is it advisable to have PAN UID agent and windows UID agent enabled on PA-5020?

[SThatipelly]

I have 8900 user-ids in my environement. using PA-5020, is it advisable to have both user-id agents turned on? I would like to have as much reliability as possible so the security policies will accurately filter based on usernames.

thanks.

[Mick_Ball · Accepted solution]

I suppose that depends on why you are using a windows agent in the first place...

if its to probe servers off site over a slow wan then seems daft to have one local as well.

if its to take the overhead away from the palo then this also would be odd...

if it’s solely for resilience then i don't see why not.

we have a similar user base and have 2 windows agents on VM’s with the local agent configured but not enabled just in case but have never had to use it.

[SThatipelly]

@Mick_Ball thank you. I was using PAN agent at first but noticed user-ids kept dropping so moved to windows agent. I see the same issue again and so thought of having them both enabled. do you also see some of the usernames not being populated at times on your firewall?

[Mick_Ball]

Hi @SThatipelly , no I don’t have that issue...

do you mean they are there and then disappear or do you mean they are never populated.

[SThatipelly]

@Mick_Ball At some random times, traffic log doesn't show the username associated with that IP. but just after short duration(random) it picks it back and shows both IP and username.

[Mick_Ball]

What is your timeout set to?

[SThatipelly]

2hrs on PAN agent

[Mick_Ball]

I have mine set to 24 hours.

maybe not your cup of tea but try increasing to 8 hours.

i assume they are dhcp clients, if so what is your lease times?