I've run across an interesting "feature" in working with the Palo Alto system. I'm converting from the Checkpoint platform and have found a feature that I use in the Checkpoint all the time, but don't have available in the Palo Alto Panorama. If you type the IP address of an object, but that address is not part of the name, you won't be able to select it from the drop down list.
Example:
I'm trying to add an object to the source address field by typing it's IP address:
No objects show up in the selection box. The selection box appears to be name only.
Adding the IP address into the name of the object allows me to be able to select it from this box by typing the IP address (or any portion of the address).
Are there plans to add this feature to the product or are there other ways to work around this minor inconvenience?
Thanks for the heads up Steven on the feature requests.
Here is a procedure that you can use to perform a mass object rename. I used this procedure to rename about 2000 objects in the firewall to append the IP address to the end of the object name. My example shows how to rename 5 Citrix Server objects. I'm a long time Cisco guy, so I really like the SET commands.
#Change to use the SET format of output on the configuration:
set cli config-output-format set
#Move into Config Mode:
config show
#show the configuration and show all address objects:
show | match address
#=============================================================
#Original Objects:
#=============================================================
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer01 ip-netmask 10.0.0.1/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer01 description "Citrix Server"
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer02 ip-netmask 10.0.0.2/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer02 description "Citrix Server"
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer03 ip-netmask 10.0.0.3/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer03 description "Citrix Server"
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer04 ip-netmask 10.0.0.4/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer04 description "Citrix Server"
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer05 ip-netmask 10.0.0.5/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer05 description "Citrix Server"
#=============================================================
#Save the output for all of your address objects to a text file called "C:\Temp\Objects.txt"
#Open a command-prompt window and filter to only show lines with the text "ip-netmask"
more c:\temp\objects.txt | find /i "ip-netmask" > c:\temp\objects-addr.txt
#Open the new text file into Notepad++. This is what your file will look like:
#=============================================================
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer01 ip-netmask 10.0.0.1/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer02 ip-netmask 10.0.0.2/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer03 ip-netmask 10.0.0.3/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer04 ip-netmask 10.0.0.4/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer05 ip-netmask 10.0.0.5/32
#=============================================================
#Within Notepad++ perform the following find and replace:
Find what: ip-netmask .*
Replace with:
Search Mode: Regular expression
#This will replace the end of each line and leave you with a list of server names. The file will now look like this:
#=============================================================
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer01
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer02
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer03
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer04
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer05
#=============================================================
#Open Microsoft Excel and Paste the file contents into cell A1.
#Switch back to Notepad++ and re-open your c:\temp\objects-addr.txt file:
#=============================================================
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer01 ip-netmask 10.0.0.1/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer02 ip-netmask 10.0.0.2/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer03 ip-netmask 10.0.0.3/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer04 ip-netmask 10.0.0.4/32
set device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer05 ip-netmask 10.0.0.5/32
#=============================================================
#Perform the following find and replace in Notepad++:
Find what: set device-group "Internet Firewall" address
Replace with:
Search Mode: Normal
#Your file will now look like this:
#=============================================================
CitrixServer01 ip-netmask 10.0.0.1/32
CitrixServer02 ip-netmask 10.0.0.2/32
CitrixServer03 ip-netmask 10.0.0.3/32
CitrixServer04 ip-netmask 10.0.0.4/32
CitrixServer05 ip-netmask 10.0.0.5/32
#=============================================================
...[procedure continuing in the next post]...
#Now perform the following Find and Replace action in Notepad++:
Find what: ip-netmask
Replace with: _
Search Mode: Normal
#Your file will now look like this:
#=============================================================
CitrixServer01_10.0.0.1/32
CitrixServer02_10.0.0.2/32
CitrixServer03_10.0.0.3/32
CitrixServer04_10.0.0.4/32
CitrixServer05_10.0.0.5/32
#=============================================================
#I Prefer to have the forward slash character replaced with an underscore so perform one final find and replace:
Find what: /
Replace with: _
Search Mode: Normal
#Your file will now look like this:
#=============================================================
CitrixServer01_10.0.0.1_32
CitrixServer02_10.0.0.2_32
CitrixServer03_10.0.0.3_32
CitrixServer04_10.0.0.4_32
CitrixServer05_10.0.0.5_32
#=============================================================
#Switch back to Microsoft Excel and add the following text to cell B1
to
#Now paste the newly renamed objects into cell C1. Then copy and paste the B1 to all of the remaining B cells to fill out your chart. Your chart should look like this:
...[tutorial continuing to next post]...
#Now copy the excel spreadsheet and paste it back into Notepad++. Perform the following Find and Replace to remove the TABs that Excel uses to separate the fields:
Find what: \t
Replace with:
Search Mode: Extended
#Note the replace field is the space character, you can't see it in the text above.
#Now perform the following Find and Replace to change the command from a SET command to a REPLACE command:
Find what: set
Replace with: replace
Search Mode: Normal
#Your file will now look like this:
#=============================================================
rename device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer01 to CitrixServer01_10.0.0.1_32
rename device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer02 to CitrixServer02_10.0.0.2_32
rename device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer03 to CitrixServer03_10.0.0.3_32
rename device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer04 to CitrixServer04_10.0.0.4_32
rename device-group "Internet Firewall" address CitrixServer05 to CitrixServer05_10.0.0.5_32
#=============================================================
There are a lot of girations to go between Notepad++, Excel, Command Prompt so this process is really only meant for renaming many objects. Even with creating this procedure and performing the renames, I was able to create the script to rename just under 2,000 host objects in under two hours.
Pasting these commands into my Panorama appliance proved to be slightly problematic. I had to use TeraTermPro to use the "Paste Delay Per Line" feature. Pasting the entire script into Putty did not work well. Adding a 200ms delay between each line was perfect. I got decent speed and no issues with text smashing into the console before the previous line was processed.
TeraTerm >> SETUP >> ADDITIONAL SETTINGS>> COPY AND PASTE TAB:
