Security Rule hitcount not incrementing, but traffic monitor shows rule being used on PA-850

[Juan_Alvarez]

Hi Community!

Recently I stumbled upon this weird behavior where a security rule shows 0 hit-count, but when looked under the traffic monitor lots of traffic is being allowed by that rule.

This is the rule in question (0 hit count marker):

This is the traffic monitor logs, where we can see the rule being used:

Does someone know why the hit count is not incrementing since the rule is being used? how can I troubleshoot this?

Thanks.

NGFW 

[aleksandar.astardzhiev]

Hi @Juan_Alvarez,

Based on the color of the rule from the first picture I would guess you are managing the firewall with Panorama?

Are you seeing the zero hit count on the Panorama or on the firewall itself?

If my guess is correct and you are managing the firewall with Panorama, it seems this rule doesn't have log forwarding profile applied. Without log forwarding, firewall will not send any logs generated for this rule to the Panorama. And without any logs for that rule I am (almost) certain it will not increase the hit count.

Now even without log forwarding, firewall should increase the hit count locally on the firewall. So it is good to clear this out  - are you using Panorama and are you seeing the zero hit count on the panorama or on the firewall.

[Juan_Alvarez]

Thanks for comment @aleksandar.astardzhiev 

You are right, we manage our firewalls through Panorama.  The picture I shared is from the firewall directly.  In Panorama the hit counter says "Unused".

[aleksandar.astardzhiev]

Hey @Juan_Alvarez ,

Is there specific reason why you don't forward logs to Panorama/Data Lake from this rule?

What version are you using on the firewall?

[Juan_Alvarez]

Hey @aleksandar.astardzhiev 

There's no specific reason, firewall is running v10.1.6-h6.

[Juan_Alvarez]

I have a quick update about this issue.  It seems that it has something to do with the naming of the rule.  I was playing around with the CLI and applied the following command:

So based upon the output, I decided to go to Panorama and reduce the characters of the name on this specific rule.  Once done the "new" rule started getting hit counts:

So I decided to revert this change and configure the name back on how it was, but to my surprise the rule is still getting hit counts:

I opened a TAC to check this behavior, maybe it's a bug.  Once I get their feedback I'll make sure to update this thread.

[sam-wuergler]

Hi Juan

Did you have any update to this issue? We are experiencing a similiar problem

[Juan_Alvarez]

Hi there!

Unfortunately, TAC couldn't reproduce the issue on their LAB, and since what I did "resolved" my initial problem, I left it as it is.  As a side note, it never happened again with other new rules created...  Sorry, I didn't have a better answer for this.

[sam-wuergler]

Alright, thank you anyway for the feedback. Unfortunately there are several policies impacted (upon which data I was planning to do a policy cleanup), but I worry that it will lead to the same result as with you by opening a TAC case.

[Juan_Alvarez]

Well, I dunno if this helps out, but we have upgraded the firewall a couple of times.  Could have been a bug on that specific version that we were running at the time (I don't remember what it was).  Today we run v10.1.10-h1.  Have U tried upgrading it?

[sam-wuergler]

We're currently on 10.1.10 but will upgrade to 10.2 soon, maybe this will change something.

[AlexMotenko]

What helped in my case is going to Device --> Setup --> Management.

Then go to Policy Rulebase Settings.

Uncheck Policy Rule Hit Count, click OK

Then open Policy Rulebase Settings and check Policy Rule Hit Count

And then Commit.

After that I started seeing Policy Hit count.