in the application or in policy. The
actions can be allow, deny, drop, reset- server, reset-client or
reset-both for the session.
Source VM UUID (src_uuid) Identifies the source universal unique identifier for a guest
virtual machine in the VMware NSX environment.
Destination VM UUID
(dst_uuid)
Identifies the destination universal unique identifier for a guest
virtual machine in the VMware NSX environment.
Tunnel ID/IMSI (tunnelid/
imsi)
International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) is a unique
number allocated to each mobile subscriber in the GSM/
UMTS/EPS system. IMSI shall consist of decimal digits (0
through 9) only and maximum number of digits allowed are 15.
Monitor Tag/IMEI
(monitortag/imei)
International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is a unique 15
or 16 digit number allocated to each mobile station equipment.
Parent Session ID
(parent_session_id)
ID of the session in which this session is tunneled. Applies to
inner tunnel (if two levels of tunneling) or inside content (if one
level of tunneling) only.
Parent Start Time
(parent_start_time)
Year/month/day hours:minutes:seconds that the parent tunnel
session began.
Tunnel Type (tunnel) Type of tunnel, such as GRE or IPSec.
SCTP Association ID
(assoc_id)
Number that identifies all connections for an association
between two SCTP endpoints.
SCTP Chunks (chunks) Sum of SCTP chunks sent and received for an association.
SCTP Chunks Sent
(chunks_sent)
Number of SCTP chunks sent for an association.
SCTP Chunks Received
(chunks_received)
Number of SCTP chunks received for an association.
Rule UUID (rule_uuid) The UUID that permanently identifies the rule.
HTTP/2 Connection
(http2_connection)
Identifies if traffic used an HTTP/2 Connection by displaying
one of the following values:
• Parent session ID—HTTP/2 connection
• 0—SSL session
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 591 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
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