4.1.7 inspection causes corrupt download and speed issues

[EdwinD]

I have two 2050's in an HA pair A/P on 4.1.7.    I have a BGP setup with 100Mbps on one link and 250Mbps on another, and Gb to the LAN and DMZ.  I have transferred just over 3G through the PA in the last 60 minutes.

When I turn on inspection (Antivirus, IPS/IDS, Data Filtering, File forwarding) I see corruption in downloads.   For example, when downloading Java or the latest Antivirus Pattern file updates I may just get 20-30% of it.   The second download attempt is usually fine.   This is hit or miss, but it happens often enough to be a problem.   I see "active" (vs PASV) FTP connections that break in the middle of downloading many small files.   This problem has existed for the 10 months that I have had this device, including all the OS upgrades I have made use of.

If I create a security rule for a person having problems, specify their source IP and no inspection, then these problems do not occur.

I use to have an eSafe Web Security Gateway which did these same types of content inspection.  This problem is very reminiscent of having antivirus inspection enabled on that device.  The eSafe gateway had many destination IP addresses as exclusions due to this.  I no longer have that device.

Is this a known issue with PanOS, is this just how it works (as it was with eSafe), or am I just under powered?  

[sdurga]

Hi Edwin,

From the description you are not having issues if you turn off the content inspection lke Antivirus, Data filtering and other features. So if you turn on these features an the file downloads are failing in the middle we might be blocking them detecting them as threat. Check the threat logs, data filtering logs and look if we are dropping any packets or detecting any threats there. Also you said that the fist attempt fails and the second attempt is fine which is strange, if we are blocking we have to block it all the time. You can also do a PCAP and see what packets firewall is dropping.

Thanks,

Sandeep

[essnet · Accepted solution]

You seem to be hit (at first look) by same bug than me , which was fixed on 4.1.8 .

Regards,

[EdwinD]

Thank you.   We have other bugs for which I need to upgrade to 4.1.8.   I just am waiting for 4.1.8 to be out long enough that any major issues become known in the forums.

[dieter_b]

EdwinD wrote:
I just am waiting for 4.1.8 to be out long enough that any major issues become known in the forums.

Like everybody else is

[holemans]

Can you give some more information on the bug (and its id number if it is fixed in 4.1.8) that you experienced ?

We are running 4.1.7 on a pair of 5050 and we get slow downloads, especially with pdf files but not for all pdf file. We have a case open with PA but if we can refer to an existing bugreport, that could be very helpfull.

Wim Holemans

[essnet]

Hello,

Not all my problems were fixed in 4.1.8 . They were in 4.1.8 H2 (which was not publicly available). Now that I am on 4.1.9 , it's all good (on a pair of 5050 too)

[holemans]

can you give more detail on what problems you were having ?

It can help the PA people helping us with the problem.

You can contact me personally for this on wim.holemans@ua.ac.be

Thanks

[essnet]

Some content (especially through HTTP but also sometimes on FTP) was not downloading or partially without triggering any block in PA logs. Packet capture was showing that the connection was hanging (PA retaining packets/data without much reason).

PDF files (but not only) were the most impacted type of files.

[holemans]

thanks for the update