topic Re: Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI in General Topics

Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI

edwin.s.summers.ctr — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:20:53 GMT

System is a PA-3050 running SW version 7.1.7

Does the CLI still show the "Offload: yes" output in 'show session id <session-id-#>' for this version of software?

I recall seeing this flag for certain sessions in prior versions. Lately I have been troubleshooting some issues and have not seen that flag for any of the sessions being viewed. Hardware offloading is enabled (per 'show session info') and many of the sessions are showing layer7 processing completed.

If I have read the Admin guide correctly at least SSL traffic should be offloaded once L7 processing has been completed. However I am not seeing this is the case, unless there are other parameters in the sessions I'm viewing that is causing them to not be offloaded.

Any other areas to check to show which sessions are offloaded? Have not had luck in the GUI session browser, either.

Re: Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI

BPry — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:46:14 GMT

Do you have session offload actually enabled?

Re: Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI

BPry — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:50:33 GMT

@edwin.s.summers.ctr doesn't look like this is actually monitored anymore; it simply happens at the hardware level if it's on.

Note: Some Palo Alto Networks firewalls include a Hardware Offload feature that optimizes the
handling of traffic. Offloaded traffic will not appear in packet captures in either the WebUI or
the CLI. PA-2000 Series, PA-3050, PA-3060, PA-4000 Series, PA-5000 Series, and PA-7000 Series
firewalls all have this feature. In order to guarantee that all packets are available for capture, a
CLI must be run to temporarily disable Hardware Offload. See the following information for
details and disclosures about CPU impact.

Re: Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI

reaper — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 09:37:40 GMT

you can see that in the l7proc status if it changes to ctd decode bypass:

admin@myNGFW> show session id 6

Session               6

        c2s flow:
                source:      192.168.0.34 [v1-trust]
                dst:         198.51.100.1
                proto:       6
                sport:       56987           dport:      22
                state:       ACTIVE          type:       FLOW
                src user:    reaper
                dst user:    unknown
                qos node:    ethernet1/1, qos member  Qid 0
                match src interface:  any
                match src address:    ('any                  ',)

 ...

        ingress interface                    : ethernet1/2
        egress interface                     : ethernet1/1
        session QoS rule                     : N/A (class 4)
        tracker stage l7proc                 : ctd decoder bypass
        end-reason                           : unknown

Re: Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI

edwin.s.summers.ctr — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 20:59:22 GMT

Thanks, reaper! Is this as well as the various values for the 'tracker stage' field documented? I have not been able to find this using Google and Live searches, and just searched the PANOS 7.1 Admin guide without result either. Greatly appreciated.

Re: Viewing offloaded sessions in CLI

reaper — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 07:19:33 GMT

Hi Edwin

No, these are not documented. Most of the l7 stages can have multiple meanings, depending on the state and type of your session, your hardware and configuration and require deep-dive debugging to correctly interpret. Trying to properly document these would be messy and confusing (like, 3d flow-chart confusing 😉 ), reading the output of the flow/ctd basic is far more meaningful

if you want to learn more, you should look into flow basic (ctd basic, appid basic, etc) here : Getting Started: Flow Basic