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.