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

Authenticating and authorizing users with User-ID

Frequently neglected but very powerful when set up properly is a standard (no additional license required) feature called User-ID. Through several mechanisms, the firewall can learn who is initiating which sessions, regardless of their device, operating system, or source IP. Additionally, security policies can be set so users are granted access or restricted in their capabilities based on their individual ID or group membership.

User-ID expands functionality with granular control of who is accessing certain resources and provides customizable reporting capabilities for forensic or managerial reporting.

Users can be identified through several different methods:

  • Server monitoring:
    • Microsoft Active Directory security log reading for log-on events
    • Microsoft Exchange Server log-on events
    • Novell eDirectory log-on events
  • The interception of X-Forward-For (XFF) headers...