Book Image

Mastering Palo Alto Networks - Second Edition

By : Tom Piens aka Piens aka 'reaper'
Book Image

Mastering Palo Alto Networks - Second Edition

By: Tom Piens aka Piens aka 'reaper'

Overview of this book

Palo Alto Networks’ integrated platform makes it easy to manage network and cloud security along with endpoint protection and a wide range of security services. This book is an end-to-end guide to configure firewalls and deploy them in your network infrastructure. You will see how to quickly set up, configure and understand the technology, and troubleshoot any issues that may occur. This book will serve as your go-to reference for everything from setting up to troubleshooting complex issues. You will learn your way around the web interface and command-line structure, understand how the technology works so you can confidently predict the expected behavior, and successfully troubleshoot any anomalies you may encounter. Finally, you will see how to deploy firewalls in a cloud environment, and special or unique considerations when setting them to protect resources. By the end of this book, for your configuration setup you will instinctively know how to approach challenges, find the resources you need, and solve most issues efficiently.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
16
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17
Index

Understanding the Core Technologies

In this chapter, we’re going to examine the core technologies that make up the Palo Alto Networks firewall.

We are going to take a closer look at how security zones control how security, Network Address Translation (NAT), and routing verdicts are made. We will review the mechanics behind App-ID and Content-ID so you get a deeper understanding of how packets are processed and security decisions are made by the firewall, and we will review how User-ID contributes to a more robust security stance by applying group-based or user-based access control.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • Understanding the zone-based firewall
  • Understanding App-ID and Content-ID
  • The management and data plane
  • Authenticating users with User-ID

By the end of this chapter, you will have a better understanding of how the core technology is built up and will be able to apply these skills when we start building configuration...