SSL Inbound Inspection: key vs cert, destination address

[cstech]

The PAN-OS Administrator's Guide for version 6.0 gives a description of setting up SSL Inbound Inspection on page 295.  In step 2, it instructs to import the target's certificate.  In step 4 it instructs to create a decryption policy by specifying the destination address of the targeted server.

Questions:

1. Doesn't the PA require the encryption key, not just the encryption certificate to perform inbound SSL inspection?

2. In the case where the server to be inspected is running in a DMZ behind a bi-directional NAT (and the policy is for Trust->DMZ), should the destination address be the public or private IP?

3. How do you know the answer to (2)?  Is there a section in the administrator's guide that spells this out?  I would like to learn more about this so that I can figure out the answer to those sorts of questions on my own.

Thank you,

Chris

[tshiv · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I will answer questions 2 and 3 first. It should be the private-ip address. There is not documentation but I have had this working in the lab with private ip-address. This is because I believe the decryption policy look-up happens after the traffic is translated when NAT policy is applied. Now to answer your first question, the certificate of the web server that we are importing to PA for inbound inspection has to be imported with the private key. Without the private key, will not be able to decrypt the traffic.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

[cstech]

Okay TY.  So it looks like the documentation in the Admin Guide is wrong on re key vs cert.  I will try to bring it up with the private IP and see if that works.