about session offload

[Gregoux]

Hello

the purpose is to minimze the cpu consomption but in wich way ?

how the offload work exactly?

thank's

[panos]

The following article has the information about disabling the offload traffic: 
https://knowledgebase.paloaltonetworks.com/KCSArticleDetail?id=kA10g000000Cm8cCAC

[Gregoux]

hi

Yes it's explain when the session is offloaded

but it didn't explain how the session is offloaded, i would like some detail on it.

thank's

[kprakash · Accepted solution]

By default, the PANFW offloads traffic for which it need not perform content and threat checks ( like SSL traffic because its encrypted, and custom applications because the user/admin trusts these applications ). Offloading means that traffic is offloaded to a hardware chip, for faster packet processing. If offloading is set to "no", then all the traffic ( including the custom application traffic and encrypted traffic ) are subjected to signature checks, and it can cause unnecessary usage of CPU cycles.

[kprakash]

The PANFW has the internal logic to determine which traffic is subjected to offloading. The rule of thumb being that any traffic that does not require signature inspection ( for both application determination and threat checks ) is offloaded to the hardware processor. Like mentioned before, sessions for SSL traffic ( which is encrypted and the firewall cannot determine the signature ), application overridden traffic ( admin creates such custom application because he/she trusts such applications ), etc are offloaded.

[HULK]

Hello Gregoux,

Threat signature match processing prior to the protocol decoder and the matching engine is used for content/ threat signature pattern matching, If signatures are changed during any transaction, we will mark the FPGA as unavailable, load the new signatures into the FPGA, then unmake it. The user or administrator is not having control on it, whether the traffic will be offloaded or not. It's depending on the traffic pattern only.

Thanks

[Douglas_Zan]

Does anybody know if when I disable the session offload, it disables the offloading for new sessions or also for active sessions?  

[xipan]

it will only disable offload for new sessions, existing session will not take effect unless clear the existing session