Provider-1 and SiteManager-1

Administration Guide
Version R70

March 9, 2009
© 2003-2009 Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

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 Contents

Preface Who Should Use This Guide.............................................................................. 14

Product and Feature Nomenclature ................................................................... 14
Summary of Contents ....................................................................................... 15
Related Documentation .................................................................................... 16
More Information ............................................................................................. 18
Feedback ........................................................................................................ 19

Chapter 1 Introduction
The Need for Provider-1 ................................................................................... 22
Management Service Providers (MSP) ........................................................... 23
Data Centers .............................................................................................. 25
Large Enterprises ........................................................................................ 25
The Check Point Solution ................................................................................. 28
Basic Elements........................................................................................... 29
Point of Presence (POP) Network Environment............................................... 33
Managers and Containers............................................................................. 35
Log Managers ............................................................................................. 38
High Availability ......................................................................................... 40
Security Policies in Provider-1 ..................................................................... 40
The Management Model ................................................................................... 42
Introduction to the Management Model......................................................... 42
Administrators ............................................................................................ 42
Management Tools ...................................................................................... 44
The Provider-1 Trust Model............................................................................... 50
Introduction to the Trust Model .................................................................... 50
Secure Internal Communication (SIC) ........................................................... 50
Trust Between a CMA and its Customer Network ............................................ 51
Trust Between a CLM and its Customer Network ............................................ 52
MDS Communication with CMAs .................................................................. 52
Trust Between MDS to MDS......................................................................... 53
Authenticating the Administrator .................................................................. 53
Authenticating via External Authentication Servers......................................... 54
Setting up External Authentication ............................................................... 55
Re-authenticating when using SmartConsole Clients....................................... 56
CPMI Protocol ............................................................................................ 58

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment

Asking yourself the right questions... ................................................................. 61
Consider the Following Scenario... ..................................................................... 64
Protecting Provider-1 Networks ......................................................................... 66
MDS Managers and Containers.......................................................................... 67
MDS Managers ........................................................................................... 67

Table of Contents 5
 MDS Containers.......................................................................................... 67
Choosing your deployment for MDS Managers and Containers ......................... 68
MDS Clock Synchronization ......................................................................... 69
Setting up the Provider-1 Environment .............................................................. 70
A Typical Scenario ...................................................................................... 70
A Standalone Provider-1 Network ................................................................. 71
A Distributed Provider-1 Network ................................................................. 72
Provider-1 Network with Point of Presence (POP) Center ................................ 73
Hardware Requirements and Recommendations.................................................. 75
Provider-1 Order of Installation ......................................................................... 76
Licensing and Deployment................................................................................ 77
The Trial Period .......................................................................................... 77
Considerations............................................................................................ 77
Further Licensing Detail .............................................................................. 79
Miscellaneous Issues ....................................................................................... 83
IP Allocation & Routing ............................................................................... 83
Network Address Translation (NAT) .............................................................. 84
Enabling OPSEC ......................................................................................... 85

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1

Overview ......................................................................................................... 88
Provisioning Process Overview........................................................................... 89
Setting Up Your Network Topology..................................................................... 90
Creating a Primary MDS Manager ...................................................................... 90
Using the MDG for the First Time ...................................................................... 91
Launching the MDG .................................................................................... 91
Adding Licenses using the MDG ................................................................... 91
Multiple MDS Deployments .............................................................................. 95
Synchronizing Clocks .................................................................................. 95
Adding a New MDS or MLM ......................................................................... 95
Modifying an Existing MDS .......................................................................... 98
Deleting an MDS ........................................................................................ 99
Protecting the Provider-1 Environment............................................................. 100
Standalone Gateway/Security Management .................................................. 100
Provider-1 CMA and MDG Management ...................................................... 100
Defining a Security Policy for the Gateway................................................... 101
Enabling Connections Between Different Components of the System ............. 103

Chapter 4 Customer Management

Overview ....................................................................................................... 108
Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment ...................................................... 110
Setup Considerations ..................................................................................... 119
IP Allocation for CMAs .............................................................................. 119
Assigning Groups ...................................................................................... 119
Management Plug-ins..................................................................................... 120
Introducing Management Plug-ins .............................................................. 120
Installing Plug-ins..................................................................................... 121
Activating Plug-ins.................................................................................... 121

6
 Plug-in Status .......................................................................................... 123
High Availability Mode .............................................................................. 123
Plug-in Mismatches .................................................................................. 123
Configuration................................................................................................. 126
Configuring a New Customer ...................................................................... 126
Creating Administrator and Customer Groups............................................... 130
Changing Administrators............................................................................ 130
Modifying a Customer’s Configuration ......................................................... 132
Changing GUI Clients ................................................................................ 132
Deleting a Customer.................................................................................. 133
Configuring a CMA .................................................................................... 133
Starting or Stopping a CMA........................................................................ 133
Checking CMA Status................................................................................ 133
Deleting a CMA ........................................................................................ 134

Chapter 5 Global Policy Management

Security Policies in Provider-1 ........................................................................ 136
Introduction to Security Policies in Provider-1 ............................................. 136
The Need for Global Policies ...................................................................... 138
The Global Policy as a Template................................................................. 139
Global Policies and the Global Rule Base .................................................... 139
Global SmartDashboard .................................................................................. 141
Introduction to Global SmartDashboard....................................................... 141
Global Services......................................................................................... 142
Dynamic Objects and Dynamic Global Objects ............................................. 142
Applying Global Rules to Gateways by Function ........................................... 143
Synchronizing the Global Policy Database ................................................... 144
Creating a Global Policy through Global SmartDashboard................................... 145
Global IPS .................................................................................................... 147
Introduction to Global IPS ......................................................................... 147
IPS in Global SmartDashboard ................................................................... 147
IPS Profiles .............................................................................................. 148
Subscribing Customers to IPS Service......................................................... 150
Managing IPS from a CMA ......................................................................... 151
Assigning Global Policy .................................................................................. 153
Assigning Global Policy for the First Time.................................................... 153
Assigning Global Policies to VPN Communities ............................................ 154
Reassigning Global Policy .......................................................................... 154
Reassigning Global Policy to Multiple Customers ......................................... 154
Viewing the Status of Global Policy Assignments.......................................... 156
Considerations For Global Policy Assignment ............................................... 156
Global Policy History File........................................................................... 158
Configuration................................................................................................. 160
Assigning or Installing a Global Policy......................................................... 160
Reassigning/Installing a Global Policy on Customers..................................... 161
Reinstalling a Customer Policy onto the Customers’ Gateways ....................... 162
Remove a Global Policy from Multiple Customers......................................... 162
Remove a Global Policy from a Single Customer........................................... 163

Table of Contents 7
 Viewing the Customer’s Global Policy History File ........................................ 163
Global Policies Tab ................................................................................... 163
Global Names Format................................................................................ 164

Chapter 6 Working in the Customer’s Network

Overview ....................................................................................................... 166
Customer Management Add-on (CMA)......................................................... 166
Administrators .......................................................................................... 167
SmartConsole Client Applications ............................................................... 167
Installing and Configuring Security Gateways.................................................... 169
Managing Customer Policies ........................................................................... 170
UTM-1 Edge Appliances ............................................................................ 170
Creating Customer Policies ........................................................................ 170
Revision Control ....................................................................................... 170
Working with CMAs and CLMs in the MDG ....................................................... 171

Chapter 7 VPN in Provider-1

Overview ....................................................................................................... 174
Access Control at the Network Boundary ..................................................... 175
Authentication Between Gateways .............................................................. 175
How VPN Works........................................................................................ 175
VPN Connectivity in Provider-1 ....................................................................... 178
Connections to a Customer Network............................................................ 178
Global VPN Communities................................................................................ 183
Gateway Global Names .............................................................................. 183
VPN Domains in Global VPN ...................................................................... 184
Access Control at the Network Boundary ..................................................... 185
Joining a Gateway to a Global VPN Community ............................................ 186
Configuring Global VPN Communities .............................................................. 188

Chapter 8 High Availability

Overview ....................................................................................................... 192
CMA High Availability .................................................................................... 193
Active Versus Standby ............................................................................... 195
Setting up a Mirror CMA ............................................................................ 196
CMA Backup using Security Management Server.......................................... 196
MDS High Availability .................................................................................... 199
MDS Mirror Site........................................................................................ 199
MDS Managers ......................................................................................... 200
Setting up a New MDS and Initiating Synchronization .................................. 201
MDS: Active or Standby............................................................................. 201
The MDS Manager’s Databases .................................................................. 202
The MDS Container’s Databases ................................................................. 203
How Synchronization Works ....................................................................... 203
Setting up Synchronization ........................................................................ 206
Configuration ................................................................................................ 209
Adding another MDS ................................................................................. 209

8
 Creating a Mirror of an Existing MDS .......................................................... 210
Initializing Synchronization between MDSs.................................................. 211
Subsequent Synchronization for MDSs........................................................ 211
Selecting a Different MDS to be the Active MDS .......................................... 212
Automatic Synchronization for Global Policies Databases.............................. 212
Add a Secondary CMA ............................................................................... 212
Mirroring CMAs with mdscmd .................................................................... 213
Automatic CMA Synchronization................................................................. 213
Synchronize ClusterXL Gateways ................................................................ 214
Failure Recovery in High Availability Deployments............................................. 215
Recovery with a Functioning Manager MDS ................................................. 215
Recovery from Failure of the Only Manager MDS.......................................... 217

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1

Logging Customer Activity .............................................................................. 220
Exporting Logs............................................................................................... 224
Log Export to Text..................................................................................... 224
Manual Log Export to Oracle Database ........................................................ 224
Automatic Log Export to Oracle Database .................................................... 225
Log Forwarding ......................................................................................... 226
Cross Domain Logging ............................................................................... 226
Logging Configuration .................................................................................... 227
Setting Up Logging ................................................................................... 227
Working with CLMs ................................................................................... 228
Setting up Customer Gateway to Send Logs to the CLM ................................ 229
Synchronizing the CLM Database with the CMA Database ............................. 230
Configuring an MDS to Enable Log Export ................................................... 230
Configuring Log Export Profiles .................................................................. 230
Choosing Log Export Fields ........................................................................ 231
Log Export Troubleshooting........................................................................ 232
Using Eventia Reporter.............................................................................. 233

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1

Overview ....................................................................................................... 236
Monitoring Components in the Provider-1 System ............................................. 237
Exporting the List Pane’s Information to an External File .............................. 238
Working with the List Pane ........................................................................ 238
Checking the Status of Components in the System............................................ 239
Viewing Status Details ............................................................................... 241
Locating Components with Problems........................................................... 241
Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features .................................. 243
MDS........................................................................................................ 243
Global Policies ......................................................................................... 245
Customer Policies ..................................................................................... 246
Gateway Policies....................................................................................... 246
High Availability ....................................................................................... 247
Global VPN Communities........................................................................... 248
Administrators .......................................................................................... 249

Table of Contents 9
 GUI Clients .............................................................................................. 250
Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components..................................... 252
Log Tracking ............................................................................................ 252
Tracking Logs using SmartView Tracker....................................................... 252
Real-Time Network Monitoring with SmartView Monitor ................................ 253
Eventia Reporter Reports ........................................................................... 255

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes

Packages in MDS Installation.......................................................................... 258
MDS File System ........................................................................................... 259
MDS Directories on /opt and /var File Systems ............................................. 259
Structure of CMA Directory Trees ............................................................... 260
Check Point Registry ................................................................................. 261
Automatic Start of MDS Processes, Files in /etc/rc3.d, /etc/init.d................... 261
Processes...................................................................................................... 262
Environment Variables............................................................................... 262
MDS Level Processes ................................................................................ 264
CMA Level Processes ................................................................................ 265
MDS Configuration Databases ......................................................................... 266
Global Policy Database .............................................................................. 266
MDS Database.......................................................................................... 266
CMA Database.......................................................................................... 267
Connectivity Between Different Processes ........................................................ 268
MDS Connection to CMAs.......................................................................... 268
Status Collection ...................................................................................... 269
Collection of Changes in Objects ................................................................ 269
Connection Between MDSs ........................................................................ 270
Large Scale Management Processes............................................................ 270
UTM-1 Edge Processes.............................................................................. 270
Reporting Server Processes ........................................................................ 270
Issues Relating to Different Platforms .............................................................. 271
High Availability Scenarios ........................................................................ 271
Migration Between Platforms ..................................................................... 272

Chapter 12 Commands and Utilities

Cross-CMA Search ......................................................................................... 274
Overview .................................................................................................. 274
Performing a Search.................................................................................. 274
Copying Search Results ............................................................................. 275
Performing a Search in CLI ........................................................................ 275
P1Shell ........................................................................................................ 278
Overview .................................................................................................. 278
Starting P1Shell ....................................................................................... 279
File Constraints for P1Shell Commands ...................................................... 279
P1Shell Commands................................................................................... 280
Audit Logging ........................................................................................... 283
Command Line Reference............................................................................... 284
cma_migrate ............................................................................................ 285

10
CPperfmon - Solaris only ........................................................................... 286
cpmiquerybin ........................................................................................... 294
dbedit...................................................................................................... 296
export_database........................................................................................ 297
mcd bin | scripts | conf .............................................................................. 299
mds_backup............................................................................................. 299
mds_restore ............................................................................................. 300
mds_user_expdate .................................................................................... 301
mdscmd................................................................................................... 301
mdsenv.................................................................................................... 315
mdsquerydb ............................................................................................. 315
mdsstart .................................................................................................. 317
mdsstat ................................................................................................... 317
mdsstop................................................................................................... 318
merge_plugin_tables ................................................................................. 318
migrate_assist .......................................................................................... 319
migrate_global_policies ............................................................................. 320

Table of Contents 11
12
Preface P
Preface

In This Chapter

Who Should Use This Guide page 14

Summary of Contents page 15
Related Documentation page 16
More Information page 18
Feedback page 19

13
Who Should Use This Guide

Who Should Use This Guide

This guide is intended for administrators responsible for maintaining network
security within an enterprise, including policy management and user support.
This guide assumes a basic understanding of
• System administration.
• The underlying operating system.
• Internet protocols (IP, TCP, UDP etc.).

Product and Feature Nomenclature

This product version incorporates updated names of some Check Point products
and features. These changes are intended to emphasize the enhanced functionality
and new features included.

Current Product/Feature Name Previous Name(s)

Check Point Security Gateway VPN-1, VPN-1 Power, VPN-1 UTM, FireWall-1
UTM-1 Edge VPN-1 UTM-1 Edge
SmartProvisioning SmartLSM
Endpoint Security Integrity
IPS SmartDefense
Web IPS Web Intelligence

In order to enhance the readability of this guide, we frequently use shortened

product names and features in place of the formal name.

Short Name Refers to

Provider-1 Both Provider-1 and SiteManager-1
Used in place of ‘Provider-1
SiteManager-1 Text pertaining only to SiteManager-1
Security Gateway Check Point Security Gateway

14
 Summary of Contents

Summary of Contents
This guide describes the installation, configuration and management of Provider-1.
It contains the following chapters:

Chapter Description
Chapter 1, “Introduction” Chapter 1 covers the need for Provider-1, and
different elements and deployments of the
Provider-1 system.
Chapter 2, “Planning the Chapter 2 covers pre-installation considerations.
Provider-1 Environment”
Chapter 3, “Provisioning Chapter 3 covers installation of the Provider-1
Provider-1” system.
Chapter 4, “Customer Chapter 4 covers the initial configuration.
Management”
Chapter 5, “Global Policy Chapter 5 covers setting up Global Policies for
Management” Customers.
Chapter 6, “Working in the Chapter 6 covers administration on the Customer
Customer’s Network” level.
Chapter 7, “VPN in Chapter 7 covers logging and tracking.
Provider-1”
Chapter 8, “High Availability” Chapter 8 covers setting up Virtual Private
Networks.
Chapter 9, “Logging in Chapter 9 covers monitoring the status of the
Provider-1” Provider-1 system.
Chapter 10, “Monitoring in Chapter 10 covers the different types High
Provider-1” Availability available for Provider-1.
Chapter 11, “Architecture Chapter 11 covers the file and directory
and Processes” structure of the Provider-1 system.
Chapter 12, “Commands and Chapter 12 covers useful command line utilities.
Utilities”

Preface 15
Related Documentation

Related Documentation
The current release includes the following documentation

TABLE P-1 Check Point Documentation

Title Description
Internet Security Contains installation and upgrade procedures for all
Installation and Upgrade products and components included in the Internet
Guide Security Suite. This suite includes Check Point
Security Gateway, Security Management, all
SmartConsole client applications and much more.
High-End Installation and Contains an overview of the High-End Security
Upgrade Guide suite, including Provider-1 and VSX. Explains all
upgrade paths to the current version.
Security Management Explains Security Management solutions. This guide
Administration Guide provides solutions for control over configuring,
managing, and monitoring security deployments at
the perimeter, inside the network, at all user
endpoints.
Firewall Administration Describes how to control and secure network access
Guide and VoIP traffic; how to use integrated web security
capabilities; and how to optimize Application
Intelligence with capabilities such as Content
Vectoring Protocol (CVP) applications, URL Filtering
(UFP) applications.
IPS Administration Guide Describes how to use IPS to protect against attacks.
VPN Administration Guide This guide describes the basic components of a
VPN and provides the background for the
technology that comprises the VPN infrastructure.

16
 Related Documentation

TABLE P-1 Check Point Documentation

Title Description
Eventia Reporter Explains how to monitor and audit traffic, and
Administration Guide generate detailed or summarized reports in the
format of your choice (list, vertical bar, pie chart
etc.) for all events logged by Check Point Security
Gateways, SecureClient and IPS.
SecurePlatform Explains how to install and configure
SecurePlatform Pro SecurePlatform. This guide will also teach you how
Administration Guide to manage your SecurePlatform machine and
explains Dynamic Routing (Unicast and Multicast)
protocols.
Provider-1 Administration Explains the Provider-1 security management
Guide solution. This guide provides details about a
three-tier, multi-policy management architecture
and a host of Network Operating Center oriented
features that automate time-consuming repetitive
tasks common in Network Operating Center
environments.

Preface 17
More Information

More Information
• For additional technical information about Check Point products, consult
Check Point’s SecureKnowledge at http://support.checkpoint.com.
• To view the latest version of this document in the Check Point User Center, go
to: http://support.checkpoint.com.

18
 Feedback

Feedback
Check Point is engaged in a continuous effort to improve its documentation. Please
help us by sending your comments to:
[email protected]

Preface 19
Feedback

20
Chapter 1
Introduction
In This Chapter

The Need for Provider-1 page 22

The Check Point Solution page 28
The Management Model page 42
The Provider-1 Trust Model page 50

21
The Need for Provider-1

The Need for Provider-1

In This Section

Management Service Providers (MSP) page 23

Data Centers page 25
Large Enterprises page 25

Secured IT systems are a basic need for modern business environments, and large
deployments face unique security challenges. A large scale enterprise must handle
the challenges of disparate yet interconnected systems. The large scale enterprise
often has corporate security policies that must be tailored to local branch needs,
balanced with vital requirement for corporate-wide access, perhaps between
branches in different countries.
Businesses with a large user base often need to monitor and control access to
confidential internal sites, and to monitor communication failures. Administrators
must be alerted to external attacks, not only on a company-wide basis, but also
more selectively on a department by department, branch by branch basis.
Companies with many branches must face security and access challenges that
small scale businesses do not. For example, an international airline needs to
provide access of varying levels to ticket agents, managers, airline staff, and
customers, through the Internet, intranets both local and international, and through
remote dial-up; all the while preventing unauthorized access to confidential
financial data.
Differentiating between levels of access permissions is critical not only for securing
user transactions, but also for monitoring for attacks, abuse and load management.
Task specialization amongst administrators must also be supported so that security
can be centralized.
Service providers such as Data Centers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
need to securely manage large-scale systems with many different customers and
access locations. An MSP must potentially handle separate customer systems with
many different LANs, each with its own security policy needs. The MSP must be
able to confidentially address the security and management needs for each
customer, each with their own system topology and system products. One policy is
not sufficient for the needs of so many different types of customers.
A Data Center provides data storage services to customers and must handle access
and storage security for many different customers, whose requirements for private
and secure access to their data are of critical importance.

22
 The Need for Provider-1

We will examine a few basic scenarios: the MSP, the Data Center, and the large
scale enterprise.

Management Service Providers (MSP)

An MSP manages IT services, such as security and accessibility, for other
companies, saving these companies the cost of an expert internal IT staff. A
management system must accommodate the MSP’s own business needs, deploying
an IT management architecture that scales to support a rapidly growing customer
base, while minimizing support procedures and dedicated hardware.
The MSP handles many different customer systems, which creates a variety of IT
management needs. Home users may require basic Internet services, with security
managed by UTM-1 Edge appliances. Small companies may require Internet and
customized-security coverage; others want autonomy to manage their own security
policies. One small company wants to protect its computers with a single gateway,
a Security Gateway, while another requires gateways and security services for
several offices and multiple networks which must communicate securely and
privately.
While the MSP must have administrators that can manage the entire MSP
environment, administrators or individual customers must not have access to the
environments of other customers.
Let’s examine the network of a fictitious MSP, SupportMSP:

Chapter 1 Introduction 23
The Need for Provider-1

Figure 1-1 Example of an MSP environment

Service providers need a management tool designed to specifically address the

unique challenges of large-scale private-customer management. These different and
unconnected customers’ systems must be centrally managed, yet the MSP must
also maintain the privacy and integrity of each customer’s system.
Further, the MSP must be able to flexibly manage security policies. Customers
cannot all be assigned one security policy. It may be that specialized security
policies suit a set of clients with similar needs (for example, supermarkets with
many branches), whereas individualized policies better suit other customers (such
as independent tax accountants and dentists). Repetitive policy changes and
time-intensive end-user management are a common problem if policies cannot be
managed adroitly.
The MSP must also handle communication and activity logging for network
troubleshooting and reporting purposes. Comprehensive logging for many different
customers and disparate systems can be process and space intensive, draining
system resources if not handled carefully. This creates both administration issues
and unique security policy requirements.

24
 The Need for Provider-1

Data Centers
The data service provider is a type of service center, a company that provides
computer data storage and related services, such as backup and archiving, for other
companies. For example, let’s examine the network of a fictitious Data Center:
Figure 1-2 Example of a Data Center

Similar to the MSP, the Data Center manages its own environment, whereas
individual customer administrators and customers cannot have access to other
customers' environments.

Large Enterprises
Businesses that expand through lateral and horizontal integration, such as
conglomerates or holding companies, face security policy challenges due to the
diverse nature of their subsidiaries’ businesses. In these complex environments,
security managers need the right tools to manage multiple policies efficiently.
Central management of security policy changes, which are enforced by the different
Security Gateways throughout the system, ensure that the entire corporate IT
architecture is adequately protected.
Let’s look at a sample deployment for an automotive manufacturing concern:
Figure 1-3 Conglomerate’s network

Chapter 1 Introduction 25
The Need for Provider-1

Corporate IT departments must manage security services for a wide-spread system,

with link-ups with vendors, external inventory systems, billing inputs, and reporting
requirements. Different branches are geographically distributed and have
independent network management. Yet the network security personnel must support
a corporate-wide security policy, with rules enforcing access for appropriate users,
preventing attacks, enabling secure communication and fail-over capabilities.
IT departments must often delegate levels of authority among administrators, so
that there is a hierarchy of access even within systems support. Whereas some
administrators will have global authorities to maintain the system backbone, others
may handle specialized activities and only require permissions for certain parts of
the system. For example, an IT support person in a manufacturing branch would
not necessarily need to have total administrator privileges for the logistics
headquarters network, and a vendor administrator that handles network
maintenance would not need corporate- wide permissions.
IT services in large scale enterprises must often log network activity for security
tracking purposes. Comprehensive logging can consume considerable system
resources and slow down a corporate network, if not deployed with an appropriate
solution. For enterprises with local and remote branches, centralized failover
security management is another critical success factor in achieving efficient and
comprehensive system security.

26
 The Need for Provider-1

For Big Bank, different types of permissions and access management are required
to protect internal networks and separate them from external networks accessible to
users.
Figure 1-4 Big Bank’s network

Chapter 1 Introduction 27
The Check Point Solution

The Check Point Solution

In This Section

Basic Elements page 29

Point of Presence (POP) Network Environment page 33
Managers and Containers page 35
Log Managers page 38
High Availability page 40
Security Policies in Provider-1 page 40

Check Point Provider-1 is the best-of-breed security management solution designed

to meet the scalability requirements of service provider and large enterprise
Network Operating Center environments. A unique three-tier, multi-policy
management architecture and a host of Network Operating Center oriented features
automate time-consuming repetitive tasks common in Network Operating Center
environments. Provider-1 meets the needs of both the enterprise and of service
providers serving the enterprise market. This solution dramatically reduces the
administrative cost of managing large security deployments.
The basic three-tier security architecture of the Check Point Security Gateway
system, consisting of a gateway, a management console, and a GUI, delivers a
robust mechanism for creating Security Gateway security policies and automatically
distributing them to multiple gateways. Provider-1 supports central management for
many distinct security policies simultaneously.
Companies envision horizontal growth throughout an industry, to implement
economies of scale through incorporation of partner-companies and vendors.
Enterprises want to manage vertical growth through product differentiation.
Security management achieves a new level of customization and flexibility with
Provider-1.
With Provider-1, security policies can be customized. Enterprises can, for example,
tailor a security policy to enable vendor applications which tie into corporate
financial networks to communicate safely and securely, yet without having access
to confidential corporate data. As another example, a security policy can enable
franchise companies to communicate with regional and international headquarters,
yet safeguard the franchise internal network integrity.

28
 The Check Point Solution

An administrator can create policies for groups of customer Security Gateways,

and/or create high-level global policies that manage all customer polices at once.
The ability to set policy at every level, including both the customer and global level,
delivers exceptional scalability by eliminating the need to recreate policies and
policy changes, potentially to thousands of devices.

Basic Elements
In This Section

Example: MSP Deployment page 30

Example: Enterprise Deployment page 31
Multi-Domain GUI page 32

The Provider-1 system is designed to manage many widely distributed gateways, for
networks that may belong to different customers, different companies, or different
corporate branches.
The primary element of a security system is the gateway, the Security Gateway.
Administrators decide how this Security Gateway is to be managed and apply a
security policy, with rules that determine how communication is handled by the
Security Gateway.
A Customer Management Add-On (CMA) is a virtual customer management. The
CMA manages customer Security Gateways. Through the CMA, an administrator
centrally creates and deploys policies on customer gateways.

Note - You may have noticed that the term Customer is capitalized in the preceding
sentence. As a convention in this guide, the term Customer will appear as capitalized
whenever referring to elements of the Provider-1 system.

The Multi-Domain Server (MDS) houses the CMAs, as well as all of the Provider-1
system information. It contains the details of the Provider-1 network, its
administrators, and high level customer management information.
The MDS can hold a substantial amount of customer network and policy detail on
a single server, providing a powerful, centralized management node. Multiple MDSs
can be linked in the Provider-1 system to manage thousands of policies in a single
environment, and to provide fail-over capabilities.
The CMA is the functional equivalent of a standalone Security Management server.
But unlike the Security Management server, the CMA is a manager, located on the
MDS. Although many CMAs can be stored on the same MDS, CMAs are completely

Chapter 1 Introduction 29
The Check Point Solution

isolated from each other, providing absolute customer privacy. In a large enterprise,
each CMA may manage branch or department Security Gateways, depending on the
security resolution required by the corporate security policy.
CMAs are located inside the Provider-1 environment. The Security Gateway can be
located in a separate network, in a separate city or country.
Figure 1-5 Distributed Management Configuration

Example: MSP Deployment

Let’s examine the basic system components at a less granular level, looking at a
start-up MSP setup with Provider-1. The service provider, Provider, has an MDS and
an internal network, connected to the Internet and protected by a Security Gateway.
This service provider offers security services to two customers, and manages their
Security Gateways.
Each customer has a Security Gateway protecting their respective internal corporate
networks. Typing.com has one network with one Security Gateway. TravelAgency has
two branches, each protected by its own Security Gateway. Each Customer has its
own CMA, which resides in the service provider’s MDS, inside the Provider-1
network environment.

30
 The Check Point Solution

Each CMA can manage more than one Security Gateway. TravelAgency has its own
private CMA, that manages both of TravelAgency’s Security Gateways. Typing.Com
also has its own private CMA, which manages its Security Gateway. TravelAgency
cannot access information about the Typing.Com environment, nor about the
service provider’s environment.
Notice that Provider also has a CMA to manage its own Security Gateway.
Figure 1-6 How CMAs manage Security Gateways

Example: Enterprise Deployment

Whereas a service provider manages individual customer networks, a large
enterprise manages branches and departments. So, let’s consider a Provider-1
setup for an international accountancy firm. The firm has its corporate
headquarters in London, with one branch office in Minicassette, and another in
Paris. Each of the branches have Security Gateways protecting internal corporate
networks. Let us say that in this corporate environment, all security management is
handled through the corporate headquarters in London.
How can this corporate system be protected? The branch offices are assigned CMAs
to manage their gateways. In this case, the IT department is centralized in the
corporate headquarters in London. An MDS has been created in London to manage
the system. The Manchester corporate branch’s Security Gateway is handled by its

Chapter 1 Introduction 31
The Check Point Solution

own CMA. The Paris and Nice branches are both managed by another CMA.
Although the MDS and the gateways themselves are in different cities and
countries, management is centralized and handled by the IT department in the
London office.
Figure 1-7 Enterprise deployment

Multi-Domain GUI
Provider-1 administrators use the Multi-Domain GUI (MDG) as the primary interface
to handle customer security management. The MDG has many “views” tailored to
display information relevant to specific tasks.

32
 The Check Point Solution

The MDG manages the entire Provider-1 environment, and provides an easy way to
incorporate customers and their networks into the Provider-1 system. It is used to
update Customer and gateway information, and to assign and navigate between
global policies. Using the MDG, administrators can provision and monitor security
through a single console, and oversee rules, policies, logs, statuses, and alerts for
hundreds of customers.

Point of Presence (POP) Network Environment

Some small scale businesses may not want the expense of a network or IT
maintenance staff. MSPs can provide a total IT package for these customers, using
the POP network solution to provide secured, Security Gateway protected Internet
service. In the standard Provider-1 configuration we have seen, all of the
customer’s Security Gateways are deployed on the customer’s premises. In a
POP-based configuration, the Security Gateways are deployed in the POP center on
the service provider’s premises.

Chapter 1 Introduction 33
The Check Point Solution

Leased lines to the POP service center provide secured Internet access for
customers. All Provider-1 components, such as the MDS and the MDG (the
administrative GUI), are located on the service provider’s premises. Customers
dial-in to receive services, and connect to the Internet via the POP center. Although
their usage is monitored and protected, they do not have to be involved in any of
the security management.
All aspects of security and access are completely maintained by the MSP, using
CMAs on the MDS to manage the gateway in the POP center. The CMAs in the MDS
do this by managing the security policies for the Security Gateways that protect
customer access.
Figure 1-8 A simple model of a POP configuration

For some MSPs, using VSX technology to provide customer Security Gateways is a
cost-saving solution. When setting up a POP site using VSX, individual security
domains can be aggregated on a single platform, substantially minimizing hardware
investment. Provider-1 has special features which enable CMAs to manage the
security policies for the VSX virtual gateways, protecting customer sites from
intrusion. For more information, see the VSX Administration Guide.

34
 The Check Point Solution

Figure 1-9 POP center using VSX

Managers and Containers

There are two “types” of MDS: a Manager, which contains Provider-1 system
information, and a Container, which holds the CMAs. The Manager is the entry
point for administrators into the Provider-1 environment, via the MDG, the
Provider-1 GUI.
Provider-1 can be installed on a single computer and configured as a combined
Manager/Container. It can also be installed on multiple computers, where one MDS
is a standalone Manager and another is a standalone Container. There must be at
least one Manager and one Container per Provider-1 system.
In an environment where there are numerous Customers, it is recommended to use
several Containers to “house” the CMAs. Each CMA does the following:
• Stores and manages its respective customer’s Network Object database and
Security Policies
• Receives status notifications and real-time monitoring data from the customer's
gateways
• Receives logs from the customer's gateways, unless the logging properties of
some or all of the gateways are configured otherwise

Chapter 1 Introduction 35
The Check Point Solution

Housing too many CMAs on a single Container can lead to performance issues. See
“Hardware Requirements and Recommendations” on page 75 to calculate the
proper balance. Using Containers, multiple MDSs can cascade to manage
thousands of CMAs in a single environment.
Multiple administrators can simultaneously access the system via the MDG by
connecting to the same, or different, MDS Managers. Administrators can access the
entire Provider-1 system from each of the Managers, as all system information is
stored on each Manager.
Let’s look at a Provider-1 environment for a service provider that handles numerous
small customers, and several large-scale customers.
Figure 1-10 Multiple MDSs in the service provider environment

This service provider needs a robust system with many Containers to handle the
large amount of information stored for all of its Customers. There are two MDS
Managers in this system. One is housed as a standalone Manager, whereas the
other is housed with a Container on the same server. There are also two other
Containers, which are managed by the MDS Managers. Another computer runs the
MDG, the Provider-1 graphical management tool. Administrators can login to any
Manager, and see the entire system via the MDG.

36
 The Check Point Solution

MDS Synchronization
Manager synchronization (for Provider-1 system information) is performed at the
MDS level. MDS Managers are “mirrors” of each other. If there is more than one
MDS Manager in the system, each Manager will contain all the information
regarding the Provider-1 management system such as administrator hierarchy,
Customer and network information.
MDS Managers contain three databases: MDS, Global Policy and ICA. The MDS
Manager’s MDS database (general information) is synchronized whenever changes
are made. The Global Policy database is synchronized either at configurable
intervals and/or events, or it is synchronized manually. Interconnected, mutually
redundant MDS Managers form a robust management system providing non-stop
access, without the need to deploy dedicated hardware or software redundancy.
MDG management activities can be performed using any of the MDS Managers.
MDS Manager synchronization does not mirror CMA-specific data. For example,
internal domains and Customer level policy rules are known only at the CMA level,
so they are not synced by MDS Managers. To enable CMA failover, you must set up
CMA High Availability. CMA High Availability synchronization is separate from MDS
synchronization.
Figure 1-11 MDS Synchronization in an Enterprise network

Chapter 1 Introduction 37
The Check Point Solution

Log Managers
Multi-Domain Log Module
The Multi-Domain Log Module (MLM) is an optional server that is dedicated to log
collection, separating critical management activities from logging traffic. It thereby
provides the infrastructure for further data-mining activities and improves
performance for large deployments by offloading log processing activities from the
MDS. It is recommended for systems with many CMAs or a heavy logging load.
Redundant log infrastructures can be created by designating an MLM as a primary
log server and the MDS as a backup. In the event that the MLM cannot be reached,
logs are redirected to the MDS. It is possible to have multiple MLMs in the
Provider-1 network. The MLM is controlled by the MDG, and maintains Customer
Log Modules (CLMs), with a separate log repository for each Customer.
Let’s look at Big Bank. Big Bank is expanding and has opened a number of new
branches. It has decided to track activity in its system to satisfy security
requirements. It has created an environment with three MDS’s. The system
administrators have set up an MDS Manager/Container with a second Container to
manage Security Gateways throughout the different bank branches. They have also
set up an MLM to track activity.
Figure 1-12 A simple system with an internal MLM

38
 The Check Point Solution

Customer Log Module

A Customer Log Module (CLM) is a log server for a single Customer. Service
providers can deploy CLMs to monitor specific Customer modules. Enterprises may
deploy CLMs to monitor branch activity.
In the example below, Big Bank uses a specific CLM to collect information about
the Paris branch’s gateway activities.
Figure 1-13 CLM gets activity data from customer’s Security Gateway

Chapter 1 Introduction 39
The Check Point Solution

High Availability
CMA High Availability
CMA High Availability is implemented by using two or more CMAs to manage one
Customer network, one in Active mode, the others in Standby. Implementing
management High Availability guarantees fail-over capability. At any given time,
only one CMA is Active, while the Standby CMAs are synchronized with the Active
CMA.
Data synchronization between the CMAs greatly improves fault tolerance and
enables the administrator to seamlessly activate a Standby CMA when required.
With High Availability, should a CMA fail for any reason, a Standby CMA can
continue operation without service interruption.
The High Availability scheme requires one Primary CMA and at least one Secondary
CMA, which are housed separately, on different MDS computers. Administrators
make security policy changes through the Active CMA. If policy changes are made
with the Active CMA, the Standby CMAs can be set up to synchronize automatically
to reflect these changes.
These CMAs must be synchronized in order to maintain the same information. It is
possible to configure the High Availability feature to synchronize automatically for
each policy installation operation, on each policy save operation and on any other
scheduled event. If the Active CMA’s data has not been synchronized with the
Standby CMAs, you can still use the Standby CMAs, which are updated until the
moment of the last synchronization.

Security Policies in Provider-1

Security Policies are created to enforce security rules. Administrators can create
security policies and rules tailored to a specific Customer, or a type of Customer. In
the Provider-1 environment, administrators create Customer security policies for a
specific set of gateways, using the CMA, which is the equivalent of the Security
Management server in the Check Point Security Gateway model. To find details
about how a Security Gateway works with security policies, see the VPN and IPS
Administration Guides.

The Need for Global Policies

Besides security policies for a specific set of gateways, administrators need to
create policies which apply to the entire Provider-1 environment. The separation
between different levels of policies, and different types of policies, means that

40
 The Check Point Solution

Customer-level security rules do not need to be reproduced throughout the entire

Provider-1 environment. Policies can be created and privately maintained for each
Customer, ensuring a Customer’s security integrity. Global Policies enforce security
for the entire Provider-1 system.

Chapter 1 Introduction 41
The Management Model

The Management Model

In This Section

Introduction to the Management Model page 42

Administrators page 42
Management Tools page 44

Introduction to the Management Model

In the Provider-1 environment, the management model has been designed so that
network security managers can centrally and securely manage many distributed
systems. Network security is sharpened by differentiating between different levels
of security needs, and differentiating between access privileges and needs. The
Provider-1 management model allows you to designate trusted users
(administrators) with different access rights. It enables trusted communication both
within the Provider-1 network, and with customers’ network environments.

Administrators
It is important, for security purposes, that there be different types of administrative
authority. Administrators with authority over the entire system are needed in order
to manage the entire Provider-1 system. But there also must be a level of
administration authority which only applies to the customer environment and not to
the Provider-1 system.
It is inappropriate for an administrator who remotely manages a Security Gateway
in a particular customer network to have authority over or access to the entire
Provider-1 system. This could be a serious security breach, as a customer’s internal
staff would have access to other customer networks. For example, it would not be
appropriate for an MSP to allow an administrator of one of its customers to have
the authority to shut down an MDS Manager or delete all the superusers from the
system.
In the Provider-1 environment, four types of administrators have been designated to
handle different levels of responsibility. While there is a need for administrators
with the authority to create and manage the entire Provider-1 environment, not
every administrator in the system has this level of complete control. The following
table shows permissions by type of administrator.

42
 The Management Model

Table 1-1 Administrator levels and their access permissions

Administrator Permissions
Provider-1 Provider-1 Superusers manage the entire Provider-1 system and
Superuser can oversee all the networks of all Customers in the Provider-1
system. They can use all MDG tools relating to Customer and MDS
management, and can manage all other administrators. Provider-1
Superusers have sole permission to manage and change the MDSs.
They can:
• Add, edit or delete MDSs, including manager servers,
containers, High-Availability servers, logging servers, etc.
• Enable or disable a computer’s permission to access the
MDG.
Customer Customer Superusers can manage the networks of all Customers in
Superuser the system, using the MDG and SmartConsole tools. They can use
all MDG tools relating to Customer management; create, edit and
delete Customers; and see all the network objects for all of the
Customers. Customer Superusers can manage Customer Managers
and None Administrators. However, they cannot manage or change
the MDS environment or manage Provider-1 Superusers.

Chapter 1 Introduction 43
The Management Model

Table 1-1 Administrator levels and their access permissions

Global Global Managers can access Global SmartDashboard and, if so

Manager configured, manage Global Policies and Global Objects. Global
Managers can also manage their assigned set of Customer
networks from within the Provider-1 environment. They can:
• Access the General, Global Policies, High Availability and
Connected Administrators Views.
• See and manage (add, edit and delete) the network objects of
their Customers.
If Global Managers are assigned Read/Write/All permissions, they
can:
• Edit their Customers.
• Add, edit and delete their Customer's CMAs and CLMs.
• Start or stop their Customer's CMAs and CLMs.
• Import their Customer’s CMAs to another MDS.
• Create Customer Manager or None administrators for their
Customers.
Global Managers have fewer permissions than Customer Superusers:
• They cannot see the Network Objects of Customers to which
they are not assigned.
• They cannot create new Customers.
Customer Customer Managers, similar to Global Managers, can manage their
Manager assigned sets of Customer networks, however they cannot access
the Global SmartDashboard, meaning they cannot edit Global
Objects or Global Policies.
None None administrators manage their Customers according to their
assigned permissions. They are outside of the Provider-1
management environment. They manage their internal networks
using the SmartConsole tools, e.g., SmartDashboard. They do not
have access to the Provider-1 system, and cannot open an MDG.

Management Tools
In This Section

Multi-Domain GUI page 45

SmartConsole Client Applications page 46
Sample Deployment - Administrator Setups page 46

44
 The Management Model

Multi-Domain GUI
Administrators use the Multi-Domain GUI (MDG), the interface through which
Provider-1 administrators handle Customer security management. The general view
is shown below:
Figure 1-14 MDG - The General View

Administrators use the MDG to manage the Provider-1 environment and monitor
Customers’ networks. This tool provides an easy way to add Customers and their
networks to the Provider-1 management system. Administrators can create, update,
change and delete Customers, CMAs information; assign licenses; view and assign
policy policies, which are stored centrally on the MDS. Through a single console,
administrators can provision and monitor security, by assigning and overseeing
rules, policies and logging setups, as well as monitoring logs, statuses, and alerts
for hundreds of customers.
The MDG also is used to create administrators of all four types and assign their
permissions. The MDG can even be used to designate which other computers can
be entrusted to run the MDG. Administrators can create a logging setup by adding
an MLM (Log Containers) to the Provider-1 management system, and designating a

Chapter 1 Introduction 45
The Management Model

dedicated customer’s server as a CLM for that customer. Further, it is possible to

update Check Point software installed on all Provider-1 computers and Customer
network computers using SmartUpdate, via the MDG.
From the MDG, an administrator can launch Global SmartDashboard to create
Global Policies, or the administrator can launch SmartConsole Clients for each of
the Customers. Outside of the Provider-1 environment, local administrators can also
run SmartConsole Client applications for each of the Customers.

SmartConsole Client Applications

SmartConsole Clients are the Check Point tools used to design, manage, monitor
and log the Security Gateway enforcement policies. SmartConsole Clients include
all the following:
• SmartDashboard is used by the system administrator to define and manage the
Security Policy. From this SmartConsole you can access many Check Point
features and add-ons.
• SmartView Tracker is used for managing and tracking logs throughout the
system.
• SmartUpdate is used to manage and maintain a license repository, as well as to
facilitate upgrading Check Point software.
• SecureClient Packaging Tool is used to define user profiles for
SecuRemote/SecureClient clients.
• SmartView Monitor is used to monitor and generate reports on traffic on
interfaces, Provider-1 and QoS gateways, as well as on other Check Point
System counters. It is also is used for managing, viewing alerts and testing the
status of various Check Point components throughout the system.
• Eventia Reporter is used to generate reports for different aspects of network
activity.
• SmartProvisioning is used for managing large numbers of SmartLSM Security
Gateways via the Security Management server or Provider-1 CMA.

Sample Deployment - Administrator Setups

Let’s examine a sample deployment, in which a service provider has an MDG
console set up within the Provider-1 environment, and customers have their own
consoles within their internal networks.

46
 The Management Model

The service provider’s Provider-1 Superuser administrator, Rosa, uses the installation
CD and command line utilities to configure and set up the entire Provider-1
environment. Then, she uses the MDG and the Global SmartDashboard to manage
the global policies. As a Provider-1 Superuser, Rosa is responsible for everything to
do with the physical layout of the service provider’s environment, and managing all
the highest level security authorizations.
Figure 1-15 Rosa sets up the Provider-1 environment

Rosa knows that her Provider-1 environment will run a large system, with hundreds
of Customers, and it will not be possible for one administrator to handle all the
activity. It is time to start considering staffing issues. Customer Superusers can
handle all Customer specific management activities. They can create/delete/edit
Customers and create edit or delete CMAs. Rosa authorizes Martin to be a Customer
Superuser. Now Martin can add customers to the system.
Figure 1-16 Martin adds customers to the Provider-1 environment

Chapter 1 Introduction 47
The Management Model

Martin starts adding customers into the system. Each customer needs a security
policy to monitor the customer network’s gateway, the Security Gateway. The work
is really piling up! Now that the customer base is expanding, it is time for Martin,
as a Customer Superuser, to add more customer administrators.
Martin authorizes Tony to be a Customer Manager for the customers Accountant and
Pharmacy2Go. Customer Managers can handle many Customer specific management
activities. They can add, edit or delete their Customer’s CMAs. They can start or
stop their Customer's CMAs and CLMs. They can also import their Customer’s CMAs
to another server, and create customer security rules. It’s time for Tony to create
security policies for Pharmacy2Go and for Accountant.
Figure 1-17 Tony creates security rules for customers

The company Pharmacy2Go has a resident IT manager, Sandrine, who handles local
network maintenance and security. Tony works with Sandrine to ensure that
Pharmacy2Go’s network is running securely and safely.
As a Customer Manager, Tony can authorize None administrators, who are outside of
the Provider-1 management environment, but may administer customer Security
Gateways themselves. Tony adds Sandrine to the list of administrators as a None
administrator, so that she can use SmartConsole applications to monitor and track
activity in Pharmacy2Go’s network.

48
 The Management Model

Figure 1-18 Sandrine works with SmartConsole Clients

Sandrine can run SmartConsole Client applications for Pharmacy2Go’s network,

now that she has been made a None administrator. Remember, None administrators
manage their own internal networks via the CMA. They do not have access to other
elements in the Provider-1 environment.
Notice that the Provider-1 network itself needs to maintain its own security,
protecting the confidentially of critical information regarding customer networks,
administrators, and access details, as well as for its own network! It can use a
stand-alone Security Gateway, or define a CMA to manage its gateway. If the
gateway is standalone, Rosa can manage it through its own Security Management
server. If maintained by the MDS, it is managed with a CMA.

Chapter 1 Introduction 49
The Provider-1 Trust Model

The Provider-1 Trust Model

In This Section

Introduction to the Trust Model page 50

Secure Internal Communication (SIC) page 50
Trust Between a CMA and its Customer Network page 51
Trust Between a CLM and its Customer Network page 52
MDS Communication with CMAs page 52
Trust Between MDS to MDS page 53
Authenticating the Administrator page 53
Authenticating via External Authentication Servers page 54
Re-authenticating when using SmartConsole Clients page 56
CPMI Protocol page 58

Introduction to the Trust Model

The Provider-1 system provides a method for MDSs and CMAs to establish secure,
trusted and private communication between Check Point gateways while ensuring
data integrity. This is a critical component in ensuring that system management
commands and system information are delivered securely.
Provider-1 systems must establish safe process communication between MDSs,
between MDSs and CMAs, between CMAs and the Customers’ Gateways that they
are managing, and between administrators and CMAs. To ensure secure and private
communication, Secure Internal Communication is used.

Secure Internal Communication (SIC)

Secure Internal Communication (SIC) is used to establish trust between each of the
computers and components in the Provider-1 system that must communicate with
each other. A basic explanation of how SIC works appears in the Security
Management Administration Guide.
Safe communication ensures that the system can receive all the necessary
information it needs to run correctly. Although information must be allowed to pass
freely, it also has to pass securely. This means that all communication must be
encrypted so that an imposter cannot send, receive or intercept communication

50
 The Provider-1 Trust Model

meant for someone else, be authenticated, so there can be no doubt as to the

identity of the communicating peers, and have data integrity, not have been altered
or distorted in any way. Of course, it is helpful if it is also user-friendly.
The SIC model incorporates PKI. Certificates are issued to trusted communicating
parties by an Internal Certificate Authority. These certificates are then used to
authenticate every communication established between the communicating parties.
The following security measures are taken to ensure the safety of SIC:
• Certificates for authentication.
• Standards-based SSL for the creation of the secure channel.
• 3DES for encryption.

Trust Between a CMA and its Customer Network

In order to ensure authenticated communication between the Provider-1
environment and the Customer network environment, each CMA also has its own
Internal Certificate Authority (ICA), which is responsible for issuing certificates to
the CMA’s Customer gateways. The CMA ICA is part of the CMA data residing in the
MDS Container. Each CMA ICA is associated with a specific Customer. A
Customer’s secondary CMA shares the same Internal Certificate Authority as the
primary CMA.
The ICA of each CMA issues a certificate to Security Gateways in the Customer
network. SIC can then be established between the CMA and each of its Customer’s
Security Gateways.
Different CMAs have different ICAs to ensure that a CMA establishes secure
communication with its own Customer’s gateways, but that different Customer
CMAs cannot penetrate each other’s internal networks and establish communication
with another Customer’s gateways.

Chapter 1 Introduction 51
The Provider-1 Trust Model

Figure 1-19 SIC between CMA and Customer gateway

Trust Between a CLM and its Customer Network

The CLM (Customer Log Manager) also receives a certificate from the CMA’s ICA.
This is so that the Customer’s Security Gateways can establish communication with
the CLM, for tracking and logging purposes. The gateways and CLM must be able
to trust their communication with each other, but only if they belong to the same
customer. Otherwise, different customers could monitor each other, which would be
a security breach.

MDS Communication with CMAs

Every MDS Container communicates with the CMAs that it houses locally and
securely through a protocol called SIC local. This type of authentication, SIC local,
is managed by the Provider-1 environment and allows internal MDS communication
to be trusted.

52
 The Provider-1 Trust Model

SIC is used for remote (not on the same host) communication, whereas SIC local is
used for a host’s internal communication. SIC local communication does not make
use of certificates.

Trust Between MDS to MDS

The primary MDS Manager, the first Manager created, has its own Internal
Certificate Authority. This ICA issues certificates to all other MDSs, so that trusted
communication can be authenticated and secure between MDSs. All MDSs share
one Internal Certificate Authority.
Figure 1-20 SIC between MDSs

The ICA creates certificates for all other MDSs, and for Provider-1 administrators.
Administrators also need to establish trusted communication with the MDSs.

Authenticating the Administrator

Administrators are authenticated to access the MDS via the MDG either by using a
User Name and Password combination (which is considered only semi-secure) or by
using a certificate issued by the MDS ICA (far more secure).
Figure 1-21 SIC between Administrator and MDS

Chapter 1 Introduction 53
The Provider-1 Trust Model

For management purposes, administrators use the certificates provided by the MDS
ICA to establish trusted communication to manage the CMAs. This is because every
CMA also trusts the MDS ICA for administrator management activities using a
communication medium, CPMI. This means that administrators do not need to have
certificates issued to them for every CMA that they communicate with.
Figure 1-22 SIC between administrators and a customer CMA

Authenticating via External Authentication Servers

Provider-1 supports authentication using an external server that contains a
database of user login information (for example, user name, password and
attributes). When a Provider-1 administrator is set to authenticate using one of
these external servers, all authentication requests are forwarded to the
authentication server. The external server authenticates and authorizes the user and
sends a reply to the MDS. Only if the administrator is authenticated and verified
will the MDS allow the administrator to connect to the MDS or the CMA.
Provider-1 supports the following external authentication servers:
• RADIUS
• TACACS
• RSA SecurID ACE/Server
The following diagram depicts an authentication process in which administrators
use external authentication:

54
 The Provider-1 Trust Model

Figure 1-23 Authentication using an External Authentication server

TACACS and RADIUS authentication methods, when authenticating an

administrator connecting to a CMA, use the MDS as a proxy between the CMA and
the external authentication server. Therefore, each MDS container should be
defined on the authentication server, and the authentication server should be
defined in the global database. In addition, if the MDS is down, the CMA will not
be able to authenticate administrators.

Setting up External Authentication

To authenticate using an authentication server, the MDS must know which
administrators should be authenticated. Administrator authentication is performed
through the MDG as follows:
1. Open MDG > Administrators.
2. Create a new administrator.
3. In the General tab enter the same user name that was created on the
authentication server.
4. Mark the administrator’s permission.
5. On the Authentication tab, select the Authentication Scheme. If using RADIUS or
TACACS, choose the appropriate server that was configured in Global
SmartDashboard.
6. If using SecurID, do the following:

Chapter 1 Introduction 55
The Provider-1 Trust Model

1. Generate the file sdconf.rec on the ACE/Server, and configure the user to
use Tokencode only.
2. Copy sdconf.rec to /var/ace/ on each MDS.
3. Edit the file /etc/services and add the following lines:
• securid 5500/udp
• securidprop 5510/tcp
4. Reboot the MDS machines.
Alternatively, instructions 3., 4. and 5. can be performed from the command line
interface (CLI), with the following syntax:
mdscmd setadminauth <administrator name>
<undefined | os | fw1 | securid | tacacs | radius> [authentication
server name]
[-m mds -u user -p password]

Re-authenticating when using SmartConsole

Clients
When a SmartConsole Client is launched from another open SmartConsole Client,
the system by default reapplies the credentials entered when the administrator
logged into the first Client.
However, there are cases where it is useful to compel administrators to
re-authenticate for each SmartConsole Client they launch. When using RSA
SecurID to authenticate Provider-1 administrators, for instance, it is common to
require re-authentication when SmartConsole Clients connect to MDSs or CMAs.
You can compel administrators to re-authenticate every time a new GUI client is
launched and connects to:
• a specific CMA
• all CMAs created on this system in the future
• this MDS or MLM
The instructions for each are listed below.

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 The Provider-1 Trust Model

...When Connecting to a Specific CMA

The following commands need to be executed in a root shell on the MDS machine
hosting the CMA:
dbedit -s <IP of the CMA> -u <name of the administrator with edit permissions
for this CMA> -p <password of the administrator>
modify properties firewall_properties fwm_ticket_ttl 0
update properties firewall_properties
quit
If the relevant Customer has more than one CMA, synchronize the CMAs for the
change to take effect on both. If the Customer owns one or more CLMs, the Install
Database operation should be performed on each CLM for the change to take effect.

...When Connecting to all CMAs Created on This

System in the Future
The following steps need to be executed in a root shell of every MDS Container
machine:
Run the command mdsenv.
Edit the file $MDS_TEMPLATE/conf/objects_5_0.C
Find the line containing :fwm_ticket_ttl
Replace it with the line :fwm_ticket_ttl (0)

...When Connecting to this MDS or MLM

The following commands need to be executed in a root shell on the MDS machine
hosting the CMA:
dbedit -s <IP of the MDS or MLM> -u <name of the administrator with edit
permissions for the Global Policy of the MDS> -p <password of the administrator>
modify properties firewall_properties fwm_ticket_ttl 0
update properties firewall_properties
quit
If the Provider-1 configuration consists of more than one MDS Container server or
MLM, synchronize the Global Policy for the change to take effect on all MDS
Container servers or MLMs.

Chapter 1 Introduction 57
The Provider-1 Trust Model

CPMI Protocol
The CPMI (Check Point Management Interface) protocol is a generic open protocol
that allows third party vendors to interoperate with Check Point management
products. The client side of CPMI is included in the OPSEC SDK documentation,
so third-party products can integrate with the CMAs. For more information on
CPMI, see the CPMI guide in the OPSEC SDK documentation.

58
Chapter 2
Planning the Provider-1
Environment
In This Chapter

Asking yourself the right questions... page 61

Consider the Following Scenario... page 64
Protecting Provider-1 Networks page 66
MDS Managers and Containers page 67
Setting up the Provider-1 Environment page 70
Hardware Requirements and Recommendations page 75
Provider-1 Order of Installation page 76
Licensing and Deployment page 77
Miscellaneous Issues page 83

This chapter deals with different aspects required in order to plan and prepare for
setting a first time deployment with Provider-1. In every first time setup there are
general questions that you need to ask yourself, such as
• What do you need to know about the basic components that need to be
installed?
• How should the basic components be deployed and in what order should they
be installed?
• What are the hardware requirements that need to be considered?
• What licenses need to be obtained in order to run the product?

59
 • What are other additional requirements that may influence the performance,
strength or security of the environment?
In this chapter, we will deal with many of the questions that you need to consider
when planning your Provider-1 environment.

60
 Asking yourself the right questions...

Asking yourself the right questions...

There are many factors to consider when planning your Provider-1 environment.
This section discusses a few of these issues in general terms. Specific details are
discussed at a later stage.

Safety comes first

Whatever deployment you choose to implement needs to safeguard and protect your
networks. You will need to install an enforcement gateway to protect Provider-1
environment. For more information see, “Protecting Provider-1 Networks” on
page 66

MDS Managers & Containers - How Many Do You Need?

Every Provider-1 management network requires at least one MDS Manager (where
Provider-1 system information is stored and MDG clients can connect to it to
monitor and control the Provider-1 system), and one MDS Container (where
CMA/CLM data is stored per Customer.) and more important, The MDS Manager
and MDS Container can be installed together on one computer.
Take note that the greater your Customer base the more Containers will be
necessary in the system to support the database load for these Customers. For more
information, see “MDS Managers and Containers” on page 67.

Choosing The Right Environment

Choose the deployment that best suits your need, amongst the options you can
deploy a standalone or a distributed environment. For more information, see
“Setting up the Provider-1 Environment” on page 70.

Choosing The Right Platform

• When choosing between a Linux or SecurePlatform Operating System,
remember that all the MDSs in the system must all be of the same platform.
• The Provider-1MDG, runs only on Windows platforms.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 61

Asking yourself the right questions...

High Availability
If you are supporting many complex Customer networks, you may decide to
implement failover/ recovery capabilities:
• For CMA High Availability, you need at least two container MDSs. By creating two
or more containers, you then create two or more CMAs for each Customer.
These CMAs serve as Active and Standby Management servers for the customer
gateways.
• For MDS High Availability, where there are multiple entry points to the system,
you need at least two Manager MDSs in order ensure MDG access even when
one of the manager MDSs is not available.

Logging & Tracking

If you decide to implement logging for tracking and troubleshooting purposes, for a
very large system where many different services and activities are being tracked, it
is recommended that you have one or more dedicated log servers (MLM).

Migrating In A Standalone Environment

If you want to migrate standalone Security Management server management
components into Provider-1 CMAs, ensure that you are thoroughly acquainted with
the procedure. Before you begin consult the Upgrade Guide choose a method and
ensure a setup that supports your migration strategy.

Routing Issues In A Distributed Environment

If you have a distributed system, with MDS servers located remotely, ensure that
you have considered routing issues. Routing must enable all MDS components of
the Provider-1 system to communicate with each other, and for CMAs to
communicate with Customer networks. For more information, see “IP Allocation &
Routing” on page 83.

Platform & Performance Issues

Check Provider-1 system hardware and platform requirements, and ensure that you
have the needed platform patches installed. If you have an MDS with multiple
interfaces, ensure that the total load for each MDS computer conforms to
performance load recommendations. For more information see, “Hardware
Requirements and Recommendations” on page 75.

62
 Asking yourself the right questions...

Setting Up Administrators
Consider which computers administrators will manage the system, and the
administration hierarchy that you want to establish.

Licensing
Once you have determined what sort of server/computer configuration you need, you
will want to ensure that you have the appropriate licenses. For more information,
see “Licensing and Deployment” on page 77.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 63

Consider the Following Scenario...

Consider the Following Scenario...

The following scenario outlines a typical example of the basic components and
features that can be implemented that need to be taken into consideration when
planning.
Environment: Distributed with High Availability
Consider the following: a medical supplies firm has several branch locations, and
requires failover capabilities. MDSs are installed in three branches: Kansas, Osaka,
and Montenegro. Each MDS has a mix of primary and secondary CMAs.
Security: Security Gateway
Critical to comprehensive security, each MDS is protected by a Security Gateway.
This gateway should be managed by a CMA or by a standalone Security
Management server.
The gateway must have a security policy that adequately protects the network and
which allows secure communication between Provider-1 components and external
customer networks.
The gateway must have security rules that allow CMAs to communicate with
customer gateways, and that allow external customer administrators to access
CMAs.
Figure 2-1 CMA High Availability in an Enterprise Network

Requirement: Logging and Tracking

64
 Consider the Following Scenario...

Most enterprise systems and MSPs require event logging and tracking.
Accountability requirements can lead to sizeable log maintenance. By default, logs
will be stored on the Customer’s CMA that manages the gateway which is
generating the logs in the Provider-1 management network. For most systems, in
terms of licensing, it is more cost-effective to dedicate an MLM server to store logs
rather than purchase extra Managers for this purpose. It is recommended that you
implement one or more dedicated log servers (MLMs), depending on the activity
tracking load in the system Provider-1 manages.
For more information about logging, see Chapter 9, “Logging in Provider-1”.
Requirement: GUI Clients & their Platforms
Finally, consider the platforms that will be used to run the GUI tools used to
manage the Provider-1 and Customer environments. The Provider-1 system is
monitored using the MDG and SmartConsole Client applications. GUI Clients
should be deployed either inside or outside of the Provider-1 network to enable
administrators to access the Provider-1 system. The MDG runs only on Windows
platforms but supports MDS’s and their CMAs on any supported platform.
Requirement: Routing & Communication
If GUI Clients are located outside of the Provider-1 network, communication
between these computers and the MDS Manager(s) must be allowed. If MDSs are in
different remote locations, and there is more than one Provider-1 network,
communication between the remote MDSs and the local MDSs must be allowed.
Also ensure appropriate routing to support communication between computers and
servers.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 65

Protecting Provider-1 Networks

Protecting Provider-1 Networks

No matter how you deploy your Provider-1 environment, each Network Operation
Center (NOC) must be protected by a Security Gateway. This gateway is managed
either by a CMA or by a standalone Security Management server.
This gateway must have a security policy that adequately protects the NOC and
which allows secure communication between Provider-1 components and external
customer networks. This is essential to ensure continued open communication
between all the components, enabling MDSs to communicate with each other, and
management servers (CMAs, CLMs, CMA-HAs) to communicate with customer
networks. It must support proper routing. At the same time while the lines of
communication must be open and free, they must also be secure.
The gateway must have security rules that allow CMAs to communicate with
customer gateways, and that allow external customer administrators to access
CMAs.

66
 MDS Managers and Containers

MDS Managers and Containers

Every Provider-1 environment requires at least one MDS Manager and one MDS
Container. Beyond the minimum requirements, to determine how many MDSs your
environment requires, consider the functionality of the different types of MDSs.

In This Section

MDS Managers page 67

MDS Containers page 67
Choosing your deployment for MDS Managers and Containers page 68
MDS Clock Synchronization page 69

MDS Managers
Use the MDG to connect to the MDS Managers in order to monitor and control the
Provider-1 environment. If more than one MDS Manager is deployed:
• They can provide mutually redundant fail-over capabilities.
• They can be configured to synchronize global policy data either automatically or
manually.

MDS Containers
MDS Containers contain and manage Customer data such as the Customer’s
network objects’ database and security policies, This data is private (per Customer)
and therefore it is not shared. Consider the following:
• “MDS Containers and High Availability” on page 67
• “MDS Containers and Performance Issues” on page 68

MDS Containers and High Availability

Customer data can only be maintained in a redundancy scenario, that is, if High
Availability has been enabled for the Customer. This is called CMA-High
Availability, or CMA-HA. Data sharing is on a Customer by Customer basis, and is
synchronized between the CMA and CMA-HA. At least two Containers are required
for CMA High Availability because the Customer’s CMA-HA must be set up on a

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 67

MDS Managers and Containers

different Container than the CMA (see Chapter 8, “High Availability”). The
Customer's Primary CMA should reside on one Container and each Secondary CMA
should reside on another.

MDS Containers and Performance Issues

The Container load depends on the complexity of the Customer’s policies and
setups. Multiple Containers can cascade to manage thousands of CMAs in a single
environment. In general, to support numerous Customers who have complex
networks, it is advisable to deploy several Containers, since, a Container with an
overload of CMAs can suffer performance-wise.

Choosing your deployment for MDS Managers and

Containers
You can set up your MDS Managers and Containers in Mirror Sites, or in a
Distributed Environment.

Setting up MDS Managers and Containers in Mirror

Sites
Service provider usually need a robust system with many Containers to handle the
large amount of data and rules used to manage their customers’ networks. An MSP
may implement a remote mirror site for disaster recovery. For example, an MSP can
create a Provider-1 management network containing a Manager, with several
Containers housing Customers’ CMAs. The MSP can also maintain a mirror site in
another city, comprising of a secondary Manager, with several Containers storing
CMA-HAs.

MDS Managers and Containers in a Distributed

Environment
An enterprise system can centralize the Provider-1 management network at one
branch yet have one or more backup MDSs at other locations. (For more
information about fail-over options, see Chapter 8, “High Availability”.)
For example, a corporate bank with several international branches locates the
“primary” Provider-1 management network in their headquarters. But, to support
Active CMAs for the different local branches, they maintain an MDS Container per
region, at a central regional branch. The CMA-HAs can be maintained for fail-over
capabilities in the Provider-1 management network MDSs in the headquarters, or

68
 MDS Managers and Containers

distributed to the local MDS Containers. If a central regional branch contains an

MDS Manager as well, the whole MDS environment can be accessed by connecting
the MDG GUI client to that server.
Figure 2-2 CMA High Availability in an Enterprise Network

MDS Clock Synchronization

For MDSs to be able to properly synchronize, all MDSs’ system clocks must be
synchronized. If there is more than one MDS computer in the system, before
installing any new MDS, first synchronize the computer clock with other MDSs in
the system.
The time of modification is written using UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), used
by MDSs’ system clocks. Synchronize MDS clocks using any synchronization utility.
It is recommended that you reset regularly to compensate for clock drift. Correct
database operation requires that the MDS clocks are synchronized to the second. It
is recommended that MDS clocks be synchronized automatically at least once a
day.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 69

Setting up the Provider-1 Environment

Setting up the Provider-1 Environment

The Provider-1 topology depends on system and business requirements. A number
of simplified basic scenarios for enterprises are discussed in this section.
Provider-1 is designed to flexibly support many different types of management
network and customer network configurations. These include:
• “A Typical Scenario” on page 70
• “A Standalone Provider-1 Network” on page 71
• “A Distributed Provider-1 Network” on page 72
• “Provider-1 Network with Point of Presence (POP) Center” on page 73

A Typical Scenario
Enterprises usually choose to put the Provider-1 management network in its own
segment, separated from the main enterprise network by a gateway.
Figure 2-3 Separate and Protect Network Segments

Provider-1 servers are often separated from support servers such as Radius, LDAP,
and anti-virus servers. This is not by any means a requirement.

70
 Setting up the Provider-1 Environment

Figure 2-4 Separate Support Segments

A Standalone Provider-1 Network

The Provider-1 management system can be set up in one network location, with all
the MDSs located in the same local network. Fail-over capabilities are enabled by
having at least two Manager/Container MDSs. Management and maintenance is
centralized through the Provider-1 network segment. The advantage of this setup is
that routing complexity is considerably reduced.
Logs can be stored centrally on the MLM server (per Customer in different CLMs)
and accessed via SmartView Tracker.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 71

Setting up the Provider-1 Environment

Figure 2-5 Separate Provider-1 Segment with Remote Logging

A Distributed Provider-1 Network

The Provider-1 management system can be distributed over different geographical
locations to provide disaster recovery capabilities and to minimize the overhead of
logging traffic. In such a deployment, MDS managers and containers exist on both
the local network and other remote networks. An MLM may also be set up at a
remote location as a way of “outsourcing” logging traffic. Routing must ensure that
local and remote MDSs can communicate with each other to maintain MDS
synchronization. Each Provider-1 network segment must have adequate protection,
by a Security Gateway.

72
 Setting up the Provider-1 Environment

Figure 2-6 Separate Provider-1 Segments for Disaster Recovery/Logging

Provider-1 Network with Point of Presence (POP)

Center
Provider-1 can be configured to manage a POP center which allows branch offices
to receive service and secured Internet access via leased lines to the POP service
center. All Provider-1 components, such as the MDS and the MDG (the
management console), are located in one network location. Customers or corporate
users dial-in to receive services, and connect to the Internet via the POP center.
Usage is monitored and protected via the Provider-1 management network, and
branches do not have to be involved in any of the security management. All aspects
of security and access are completely maintained using CMAs on the MDS to
manage the gateway in the POP center. The CMAs in the MDS do this by managing
the security policies for the Security Gateways in the POP center.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 73

Setting up the Provider-1 Environment

Figure 2-7 A Simple Model of a POP Configuration

74
 Hardware Requirements and Recommendations

Hardware Requirements and

Recommendations
The Provider-1 disk space requirements are as follows:
• For basic MDS installation: 800MB.
• For each CMA: 50MB for the CMA directory.
When considering disk space, it is recommended to use volume management
software.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 75

Provider-1 Order of Installation

Provider-1 Order of Installation

For each MDS component’s setup to be stable and workable, it is important to
conduct setup/installation in the following order:
1. Install the Operating System (OS).
2. Conduct OS hardening. It is advisable to remove unnecessary applications,
scripts or libraries that are not needed as they are not necessarily secure. It is
advisable to limit resident libraries and applications to those needed for system
functionality.
3. Install the OS patches.
4. Install Check Point products.
5. Install Check Point patches.
6. Install Check Point hotfixes.
The appropriate OS patches, and the Provider-1 installation procedure is discussed
in Chapter 3, “Provisioning Provider-1”.

76
 Licensing and Deployment

Licensing and Deployment

The Trial Period
All purchased Check Point products have a 15 day trial period. During this period
the software is fully functional and all features are available without a license. After
that period, a permanent license must be installed in order to continue using the
software. Alternatively, an evaluation license must be obtained.
The starting point of this trial period is defined differently for different products.
The Provider-1 trial period begins as soon as the MDS is installed (regardless of its
type). The trial license is for an MDS Manager maintaining up to 200 CMAs. Each
CMA you create during the trial period receives its own trial license for a Primary
CMA managing an unlimited number of gateways. The license supports the Check
Point SmartUpdate & SmartMap features and expires on the same day as the
MDS’s trial license.

Considerations
Provider-1 Components Installed at the NOC
The following components are deployed at the Network Operation Center:
• Multi Domain GUIs (MDG)
• Multi Domain Servers (MDS), including Multi Customer Log Modules (MLM)
• Customer Management Add-on (CMA)
• Customer Log Module (CLM)

Selecting MDS and CMA Licenses

Similar MDS components must be installed on different computers. Two Managers
cannot share the same computer. Each Container must also be on a separate
computer. However, a Manager/Container combination can be housed on the same
computer. Licenses are available separately or combined for the MDS components.
When considering which licenses to buy, a second MDS Manager is recommended
for disaster recovery. A standalone MDS Manager is available to be used for
management purposes only, serving as an entry point to the system.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 77

Licensing and Deployment

If many CMAs will be supported by the system, or if the CMA load increases, more
MDS Containers are needed, not Managers. CMAs are maintained only on
Containers. Licenses for MLMs (dedicated log servers) are inexpensive, so they are
a cost effective alternative to storing logs by default on Managers/Containers.
The MDS license is per IP, and is based on the following factors:
• The MDS type, whether Manager, Container, combined, or Log Manager (MLM).
• For Containers, the MDS license depends on the number of CMAs managed.
Provider-1’s licensing is geared to match its scalable architecture. Licenses are
matched to needs, and can be purchased to accommodate a growing Customer
base. Components are licensed according to the number of CMAs and Security
Gateways. New CMAs can be seamlessly integrated, by upgrading to a larger
license.
Each CMA requires its own CMA-level license. These are obtained per CMA’s IP
address. The exceptions to this are the VSX Bundle license (see “VSX Bundle
License” on page 80). Pro Add-ons for multiple CMAs are purchased in a bundled
product, called Pro Add-ons for MDS. The way to generate the CMA Pro Add-on
licenses in UserCenter is as follows: Perform the “Activate License” operation on
the bundled product, using the IP address of the first CMA, to generate the license
for this CMA. For each additional CMA, perform the "Change IP" operation on the
bundled product, and change to the IP address of this CMA.
Install the generated licenses at the respective CMA level.
The MLM license is comprehensive so there is no need for separate licenses per
CLM. A single license installed on the MLM applies to both the MLM and the CLMs
it maintains. CLMs are per Customer and can receive logs from all of the
Customer’s gateways, regardless of their number. The number of gateways that
report to the same MLM is unlimited.
The MDG does not require a license.

Provider-1 Enterprise Edition

Provider-1 supports the new licenses for Provider-1 Enterprise Edition Products.
The new licenses enable an MDS with 3 or 5 CMAs (depends on the license
purchased). Each CMA has a Pro license level and can manage an unlimited
number of gateways.

78
 Licensing and Deployment

Managing Licenses
Provider-1 uses SmartUpdate to incorporate newer versions and licenses. Required
components and licenses can easily be upgraded using the SmartUpdate view in the
MDG.
Licenses are additive. For example, an MDS Container license for 50 CMAs and an
MDS Container license for 25 CMAs add up to 75 hosted CMAs.

Further Licensing Detail

Licensing the Multi-Domain Server (MDS)
There are two basic MDS components: Containers and Manager. Containers hold
CMAs, whereas Managers manage the Provider-1 environment and provide entry
points for the MDG GUI Clients.

SiteManager-1 Licenses
The SiteManager-1 MDS is a low cost MDS, whose CMAs are limited to managing
specific gateways. SiteManager-1 supports two license schemes:
1. Backwards compatibility license scheme. In this license scheme, each
SiteManager-1 CMA manages only one gateway. The license is installed only at
the MDS level: no local CMA licenses are required.
2. Small Office gateway for 250 protected nodes. In this license scheme, each
CMA can manage only Small Office gateways or gateways protecting 250 hosts.

Multi-Customer Log Module (MLM) Licenses

An MLM is installed as a Container. In order to simplify the deployment process, a
single license installed on the MLM applies to both the MLM and the CLMs it
maintains. A customer’s CLM can receive logs from all of the customer’s gateways,
regardless of how many there are. See Chapter 9, “Logging in Provider-1”, for more
details.

Customer Management Add-on (CMA) Licenses

The CMA is a Check Point Security Management Server. Each CMA manages a
single customer’s network and requires a dedicated CMA license. While each CMA
belongs to a single Customer, each Customer can have up to multiple CMAs, for
High Availability purposes. Each CMA must be maintained on a different MDS.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 79

Licensing and Deployment

CMAs are licensed according to the number of gateways they manage. There are
four levels of CMA licenses to enable scalable, cost effective deployment:
• CMA-1 — suitable for a Customer with one gateway.
• CMA-2 — suitable for a Customer with up to two gateways.
• CMA-4 — suitable for a Customer with up to four gateways.
• CMA-U — suitable for a Customer with an unlimited number of gateways.
You do not have to install additional software when you create a CMA in the
Provider-1 network. To add a new CMA, you only need add the CMA’s license, which
is ordered per CMA IP. The number of QoS gateways managed by a CMA is
unlimited and requires no special license.
The CMA manages any of the following:
• Security Gateways on a variety of platforms (Linux, Nokia, AIX, HP, NT, Win2K)
• UTM-1 Edge Gateways
• Bay Networks devices

Customer Log Module (CLM) Licenses

If you want to host a CLM on a non-MLM MDS, you must install a CLM license.
There is no limit to the number of CLMs that can be defined for a single Provider-1
Customer; however, each CLM must be created on a separate MDS.

Gateway Licenses
A Customer’s gateways require licenses. Gateways are licensed according to the
number of nodes at a site. A node is any computing device with an IP address
connected to the protected network.
Provider-1 also supports Quality of Service (QoS) gateways.

VSX Bundle License

The VSX Bundle License provides licensing for managing VSs and CMAs, located on
an MDS server. The bundle license is installed on the MDS server and permits a
specific number of VSs to be managed. The number of CMAs that can be defined
on an MDS equals the number of VSs permitted plus one. The additional CMA is
used for the CMA with VSX Box. The VSX bundle, however, does not limit the
number of VSXs or VRs.

80
 Licensing and Deployment

CMAs without a CMA-level license use the bundle license. If a CMA-level license is
installed on a specific CMA to allow the management of a regular gateway, then
that CMA stops using the bundle license, and the VSs located on it are not counted
off the bundle license. When a CMA is managing a non-VSX gateway, both a
CMA-level license and container license on the MDS is required.

VSX Bundle License for HA CMAs

The VSX HA CMA Bundle License is used for HA CMAs on a primary or backup
MDS for High Availability. HA CMAs can use the regular bundle, but Primary CMAs
cannot use the HA bundle.

License Violations
When a license violation is detected, syslog messages are sent, pop-up alerts in the
MDG, and audit entries in the SmartView Tracker stating the nature of the violation,
are generated. In addition, an indication about the license violation appears on the
status bar of the MDG.
While the MDS is in violation, new CMAs, VSXs, VSs or VRs cannot be added to the
MDS.

Replacing the Trial Period License

After the trial period expires, a permanent license must be installed. Before
installing a new license, make sure the amount of CMAs and VSs do not exceed the
amount permitted by the new license. Installing a new license that allows less
CMAs or VSs than were configured during the trial period is a violation. As a result,
the MDS will not start.
During the trial license, up to 200 CMAs and up to five VSs per CMA are permitted
to be configured. In order to configure more than five VSs per CMA, a bundle
license or CMA-level license would need to be installed. In order to successfully
install a bundle license before the trial license expires, the trial license must be
disabled from the CMA. The command for disabling the trial period license on a
CMA before the license expires is:
cpprod_util CPPROD_SetPnPDisable 1
This command needs to be executed on each CMA separately and will only take
effect after restarting the CMA.
The license violation mechanism is enforced separately for each MDS meaning that
if one MDS is in license violation, the other MDSs will continue to function.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 81

Licensing and Deployment

Installing the VSX Bundle License

Installing the VSX Bundle license is similar to installing any other MDS level
license. The installation can take place on the MDG from the MDS properties view
or from the command line, using the “cplic put” command.

82
 Miscellaneous Issues

Miscellaneous Issues
In This Section

IP Allocation & Routing page 83

Network Address Translation (NAT) page 84
Enabling OPSEC page 85

IP Allocation & Routing

Provider-1 uses a single public IP interface address to implement many private
“virtual” addresses. The MDS Container uses virtual IPs to provide CMAs, CMA-HAs
and CLMs, which reside on a Container, with IP addresses.
Each MDS Container has an interface with an IP address, which is routable. Behind
the interface’s IP address the CMAs have a range of virtual IP addresses, which
must be routable as well in order for the gateways and the SmartConsole clients to
be able to connect to the CMAs. It is possible to use either public or private IPs.
When setting up route tables, ensure that you enable the following communication
paths:
• The Customer’s gateways to the Customer’s CLM(s).
• A Customer’s CMA to CLM(s).
• A Customer’s CMA to CMA-HA.
• A CMA-HA to CMA.
• The CMA and CMA-HA to the Customer’s gateways.
• The Customer’s gateways to the CMA and CMA-HA.

Virtual IP Limitations and Multiple Interfaces on an

MDS
There is a limitation of 250 Virtual IPs per interface for Solaris-platform MDS
Containers. As each CMA, CMA-HA and CLM receives its own Virtual IP, this puts a
cap of 250 CMAs or CLMs per Solaris Container.
If you have more than one interface per MDS, you must specify which will be the
leading interface. This interface will be used by MDSs to communicate with each
other and perform database synchronization. During MDS installation, you will be
prompted to choose the leading interface by the mdsconfig configuration script.

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 83

Miscellaneous Issues

Ensure that interfaces are routable. CMAs and CMA-HA must be able to
communicate with their Customer’s gateways, and CLMs to their Customer’s
gateways.

Multiple Interfaces on an MDS

If you have more than one interface per MDS, you must specify which will be the
leading interface. This interface will be used by MDSs to communicate with each
other and perform database synchronization. During MDS installation, you will be
prompted to choose the leading interface by the configuration script mdsconfig.
Ensure that interfaces are routable. CMAs and CMA-HA must be able to
communicate with their Customer’s gateways, and CLMs to their Customer’s
gateways.

Network Address Translation (NAT)

To examine how NAT works, let us consider an example in which a Customer has
three Security Gateways connected to a router (see Figure 2-8). Public IP addresses
are used for the connection from the gateway to the router and through to the
Internet. Internal IP addresses are used for the connection from the gateways to the
local networks.
Private IP addresses are used in the local networks. Using Network Address
Translation (NAT), overlapping internal IP addresses can be used, as shown in the
example.
Figure 2-8 Physical Security Gateway Deployment Using Private IP Addresses

84
 Miscellaneous Issues

In this example, IP addresses starting 192.168.x.x denote public IP addresses.

This does not reflect real IP addresses that could be in actual use.
In the next example, the same configuration uses public IP addresses in the local
network. In this configuration NAT is not required, as there is no overlapping of IP
addresses and real IP addresses are used.
Figure 2-9 Basic Security Gateway Deployment Using Public IP Addresses

Provider- 1 supports two kinds of NAT:

• Static NAT, where each private address is translated to a corresponding public
address. In a Static NAT scenario with a number of CMAs in an internal
network, the address of each CMA is translated to a different public IP address.
It is a many-to-many translation.
Static NAT allows computers on both sides of the Security Gateway to initiate
connections, so that, for example, internal servers can be made available
externally.
• Hide NAT, where a single public address is used to represent multiple
computers/CMAs on the internal network with private addresses. Hide NAT is a
many-to-one translation. Hide NAT allows connections to be initiated only from
the protected side of the Security Gateway.
NAT is thoroughly explained in the IPS Administration Guide.

Enabling OPSEC
Provider-1 supports OPSEC APIs on the following levels:
• Gateway level — Gateways managed by Provider-1 support all OPSEC APIs
(such as CVP, UFP, SAM etc.)

Chapter 2 Planning the Provider-1 Environment 85

Miscellaneous Issues

• CMA level — CMAs support all OPSEC Management APIs. This includes CPMI,
ELA, LEA and SAM.
• CLM level— CLMs (hosted on MLMs) and stand alone Log servers support all
logging OPSEC APIs. This includes ELA and LEA.

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Chapter 3
Provisioning Provider-1
In This Chapter

Overview page 88
Provisioning Process Overview page 89
Setting Up Your Network Topology page 90
Creating a Primary MDS Manager page 90
Using the MDG for the First Time page 91
Defining a Security Policy for the Gateway page 101
Multiple MDS Deployments page 95
Protecting the Provider-1 Environment page 100

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Overview

Overview
A successful deployment of Provider-1 depends on careful planning before you
begin to install the product. There are many different questions that you should be
able to answer in order to set up a system that can accomplish the management
tasks that you want it to perform. Refer to Chapter 2, “Planning the Provider-1
Environment”, to help you understand your deployment needs and map out a layout
for your network. Once you have planned your network, it is time to set it up. In this
chapter we will go through the steps to set up and configure your management
network.
Bear in mind that a good system setup needs to be robust, flexible and scalable, so
that it can expand as your business grows. Your deployment should enable you to
add further MDSs using the MDG, or command line utilities. You should also be
able to add administrators, customers, and GUI Clients (computers which are
allowed to run the MDG) at any given time.

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 Provisioning Process Overview

Provisioning Process Overview

The following list presents an overview of the Provider-1 provisioning process. Many
of these procedures are described in greater detail in this chapter.
1. Setup network topology and verify connectivity. It is essential that you configure
routing and ensure connectivity between all network components, such as
MDSs, CMAs and customer gateways. Thoroughly test connectivity between all
components and nodes. Make certain that your that you configure and test
connectivity when adding new MDSs, CMAs and customer gateways to the
Provider-1 system.
2. Install and create the Primary MDS. If you have only one MDS, it must be both
a Container and a Manager. Configure administrators and GUI Clients at this
time. For more information, see the High End Security Products Installation
and Upgrade Guide.
3. Install MDG and SmartConsole Clients. For more information, see “Using the
MDG for the First Time” on page 91.
4. Install the MDS license. If you have a trial license, this step can be postponed
until before the trial period ends in 15 days. For more information, see “Adding
Licenses using the MDG” on page 91.
5. Install and configure MLMs and additional MDSs as required. For more
information, see “Multiple MDS Deployments” on page 95.
6. Install and configure Security Gateways to protect your Provider-1 network.
Define and install the security policy. For more information, see “Protecting the
Provider-1 Environment” on page 100.

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 89

Setting Up Your Network Topology

Setting Up Your Network Topology

The MDS and customer Security Gateways should be TCP/IP ready. An MDS server
should contain at least one interface with a routable IP address and should be able
to query a DNS server in order to resolve the IP addresses of other machine names.
As applicable, ensure that routing is properly configured to allow IP communication
between:
• The CMA/CLM and its managed gateways.
• An MDS and other MDSs in the system.
• A CMA and CLMs of the same customer.
• A CMA and its high availability CMA peer.
• A GUI client and MDS managers.
• A GUI client and CMAs/CLMs.

Creating a Primary MDS Manager

Use the distribution CD or the MDS installation utility to perform either of the
following installation types:
• Fresh installations.
• MDS upgrades from previous versions of Provider-1.
All MDS types, whether Manager, Container or MLM, are created using the same
installation process.
To install or upgrade the primary MDS manager, follow the instructions in the High
End Security Products Installation and Upgrade Guide.

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 Using the MDG for the First Time

Using the MDG for the First Time

Once you have set up your primary MDS, use the MDG to configure and manage the
Provider-1 deployment. Ensure that you have installed the MDG software on your
computer and that your computer is a trusted GUI Client. You must be an
administrator with appropriate privileges (Superuser, Global Manager, or Customer
Manager) to run the MDG.

Launching the MDG

To start the MDG:
1. Select: Start > Programs > Check Point SmartConsole > Provider-1.
2. Enter your User Name and Password or browse to your Certificate and enter the
password to open the certificate file.
3. Enter the MDS Manager computer name or IP address to which to you intend to
connect.
4. After a brief delay, the MDG opens, showing those network objects and menu
commands accessible according to your Provider-1 permissions.
Figure 3-1 MDG before Customers are added

Adding Licenses using the MDG

To add a license to an MDS or MLM using the MDG:

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 91

Using the MDG for the First Time

1. In the MDG, Select the General View and the MDS Contents page.

2. Double-click on an MDS or MLM. The MDS Configuration window opens.

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 Using the MDG for the First Time

3. Select the License tab.

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 93

Using the MDG for the First Time

4. Install licenses using one of the following methods:

Fetch License File
a. Click Fetch From File.
b. In the Open window, browse to and double-click the desired license file.
Add License Information Manually
a. Click Add.
b. In the email message that you received from Check Point, select the entire
license string (starting with cplic putlic... and ending with the last
SKU/Feature) and copy it to the clipboard.
c. In the Add License window, click Paste License to paste the license details
you have saved on the clipboard into the Add License window.

d. Click Calculate to display your Validation Code. Compare this value with the
validation code that you received in your email. If validation fails, contact
the Check Point licensing center, providing them with both the validation
code contained in the email and the one displayed in this window.

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 Multiple MDS Deployments

Multiple MDS Deployments

In Provider-1 systems where more than one MDS is installed, you need to take
various configuration factors into account. The following section describes what in
detail you need to know.

In This Section

Synchronizing Clocks page 95

Adding a New MDS or MLM page 95
Modifying an Existing MDS page 98
Deleting an MDS page 99

Synchronizing Clocks
All MDS system clocks must be synchronized to the second to ensure proper
operation. Before creating a new MDS, you must first synchronize the new
computer clock with other MDS platforms in the system.
You can synchronize MDS clocks using any synchronization utility. It is
recommended that all the MDS clocks be synchronized automatically at least once
a day do compensate for clock drift.

Adding a New MDS or MLM

Before you begin:
• If you are installing an MDS or MLM on a Linux or Solaris platform, you must
synchronize the new platform clock with all other MDS platform in your
deployment before starting the installation and configuration process. For
Secure Platform installations, you synchronize the clocks after completing the
installation routine and rebooting the computer.
• Make certain that you are logged on with superuser permissions.

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 95

Multiple MDS Deployments

To create a new MDS or MLM:

1. Install MDS or MLM on SmartPlatform or Linux computers as described in the
High End Security Products Installation and Upgrade Guide. You install MLMs
in the same manner as MDSs (Containers and Managers).
2. If you are installing to a Secure Platform computer, synchronize all MDS clocks
at this time. For Linux and Solaris platforms, you should have synchronized the
clocks prior to starting the installation.
3. In the Primary MDG General View, select the MDS Contents Mode from the View
menu.
4. Select New Multi Domain Server from the Manage menu, or right-click the
Provider-1 root of the MDS Contents tree and select New Multi Domain Server.

5. In the Multi Domain Server Configuration window, enter the following information:
• MDS Name: MDS computer name
• MDS IP Address: MDS Management IP address
• CMA IP address Range: Range of valid IP addresses for CMAs
• Status Checking Interval: Time in seconds between MDS status updates

6. Click Communication to establish SIC trust. Enter the Activation Key that you
specified while installing the MDS or MLM computer.

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 Multiple MDS Deployments

a. Click Initialize. If SIC trust succeeds, the Trust State field displays Trust
established.

7. If you are setting up a high availability deployment, a prompt appears asking

you to perform an Initial synchronization for this MDS. This operation
synchronizes the primary and secondary MDSs.

Click Yes to perform the synchronization. When the synchronization finishes,

click OK to continue.
8. If you created a new MDS Manager, you can now connect directly to it. Log on
the new MDS using the MDG.

MLM Configuration - Additional Step

If you created an MLM, set up your CLMs for customer activity logging. refer to
Chapter 9, “Logging in Provider-1” for details.

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 97

Multiple MDS Deployments

Modifying an Existing MDS

To modify an existing MDS:
1. In the MDG General view MDS Contents mode, select an MDS and choose
Manage > Configure, or double-click the MDS, or right-click the MDS and select
Configure Multi Domain Server.

2. In the he Multi Domain Server Configuration window, enter or modify the

following information as required:
• MDS Name: MDS computer name
• MDS IP Address: MDS Management IP address
• CMA IP address Range: Range of valid IP addresses for CMAs
• Status Checking Interval: Time in seconds between MDS status updates

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 Multiple MDS Deployments

3. If you wish to re-establish SIC trust, perform the following steps:

a. From the MDS command line, execute the mdsconfig utility. Select (5) from
the Configuration Options menu and follow the instructions on the screen to
re-initialize SIC communication.

b. In the MDG Multi Domain Server Configuration window, click Communication.

In the Communication window, click Reset.
c. In the Communication window, click Reset.

d. Enter the Activation Key that you specified with the mdsconfig utility.
e. Click Initialize. If SIC trust succeeds, the Trust State field displays Trust
established.

4. In the Multi Domain Server Configuration window, click OK.

Deleting an MDS
If you want to delete the MDS, do so only if you are certain that you no longer need
it. If you delete an MDS in error, you will have to reconfigure it from scratch
(including its CMAs and gateways).
To delete an MDS:
1. In the MDG General view MDS Contents mode, right click an MDS and select
Delete Multi Domain Server.
2. Confirm the deletion and click OK.

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 99

Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

You should always deploy a Check Point Security Gateway to protect your Provider-1
network, Including your MDS, MLM and management platforms. This section
presents the procedures for installing and defining Check Point Security Gateways
to protect your Provider-1 network. You can manage your Security Gateway using
either a Security Management server (configured as a standalone gateway/Security
Management combination) or a Provider-1 CMA and the MDG.

Standalone Gateway/Security Management

In this scenario the Security Gateway that protects your Provider-1 deployment and
a Security Management server are installed on a single Linux or SmartPlatform
computer.
To deploy a Security Gateway/Security Management standalone installation:
1. Install and configure a Check Point Security Gateway and Security Management
server on a single computer as described in the Internet Security product
Installation and Upgrade Guide.
2. Verify connectivity between the Security Gateway/Security Management server,
the MDS, the SmartDashboard client and any other Provider-1 network
components.
3. Verify that SIC trust has been successfully established.
4. Log on to SmartDashboard.
5. Create and configure the Security Gateway object to protect your Provider-1
deployment.
6. Define and install a Security Policy for the gateway.

Provider-1 CMA and MDG Management

In this scenario, the Security Gateway that protects your Provider-1 deployment is
installed on a SmartPlatform or Linux computer and is managed by CMA on the
MDS itself.
1. Install Check Point Security Gateway on a SmartPlatform or Linux computer,
without the Security Management server, as described in the Internet Security
product Installation and Upgrade Guide.
2. Verify connectivity with the MDS.

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 Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

3. Launch the MDG and log into the MDS.

4. Define a customer for the gateway and create a CMA for this customer. For
more information, refer to “Configuring a New Customer” on page 126.
5. In the MDG, launch SmartDashboard from the CMA and create the network
object representing the Security Gateway on the CMA.
a. Right-click the Network Objects icon, and from the drop-down menu select
New > Check Point > Gateway.
b. Enter configuration details for the gateway, including an IP address. The
external gateway should have a routable IP address.
c. The products installed on this computer should be Firewall and SVN
Foundation. You can install additional products as required.
6. Establish SIC trust with the gateway.
7. Define and install a Security Policy for the gateway.

Defining a Security Policy for the Gateway

The Provider-1 gateway must have a Security Policy that allows connections
between:
• the CMA & CMA-HA and their Customer gateways.
• a Customer’s gateways to the Customer’s CMA & CMA-HA.
• Log transfers between Customer gateways and CLMs.
• GUI Clients and Customer gateways, according to which GUI Clients are
assigned to which Customer.
• GUI Clients and the CMAs & CMA-HAs, according to which GUI Clients are
assigned to which Customer.

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 101

Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

Figure 3-2 Allow communication between CMA/CLM and Customer gateways

The Security Policy must also allow connections between:

• The Provider-1 management network CMA and the Provider-1 management
network gateway.
• Between MDSs, if they are distributed between several Provider-1 management
networks.
• GUI Clients and the MDS Managers, according to which GUI Clients are allowed
MDG access.

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 Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

Figure 3-3 Allowing Communication between CMAs and the Gateway

For general information regarding creating Security Policies using SmartDashboard,

see the Security Management Administration Guide.

Enabling Connections Between Different

Components of the System
To enable secure communication and proper access between different system
components:
1. Launch SmartDashboard and connect to the CMA. Create objects to represent
each Customer’s CMA, CMA-HAs, CLMs, and the Customer’s gateways.
2. Examine the implied rules for the CMA. These rules are created to allow CLM
and CMA communication with gateways for specialized services specific to the
type of CPMI communication each management uses to communicate with the
Customer’s gateways. Rules must be created to permit the Security Gateway to
these specialized CPMI communication services between a specific Customer’s
CMAs and CLMs and the Customer’s gateways.

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Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

3. Using the implied rules as a template, create rules for each customer
permitting services from the source CMAs/CLMs to the Customer gateways, and
from Customer gateways to CMAs/CLMs.
4. Examine your network deployment and decide which components should be
used in rules in order to enable communications, perform status collections and
push/pull certificates. For instance, if the Provider-1 network is distributed,
with different MDSs in remote locations and Security Gateways protecting a
remote Provider-1 network, rules must be defined to enable the MDSs to
communicate with one another. In such a rule the MDSs need to appear in both
the Source and Destination column of the rule. Use Table 3-1 to examine how
to create rules that allows connections between specified components.

Table 3-1 Connecting different components in Provider-1

Description Source Destination

Enable connections between the MDG and the GUI Client MDS Manager
MDS Manager
Enable connections between an MDS to all other MDSs MDSs
MDSs (for all MDSs with the same ICA).
The connection is bi-directional, i.e. each MDS
must be able to connect to all other MDSs. This
includes Managers and Containers.
CMA status collection. Each CMA collects Customer’s Security
different status information from its Customer’s CMA, Gateway
gateways. If a Customer has two or more CMAs, CMA-HA CMA-HA
the first CMA collects statuses from the peer
(“Mirror”) CMAs as well.
MDS-level status data collection. In a system MDSs MDSs
with more than one MDS, each Manager collects
statuses from the other MDSs in the system
(Managers and Containers)

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 Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

Table 3-1 Connecting different components in Provider-1

Description Source Destination

Enable passing a certificate to an MDS. MDSs MDSs
When creating a new MDS in the system, it must
be supplied with a SIC certificate created by the
ICA of the primary Manager.
Push a certificate to a CMA. CMA CMA-HA
When defining a Mirror CMA for a Customer, it
must receive a certificate. Usually this is a one-
time operation, unless you decide to supply the
CMA with a new certificate.
Customer level High Availability synchronization CMA CMA-HA
protocol. CMA-HA CMA
When creating a Mirror CMA and later when
synchronizing CMAs (of the same Customer).

Chapter 3 Provisioning Provider-1 105

Protecting the Provider-1 Environment

106
Chapter 4
Customer Management
In This Chapter

Overview page 108

Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment page 110
Setup Considerations page 119
Management Plug-ins page 120
Configuration page 126

107
Overview

Overview
Once the Provider-1 Superuser has set up the MDSs and the Provider-1 system has
been protected with a Security Gateway, it is time to start designating networking
technicians, administrators and resources to manage customers/branches and their
network environments. Customers can now be introduced into the framework. Here
are some considerations that it can be useful to address when creating a customer:
• What type of services does the customer/branch require? Will customer
administrators manage local network security or will security be handled
completely by the Provider-1 environment? Will the Security Gateways be at the
customer location or in a POP center in the Provider-1 environment?
• How complex is the customer’s network environment? How many gateways,
routers, computers, hosts, servers and users?
• What security does the customer require? What level of activity tracking?
• Does the customer require fail-over security management capabilities?
The first step is to create a new “Customer.” The Customer is an entity that is used
to represent a unique set of network objects, policies, logs and other definitions in
the Provider-1 system. Usually, the “Customer” object belongs to either:
• an actual customer, or
• an enterprise branch.
This Customer must be provided with a management server (a CMA), for the
Customer’s physical gateways, routers, and servers. Provider-1 administrators may
find it useful to have contact information, a phone number, email, and host
address, so as to establish contact with Customer staff that know their system.
Building a customer setup allows the administrator assigned to the customer to
bridge the gap between the virtual representation of “the Customer” in the
Provider-1 system, and the actual customer/branch network requiring security and
services.
The Customer needs a CMA, created to actually manage the customer’s Security
Gateways and networks. The CMA is put on an MDS Container, that should be
chosen with an eye towards performance considerations. A customer may have a
very complex network with many computers and users. It is better to create this
Customer on an MDS Container without a heavy load of CMAs and policies.
Administrators must be selected and assigned to handle “Customer” maintenance
within the Provider-1 environment; and to manage activities within the customer’s
internal network.

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 Overview

The internal network must be mapped into SmartDashboard, with security rules
created for it. The network mapping in SmartDashboard must be updated as
necessary to address changes in network structure. These customer network
activities are handled with applications managing the customer network
environment, and are addressed separately in Chapter 6, “Working in the
Customer’s Network”, and in further detail in the Security Management
Administration Guide.
If fail-over management abilities are critical to the customer, one or more
secondary CMAs must be created. For further details about CMA High Availability,
see Chapter 8, “High Availability”.
Customer can be assigned CLMs, servers that are dedicated to collecting a
customer's logs. For more information about customer activity logging, see Chapter
9, “Logging in Provider-1”.
When a Provider-1 environment has many customers, it is wise to create security
policy templates (Global Policies). Global policies are created using the Global
SmartDashboard; this is described in more detail in Chapter 5, “Global Policy
Management”.

Chapter 4 Customer Management 109

Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

In This Section

Introduction to Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment page 110

What Type of Administrator? page 112
What Type of Authentication? page 113
Assigning a Computer page 113
Assigning a CMA page 114
Connecting to a Customer Network page 115
Creating more Customers page 116
Creating more MDSs page 117

Introduction to Creating Customers: A Sample

Deployment
How does a real customer become a Customer? Let’s look at a service provider
deployment, in which a service provider’s network has already been created, with
two MDS Managers/Containers and an MLM. The first customer will now be
introduced into the Provider-1 framework.

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 Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Figure 4-1 Initial customer setup in Provider-1 environment

The Provider-1 Superuser administrator Rajan wants to create a customer named

“GasCompany.” This company will be managed by an administrator named Sally.
Rajan was given Provider-1 Superuser administrator during MDS installation. Now
Rajan launches the MDG.
The MDG is the interface to the Provider-1 system, via the MDS Manager. Initial
creation of the Customer takes place through the MDG. Provider-1 has an Add
Customer Wizard which takes Rajan step by step through the process of creating
“GasCompany.”

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Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Figure 4-2 MDG before Customers are added

Rajan inputs details about GasCompany: name, location, contact details. Carmen
Sanchez is the Customer’s IT manager on-site who is responsible for GasCompany’s
network in Texas, so Rajan inputs Carmen’s contact details. Sally, the administrator
who works just down the hall from Rajan, will want to have them handy. Rajan, as
a Provider-1 Superuser, is automatically an administrator for GasCompany. He now
adds Sally as an administrator. Now Rajan must choose which type of
authorizations to give to Sally.

What Type of Administrator?

What sort of administrator should Sally be? Sally is going to be handling many
different aspects of customer management within the Provider-1 environment, but
she does not need to create new Customers or be a Superuser. On the other hand,
she needs to be able to start and stop the CMA for maintenance or updates. So
Rajan assigns her Customer Manager permissions. Rajan also assigns Read/Write
permissions for GasCompany to Sally.

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 Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

What Type of Authentication?

Rajan must choose an authentication scheme for Sally: either provide a user name
and password (less secure) or use a certificate (recommended). Rajan chooses
authentication via certificate, and generates a certificate for Sally. When Sally logs
into the system, she will use this certificate to be authenticated and establish
trusted communication. Otherwise, the Provider-1 system will not let her in.

Assigning a Computer
Using the comprehensive Add Customer Wizard, Rajan assigns permission to Sally
to use her computer to launch SmartConsole applications and the MDG, in order to
manage GasCompany’s network. Rajan does not want every computer to be able to
launch applications for this customer: it would be a security breach.
Figure 4-3 Sally is now a Customer Manager

Chapter 4 Customer Management 113

Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Assigning a CMA
Rajan names the first CMA GasCompany_CMA. The CMA is a virtual Security
Management server. Rajan chooses an MDS Manager/Container in the service
provider site to “house” the CMA. Even if there were many other customers,
GasCompany does not have a very complex environment, so Rajan is not worried
about putting the Customer on any MDS in the system. Of course, if the system
was full of Customers with major accounts and thousands of supported gateways,
Rajan would think twice about which MDS to use!
To provide it with a virtual IP, which is mapped to the MDS interface, Rajan has
already entered a range of virtual IP addresses for the MDS interface in the MDS
configuration window. The Provider-1 system automatically maps this range to the
MDS interface. Now, using the Add Customer Wizard, Rajan creates the CMA and
uses the Get Automatic IP Address option. The Provider-1 system assigns the first
available virtual IP address to GasCompany_CMA.
The CMA license is already on-hand: Rajan ordered it in advance. Using the Add
Customer Wizard, Rajan imports licensing data and creates the CMA.
GasCompany wants fail-over security, so Rajan uses the Add Customer Wizard to
create a mirror (secondary) CMA named GasCompany_CMA_HA on a different MDS
Container. (The mirror CMA must be created on an MDS other than the one hosting
the primary CMA).
The CMAs are now up and running; they have been “started” by the system.

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 Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Figure 4-4 A ‘started’ CMA can begin managing GasCompany’s network

Rajan has completed the basic steps involved in introducing a customer into the
Provider-1 setup.
Having created a customer’s CMA, it is time to establish a connection between the
Active CMA and the Security Gateways it will manage.
There are two processes involved. Sally, the Customer Manager will launch
SmartDashboard from the CMA and create a gateway object with the IP address of
the gateway. Additionally, the gateway managing the Provider-1 management
network must allow communication between the CMA and the customer’s gateways.
This is described further in Chapter 6, “Working in the Customer’s Network”.
Then Rajan, the Provider-1 Superuser, creates appropriate security rules for the
Provider-1 management network gateway to allow communication between the CMA
and the customer’s gateways. This is described briefly in Chapter 3, “Provisioning
Provider-1”.

Connecting to a Customer Network

The Customer network is defined not at the Provider-1 setup level but rather at the
customer level, through SmartDashboard. Now Sally is ready to take over.
GasCompany’s actual network components are defined in SmartDashboard, which is
launched from the CMA. Sally configures the customer/branch’s network by creating

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Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

objects for the gateways, routers, hosts, users, user groups, servers, and other
network components, using SmartDashboard. These activities, which relate
exclusively to a specific customer’s network, are addressed in Chapter 6, “Working
in the Customer’s Network”, and in further detail in the Security Management
Administration Guide.
Communication must also be permitted between the Provider-1 network and the
customer’s gateways. Rajan inserts appropriate rules permitting the CMAs to
communicate from the Provider-1 network with the customer’s Security Gateways.
Once Sally defines gateways and links them to the GasCompany_CMAs, these
gateways are displayed in the MDG. However, information about different individual
customer networks is isolated securely and privately from other customer networks.
The customer network’s details are stored in CMA databases which are isolated
from each other. Only a CMA’s secondary (High Availability) CMA will share access
to the CMA’s customer network information.

Creating more Customers

As more customers/branches are added in the Provider-1 setup, the same procedure
is followed. A new customer/branch is defined, assigned an administrator and a
GUI Client, and a CMA is created for the customer/branch. Rajan assigns two more
new Customers to Sally, then another one to Monisha. The Provider-1 network is
now connected to four customer sites. And it’s just the beginning.

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 Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Figure 4-5 Creating more customers/branches

Creating more MDSs

At some point the service provider’s MDS Container will be handling a heavy load,
with many CMAs supporting a large number of Security Gateways, network objects,
and users. It will be a good idea to start creating any new customers on a different
MDS Container, perhaps adding a Container to handle the load. Once the new
Container is setup, the process for creating new customers is the same. A new
customer/branch is defined, assigned an administrator and a GUI Client, and a
CMA is created for the customer/branch.

Chapter 4 Customer Management 117

Creating Customers: A Sample Deployment

Figure 4-6 MDG with many Customers

118
 Setup Considerations

Setup Considerations
IP Allocation for CMAs
Each CMA must have a routable IP address. Every time a CMA is started, a Virtual
network interface for CMA's virtual IP is created. By default, the virtual network
interface will be created on the MDS primary network interface.
During MDS configuration, you may specify a range of virtual addresses for a
Container interface. Then, as you create each CMA, the Provider-1 system can
automatically fetch the next available virtual IP and assign it to the CMA.
Alternatively, rather than fetch from a range, you can designate a particular virtual
IP to a CMA. Keep the CMAs IPs in mind for routing purposes, as you will need to
ensure that your route tables allow communication between CMAs and their
customer gateways.
You do not need to create any of the actual virtual IP interfaces on the server. If
you would like to host the CMA’s IP address on a different network interface, you
can do so by stopping the CMA, removing its virtual IP address definition and
modifying the CMA file vip_index.conf.

Assigning Groups
In some cases, the same operation (such as assigning an administrator or policy)
must be performed to many customers with similar security policy needs. By
default, each time you select customers to apply an operation, you must go through
the entire customers list and check them one by one.
To avoid this time-consuming process and facilitate customer selection, it is
recommended that you use customer selection groups, which easily identify
customers that can be handled simultaneously. Provider-1 has two types of
selection groups: customer groups and administrator groups. As opposed to groups
created through SmartDashboard, these selection groups are not network objects.
Their sole purpose is to facilitate customer or administrator selection.
For details on configuring groups, see “Configuration” on page 126.

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Management Plug-ins

Management Plug-ins
In This Section

Introducing Management Plug-ins page 120

Installing Plug-ins page 121
Activating Plug-ins page 121
Plug-in Status page 123
High Availability Mode page 123
Plug-in Mismatches page 123

Introducing Management Plug-ins

Management Plug-ins allow administrators to manage certain new features without
performing a complete management upgrade. The Management Plug-in package
(referred to from this point simply as “Plug-in”) consists of only the components
necessary to manage the new features.
In the Provider-1 environment, Plug-ins are installed on the MDS, and then
“activated” from the MDG for relevant Customers. Each Plug-in can be activated
for all Customers, or for specific Customers only. Different Plug-ins can be installed
on different Customers.
When a Plug-in is activated for a Customer, various types of operations become
available via the SmartDashboard of the Customer, such as creating new types of
objects, modifying objects, etc. The operations are dependent on the
characteristics of the individual Plug-in.
To summarize, the components of the Provider-1 environment relate to
Management Plug-ins in the following ways:
• MDSs - Plug-ins are installed on them
• MDG - used to activate and deactivate Plug-ins, review their status, and see
basic information regarding the new types of objects
• SmartDashboard for a CMA - used to manage the new Plug-in objects and
handle the new features provided by an installed and activated Plug-in

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Installing Plug-ins
Management Plug-ins are installed on the MDS from the command line. See the
accompanying documentation for the Plug-in for specific installation instructions.
After installing a Plug-in to each relevant MDS, the MDS(s) must then be restarted
using the commands mdsstop -m/mdsstart -m. At this point the Plug-ins are
available for activation on Customers.

Activating Plug-ins
Plug-ins are activated per Customer from the MDG in the following ways:
• From the Customer Configuration window, when creating a new or modifying an
existing Customer (see Figure 4-8)
Figure 4-7 Plug-ins tab in Customer Configuration window

• From the Management Plug-ins View, by right-clicking in the cross-section of the

desired Plug-in and Customer, and selecting Activate this Plug-in.

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Figure 4-8 Management Plug-ins View

When a Plug-in is activated for a Customer, if one or more of the Customer’s CMAs
are running, the MDS restarts those CMAs.
If a Plug-in is activated for a Customer with a single CMA, and a second CMA is
added later, the Plug-in will be activated automatically on the new CMA.
In the rare event where a Plug-in is activated for a Customer and it succeeds on
one CMA and not on another, synchronization between the CMAs will fail. In this
condition, the MDG displays an error message with a recommendation of what
needs to be done. The MDG also displays the icon Needs Attention in the
Management Plug-ins View. In many cases this situation can be resolved by
selecting Reactivate All Plug-ins from the Plug-in menu.
Plug-ins can also be deactivated. Once a Plug-in has been activated for a
Customer, and objects have been created, the Plug-in cannot be deactivated until
those objects are removed.

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Plug-in Status
Once a Plug-in is installed on the MDS, it appears in the Management Plug-ins View
of the MDG (see Figure 4-7).
This View indicates whether a Plug-in is Activated or Not Activated per Customer,
and displays an alert notification of Needs Attention for any Plug-in that has not
been activated properly. For a Plug-in to appear in this View, it must be installed on
at least one MDS.

High Availability Mode

In High Availability (HA) mode, each Plug-in to be used must be installed on all
MDSs in the Provider-1 environment. As in non-HA environments, MDSs must be
restarted before the Plug-ins are available for use. It is therefore possible to install
the Plug-ins to disparate MDSs at the time of your choosing, and then restart them
all at the same time for synchronization compatibility. If there is a delay in
restarting any of the MDSs, those MDSs that have not been restarted will not be
able to communicate with those that have been. This is referred to as a Plug-in
Mismatch. See “Plug-in Mismatches” below for details.
For deployments using a Security Management Backup server, Plug-in packages
must be installed to the Security Management Backup server from the command
line, as they are for the MDS. The Security Management Backup server should be
restarted with the other HA MDSs.

Plug-in Mismatches
A Plug-in Mismatch occurs in a Provider-1 HA environment under the following
conditions:
• The Plug-in is not installed on every MDS
• The Plug-in is installed on every MDS, but not every MDS was restarted
afterwards.
Plug-in Mismatches are indicated in two places on the MDG. The General View -
MDS Contents mode will display a Plug-in Mismatch on the relevant MDS under the
Status column.

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Figure 4-9 Plug-In Mismatch in General View

The Plug-ins View will display the MDS Plug-ins Mismatches pane, where the install
status of each Plug-in on each MDS is reported.
Figure 4-10 MDS Plug-in Mismatches pane

Note - The MDS Plug-in Mismatches pane appears only if a Plug-in mismatch exists.

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To resolve a Plug-in Mismatch, from the MDS Plug-ins Mismatches pane, review the
situation and decide whether you want to:
• Install the Plug-in to any MDSs that display the icon (add graphic), and then
restart those MDSs
• Remove the Plug-in from each MDS that displays the icon (add graphic)

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Configuration

Configuration
In This Section

Configuring a New Customer page 126

Creating Administrator and Customer Groups page 130
Changing Administrators page 130
Modifying a Customer’s Configuration page 132
Changing GUI Clients page 132
Deleting a Customer page 133
Configuring a CMA page 133
Starting or Stopping a CMA page 133
Checking CMA Status page 133
Deleting a CMA page 134

Configuring a New Customer

In This Section

Start the Add Customer Wizard page 127

Name the Customer and Enable QoS page 127
Customer Details page 127
Assign Administrators to the Customer page 128
Assign Computers on which Administrators use the MDG page 128
Activate Management Plug-ins page 128
Create the CMA page 128
Add CMA License Details page 129

New Customers are created through the Add Customer Wizard, which takes the
administrator through all the steps needed to create a customer, assign an
administrator and a GUI Client, and create the CMA.

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Start the Add Customer Wizard

1. In the MDG Customer Contents Mode (the view to which the MDG first opens).
To create a customer, click the New Customer tool in the toolbar, or from the
Manage, choose New Customer..., or right-click the Provider-1 root and choose
New Customer... from the drop-down menu. The Add Customer Wizard will then
guide you through the definition of the new customer and the customer’s
CMA(s). You can create a primary and secondary CMA for the customer at the
same time.

Name the Customer and Enable QoS

2. Give the Customer a name and enable QoS if desired.

Customer Details
3. Assign Customer Properties, for example, a contact person, contact e-email, and
contact phone-number.
You can add or delete these information fields via the Manage > Provider-1
Properties, in the Customer Fields tab.

Assign Global Policy

4. Set whether the Customer should be assigned all Global Objects or only those
used in the Global Policy to which it is assigned.
Also, if you want the Customer to receive the Global IPS policy, defined in
Global SmartDashboard, do the following:
a. Enable the Subscribe Customer to IPS service property. Once a Customer is
subscribed to the IPS service, whenever Global Policy is assigned, changes
to Global IPS are assigned and ready to be installed to the Customer as
well.
b. Set the Assign Mode:
• Set to Merge if you want to allow the Customer Administrator to make
permanent changes to the IPS policy assigned.
• Set to Override, if you do not want to allow the Customer Administrator
to make permanent changes to the IPS policy assigned.
c. Create a database version if you want to allow Customer Administrators the
ability to roll back to previously installed policy versions.
5. For details regarding Global IPS, see “Global IPS” on page 147.

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Assign Administrators to the Customer

6. The wizard next prompts you to select administrators. To assign an
administrator to a customer, select the administrator from the Not Assigned
column and click Add. You can create administrator groups to facilitate
administrator assignment. All members of the group you choose are
automatically selected, allowing you to Add or Remove them as a group. To
create a new administrator, click New Admin.... Then define the new
administrator as follows:
a. If you have a Provider-1 Superuser permission, you can choose the
Administrator’s Provider-1 Permission as well.
b. In the Authentication tab, select the administrator’s authentication scheme:
password (less secure) or certificate (recommended). If you choose
authentication via certificate, in the Certificates tab, create a certificate. It
is generated into a file and should be given to the administrator.
c. Define permissions: Read/Write or a Read Only permission to the customer’s
network objects and policies. These permissions should also be specified
when configuring the customer’s gateways. An Edit Administrator Permissions
window, corresponding to the cpconfig tab, can be displayed through the
Administrators window in two ways: automatically, when you click Add to
assign an Administrator to a customer, or manually, by selecting an
Administrator from the Assigned list and clicking Permissions...

Assign Computers on which Administrators use the

MDG
7. Specify the GUI Client (computer) from which administrators are authorized to
use the MDG and/or SmartConsole application.

Activate Management Plug-ins

8. Select the Management Plug-ins necessary for this Customer. Management
Plug-ins extend the MDG’s ability to view and manage certain objects without
the updating the management version.

Create the CMA

9. Decide to create one, two, or more Customer Management Add-ons (CMAs).
Create two or more CMAs if you want to enable High Availability. All mirror
(secondary) CMAs must be created on a different MDS Container from the one
housing the primary CMA, so you must have at least two Containers in the
system to created CMA High Availability. If you create multiple CMAs, steps 7
to 9 apply for each CMA.

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10. Define the CMA. Select the Container MDS on which this CMA will be
maintained. You can provide a virtual IP address for the CMA, or the Provider-1
system can also produce a virtual IP from a range that you specify per MDS.
You can fetch an IP address (for the MDS) by using the Get Automatic IP Address
button. If you have already set up a host table specifying a name and virtual IP
for the CMA, you can Resolve by Name, fetching the IP address matching the
name of the CMA.

Add CMA License Details

11. Next, fill in the license information. When you request a license from the Check
Point licensing center, you receive a file that includes the license string. You
can import the file with the license by clicking the Fetch from file... button.
Or, you can click Add to access the Add License window. Then, you can quickly
and easily enter the license string data from the email into the Add License
window, as follows:
a. In the file, highlight the entire license string (that starts with cplic putlic...
and ends with the last SKU/Feature) to the clipboard. Choose Copy from the
Edit menu of the your email application.
b. In the Add License window, click Paste License to paste the license details
you have saved on the clipboard into the Add License window. The license
details will be inserted into the appropriate fields, described below.
To Validate your license, click Calculate to figure out your Validation Code, and
compare with the validation code received from the User Center.
12. For further license management use the following, click Fetch From File to
import one or more licenses from a license file. In the Open window, browse to
the license file, select it and click Open. The license that belongs to this host is
added. The Licenses list displays the details of the CMA’s license entered
through the Add License window.
13. To define a mirror CMA, repeat the instructions for adding the first CMA, steps
6 and 7. The mirror (secondary) CMA must be created on a different MDS from
the one housing the primary CMA. See Chapter 8, “High Availability”.
14. The new customer appears in the customer tree.

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Configuration

Creating Administrator and Customer Groups

Creating Customer Selection Groups
To create a customer selection group in any MDG View, select Manage > Selection
Groups > Customer Groups... from the menu. Click Add to add a group, then name
the group, and select members. To add customers to the selection group, select
them in the Not in Group list and click Add. To remove customers click Remove.

Creating Administrator Selection Groups

To create a customer selection group in any MDG View, select Manage > Selection
Groups > Administrator Groups... from the menu. Click Add to add a group, then
name the group, and select members. To add administrators to the selection group,
select them in the Not in Group list and click Add. To remove administrators click
Remove.

Changing Administrators
To add/delete/edit a customer’s administrators, change administrator permissions,
or edit an administrator's password, you can open the Administrators view and
perform these specialized activities relating to administrators.

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 Configuration

Figure 4-11 Administrators View

To make various changes to an administrator, select an administrator and from the

right-click drop down menu choose an action.
To create a new administrator, select New Administrator.... from the Manage or
right-click the Provider-1 root and select Add Administrator. Step through the
procedures, which are the same as in the Add Customer Wizard. See “Assign
Administrators to the Customer” on page 128.

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Modifying a Customer’s Configuration

To modify a customer, select the customer and then choose Configure... from the
Manage, or click the configure tool, or double-click the customer. The Customer
Configuration window allow you to change all the basic customer settings.

Changing GUI Clients

To add/edit/switch/delete the GUI Client that a Customer is managed from, you can
open the GUI Client view and reassign the Customer to a different GUI Client:
Figure 4-12 GUI Clients window (showing Customers per GUI Client)

Select a GUI Client, and from the right click menu, choose an action.
To create a new GUI Client, select New GUI Client.... from the Manage or right-click
the Provider-1 root and select New GUI Client. Step through the procedures, which
are the same as in the Add Customer Wizard. See “Assign Computers on which
Administrators use the MDG” on page 128.

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Deleting a Customer
To delete a customer, select it in the Customer Contents Tree and then choose Delete
from the Manage from the menu, or click the delete tool, or right-click the customer
and select Delete Customer from the right-click menu.

Configuring a CMA
To configure a CMA, select it in the Objects Tree (in either one of the General View
Modes), and select Manage > Configure, or double-click the CMA you wish to edit,
or right-click the CMA and select Configure Customer Management Add-on/Configure
Customer Log Module.
While the Name, Multi Domain Server and IP Address of the CMA cannot be changed,
its Licenses are available for configuration.

Starting or Stopping a CMA

To start or stop a CMA, proceed as follows:
1. Select the CMA.
2. From the Manage, choose Start Customer Management/Start Customer Log Module
or Stop Customer Management/Stop Customer Log Module as appropriate, or select
Start or Stop from the toolbar. The run status of the CMA will change
accordingly, and the change will be reflected in the Status column.
An alternative way to start or stop a CMA is from the MDS command line, by
using the mdsstart_customer and mdsstop_customer commands.

Checking CMA Status

You can check the run status of the CMA in the Status column of the MDG General
View:
• - This CMA is started.
• - This CMA is stopped.
• - Unknown Status information has been received regarding the Run
Status of this CMA.
• - This CMA is waiting for a status update. Displayed from the time the
MDG starts running until the time the first status is received.

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Deleting a CMA
Before deleting a CMA, make sure to stop it. Select it in the MDG Customer
Contents view and then choose the delete tool in the menu bar, or Manage > Delete,
or right-click the CMA and select Delete Customer Management Add-on/Delete
Customer Log Module (respectively) from the right-click menu.

134
Chapter 5
Global Policy Management
In This Chapter

Security Policies in Provider-1 page 136

Global SmartDashboard page 141
Creating a Global Policy through Global SmartDashboard page 145
Global IPS page 147
Assigning Global Policy page 153
Configuration page 160

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Security Policies in Provider-1

Security Policies in Provider-1

In This Section

Introduction to Security Policies in Provider-1 page 136

The Need for Global Policies page 138
The Global Policy as a Template page 139
Global Policies and the Global Rule Base page 139

Introduction to Security Policies in Provider-1

A Security Gateway at a network boundary acts as an gateway that inspects and
provides access control for all traffic passing through the gateway. Traffic that does
not pass through the Security Gateway is not controlled.
Figure 5-1 Check Point Security Gateway inspects all traffic

The administrator is responsible for implementing the company security policy.

Check Point Security Gateway allows the company Security Policy to be
consistently enforced across multiple Security Gateways. To achieve this, an
enterprise-wide Rule Base is defined for a Customer through the CMA.
SmartDashboard is used to install the policy, and distribute it to the Customer’s
gateways. Granular control of the policy is possible by having specific rules apply
only on specific gateways.
Security policies are created to enforce security rules. Provider-1 administrators
can create security policies and rules tailored to a specific Customer, or for many
Customers of a certain type. In the Provider-1 environment, administrators create a
Customer’s security policies for a specific set of gateways, using the CMA.

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The CMA, which is the equivalent of the Security Management server in the
Security Gateway model, allows administrators to create rules that apply to specific
Customer networks and their Security Gateways. For information about using
SmartDashboard to construct security policies, see the Security Management
Administration Guide.
Figure 5-2 How security policies are created

The administrator directly defines a Customer’s network and the security policy and
QoS policy via the CMA, using SmartDashboard. SmartDashboard is launched for a
particular CMA, and the administrator defines all the network objects, gateways,
hosts and nodes in the Customer’s network. The administrator also uses
SmartDashboard to create a set of rules (a rule base) which compose a security
policy. The CMA then downloads (or installs) the Security Policy to the Customer’s
Security Gateways.
The fundamental concept of the security policies’ rule base is “That which is not
explicitly permitted is prohibited.” The rule base specifies what communication will
be allowed to pass and what will be blocked, and specifies the source and
destination of the communication, what services can be used, at what times, and
whether to log the connection.
When creating rules for the system, an administrator must consider the needs of
the organization:
• What are the physical and logical components that make up the organization?
Each component of the organization needs to be accounted for. Every server,
every printer, every resource, etc.
• Who are the users and administrators and how should they be divided into
different groups?
• What are the access needs of these users?

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Security Policies in Provider-1

• Are there public access needs?

• What types of access must be prevented?
A substantial amount of planning should go into deciding how to define the
Customer network (by creating representative objects), and how they should be
implemented.

The Need for Global Policies

Besides security policies for a specific set of gateways, administrators need to
create policies which apply to the entire Provider-1 environment or to a group of
Customers. The separation between different levels of policies, and different types
of policies, means that Customer-level security rules do not need to be reproduced
throughout the entire Provider-1 environment.
Security policies can be created and privately maintained for each Customer,
ensuring a Customer’s security integrity. Global policies enforce security for the
entire Provider-1 system or for a group of Customers.
Figure 5-3 Policy creation workflow

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 Security Policies in Provider-1

The Global Policy as a Template

Security policies can be created and privately maintained per Customer, ensuring a
Customer’s security integrity, but some security rules are enforced by all Customers.
Global policies can serve as security templates with rules that are applied to many
Customers, and their individualized security policies.
Types of Global Policies can be designed for groups of Customers with similar
security needs. This eliminates the need to recreate identical policies for each
Customer. This feature greatly improves management efficiency. A service provider
may use Global Policy rules to provide Customers with access to common MSP
services but does not allow Customers to access private information about each
other.
An MSP may provide several basic types of security policies. Rather than recreate
the rule base for each new Customer, they can create a Global Policy for banks, a
different Global Policy for independent dentists and therapists, and a Global Policy
for small businesses, such as grocery stores, florists, gas stations or tax
accountants.
An enterprise may use a Global Policy to set corporate wide policies. For example,
an airline company with many branches and sales-offices, sales points and
Customer check-in facilities may want to set rules for many different types of
standard access needs. Rather than painstakingly recreating the same rule or set of
rules for each branch, a global security policy can secure access across the board.

Global Policies and the Global Rule Base

Global policies are created using the global rule base, which contains a hierarchy of
rules. In a Global Policy, you define common (global) rules, which are given priority
in the rule base. These rules can be distributed (or assigned) to whichever
Customers you choose. The Global Policy rule base is similar to the management
rule base, except that it includes a demarcation or a “place holder” for
Customer-specific rules.
The placeholder signifies that all the rules before and after it are global rules. The
rule base layout is hierarchical: the most important global rules are highest up in
the rule base. They take precedence over the Customer rules. Global rules that are
designated as being of lower priority than Customer rules appear below the place
holder.
The rules of the Global Policy are not specific to a single policy of single Customer,
but apply to all Customers assigned the Global Policy.

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Security Policies in Provider-1

Figure 5-4 Sample Global Policy

Global rules can serve many uses. They can be used to rapidly implement defense
against new cyber attacks or viruses. They can be used to prevent logging for
specific types of traffic in order to reduce the amount of information in log files.
They can be used to set up rules for CMA communication management, such as
allowing additional GUI Clients to be implemented at Customer sites.
Only one set of objects is used for all the Global Policies. The Global Policies
database contains this set of objects, which can be used in any global rule in any
Global Policy. The administrator creates these objects using Global
SmartDashboard. Global Object icons are displayed with a purple G. For example, a
Global Check Point Node has the icon.
Global policies can be assigned to one or more Customers. Once Global Policies are
assigned to a Customer’s CMA, they become part of the CMA’s rule base. The entire
CMA’s rule base, including assigned global rules, can then be installed onto
selected Security Gateways.

140
 Global SmartDashboard

Global SmartDashboard
In This Section

Introduction to Global SmartDashboard page 141

Global Services page 142
Dynamic Objects and Dynamic Global Objects page 142
Applying Global Rules to Gateways by Function page 143
Synchronizing the Global Policy Database page 144

Introduction to Global SmartDashboard

In order to create Global Policies, the Global SmartDashboard is used to create the
Global Policy Rule Base. The Global SmartDashboard, launched off the MDS
Manager, represents the network and is used to create rules and network objects at
the Provider-1 system level.
SmartDashboard differs from Global SmartDashboard in that it applies only to the
Customer level and below. After a Global Policy is assigned to a Customer,
SmartDashboard for the Customer’s CMA will show global rules automatically
inserted either above or below editable Customer rules. The Customer administrator
can create or edit Customer rules using SmartDashboard, and then install the
policy onto the Customer’s Security Gateway.
Once a Global Policy is assigned to a Customer, the global rules are displayed as
read-only in the Customer’s SmartDashboard. A Customer administrator cannot edit
global rules or Global Objects from SmartDashboard.
Figure 5-5 How global rules appear in the Customer’s SmartDashboard

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Global SmartDashboard

Global Services
Default services defined by Security Gateway are available for global use. Other
services need to be defined. To avoid collision, ensure that you name services with
unique names, that should not be the same as in the CMAs’ databases.

Dynamic Objects and Dynamic Global Objects

Dynamic objects are generic network items such as a host or server object that has
no IP specified. The administrator creates them in SmartDashboard, and uses them
to create generic rules for Customer’s gateways. At each gateway, the dynamic
object can be translated into a specific local computer, host or other network
object, with an IP address.
Global rules may similarly use dynamic Global Objects, that are generic items (such
as a web server) that can be applied to any network. Global objects are defined
through the Global SmartDashboard and SmartDashboard are downloaded to the
CMAs.
At the global level, an administrator defines dynamic Global Objects in addition to
standard Global Objects which are available in the Global SmartDashboard. Once a
Global Policy is assigned to a Customer, the dynamic global object is replaced by a
corresponding Customer object. This makes it possible to create global rules
without requiring that the rule use specific network objects. This allows the
administrator to create rules that are “templates.”
A dynamic global object serves as virtual place holder for a network element. The
network element type can be anything that the administrator designates, including
gateways, hosts, or services, or even groups. A dynamic global object is created in
the Global SmartDashboard with the suffix _global (for example,
FTPserver_global). This object is applied to a global rule.
Figure 5-6 Using a Dynamic Global Object in a global rule

To “translate” the dynamic global object, the administrator creates an object in

SmartDashboard with the same name, but with an IP address and other details.
The Customer’s database substitutes the dynamic global object in the global rule
with the local object from the CMA database. Alternatively, the dynamic global
object is replaced with a CMA dynamic object, and the object is assigned an IP at
the gateway level.

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 Global SmartDashboard

To understand how the dynamic global object is used, let us consider an example.
An administrator creates a global rule applying to a dynamic global object
representing a generic ftp server. But instead of specifying exactly which ftp servers
and their IP addresses will be affected by the rule, the servers are represented by a
dynamic global object (FTPserver_global).
In each CMA, the Customer administrator will define a host object with the same
name. During the assignment of the Global Policy, the references to the global
dynamic object in different rules will be replaced by the reference to the local host
object with the same name. The _global syntax triggers the reference replacement
mechanism.
Figure 5-7 Dynamic Global Object used to represent a host

Applying Global Rules to Gateways by Function

It is possible to create Security Rules in Global SmartDashboard that are installed
on certain gateways or groups of gateways and not others. Thus gateways with
different functions on a single CMA can receive different security rules designed for
a specific function or environment. When installing global policy to a number of
similarly configured CMAs, the relevant global rules are installed to all of the
relevant gateways on each CMA.
This feature is particularly useful for enterprise deployments of Provider-1, where
Customer CMAs typically represent geographic subdivisions of an enterprise. For
example, an enterprise deployment may have Customer CMAs for business units in
New York, Boston, and London, and each CMA will be similarly configured, with a
gateway (or gateways) to protect a DMZ, and others to protect the perimeter. This

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Global SmartDashboard

capability allows an administrator to configure the global policy so that certain

global security rules are installed to DMZ gateways, wherever they exist, and
different rules are installed to the perimeter gateways.

Note - Global security rules can be installed on Security Gateways, Edge gateways,
SmartProvisioning Profiles, and Open Security Extension (OSE) devices.

To install a specific security rule on a certain gateway or types of gateways, do the

following:
1. Launch Global SmartDashboard for the relevant Global Policy.
2. In the Objects Tree, right-click Dynamic Objects and select New Dynamic Object.
3. Name the dynamic object, and add the suffix _global to the end of the name.
4. On the Firewall tab, create rules to be installed on gateways with this function,
and drag the dynamic object you created into the Install On column for each
rule.
5. Launch the SmartDashboard for each relevant CMA.
6. Create a group object with the name of the dynamic object you created,
including the suffix _global.
Note - While you can name a gateway with the name of the global Dynamic Object, it is
recommended to create a group to preserve future scalability (for instance, to include
another gateway with this function). It is not recommended to change the name of an
existing gateway to the dynamic object name.

7. Add all gateways on the CMA that you want to receive global security rules with
this target to the group.
8. Select File > Save.
9. From the MDG, re-assign the global policy to the relevant Provider-1
Customer(s).

Synchronizing the Global Policy Database

The Global Policy database is synchronized on all MDS Managers automatically, or
manually, depending on the settings. Global policies must be synchronized for the
entire system, since they are system-wide security templates, and the entire system
uses the same Global Objects. Synchronization is performed when the Global Policy
is saved, or at a configurable interval.

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Creating a Global Policy through Global

SmartDashboard
Global policies are created using the Global SmartDashboard. Customer policies are
made using SmartDashboard launched via the CMA. Let us consider an MSP that
wants to implement a rule which blocks unwanted services at Customer sites. The
Provider-1 Superuser, Carol, wants to set up a rule which will allows Customer
administrators discretion to decide which computers are allowed to access the
Internet.
Figure 5-8 Carol creates a rule for the web server

Carol launches Global SmartDashboard. She creates a global dynamic object to

represent a group of computers that are allowed to access the Internet, and names
it gInternetAccessAllowed_Global. She creates a rule using the global dynamic
object.
Figure 5-9 Rule containing Dynamic Global Object

Once she has created a Global Policy including this rule, she assigns/installs it for
specific Customers and their network gateways. Each Customer administrator must
create a group object with the same name as in the CMA database. This is done
through SmartDashboard. In this way, local administrators translate the dynamic
global object into sets of network object from the local database.

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For details about using SmartDashboard, consult the Security Management

Administration Guide. The differences between the Customer’s SmartDashboard
and the Global SmartDashboard are as follows:

Table 5-1 Customer vs. Global SmartDashboard

Feature Customer SmartDashboard Global SmartDashboard

Rule Base Local, applying to the Global, applying to multiple
Customer network only. networks of all Customers
assigned this Global Policy.
Consists of Customer Consists of both Global
Security Rules and Global Rules and a place holder for
Rules (in Read Only mode) Customer rules.
if the Global Policy is
assigned to the Customer.
Is not associated with the Automatically added to all
Customer's other security of the assigned Customers’
policies. security policies.
Each Customer policy is All the assigned Customers’
independent, with its own policies share the global
rules rules
Network Objects Local, applying to this Global, applying to multiple
network only. networks of all Customers
assigned this Global Policy.
Global Properties Enabled. Disabled (manipulations is
through the Customer
SmartDashboard).
Saving a Security Adds the security policy to Adds the Global Policy to
Policy the list of Customer security the Global Policies database
policies (and displays it in the
Global Policies Tree of the
MDG).

Note - Global SmartDashboard cannot be used to create Connectra or Security Gateway

objects. Instead, use a SmartDashboard connected to a specific CMA to create these
objects.

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 Global IPS

Global IPS
In This Section

Introduction to Global IPS page 147

IPS in Global SmartDashboard page 147
IPS Profiles page 148
Subscribing Customers to IPS Service page 150
Managing IPS from a CMA page 151

Introduction to Global IPS

IPS protections are centrally managed using the Global SmartDashboard, and then
distributed to Customers via the Assign Global Policy operation in the MDG. Multiple
IPS Profiles can be configured in the Global SmartDashboard. When Global Policy
is assigned to a CMA, the CMA receives all of the IPS Profiles. Customer
Administrators can then assign different profiles to various gateways. Customer can
make limited changes to further customize the protections of a Profile through the
SmartDashboard of the CMA.
It is important to note that the global nature of Global IPS refers to the ability to
set IPS Profiles for all subscribed Customers from the Global SmartDashboard.
However, the CMA administrator for each Customer can assign different profiles to
each gateway and modify the IPS protections in certain ways once they have been
installed. So in this case, the term global does not confer a meaning of read only,
as it does in the case of the Global Security Policy.

IPS in Global SmartDashboard

The Global IPS Policy is configured on the IPS tab in the Global SmartDashboard.

Chapter 5 Global Policy Management 147

Global IPS

Figure 5-10 IPS in Global SmartDashboard

IPS protections available in the Global SmartDashboard are identical to the default
settings and protections for a CMA. Any changes made to the Global Profiles apply
to all CMAs subscribed to the IPS service.

Note - You must have an Enterprise Software Subscription to update IPS protections.
Enterprise Software Subscriptions are available for purchase at the User Center at
https://usercenter.checkpoint.com.

IPS Profiles
An IPS Profile is a complete set of configured IPS protections that can be applied
to multiple gateways. On the CMA, multiple IPS Profiles can be assigned to suit
gateways that are exposed to different types of threats.

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 Global IPS

Global SmartDashboard supports multiple IPS Profiles. Changes made to IPS

protections for a Global Profile are replicated when the Global Policy is assigned to
CMAs that are subscribed to the IPS Service.
For further details regarding IPS Profiles, See the IPS Administration Guide at
http://supportcontent.checkpoint.com/documentation_download?ID=8746.

Managing IPS Profiles

You IPS Profiles are managed from the IPS tab in the Global SmartDashboard.
Select Profiles from the Navigation Tree to view all Profiles and make changes.

Creating a New IPS Profile

To create a new IPS Profile:
1. In SmartDashboard (Global or CMA), select the IPS tab.
2. Select Profiles.
3. Select New and either Create New Profile or Clone Selected Profile (to clone a
profile, one must be selected).
4. Enter a Profile Name and Comment. Select the IPS mode (Prevent or Detect) and
a Protection Activation method.

Editing a IPS Profile

To edit a IPS Profile:
1. In SmartDashboard (Global or CMA), select the IPS tab.
2. Select Profiles.
3. Double-click a profiled.
4. Edit parameter as required on any of the pages.
5. On the Networks Exceptions page, add and edit exception rules by clicking New
or Edit.

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Subscribing Customers to IPS Service

Any Customer that you want to include in the global IPS policy must be subscribed
to the IPS service.
To subscribe an existing customer to the IPS Service:
1. In the MDG, enable the Customer Contents Mode.
2. On the Selection Bar, select General.
3. Double-click a customer name in the list.
4. In the Customer Configuration window, select the Assign Global Policy tab.

5. Enable the Subscribe Customer to IPS Service option.

Customers who subscribe to the IPS Service are automatically assigned to an
Exclusive subscription. Once Customers are subscribed to the IPS service via the
global policy, any changes made to the Global IPS Profiles are forwarded to the
CMAs whenever Global Policy is assigned. See “Assigning Global Policy” on
page 153 for details.

Note - Merge and Override IPS subscriptions are no longer supported in Provider-1.

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 Global IPS

Managing IPS from a CMA

After Customers are assigned Global Policy, the IPS Profiles configured on the
Global Dashboard are augmented to the local profiles list on the CMA. Customer
Administrators can assign the Profiles to specific gateways. They can also modify
the profiles in limited ways.
Protection settings for Global Profiles cannot be edited from the CMA, however
exceptions can be defined for specific traffic in the IPS tab of SmartDashboard.
Once a Profile has been downloaded to a CMA, there will be a ‘G’ prefix at the
beginning of the Profile name and ‘Global’ appears in the activation column in the
local SmartDashboard.
Any exceptions set globally for a specific Global Profile are indicated with a ‘G’
icon and cannot be changed from the CMA.

Assigning IPS Profiles to Gateways

IPS policy will not be activated on any gateways until the gateway is assigned a
Profile.
To assign a IPS Profile to a gateway:
1. Navigate to the Profile Assignment page in one of two ways:
a. From the gateway object:
• In the SmartDashboard of the CMA on which the gateway is managed,
right-click the gateway and select Edit.
• Select IPS from the navigation tree in the Check Point Gateway dialog
box.
b. From the IPS tab:
• In the SmartDashboard of the CMA on which the gateway is managed,
select the IPS tab and Enforcing Gateways from the navigation tree.
• Select a gateway from the list and click Edit.
2. Select Assign Profile and select a profile from the list, then click OK.
3. If you do not want to apply IPS on the gateway, select Do not apply IPS on this
gateway.
4. Select Policy > Install, and make sure the gateway is selected in the Advanced
Security column.
5. Click OK to install policy and activate the assigned IPS Profile

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Removing Global IPS from a CMA

To remove Global IPS from a CMA:
1. In the IPS tab of the CMA SmartDashboard, make sure that gateways on the
CMA are not using Global Profiles.
2. In the Global Policy page of the MDG, select a customer, right-click, and select
Configure Customer.
3. In the Assign Global Policy tab, uncheck Subscribe to Customer IPS Service and
click OK.
4. In the Global Policy page, select the customer again, right-click, and select
Reassign Global Policy. Click OK to confirm.

Note - If you select Remove Global Policy, Global IPS will be removed from the CMA
regardless of the checkbox setting.

Making Changes to a IPS Profile

Customer administrators can make exceptions to protections in a Profile and can
override actions of a protection. These changes are made from the IPS tab of the
CMA’s SmartDashboard by clicking Edit. See the IPS Administration Guide for more
information on creating exceptions and changing actions within protections.
If a customer administrator makes changes to a profile, changes are saved in the
CMA’s local policy. If the Profile is later altered in the Global SmartDashboard, the
customer administrator’s changes will not be affected when Global Policy is
reinstalled on the CMA.

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 Assigning Global Policy

Assigning Global Policy

In This Section

Assigning Global Policy for the First Time page 153

Assigning Global Policies to VPN Communities page 154
Reassigning Global Policy page 154
Reassigning Global Policy to Multiple Customers page 154
Viewing the Status of Global Policy Assignments page 156
Considerations For Global Policy Assignment page 156
Global Policy History File page 158

Global Policy, which includes the Global Security Policy and Global IPS, should be
assigned to Customers when it is first configured, and whenever you want to
implement a change. All Global Policy assign operations are performed from the
Global Policies - Security Policies and IPS view.

Assigning Global Policy for the First Time

To assign Global Policy for the first time:
1. From the Global Policies view of the MDG, select the target Customer.
2. From the Manage menu, select Assign/Install Global Policy.
3. In the Assign/Install Global Policy window, select a global policy from the list.

Note - To configure a Customer for IPS, see “Subscribing Customers to IPS Service” on
page 150.

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Assigning Global Policies to VPN Communities

When assigning and/or reassigning global polices to VPN Communities, you should
perform the following procedure to ensure that all participating gateway domains
update each other correctly.
To assign global policies to VPN Communities
1. Assign global policies to customers.
2. Using the CMA SmartDashboard for active customers, install policies and/or
databases as required.
3. Reassign the global policy and install the most recent policy on all gateways.

Reassigning Global Policy

After assigning Global Policy to a Customer, you will need to reassign it each time
you want to implement a global change, either to the Security Policy or IPS. To
reassign Global Policy, select the target Customer, and from the Manage menu,
select Reassign/Install Global Policy.

Reassigning Global Policy to Multiple Customers

Global Policy can be reassigned to multiple Customers at the same time. From the
Manage menu, select Reassign Global Policy and IPS to Customers (there is also a
toolbar button that performs this function).

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 Assigning Global Policy

Figure 5-11 Reassigning Global Policy to multiple Customers

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Assigning Global Policy

Viewing the Status of Global Policy Assignments

You can view global policy assignments from the MDG while in the Security Policies
and IPS mode in the Global Policies view.
Figure 5-12 Global Policy statuses

In this window, each Customer is displayed under the Global Security Policy to
which it is assigned, or under the category No Global Policy. The time and date at
which the Global Policy was assigned to each Customer is reported, and a status
indicator shows whether that assignment is the most up-to-date version of the
Global Policy.
When a change is made in Global SmartDashboard, either to a Global Security
Policy or to the Global IPS, the change will be reflected in the Global Policy state
of each Customer assigned the relevant Policy. (A green check mark indicates that
the Policy is up-to-date, while a red exclamation mark indicates that since the
Policy was assigned, it has changed, and should be reassigned.)

Considerations For Global Policy Assignment

In This Section

Introduction to Considerations for Global Policy Assignment page 157

Assigning Policy for the First Time page 157
When you Change a Global Policy page 157
Assigning a Different Global Policy page 158
Global Object Transfer Method page 158

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 Assigning Global Policy

Introduction to Considerations for Global Policy

Assignment
When assigning a Global Policy to one or more Customers, Global Objects are
copied to the database of the Customer’s CMA. Whether all the Global Objects in
the database are copied, or only those related to the Global Policy, can be
configured per Provider-1 Customer in the Customer Configuration window, (which
can be accessed by selecting Manage > Configure when selecting a Customer in the
General-Customer Contents view).
Rules belonging to the Global Policy package being assigned are added above and
below the rules inside ALL local policies defined in that CMA database.
After the Global Policy is assigned, when issuing the “install policy” command for
a CMA’s gateways, the gateways will receive the most updated CMA policy
containing the latest updates from the Global Policy. Changes may be made to a
Global Policy, after which the Global Policy is reassigned to one of more Customers.
When a Customer’s CMA then installs the updated policy to the Customer gateways,
any modifications to global and local objects/ rules are updated on the selected
gateways.
The assign and install procedure are two separate processes. The administrator can
re-assign a Global Policy without installing a local policy to Customer gateways.

Assigning Policy for the First Time

Once you create a Customer’s internal network, you will want to create a policy for
the Customer. The first step may be creating a Global Policy template for general
use by different types of Customer. This allows you a certain amount of flexibility in
how you manage security policy assignment.
Global policies are designed in Global SmartDashboard, but the assign/install
procedure is handled through the MDG. The MDG provides a Global Policy Mode
which give you a few options to handle the procedure of assigning Global Policies.
The Global Policy is assigned to the Customer’s CMA.

When you Change a Global Policy

If you change the Global Policy, you will have to reassign it to all the Customers
who have been assigned the policy, and reinstall it onto the Customer’s gateways.
Re-install the Customer’s network policy to a Customer’s gateways when:
• You have made changes to a Global Policy and reassigned it to the CMA,
without installing the updated policy to the Customer’s gateways or,

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Assigning Global Policy

• When you have made changes to the Customer’s network policy.

If you have network load considerations, rather than install the gateways all at
once, you may prefer to perform the procedure in stages. You can re-install a
current policy to Customers’ gateways (the Install Last Policy command). Or, install
on selected gateways by right clicking a Customer and selecting Reassign/Install
Global Policy....

Assigning a Different Global Policy

To assign a different Global Policy to a Customer, use the same procedure as for
initially assigning a Global Policy to a Customer. The Global Policy is overwritten
when a new one is assigned.

Global Object Transfer Method

During Customer configuration, you define for each Customer how the Global Policy
database will transfer objects during global security policy assignment (this is
located in the Add Customer Wizard — Assign Global Policy tab). When Global
Policies are assigned to CMAs, two methods can be used to transfer all the
information to the CMA’s database from the Global Policy database.
It is possible to assign all Global Objects when assigning the Global Policy to a
CMA. Or it is possible to assign only objects required by the rule base of the Global
Policy assigned to the CMA. This includes objects directly or indirectly referenced
by rules, such as network objects contained in groups. Indirectly references objects
will also be copied to the CMA’s database, and the administrator will see them in
both group and individually.
You can decide to change settings later, but be careful when changing settings.
Consider the following scenario: a Customer assigns a Global Policy and transfers
all the Global Objects. All objects are copied to the global database. When a Global
Policy is re-assigned with just those objects relevant to the Global Policy assigned,
extraneous objects not used by the Global Policy will be removed from the
Customer’s configuration database. However, if these objects are used by a
Customer’s network security rules or objects, the assignment operation will
terminate (an error message lists the objects that prevented the operation from
proceeding).

Global Policy History File

Each Customer’s log directory includes a history file (named gpolicy.log) which
maintains a summary of all actions taken by the Global SmartDashboard that affect
the Customer. It records all actions taken, including assigning Global Policies to a

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 Assigning Global Policy

CMA and installation on a remote gateway. The file includes time, operations
performed, Global Objects added, and problems. To access this file, see “Viewing
the Customer’s Global Policy History File” on page 163.

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Configuration

Configuration
Assigning or Installing a Global Policy
To assign, reassign, install or remove policies for Customers, you must be a
Superuser (either a Customer Superuser or a Provider-1 Superuser. All these actions
are performed in the MDG, using the Global Policies view.
You cannot assign a Global Policy to a Customer if a Read/Write SmartDashboard is
logged in to the Customer’s CMA. First, close SmartDashboard and then assign the
Global Policy. You can, however, assign a Global Policy to a Customer if there is a
Read Only SmartDashboard logged in to the CMA. The changes won't be displayed
in SmartDashboard until it is disconnected from and then reconnected to the CMA.

Assign to Many Customers: How To Assign/Install from

a Global Policy Object
Use the following method to create a Global Policy, then assign it to several
Customers at once. You can also install a policy to all the Customers’ gateways at
the same time. If a Customer already has a different Global Policy, it is overwritten.
1. Select the desired Global Policy. Choose Manage > Assign/Install Global Policy...,
or right-click the Global Policy and choose Assign/Install Global Policy... from the
menu. Select the Global Policy Name of the Global Policy you want to install (for
example, Standard_Global_Policy).
2. Check the Customers to which you want to assign this Global Policy in the
Unassigned to selected Policy list.
3. To install the policy on all the gateways of the Customers to which the policy is
assigned, check Install Policy on assigned Customers.
You can choose to install a policy on specific gateways. If you want to choose
specific gateways and not install to all the gateways at one time, perform the
assign/install via the Customer object.
4. Click OK. A Global Policy Assignment progress window lets your follow each step
of the procedure, as the Global Policy is enforced on the selected Customer’s
CMAs. You can track installation attempts using the History file.

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 Configuration

Assign to One Customer: Assign/Install from a Customer

Object
Select a Customer that does not have a Global Policy, and assign one of the Global
Policies you have created. This method gives you more control over the installation
procedure for particular Customer gateways.
For Customers that already have a Global Policy, the option will be to
Reassign/Install Global Policy.
1. Select a Customer, then choose Manage > Assign/Install Global Policy..., or
right-click the Customer and select Assign/Install Global Policy...
2. The Assign/Install Global Policy window allows you to select the policy to be
installed. Select one or more gateways. A policy must already have been
installed on the gateways, or the operation will not work. Click OK.
3. The Global Policy is assigned to the Customer’s CMA and the Customer policy
is re-installed on the selected gateways.

Reassigning/Installing a Global Policy on

Customers
Once a Customer has been assigned a Global Policy, it is possible to update the
policy by re-assigning it.

To Reassign/Install a Global Policy for a Specific

Customer who already has been Assigned a Global
Policy
When performing a Reassign/Install the user does not choose the policy. The policy
is already selected. You can also re-install the Customer policy to the Customers’
gateways at the same time, but note that this is for all the gateways at once and
will only work if there is already a Customer policy resident on the gateway.
1. Select a Customer, then choose Manage > Reassign/Install Global Policy..., or
right-click the Customer and select Reassign/Install Global Policy...
2. The Reassign/Install Global Policy window will display the policy currently
installed.
3. Select the specific gateways for which to re-install the policy. Click OK. The
Global Policy is assigned to the Customer’s CMA and the resident Customer
policy is re-installed on the selected gateways.

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Configuration

To Reassign/Install a Global Policy for Multiple

Customers
1. Select a Global Policy, then choose Manage > Reassign/Install Global Policy..., or
right-click the Global Policy and select Reassign/Install Global Policy...
2. Select Customers in the Assigned to Selected Policy list.You may choose to
Select All, or select (click) Customers in the Assigned to Selected Policy list. To
see Customer details, click Properties. To facilitate Customer selection, click
Select by Group...
The Customer Selection Groups window is displayed, listing all predefined
Customer Selection Groups. All members of the group you choose are
automatically selected.
3. If you would also like to install the policy on the Customer’s gateways, check
Install last Policy on all gateways of assigned Customers. The Global Policy is
assigned in parallel to CMAs of all the Customers.

Reinstalling a Customer Policy onto the Customers’

Gateways
The Install Last Policy window allows you to select a group of Customers and
re-install their Customers’ policies onto their gateways. Only use this method if the
gateways already have a policy installed. Proceed as follows:
1. Select Manage > Install Last Policy... Select Customers from the Show drop-down
list. You may choose All Customers (the default setting), Only Assigned Customers
or Only Unassigned Customers.
2. Check the Customers on which you want to install the policy in the Available
Customers list. Click OK to apply re-install the policy.
The policy will be installed on all the gateways of the selected Customers.

Remove a Global Policy from Multiple Customers

1. Select the Global Policy and choose Manage > Remove Global Policy from
Customers..., or right-click the policy and select Remove Global Policy from
Customers... from the right-click menu.
2. Check Customers in the Assigned to selected Policy list. To remove the policy
from all Customers, click Select All. Customers from which the Global Policy
has been removed are automatically assigned to the No Global Policy group.

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 Configuration

Remove a Global Policy from a Single Customer

To remove a Global Policy from only single Customer, proceed as follows:
1. Select the Customer and right-click and choose Manage > Remove Global Policy,
or choose Remove Global Policy from the Manage.
2. You are asked whether you are sure you want to remove this Customer from the
Global Policy. Click Yes to confirm. The Customer is automatically assigned to
No_Global_Policy.

Viewing the Customer’s Global Policy History File

To view the Customer’s history file, select a Customer, right-click and choose View
History File..., or from the Manage, select View History File....

Global Policies Tab

The Manage > Provider-1 Properties menu > Global Policies tab allows you to specify
how Global Policies are to be assigned to Customers and installed on their
gateways.

Policy Operation Options

• Perform Policy operations on... Customers at a time — each Policy operation is
performed for a group (segment) of Customers at a time. This field allows you
to specify the maximum number of Customers per segment. For example, if
there are 5 Customers in the system and the segment number is 2, a Global
Policy assign operation will be divided as follows:
1. The operation is performed on the CMAs of the first two Customers.
2. The operation is performed on the CMAs of the next two Customers.
3. The operation is performed on the CMA of the fifth Customer.
• Install Security Policy only if it can be installed on all gateways — specify that an
installation succeeds only if the Policy is installed on each and every one of a
Customer’s gateways. If the installation on any of the gateways fails, then the
whole installation fails and the previous Policy remains installed.

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Configuration

• Install Security Policy on cluster, only if it can be installed on all cluster members
— for each cluster, the installation succeeds only if the Policy is installed on
each and every cluster member. If the installation on any of the clusters
members fails, then the whole installation for this cluster fails and the previous
Policy remains installed. It is recommended that you enable this option.

Global Names Format

The Manage > Provider-1 Properties menu > Global Names Format window allows the
user to define a template for Gateway Global Names, that consists of the original
name of the gateway, the name of the Customer and other details. When enabling
the gateways for Global Use, an automatic suggestion for an appropriate name will
be offered, based on this template.
The configurable fields are:
• Global Name - A name is automatically suggested. You can use the default name
suggested, which is in the format g<GATEWAY>_of_<CUSTOMER> where the name
of the gateway and the Customer are the variables. For example, a template
defined as g<GATEWAY>_of_<CUSTOMER> for gateway MyGateway of Customer
MyCustomer, will result in the suggested name gMyGateway_of_MyCustomer.
The global name should be self explanatory and easy to understand and
therefore the template must consist of the Customer's name and the gateway's
original name. The Administrator can later choose to override the template and
create a Global Name which can be any unique legitimate string.
• VPN Domains - The additional configurable part of the template is the suffix for
the VPN domain object. The template for the domain object contains the Global
Name and the suffix. For example, if the defined suffix template is _Domain, the
name of the VPN Domain will be gMyGateway_of_MyCustomer_Domain.

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Chapter 6
Working in the Customer’s
Network
In This Chapter

Overview page 166

Installing and Configuring Security Gateways page 169
Managing Customer Policies page 170
Working with CMAs and CLMs in the MDG page 171

165
Overview

Overview
Management within the customer network is much the same for a Provider-1
customer as it is in the Security Gateway management model, but with a few key
differences. In the Security Gateway management model, policy management is
handled through the Security Management server. In the Provider-1 model, policy
management is handled by the Customer Management Add-on (CMA).

Customer Management Add-on (CMA)

CMAs are the Provider-1 equivalent of Security Management servers, and support
all Security Gateway features. Using the CMA, an administrator defines, edits and
installs the customer’s security and QoS policies to customer gateways. Each
customer can have either one or more CMAs, where the second and subsequent
CMAs are defined for High Availability purposes. In this case, one of the CMAs is
defined as Active and the others as Standby.
In addition, a Security Management server can also be added as a backup of the
Customer's CMAs.
Let’s look at a deployment. The CMA (the Security Management equivalent) is
located on the MDS within the Provider-1 network.
Figure 6-1 Customer network and service provider environment

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 Overview

Once you have created a Customer’s CMA, you can start defining its policies, as
described in the Security Management Administration Guide. Gateways are
“defined” in the Provider-1 environment and managed via the Customer’s CMA.
VSX is described in the VSX Administration Guide.
Remember that routing must be set up to enable communication between
Customer’s gateways and the Customer’s CMA(s). Traffic must be allowed between
the Provider-1 management network gateway and Customer’s gateways. It should
also be enabled for SmartConsole Client applications and CMA connections. Access
rules must be set up as appropriate in Customer gateways’ rule bases.
If Logging is set up for the Customer network, or High Availability is enabled,
routing must support these functions. See Chapter 9, “Logging in Provider-1”, and
Chapter 8, “High Availability”, for further details.

Administrators
Administrators are assigned in a way that is slightly different to the way it is done
in the Security Gateway management model, as it is centralized through the
Provider-1 environment. Two types of administrators are assigned to manage
specific Customers’ networks: Customer Managers and None administrators.
For details about the different types of administrators and their levels of system
permissions, see Chapter 1, “Introduction”.

SmartConsole Client Applications

Administrators use the following SmartConsole Client applications to design,
manage, monitor and log the Security Gateway enforcement policies:
• SmartDashboard is used by the system administrator to define and manage the
Security Policy. From this SmartConsole you can create and define networks,
gateways, hosts, user groups, services, and policy rules. You can also access
many Check Point features and add-ons.
• SmartView Tracker is used for managing and tracking logs throughout the
system.
• SmartUpdate is used to manage and maintain a license repository, as well as to
facilitate upgrading Check Point software.
• SecureClient Packaging Tool is used to define user profiles for
SecuRemote/SecureClient clients.

Chapter 6 Working in the Customer’s Network 167

Overview

• SmartView Monitor is used to monitor and generate reports on traffic on

interfaces, Provider-1 and QoS gateways, as well as on other Check Point
System counters. It is also is used for managing, viewing alerts and testing the
status of various Check Point components throughout the system.
• Eventia Reporter is used to generate reports for different aspects of network
activity. Eventia Reporter integration is described in Chapter 3, “Provisioning
Provider-1” and in Chapter 9, “Logging in Provider-1”.
• SmartProvisioning is used for managing large numbers of SmartLSM Security
Gateways using Security Management server/CMAs.
For further information about the SmartConsole Clients, see the Security
Management Administration Guide. To see how tools are used to monitor the
Provider-1 environment, see Chapter 10, “Monitoring in Provider-1”.

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 Installing and Configuring Security Gateways

Installing and Configuring Security

Gateways
The procedure for installing and licensing Security Gateways in customer networks
is as described in the Security Management Administration Guide. Please refer to
this guide for details. Check Point Security Gateway should be installed on
customer gateways, without a Security Management server.
Licenses can be added via the MDG’s SmartUpdate View. It can be used to update
licenses for CMAs and customer network objects, and handle remote software
installations and licensing of Check Point and third-party (OPSEC) products.
Through the SmartUpdate view it is possible to examine, upgrade and manage
licenses for all CMAs.
Figure 6-2 SmartUpdate View — Products Tab

Chapter 6 Working in the Customer’s Network 169

Managing Customer Policies

Managing Customer Policies

Similar to the Security Gateway management model, SmartDashboard is used to
create objects representing and mapping Customer gateways, hosts, nodes, and
groups. Instead of working with a Security Management server, SmartDashboard is
launched from the CMA. The actions required to create, define and manage a
customer’s network objects are described in the Security Management
Administration Guide.

UTM-1 Edge Appliances

UTM-1 Edge management is integrated into CMA functionality.

Creating Customer Policies

Policies are used to enforce and protect communication. Administrators create
customer policies for the gateways they manage, using SmartDashboard (as in the
Security Gateway management model). There are a few important differences to be
aware of. In the Provider-1 environment, global policies containing global rules are
created for the entire Provider-1 system. These rules appear as part of the
Customer’s rule base, but cannot be edited.
When launching SmartDashboard from the CMA, the rule base that is displayed for
the customer will include global rules that were assigned to the Customer. Global
rules can appear either before or after the Customer rule base. These global rules
cannot be edited except by Provider-1 superuser administrators. Global Policies and
the global rule base is described in greater detail in Chapter 5, “Global Policy
Management”.
For general information regarding creating policies using SmartDashboard, see the
Security Management Administration Guide.

Revision Control
You can configure a Customer to save a snapshot of its settings whenever policy is
assigned or installed to it. This allows a Customer administrator to roll Security
Management back to an earlier state, if necessary.
The property Create Database Version is located on the Assign Global Policy tab of
the Customer Configuration wizard. While the default setting is not enabled, it is
recommended to enable it if disk space is not an issue.

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 Working with CMAs and CLMs in the MDG

Working with CMAs and CLMs in the MDG

All activities such as creating, editing, deleting, starting and stopping CMAs and
CLMs, can be performed by administrators using the Provider-1 MDG. These
activities are described in Chapter 4, “Customer Management”, and in Chapter 9,
“Logging in Provider-1”.

Chapter 6 Working in the Customer’s Network 171

Working with CMAs and CLMs in the MDG

172
Chapter 7
VPN in Provider-1
In This Chapter

Overview page 174

VPN Connectivity in Provider-1 page 178
Global VPN Communities page 183
Configuring Global VPN Communities page 188

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Overview

Overview
Branch offices need to connect with other branch offices. Partner sites also need to
establish local and remote communication. Once connectivity has been established,
the connections must remain secure, offering high levels of privacy, authentication,
and integrity.
Only legitimate traffic must be allowed to enter a customer’s internal network, and
possibly harmful traffic must be inspected for content. Within the customer’s
internal network, different levels of access must also exist so that sensitive data is
only available to the right people.
A Security Gateway at a network boundary acts as an gateway that inspects and
provides access control for all traffic passing through the gateway. Traffic that does
not pass through the gateway is not controlled.
Figure 7-1 A Security Gateway gateway inspects all traffic that crosses it

The Security Gateway enforces a company’ security policy. To achieve this, an

enterprise-wide Security Policy Rule Base is defined at the CMA. SmartDashboard
is used to install the policy, and distribute it to a Customer’s gateways. VPN traffic
management is controlled and enforced as part of the Security Policy Rule Base.

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 Overview

Access Control at the Network Boundary

Check Point Security Gateway provides secure access control through granular
understanding of underlying services and applications traveling on the network.
Stateful Inspection technology provides access control for more than 150
pre-defined applications, services and protocols as well as the ability to specify and
define custom services. For more information about services and access control,
see the IPS Administration Guide.

Authentication Between Gateways

Before gateways can exchange encryption keys and build VPN tunnels, they first
need to authenticate to each other. Gateways authenticate to each other by
presenting one of two types of “credentials”:
• Certificates. Each gateway presents a certificate which contains identifying
information of the gateway itself, and the gateway’s public key, both of which
are signed by the CMA’s trusted CA.
• Pre-shared secret. A pre-shared can be defined for a pair of gateways. Each
gateway must “prove” that it knows the agreed upon pre-shared secret. The
pre-shared secret can be a mixture of letters and numbers.
Certificates are the preferred means and considered more secure. The Customer
CMA’s Internal CA automatically provides a certificate to each gateway it manages,
so it is also more convenient to use this type of authentication.
More information about PKI and authentication procedures and methods are
available in the VPN Administration Guide.

How VPN Works

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a network that employs encrypted tunnels to
exchange securely protected data. VPN creates encrypted tunnels by using the
Internet Key Exchange (IKE) and IP Security (IPSec) protocols. IKE creates the VPN
tunnel, and this tunnel is used to transfer IPSec encoded data.
Note - IKE & IPSec. Refers to the secure VPN protocols used to manage encryption keys,
and exchange encrypted packets.

Encryption algorithm. A set of mathematical processes for rendering information into a format
which is incomprehensible. The mathematical transformations and conversions are controlled by a
special key. In VPN, various encryption algorithms such as 3DES and AES ensure that only
communicating peers are able to understand an encrypted message, using keys to decode the
incomprehensible format into the original message.

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Overview

IKE can be thought of as the process that builds a tunnel, and IPSec packets as
“trucks” that carry the encrypted data along the tunnel, from the source gateway to
the destination gateway.
For example, a Customer has two hosts (host1 and host6), who are behind different
gateways, but need to communicate. Packets pass in the clear between host1 to
the local gateway. Using the packet’s source and destination addresses, the
gateway determines that a connection should be established with a remote gateway.
According to the rule base, the connection is permitted and should be encrypted.
If this is the first connection between the hosts, the gateway initiates an IKE
negotiation with the peer gateway protecting host6. During the negotiation, both
gateways authenticate each other, and agree on encryption methods and keys.
Note - Key Exchange is the process by which communicating parties negotiate the keys
and methods for exchanging data. In a VPN, this negotiation takes place using the IKE
protocol. Keys are used to transform a message into an incomprehensible format
(encryption), and to decode the encrypted message back into the original message.

After a successful IKE negotiation, a VPN tunnel is created. From now on, every
packet that passes between the gateways is encrypted according to the IPSec
protocol. IKE supplies authenticity (so that gateways are sure they are
communicating with each other) and creates the foundation for IPSec. Once the
tunnel is created, IPSec provides privacy (through encryption) and integrity (via
one-way hash functions).
Note -
Endpoint Security. Endpoint Security checks (via hash functions) ensure that the message has not
been intercepted and altered during transmission.

Trust. Public key infrastructure (PKI), certificates and certificate authorities are employed to establish
trust between gateways. Gateways “trust” that they are indeed communicating with each other, and not
with an intruder, based on these methods that establish identity.

Pre-shared Secret. Secret data which gateways agree to employ to ensure that they are
communicating with each other. In the absence of PKI, gateways employ a pre-shared secret to
establish each other’s identity, which is less secure than PKI.

Now host1 wants to speak to host8. After another IKE negotiation, host1
establishes a second VPN tunnel with the gateway protecting host8.

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 Overview

Figure 7-2 VPN tunnels established for host1

For each VPN tunnel, after it has been established, packets are dealt with in the
following way:
• A packet leaves the source host and reaches the gateway.
• The gateway encrypts the packet.
• The packet goes down the VPN tunnel to the second gateway. The packets are
actually standard IP packets passing through the Internet. However, because
the packets are encrypted, they can be considered as passing through a private
“virtual” tunnel.
• The second gateway decrypts the packet.
• The packet is delivered in the clear to the destination host. From the hosts
perspective, they are connecting directly.

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VPN Connectivity in Provider-1

VPN Connectivity in Provider-1

A VPN can be established between any type of VPN endpoint, such as a customer’s
Security Gateways, or clusters of Security Gateways. VPN trust is established via
trusted entities, namely the certificates issued by a CMA’s Internal Certificate
Authority (ICA), external third party Certificate Authority servers (via OPSEC
connectivity), or by pre-shared secrets.
Similar to the Security Management server, the CMA’s ICA issues certificates that
are used by the customer’s network gateways to establish trusted SIC connections.
The primary MDS Manager issues certificates to authenticate administrators.
VPN connectivity is the same whether run by Provider-1 or by Security
Management. A new method is introduced to provide cross-Customer connectivity,
namely the Global VPN Community. The procedure for establishing Global VPN
Communities automates part of the step-by-step process of establishing Externally
Managed gateways for each Security Management server and exchanging
certificates manually.

Connections to a Customer Network

Traditional VPN
In Traditional VPN Mode, a single rule, with the Encrypt rule action, deals with both
access control and encryption. VPN properties are defined for gateways in the
regular rule base, and rules are per pair of gateways: source and destination.
An Encryption domain refers to the hosts behind the gateway. The Encryption
domain can be the whole network that lies behind the gateway, or just a section of
that network.
For example, one Customer’s gateway might protect both the corporate LAN (Net_A
and Net_B) and the DMZ (Net_C). However, only the corporate LAN is defined as
the Encryption domain. The DMZ is not secured. Another gateway may protect a set
of hosts, all of which are included in the Encryption domain (Net_D).

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 VPN Connectivity in Provider-1

Figure 7-3 A VPN between gateways, and the Encryption (VPN) Domain of each gateway

The following shows how VPN might be implemented in a Traditional Encrypt rule:

Table 7-1 Sample Encrypt rule in a Traditional Rule Base

Source Destination Service Action Track Install On

host1 host2 My_Service Encrypt Log Policy Targets
s

VPN is established between two gateways managed by the same CMA, in the same
way that is done between Security Gateways managed by a standalone Security
Management server. Using SmartDashboard launched from the CMA, customer
gateways are configured to route VPN traffic. More information about Traditional
VPN is available in the VPN Administration Guide.

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VPN Connectivity in Provider-1

Simplified VPN
In Simplified VPN Mode, the security rule base deals only with access control. VPN
properties, on the other hand, are dealt with per VPN community. A VPN
community is defined in SmartDashboard, and is a group of gateways. (In
Traditional VPN, communication is defined for a pair of gateways.) The community
definition also specifies encryption methods for VPN.
Once a community is established, all communication between community members
is encrypted. Communication with outside gateways is not encrypted. To better
understand VPN Communities, a number of terms are defined here:
• VPN Community member refers to the gateway at each end of a VPN tunnel.
• VPN domain refers to the hosts behind the gateway. (In Traditional VPN, this
domain is called the Encryption domain.)
• VPN Site is a community member plus VPN domain. A typical VPN site would
be the branch office of a bank.
• VPN Community is the collection of VPN tunnels/links and their attributes.

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 VPN Connectivity in Provider-1

Figure 7-4 VPN entities

Simplified VPN Mode and communities are described in the VPN Administration
Guide. As with a standalone Security Management server, an administrator
establishes VPN between a single Customer’s gateways by defining it via the CMA’s
SmartDashboard.
A simplified VPN policy makes it easier for the administrator to configure VPN.
However, Traditional policies allow VPNs to be created with greater granularity than
Simplified policies, because it defines whether or not to encrypt can be defined per
rule (source, destination and service). Simplified policies require all the
connections between two gateways to be encrypted using the same methods, via a
unitary Community definition.
A Traditional VPN implementation can be converted to Simplified mode via a
wizard. Because of the granularity of Traditional VPN, after running the wizard,
some manual optimization of the rule base may be required.

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VPN Connectivity in Provider-1

Conversion Considerations
When a Traditional policy is converted to a Simplified policy, an Encrypt rule is
converted to community rule. In order to understand the conversion, it is important
to understand how an Encrypt rule works. These issues are described in the VPN
Administration Guide.

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 Global VPN Communities

Global VPN Communities

Sometimes customers need to establish VPN between gateways that are managed
by different CMAs. This might happen, for example, in large enterprises that have
created different CMAs to manage corporate networks in different cities or
countries. Or, an MSP deployment may require communication between partners,
managed as different customers.
Cross-customer VPN is handled by establishing Global VPN Communities. This
community is similar to the regular VPN community with the exception that it can
deal with gateways managed by different CMAs. An administrator establishes VPN
between a single Customer’s gateways by defining it via the CMA’s
SmartDashboard. A Global VPN Community however is defined at the Provider-1
level, using MDG and Global SmartDashboard.
Provider-1 utilizes its knowledge about different customer network environments to
ease the definition of VPN for environments run by different CMAs. In the
standalone model, cross-customer VPN is established by creating gateways that are
defined as externally managed gateway objects. Then certificates and network
information are imported into each gateway’s Security Management server
databases.
In Provider-1, during the Global VPN Community setup, the MDS Manager
automatically exports relevant ICA information (such as the CA certificate) for each
customer’s CMA, so that both sides can trust the other’s ICA.

Gateway Global Names

One Customer’s gateways are not “known” to CMAs of other customers. (This
ensures privacy, and the integrity of each customers’ security.) In order for CMAs to
“recognize” another Customer’s gateway, the gateway must first be enabled for
global use, which “promotes” the gateway object from the customer level to the
Provider-1 level.
In order to establish cross-customer VPN, “global gateway objects” are created in
the global policy database. A global gateway object is also known as a Neighbor
VPN Object. A Customer’s gateway is “promoted” to be a Neighbor VPN Object. It
can then participate in a Global VPN Community.
Different customers may coincidentally name their gateways with the same name
(i.e. ftp_gateway). Since each global gateway object must have its own unique
Global Name, the Provider-1 uses a Global Names Template, which automatically
suggests a unique name. The default format includes the customer name using the
format: g<GATEWAY>_of_<CUSTOMER>.

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Global VPN Communities

For example, the BigBank enterprise has a London branch, whose Security Gateway
gateway is named “London_gw.” Its Customer is named BigBankUK. Martin, the
Provider-1 Superuser administrator, wants to change the default template to add UK
(country) at the end.
In MDG, via Manage > Provider-1 Properties, in the Global Names Format tab, Martin
specifies that the template should use the gateway and customer name and country
name, as follows: g<GATEWAY>_of_<CUSTOMER>. When Martin goes through the
process of enabling the gateway for global use, the template automatically names
the gateway gLondon_gw_of_BigBankUK.
Once a gateway is enabled for global VPN and given a unique name, it appears in
the Global Policy.
The templates for global names of gateways and global names of VPN Domain
objects can be defined in MDG, via Manage > Provider-1 Properties.

Global or Neighbor VPN Gateway

For Global VPN Communities, VPN tunnels are created between Neighbor VPN
gateways. (In a Security Management deployment, this is known as an externally
managed gateway, or a gateway managed by a different Security Management
server.
The neighboring gateway supports certificates issued by the other Customer’s CA.
Both gateways need to trust the other’s CA.

VPN Domains in Global VPN

The administrator defines each Customer gateway via SmartDashboard. When
defining if the gateway is a VPN gateway, the administrator specifies whether the
VPN Domain is to be based on the network’s topology or a specific address range.
This type of network information is managed at the individual Customer’s network
level. The information resides in the CMA’s customer network information and is
centralized in the CMA database. For VPN between a single customer’s Security
Gateways, the VPN domain is flexible and can be defined by the Customer’s
administrator.
CMA databases would have to maintain complete data on all other customer
networks, which could also be a security breach. Instead, Provider-1 computes
address ranges from those specified in VPN gateway properties. It uses this list as
the base for the VPN domain of a particular gateway from another customer’s
network.

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 Global VPN Communities

Access Control at the Network Boundary

Check Point Security Gateway provides secure access control through its granular
understanding of all underlying services and applications traveling on the network.
Stateful Inspection technology provides full application-layer awareness, and
comprehensive access control for more than 150 pre-defined applications, services
and protocols as well as the ability to specify and define custom services.
Stateful Inspection extracts state-related information required for security decisions
from all application layers and maintains this information in dynamic state tables
for evaluating subsequent connection attempts. Access Control and Global VPN
Communities
Configuring gateways for a customer’s Global VPN Community does not create a de
facto access control policy between the gateways. The fact that two gateways
belong to the same VPN community does not mean the gateways have access to
each other.
The configuration of the gateways into a Global VPN Community means that if these
gateways are allowed to communicate via an access control policy, then that
communication is encrypted. Access control is configured in the security policy rule
base.
Using the VPN column of the security policy rule base, it is possible to create
access control rules that apply only to members of a VPN community, for example:

Table 7-2
Source Destination VPN Service Action
Any Any Community_A HTTP Accept

If all conditions of the rule are met, the rule is matched and the connection
allowed. VPN is another level of security separate from the access control level.

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Global VPN Communities

Access Control in Global VPN

Access control for global communities is the same as for a single customer’s VPN
community. Namely:
• If ‘Accept all encrypted connections’ is enabled, the appropriate implied VPN
rules appear in the policies of relevant CMAs.
• Add the community in the ‘VPN’ tab of a rule.
Information about access control for VPN communities is available in the VPN
Administration Guide.

Joining a Gateway to a Global VPN Community

There are several steps necessary to join a customer’s gateway to a Global VPN
Community. First, each customer’s gateway must be enabled for global use. Then a
VPN Community must be defined in Global SmartDashboard, including the global
gateway objects representing participating customers’ gateways.
Lastly, a Global Policy must be assigned to participating customers’ CMAs, and
installed on the customer’s gateway, for each customer and gateway participating in
the VPN Community. All gateways participating in the Global VPN Community must
employ a Simplified VPN policy. The global policy itself may be either neutral or
Simplified.
When assigning a global policy to one or more Customers, global objects are copied
to the database of the Customer’s CMA. Whether all the global objects in the
database are copied, or only those related to the global policy, is configurable per
Customer using the Customer Configuration window. Rules belonging to the global
policy package being assigned are being added above and below the rules inside all
local policies defined in that CMA database.
For more information about global policies, see Chapter 5, “Global Policy
Management”.

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 Global VPN Communities

Considerations
After the global policy is assigned, when issuing the “install policy” command for a
CMA’s gateways, the gateways will receive the most updated CMA policy containing
the latest updates from the Global Policy. Changes may be made to a global policy,
after which the global policy is reassigned to one of more Customers. When a
Customer’s CMA then installs the updated policy to the Customer gateways, any
modifications to global and local objects/ rules are updated on the selected
gateways.
The assign and install procedure are two separate processes. The administrator can
re-assign a global policy without installing a local policy to Customer gateways.
During the re-assign operation, gateways that participate in Global VPN
Communities are provided the CA certificate for other Customers participating in
the community. Certificates are automatically installed in the certificate database
of the CMA assigned a global policy.
For each participating Customer, other than the CMA’s Customer, a global “CA
Server” object is created in the CMA’s database, representing the certificate
authority of the peer Customer. The existence of this object allows for
authentication by ‘Matching Criteria’ to work. If by chance the certificate of the peer
Customer has already been imported manually into the database, the ‘Matching
Criteria’ references the existing certificate.

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Configuring Global VPN Communities

Configuring Global VPN Communities

Enabling a Customer Gateway to Join a Global VPN
Community
You must close the Global SmartDashboard and SmartDashboard (if they are open
in Read/Write mode), in order to perform the Enable for Global Use operation. If they
are open in Read Only mode, they can remain open.
The procedure to join a Global VPN Community is described below.

Step 1 - In the MDG

Repeat this step for all gateways that are to participate in the Global VPN
Community.
1. In the General View - Customer Contents Mode (or Network Objects Mode) right
click a customer’s gateway and select Enable for Global Use (or Manage > Enable
for Global Use). You will be required to provide a Global Name for the gateway.
A global gateway object and a VPN Domain object are created for the customer
gateway in the Global Database.
2. Enabling clusters: The user can enable a VPN cluster for global use in the same
way that a customer gateway is enabled. The cluster is exported to the Global
Policy as a global gateway object.

Step 2 - In Global SmartDashboard

3. Define a Global Site-to-Site VPN Community.
4. Add the global gateway objects, defined in step 1, as participating gateways in
this community.
5. Define global rules as needed for the new Global VPN Community, the global
gateway objects, and the External Domains.

Step 3 - In the MDG

6. In the Global Policies View, assign and install the Global Policy to customers
and selected customer gateways. The Global Policies View has two modes which
allow slightly different activities, the Security Policies Mode and the VPN
Communities Mode.

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 Configuring Global VPN Communities

Different MDG views allow you to perform this step in slightly different ways.
You can assign the policy to one customer at a time, for greater load
management. Or you can assign the policy to all the customers at once, if load
management is not an issue.

To assign to one customer at a time

Through the Security Policies Mode, select a global policy. Then choose
Reassign/Install Global Policy... from the Manage menu, or right-click the
customer and select Reassign/Install Global Policy.... Select the customer
gateways to which the policy should be installed. The policy is assigned to the
CMA database, then to the selected customer gateways.
or
Use the VPN Communities Mode, but the procedure is much the same. Right
click a customer, then select Reassign/Install Global Policy... from the Manage
menu, or select Reassign/Install Global Policy... from the mouse menu.
or

To assign to many customers at one time

The procedure is through the Security Policies Mode, similar to the above.
Select a Global Policy and right click, then select Manage > Assign/Install
Global Policy or Reassign/Install Global Policy..., or right-click and select
Assign/Install Global Policy...
This operation assigns the policy to all customers selected, then installs the
policy to the customers’ gateways, in one go. It does not allow you to select
specific gateways to which to install the policy. If chosen, the policy will be
installed to all of the gateways for the selected Customers. Assigning the
policy to many Customers and all their gateways may take some time. Use
this option with caution.

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Configuring Global VPN Communities

7. You can now create security rules regarding VPN via SmartDashboard for a
customer’s CMA. Gateways which are external to a customer but are part of the
Global VPN Community, will appear as global externally managed gateway
objects in the CMA's SmartDashboard.
The customer's own participating gateways will appear as they usually do. It is
not necessary to define authentication for the external global gateway objects.
Matching criteria are automatically defined for the global gateway objects
referring to the other CMA’s Certificate Authority.
A Customer can be assigned a Global Policy which references a Global VPN
Community, in which, however, none of the Customer's gateways participate. If
this happens, the CMA database will have an empty community (without
community members).

190
Chapter 8
High Availability
In This Chapter

Overview page 192

CMA High Availability page 193
MDS High Availability page 199
Configuration page 209
Failure Recovery in High Availability Deployments page 215

191
Overview

Overview
Provider-1/SiteManager-1 supports High Availability — a Check Point feature that
ensures uninterrupted service availability in case of a computer crash.
Provider-1/SiteManager-1 implements High Availability at three levels:
• The gateway level, such as through ClusterXL.
• The CMA level: multiple CMAs (one Active, and at least one Standby) are
supported, as is one Security Management backup server, per Customer.
• The MDS level, through MDS synchronization.
By using ClusterXL, Customer networks are protected in the event of a gateway
computer failure. Customers may choose to implement gateway clustering within
their network environments, using SmartDashboard to configure the system. CMAs
support cluster gateway management.
An administrator can implement fail-over gateway management for a Customer
network by creating multiple CMAs, configured to High Availability. These CMAs
regularly synchronize their databases, at a configurable interval or specified event
(such as saving or installing a policy). One CMA is Active, while the others are
Standby. Further High Availability can be achieved by installing a Security
Management backup server, which can take over if all CMAs fail.

Note - The current Provider-1 version supports more than two CMAs per Customer. In
versions NGX R65 and earlier, only two CMAs are supported per Customer; one Active and
one Standby.

The MDS Manager is the point of entry to the Provider-1 system. Any Manager can
serve as a point of entry: and if one fails for any reason, another can be used as an
access point for system management. Managers are configurable to regularly
synchronize their databases, so that if one fails, others contain updated data
regarding the system. It is possible to set up MDS Container mirror sites, so that
Containers are mirrored.

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 CMA High Availability

CMA High Availability

Implementing CMA High Availability guarantees management fail-over capability for
a Customer network. At any given time, one gateway management (CMA) is Active
while at least one is in Standby mode. Data synchronization between the CMAs
greatly improves fault tolerance and enables the administrator to seamlessly
activate a Standby CMA when required.
With High Availability, should a CMA fail for any reason, a Standby CMA can
seamlessly continue operation. The High Availability scheme requires one Primary
CMA and one Secondary CMA, which are housed separately, on different MDS
Containers.

Note - MDSs may use different operating systems. All MDSs in the Provider-1 environment
must be running the same version of Provider-1.

Two or more CMAs can be created at the same time, or a secondary CMA may be
added at a later point. After a secondary CMA has been properly initialized and
synchronized, no functional differences exist between the CMAs. Each CMA must
be on a different Container. The same Container cannot contain two CMA’s
belonging to the same Customer.

It is possible to set up one Container with primary CMAs, and other Containers to
contain all of the secondary CMAs. This is called a “mirror system” and is
explained later in this chapter. This can be a useful solution for a service provider,
which concentrates all resources in a network operations center.
It is also possible to use a Security Management backup server that will allow a
Security Management server to have Management HA relations with a Provider-1
Customer.
It is not necessary to dedicate a Container to hold only secondary CMAs, a
Container can hold a mix of primary and secondary CMAs, as long as they are for
different Customers. Provider-1 provides this functional flexibility to support
different setup needs. An international corporate network may need to have a
mixture of management and backup capabilities that are quite different from those
of a large-scale local service provider.
For example, a corporate bank with numerous branches finds it useful to have
Active CMAs for local branches maintained on a Container in the area’s central
branch. The Standby (High Availability) CMAs are maintained on the MDS in
another area’s central branch.

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CMA High Availability

By contrast, an MSP does not mix Active and Standby CMAs to support widespread
distribution needs. The MSP implements a single, remote, mirror site for disaster
recovery (see “MDS Mirror Site” on page 199).
To see how this works with two Containers, look at the example below. The Active
CMA for a bank’s Chicago network is housed on the Chicago MDS. The Active CMA
for the Atlanta network is housed on the Atlanta MDS. Each of the Standby CMAs,
however, are housed at the other location’s MDS.
Figure 8-1 CMA High Availability in an Enterprise network

To look at a more distributed example, let’s examine a medical supplies firm that
has many offices, which want partial failover capabilities. They have MDSs in three
branches: Kansas, Osaka, and Montenegro. Each MDS has a mix of Active and
Standby CMAs. Mission critical networks have CMAs with High Availability (CMA
1,3,6), while others do not (CMA 2,4,5,7,8).

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 CMA High Availability

Figure 8-2 CMA High Availability in an Enterprise network

Administrators make security policy changes through the Active CMA, not the
Standby. CMA updates are made through the CMA SmartDashboard. If policy
changes are made with the Active CMA, the Standby CMA is synchronized
automatically to reflect these changes (unless configured otherwise, i.e. manually
synchronized).

Active Versus Standby

All management operations such as editing and installing the Security Policy and
modifying users and objects, are done by the Active Management server. If the
Active Management server is unavailable, and any of the aforementioned operations
need to be performed, one of the Standby Management servers should be made
Active. This transition from Standby to Active should be initiated manually.
The Standby Management servers are synchronized to the Active Management
server, and therefore, are kept up to date with all changes in the databases and
Security Policy. Thus gateways can fetch the Security Policy and retrieve a CRL
from both the Active Management server and the Standby Management servers.
The frequency of the synchronization between the Standby Management servers
and the Active Management server is set by the System Administrator. This process
can be configured to take place automatically, or it can be set to occur manually.
It is possible to configure the High Availability feature to synchronize automatically
for each policy installation operation, on each policy save operation and on any
other scheduled event. If the Standby Management server’s data has not been
synchronized with the Active Management server, you can still use the Standby
Management server, which is updated until the moment of the last synchronization.

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The terms “Active” and “Standby” are not the same as the terms “Primary CMA”
and “Secondary CMA,” which have to do with the chronological order of creation.
Either CMAs can be set up to be Active or Standby. Initially, the Primary CMA (the
first one created) is the Active one, but later on the administrator can manually
change this as needed.

Setting up a Mirror CMA

When you add a Mirror CMA through the MDG, Provider-1/SiteManager-1 performs
a series of automatic operations (no user intervention is required), as below:
1. Creates the CMA on the MDS selected. Copies the Certificate Authority (CA)
files of the primary CMA to the mirror CMA.
2. Starts the mirror CMA and exchanges the activation key between the two CMAs.
Then initializes SIC communication between the two CMAs.
3. Synchronizes the mirror CMA with the primary CMA. At this stage, both CMAs
are running (if the primary CMA is down, the system will automatically attempt
to start it).
If the operation fails at stage 2 or 3, the administrator can complete these
stages manually.
See “Mirroring CMAs with mdscmd” on page 213 for instructions on mirroring
CMAs using the CLI.

CMA Backup using Security Management Server

Security Management backup server is able to backup a specific Provider-1
Customer CMA or a High Availability CMA as described above, and can function as
an Active/Standby management. For example;
• The Security Management backup server is the Standby management and the
CMA server is the Active management. When the CMA server is unavailable, the
Security Management backup server can become the Active management.
• The CMA server is the Standby management and the Security Management
backup server is the Active management. When the Security Management
backup server is unavailable, the CMA server can become the Active
management.

Note - A Security Management backup server cannot be installed on Windows or Nokia

IPSO platforms.

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GUI Clients and Administrators definitions are separate for the CMAs and for the
Security Management backup server.
GUI Clients and Administrators that were defined on the Provider-1 server are not
automatically used on the Security Management backup server and vice versa.
Figure 8-3 Security Management backup server

Security Management backup server Setup Procedure

To perform a Security Management backup server fresh installation:
1. Perform a fresh Security Management server installation as a secondary
Security Management server.
2. Use cpconfig to configure the following:
a. Select an activation key that will be used to establish secure internal
communication (SIC) between the Security Management server and CMA.
b. Define GUI Clients and Administrators.
3. In SmartDashboard connected to the Provider-1 CMA, create a network object
that will represent the secondary Security Management backup server.

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a. Select Manage > Network Objects > Check Point > New > Host
b. In the Check Point Host window, check Secondary Management Station under
Check Point Products. This automatically selects Log Server as well.
4. From the object created in step 3 establish secure communication with the
secondary Security Management backup server.
5. From SmartDashboard access the Policy menu, select Management High
Availability and press the Synchronize button.
To setup a Security Management backup server from an existing Security
Management server:
1. Migrate the existing Security Management server to the Provider-1 CMA using
the tools in “Upgrading Provider-1” of the R70 Upgrade Guide.
2. Perform a fresh Security Management server installation as a secondary
Security Management server on an existing or new machine.
3. Using cpconfig to select an activation key that will be used to establish secure
internal communication (SIC) between the CMA and Security Management.
4. Create a network object in the Provider-1 CMA that will represent the secondary
Security Management backup server.
a. Select Manage > Network Objects > Check Point > New > Host
b. In the Check Point Host window, check Secondary Management Station under
Check Point Products. This automatically selects Log Server as well.
5. From the object created in step 4 establish secure communication with the
secondary Security Management backup server.
6. From SmartDashboard access the Policy menu, select Management High
Availability and press the Synchronize button.

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MDS High Availability

MDS Mirror Site
It is possible to mirror an entire MDS, using a second MDS. For all CMAs on the
first MDS Manager/Container, High Availability CMAs can be created on a second
MDS Manager/Container. By default, when changes are made to the CMAs in the
first Container, the system synchronizes the Active CMAs with the Standby CMAs.
The two MDS Managers are automatically synchronized also. However, CMA
synchronization can be set up to occur at specified events, such as every time a
Customer’s policy is saved, or when it is installed onto one or more Customer
gateways.
Figure 8-4 Mirror MDS/CMA system

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MDS Managers
MDS Managers are “mirrors” of each other. If there is more than one MDS Manager
in the system, each Manager will contain all the information regarding the
Provider-1 management system such as the network setup, administrator hierarchy,
selected customer and network information.
MDS Manager synchronization does not mirror CMA-specific data. For example,
internal domains and customer level policy rules are known only at the CMA level,
so they are not synced by MDS Managers.
Interconnected, mutually redundant MDS Managers form a robust management
system providing non-stop access, without the need to deploy dedicated hardware
or software redundancy. For MDSs, the Active/Standby status affects only the login
to the Global SmartDashboard (as opposed to the login to the MDG). MDG
management activities can be performed using any of the MDS Managers.
Figure 8-5 MDS Synchronization in an Enterprise network

In terms of using MDGs, all MDS Managers are simultaneously accessible and can
perform Read/Write operations at all times, except for creating/revoking MDS
certificates in the MDS Configuration window, which can only be done from the
Active MDS. MDS information is synchronized at configurable intervals.

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Setting up a New MDS and Initiating

Synchronization
MDS Clock Synchronization
For proper MDS synchronization, all MDSs’ system clocks must be synchronized, as
the synchronization method relates to time of modification.
The time of modification is written using UTC (Universal Time Coordinated), used
by MDSs’ system clocks. The administrator can synchronize MDS clocks using
available synchronization utilities. Resetting regularly to compensate for clock drift
is strongly recommended. Correct database synchronization requires that the MDS
clocks are synchronized to the second. It is therefore recommended that MDS
clocks be synchronized automatically at least once a day.
Whenever a new MDS is defined in the MDG, it must receive a certificate and
communication must be established with the new MDS. The MDS also needs to be
synchronized in time with the other MDSs. The MDG guides the user through the
stages of performing this initial synchronization.

MDS: Active or Standby

Provider-1/SiteManager-1 MDS High Availability means that all MDS Managers are
accessible at all times, in the sense that they are all equally available to an MDG
as entry points to the Provider-1/SiteManager-1 system. However, only one MDS
Manager at a time can be Active in the following respects:
• The administrator can log into the Global SmartDashboard with Read/Write
permissions from the MDS.
• The MDS acts as the MDS Certificate Authority.
When the first MDS Manager is created, its status is automatically Active. Any
further MDS Managers that are created will be Standby. Each MDS’s Active/Standby
status is displayed in the High Availability View - MDS Contents Mode.
The MDS Active/Standby status can be changed, so that a different Manager can
be chosen to be Active. Should the Active Manager fail for any reason, another
Manager can thus be selected as the Active Manager. All other Managers will then
become Standby.

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The MDS Manager’s Databases

The MDS Manager’s stored data is divided into three databases: MDS, Global
Policies and ICA. The content and synchronization method of each database is
described below.

MDS Database
This database holds data objects describing MDSs, Customers, CMAs, gateways,
licenses, administrators, GUI-clients, and information about assignment of Global
Policies to customers. This database is synchronized automatically between MDS
Managers. MDS Containers also contain parts of this database, which is
synchronized for proper operation.
The synchronization method of this database enables simultaneously opening MDGs
to different MDS Managers, and performing Read and Write operations at any time
from any MDG. Changes committed to the database of one MDS Manager are
distributed immediately to all other MDS Managers, and to the MDGs connected to
them as well.
If MDSs were disconnected from each other, it is recommended to make changes
only on one of them, to avoid data collision. Once the MDSs are reconnected, they
will synchronize with each other according to modification time.

Global Policies Database

This database holds the global objects (network objects, services, servers, etc.) and
global rules. In terms of the Global Policies database, one of the MDS Managers is
Active (the first logged into), while the rest are Standby.
Some operations can only be performed on the Active MDS, such as opening a
Read/Write Global SmartDashboard. It is possible to open Global SmartDashboard
in read-only mode on a Standby MDS.

ICA (Internal Certificate Authority) Database for MDSs

This database holds certificates for MDSs, administrators and CRLs (certificate
revocation lists). Each MDS has a certificate issued by the MDS ICA that is used
for secure communication with other MDSs. This database is synchronized
whenever the Global Policy database is synchronized. Only the Active MDS can
issue and revoke certificates for MDSs. When a Standby MDS Manager is made
Active, its ICA also becomes “Active.”

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The MDS Container’s Databases

The MDS Container also stores data, including MDS and Global Policies database
information, at the MDS level. Databases at the CMA level are stored separately per
Customer. Customer policies, the Customer’s ICA, and CMA-specific information are
stored at the CMA level.
The MDS Container does not hold the MDS ICA database. It does hold CMA ICA
databases, one per Customer. If a Customer has High Availability, both CMAs share
the same CMA ICA, so that they can communicate securely with the Customer’s
network gateways using the same certificates.

ICA (Internal Certificate Authority) Database for CMAs

This database holds certificates for the Customer’s CMA(s) and gateways. Each
Customer’s gateway has a certificate issued by the CMA ICA that is used for secure
communication between the CMA and gateway, and between gateways. Only the
Active CMA can issue and revoke certificates for the Customer’s gateways. When a
Standby CMA (the High Availability CMA) is made Active, its ICA also becomes
“Active.”

How Synchronization Works

MDS Database Synchronization
MDS database synchronization occurs automatically whenever an object is changed.
The MDS databases are synchronized for the specific object change.
For example, if a new administrator is added to the system, all MDSs will be
updated with this information. In this system, with an MDS Manager/Container and
an MDS Container, the MDS database must be synchronized between the
Manager/Container and Container so that they are both contain information about
the Administrator’s existence.

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Figure 8-6 MDS database synchronization

MDS ICA Database Synchronization

If a new MDS is added to the system, the MDS ICA must issue a certificate to the
new MDS. If a new administrator is added to the system, the MDS ICA may issue a
certificate to the new administrator, depending on the administrator's
authentication method. The MDS ICA database is updated. If there is more than
one MDS Manager in the system, the MDS Manager’s ICA databases must be
synchronized to reflect these additions.
Let us say that when a new administrator is added to the system, she is issued a
certificate from the MDS ICA, which she will use at MDG login to authenticate her
identity.
If there is more than one MDS Manager in the system, the MDS Manager’s ICA
databases are synchronized to reflect this update. But in this system, as there is
only one MDS Manager (the MDS Manager/Container), there is no need for MDS
ICA synchronization. The MDS Container does not hold the MDS ICA database.

Global Policies Database Synchronization

Global Policies data synchronization occurs either when the global policy is saved,
or at another defined event (for details about synchronization settings, see
“Automatic Synchronization for Global Policies Databases” on page 212). Unlike
the MDS database synchronization, which is per object, the entire contents of the
Global Policies database are synchronized.
For example, if a new Global Policy is defined, all MDSs will be updated with this
information. In this system, containing an MDS Manager/Container and an MDS
Container, the Global Policies databases are synchronized so that they both contain
information about the new Global Policy.

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Figure 8-7 Global Policies database synchronization

CMA Database Synchronization

For Customers with High Availability, data synchronization occurs per Customer.
The CMAs for each Customer are synchronized when a Customer policy is saved, or
at another defined event (for details about synchronization settings, see “Automatic
CMA Synchronization” on page 213). The entire contents of the CMA database are
synchronized.
Different Customers may have different synchronization settings. This means that
different Customer’s CMAs synchronize according to the specific settings for that
Customer only. When information is changed or updated for a Customer, if the
Customer has High Availability, all CMAs must receive the new information. For
example, if a gateway is added to a Customer’s network, and the gateway receives
a certificate from the Customer’s ICA, this information must be synchronized
between all of the Customer’s CMAs.
Figure 8-8 CMA database synchronization

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Cross-MDS Synchronization
All of these synchronizations take place according to individual synchronization
settings or conditions, even though they may take place on the same machines.
Figure 8-9 MDS and CMA level synchronizations between two MDSs

Setting up Synchronization

Using the MDG to Synchronize the MDSs

Provider-1/SiteManager-1 High Availability is managed through the MDG’s High
Availability View. The administrator can perform all management High Availability
activities through this view, and view the status of these actions after a
configurable delay.

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 MDS High Availability

Figure 8-10 High Availability View — Customer Contents Mode

The Sync Status displays synchronization statuses for MDSs and CMAs. Every
synchronization takes a certain amount of time to update the status. The default is
5 minutes. Statuses are as follows:
• Unknown — No information has been received about this CMA/MDS (see
footnote 1.) synchronization status.
• Never synced — This CMA/MDS has never been synchronized with the other
CMA/MDS to which the MDG is connected.
• Synchronized — This CMA/MDS (see footnote 1.) is synchronized with the other
CMA/MDS to which the MDG is connected.
• Lagging — The data of this CMA/MDS (see footnote 1.) is less updated than the
data of the other CMA/MDS to which the MDG is connected.
• Advanced —The data of this CMA/MDS (see footnote 1.) is more updated than
the data of the other CMA/MDS to which the MDG is connected.
• Collision — The data of this CMA/MDS (see footnote 1.) conflicts with the data
of the other CMA/MDS to which the MDG is connected.

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Footnotes:
1. When dealing with MDS synchronization status, the status is relevant for the
Global Policies database. The ICA database is synchronized automatically
between MDSs when new certificates are created for
administrators/MDSs/MLMs, but when the database is modified as a result from
operations in Global SmartDashboard, it will be synchronized with the next
Global Policies database synchronization.

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Configuration
Adding another MDS
The following steps are described in greater detail in Chapter 3, “Provisioning
Provider-1”, in the section “Creating a Primary MDS Manager” on page 90.
1. Synchronize the system clock of the new MDS computer with all other MDSs
computers’ system clocks.
2. Run the MDS installation script to install the MDS. When you are asked if this
is an MDS Manager or Container MDS, select the type of MDS you want to add.
3. If you set up an MDS Manager, when you are asked if this is the Primary MDS,
answer No.
4. During the configuration phase add an MDS license, and the Activation Key
(password). This Activation Key if for passing the SIC certificate to the new MDS
from the primary MDS.
5. In the MDG connected to the first MDS, define a new MDS. Assign it the IP
address of the Leading Interface you selected for it in the configuration phase.
Send the new MDS a certificate by the Initialize Communication option. Use the
same Activation Key you entered in the configuration of the new MDS.
6. You will be prompted to perform an “Initial synchronization” for this MDS.
Select to do so. Your new MDS Manager is now ready. You can connect directly
to it with the MDG client.

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Creating a Mirror of an Existing MDS

Mirroring an existing MDS means creating a duplicate MDS, with all information
synchronized from the original MDS. The duplicate can be a Container or Manager/
Container. Whether or not to create another Manager depends on how many access
points are required for the Provider-1 system setup. The mirroring applies to both
the MDS data and the data of the CMAs that it maintains.
To mirror an existing MDS, proceed as follows:
1. Set up route tables.
2. Synchronize the system clock of the computer on which you will install the
MDS with all other MDSs.
3. Install and create a new MDS Container or Manager/Container. Define the new
MDS through the MDG connected to the Active MDS Manager, and perform
initial synchronization. (See “Initializing Synchronization between MDSs” on
page 211.) The MDG must be connected to an Active MDS Manager so that the
Manager can pass a SIC certificate. The MDS database will be synchronized.
4. To complete the synchronization, run this utility:
mdscmd mirrorcma <-s source MDS> <-t target MDS> [-m MDS server -u
user -p password]
-s source_mds stands for the source MDS’s name
-t target_mds stands for the mirror MDS’s name
-m mds server stands for another MDS logged into to perform this action, and
-u user -p password are the login user name and password. Note that -m, -u
and -p are optional, but if used, must be used together.
This command will synchronize the data of all the CMAs maintained by the
source MDS. In fact, a duplicate (Mirror) CMA will be created for each CMA in
the original MDS. For further details, review this command in Chapter 12,
“Commands and Utilities”.

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Initializing Synchronization between MDSs

This step can be performed in the MDS Configuration window while creating the
MDS. Or it can be done later after the MDS is created, through the MDG’s High
Availability View, as follows:
1. Verify that the Sync Status status of the MDS whose synchronization you want to
initialize is Never synced.
2. Ensure that SIC has been established between the two MDSs.
3. Right-click the MDS, then select Initialize Synchronization, or select Initialize
Synchronization from the Manage menu. The Status Report window is displayed,
showing whether synchronization initialization succeeded or failed.

Subsequent Synchronization for MDSs

If you have already initialized the synchronization of an MDS, but at some point the
synchronization encountered problems, you can synchronize the MDS once again
through the High Availability View - MDS Contents mode.
You can either select a single MDS and synchronize it with the MDS Manager you
logged into; or select a group of MDSs and synchronize all of them with each other.

To Synchronize a Single MDS with an MDS Manager

1. Select the MDS you want to synchronize with the MDS Manager you logged
into. Check that its Sync.Status is other than Never synced or Unknown.
2. Right-click the MDS and select Synchronize, or select Synchronize from the
Manage menu.

To Synchronize a Group of MDSs

Choose Select and Synchronize from the Manage menu. The Multi Domain Server
Synchronization window is displayed, in which you to select which MDSs are to be
synchronized.

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Selecting a Different MDS to be the Active MDS

If the Active/Standby status of the MDS Manager is Standby, you can use the Change
Over command to change its this status to Active. Once you change the status there
is a delay (by default 5 minutes) until the status is updated.

To Change the Active MDS

1. Ensure that you are not logged into Global SmartDashboard (except in
Read-only mode).
2. Select the MDS Manager you want to make Active.
3. Select Change Over from the Manage menu.
4. The status will be changed to Active. The statuses of all other MDS Managers in
the system will be Standby.

Automatic Synchronization for Global Policies

Databases
The Global Policies database synchronization method is selected in the Global
SmartDashboard (Policy > Global properties > Management High Availability menu).
The following options are available:
On Save - after the Save operation in the Global SmartDashboard, the database is
synchronized to other MDS Managers and container MDSs as well
Scheduled - you can select a scheduled synchronization (for example, once a day at
a certain time). Use local time for the scheduled event.
On Save and Scheduled can be selected simultaneously, or none of the options can
be selected.

Add a Secondary CMA

Add a CMA through the MDG. A customer must have at least one CMA before a
secondary CMA can be added to it. The secondary CMA must be created on a
different MDS. Ensure that the primary CMA’s SmartDashboard is closed. This
procedure is described in more detail in the Chapter 4, “Customer Management”,
in the section “Configuration” on page 126.

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To add a secondary CMA:

1. In the MDG Customer View, select a customer, then select Add Customer
Management Add-on/Add Customer Log Module from the Manage menu, or
right-click the customer and select Add Customer Management Add-on/Add
Customer Log Module.
2. You are required to complete the fields shown. Enter a name for the CMA which
does not contain any spaces. Select the Container MDS on which this CMA will
be maintained.
3. Next, fill in the license information.

Mirroring CMAs with mdscmd

Use the mdscmd mirrorcma command to mirror all CMAs on one MDS to another
MDS. In the current version, the new mirror CMAs will be created even for
Customers that already have two or more CMAs.
If you want to limit mirror CMA creation to Customers that have only one CMA (or
any other number of CMAs), use the new -c flag. The full command syntax is:

mdscmd mirrorcma -s <source_MDS> -t <target_MDS> [-c

<max_total_number>] [-m MDS
server -u user -p password]

where <max_total_number> is the maximum resulting total number of CMAs

per Customer.
For example, to mirror CMAs only for Customers that have only one CMA, run:

mdscmd mirrorcma -s FirstMDS -t SecondMDS -c 2

Automatic CMA Synchronization

When a mirror CMA is created, it is automatically synchronized with the primary
CMA’s database. To keep these two CMAs regularly synchronized, it is
recommended that you set up automatic synchronization through SmartDashboard.
The synchronization method is user selectable, through SmartDashboard’s Policy >
Management High Availability menu. For detailed instructions on synchronizing
management stations, see the “High Availability” chapter of the Security
Management Administration Guide.

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Synchronize ClusterXL Gateways

The gateway synchronization feature provides the mechanism for synchronizing the
states of two Security Gateways. High Availability for Security Gateways is
described in the ClusterXL Administration Guide. High Availability for encrypted
connections is described in the VPN Administration Guide.

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Failure Recovery in High Availability

Deployments
Provider-1 version R70 and higher includes capabilities that enable recovery in
many cases of a failed MDS in a High Availability deployment. Specifically, in the
case of a failed MDS, you can promote a secondary CMA to become a primary CMA.

Note - CMA promotion in other cases is not supported.

The correct procedure for failure recovery depends on whether one of the
remaining, functioning MDSs is a manager or not. You may have a remaining,
functioning MDS manager in cases where there was more than one manager MDS
or the failed MDS was not the manager. If the failed MDS was the only manager,
the entire deployment needs to be migrated to a different MDS.

In This Section

Recovery with a Functioning Manager MDS page 215

Recovery from Failure of the Only Manager MDS page 217

Recovery with a Functioning Manager MDS

If one of the remaining, functioning MDSs is a manager (there was more than one
MDS or the failed MDS was not the manager), perform the following procedure.

Connecting to a Remaining MDS

To connect to a remaining MDS:
1. Make sure that all remaining MDSs and MLMs are running.
2. Connect to a remaining manager MDS with the MDG.
3. If there is no remaining manager MDS that is active, make one active. In the
High Availability - MDS Contents view of the MDG for a manager MDS, Change
Over that MDS from Standby to Active.

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4. On each remaining MDS and on each remaining MLM, run the following two
lines:

mdsenv
cp $MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/customers.C
$MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/customers.C.prepromote
5. In the General - MDS Contents view of the MDG, delete the failed MDS.
If the failed MDS was the primary MDS, the MDG will by default not allow you
to delete the MDS. In this case, first run the following commandon a remaining
manager MDS:
enable_mds_deletion <name>
where <name> is the name of the failed primary MDS. Then delete the failed
MDS in the MDG.

Note - Deleting the MDS causes all of its CMAs, many network objects, and Global Policy
assignments to disappear from the MDG as well. Objects that are still relevant will be
automatically restored after the next step.

6. On each remaining MDS and on each remaining MLM, run the following lines:

mdsstop
mv $MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/cp-deleted.C
$MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/cp-deleted.C.prepromote
cp $MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/customers.C
$MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/customers.C.afterpromote
cp $MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/customers.C.prepromote
$MDSDIR/conf/mdsdb/customers.C
mdsstart
Relevant network objects and Global Policy assignments are automatically
restored in the MDG.

Resetting Customer CMAs

For each Customer whose primary CMA was on the failed MDS, perform the
following:
1. Choose a CMA to be made primary. If the CMA is standby, first make it active
by opening SmartDashboard for it. SmartDashboard prompts you to change the
CMA’s status to Active. Close SmartDashboard.

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 Failure Recovery in High Availability Deployments

2. Promote the Customer’s active CMA from secondary to primary by setting its
host MDS’s environment to that CMA (with mdsenv <cma_name>), and then
running the following:
promote_util
3. In SmartDashboard for the promoted CMA, locate (with Where Used) and
remove all uses of the failed CMA, and the failed CMA itself. Save the policy.
4. Synchronize the Customer’s CMAs manually, if necessary, and re-assign Global
Policies and install policies on all gateways.
5. If the promoted CMA is using an HA CMA license, replace it with a regular CMA
license.

Restoring the High Availability Deployment

To restore your High Availability deployment:
1. Install a new secondary MDS
2. Mirror CMAs onto the new MDS as needed.

Recovery from Failure of the Only Manager MDS

If your deployment had only one manager MDS, and it has failed, your deployment
is no longer manageable from the MDG. Therefore, you need to completely recreate
the Provider-1 deployment.

Recreating the Provider-1 Deployment

For each Customer whose primary CMA was on the failed MDS, perform the
following:
1. Choose a CMA to be made primary. If the CMA is standby, first make it active
by opening SmartDashboard for it. SmartDashboard prompts you to change the
CMA’s status to Active. Close SmartDashboard.
2. Promote the Customer’s active CMA from secondary to primary by setting its
host MDS’s environment to that CMA (with mdsenv <cma_name>), and then
running the following:
promote_util
3. Install a new Primary manager MDS, and additional MDSs according to your
deployment’s needs.

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4. Migrate the Provider-1 environment from the old deployment to the new one
according to the instructions for a Gradual Upgrade in the Provider-1 Upgrade
Practices section of the Upgrading Provider-1 chapter in the Upgrade Guide.
For the migration process, as the source CMA for each Customer, use the
primary CMA (the original primary CMA, if remaining, or the one promoted in
step ).
As part of the migration process, in SmartDashboard for the new CMA, make
sure to locate (with Where Used) and to remove all uses of the old deployment’s
CMAs (except the primary CMA used for migration), and these CMA objects
themselves. Save the policy.
The Gradual Upgrade process includes migrating Global Policies. Afterwards,
remember to re-assign Global Policies and install policies on all gateways.
5. Mirror new secondary CMAs according to your needs.

218
Chapter 9
Logging in Provider-1
In This Chapter

Logging Customer Activity page 220

Exporting Logs page 224
Logging Configuration page 227

219
Logging Customer Activity

Logging Customer Activity

Logs are records of information that are generated when different events occur and
then stored for future reference. In Provider-1, logs are generated by a Customer’s
network gateways, CMAs and the MDS. The Security Policy that is installed on the
gateway governs the events which trigger logs originating from the Security
gateways. For more information about configuring logs see the Security
Management Administration Guide.
Logs can be stored locally on gateways, but a more common configuration is to
deploy a remote machine to handle log repository storage. The gateway sends logs
to a Log server (sometimes referred to as Logger), which collects and stores them.
In Provider-1 the Log server is by default the CMA.
It is recommended that you deploy dedicated Log servers under either of the
following circumstances:
• If heavy logging is expected.
• When the Container on which the CMA resides is expected to be heavily loaded.

220
 Logging Customer Activity

Figure 9-1 Log server collects gateway activity logs & stores them in the Customer’s
network

A Customer Log Module (CLM) can be deployed in to function as a Log server for a
specific Customer. The CLM is housed on an MDS Container. It is possible to set
up a CLM on any MDS Container in the system, as long as the MDS does not have
another CMA or CLM of the same Customer on it. Once a CLM is created for a
Customer, the Customer’s gateways send records to the CLM, which stores logs on
the MDS on which the CLM is housed.
By default, a Log server and/or a CLM receive logs from gateways of a specific
Customer. However, you can configure a Log server/CLM to receive logs from
multiple customers. For more information, refer to Check Point's SecureKnowledge
database.
A special MDS Container that hosts only CLMs, and is actually dedicated to
housing logs for multiple Customers, is called a Multi-Customer Log Module
(MLM). If you expect heavy logging, it is advisable and more cost effective in terms
of licensing to dedicate a separate server to deal solely with logs.

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 221

Logging Customer Activity

Figure 9-2 CLM stores gateway activity records on the MLM

Logging can be deployed for a single Customer by:

• Enabling local logging on the Customer’s network gateway. Refer to the Security
Management Administration Guide to find out when to use local logging.
• Logging data to the Customer’s CMA (the default setting).
• Logging to a Log server set up on a dedicated machine for the Customer.
• Logging to a Customer’s CLM, which is installed on a Container or MLM.
It is possible to have a combined logging setup, with the following two components:
• CLMs extracting information from the Provider-1 environment,
• a Log server in the Customer’s network receiving records.
In this case, logs are then maintained both in the Provider-1 environment and in
the Customer’s network environment.

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 Logging Customer Activity

Table 9-1 highlights the similarities and differences between CMAs, CLMs and Log
servers:

Table 9-1 CMAs vs. CLMs vs. Log servers

CMA CLM Log server

Function Manages the Security Collects logs from Collects logs from
Policy, the User and selected gateways selected gateways
Object Database for the
Customer's Check Point
and OPSEC gateways
Installed An MDS (Container) An MDS (Container A dedicated
on... or MLM) machine
Location Provider-1 Provider-1/ Customer Site
SiteManager-1
Max. No. 2 Unlimited Unlimited
per
Customer
Launches SmartDashboard SmartDashboard SmartDashboard
Application SmartUpdate (Read Only) (Read Only)
... SmartView Tracker SmartView Tracker SmartView Tracker
SmartView Monitor SmartView Monitor SmartView Monitor
SmartProvisioning

Note - Provider-1 supports Eventia Reporter Reports. An Eventia Reporter server is installed
on a separate machine and then configured in the Provider-1 environment.

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 223

Exporting Logs

Exporting Logs
There are several ways and formats in which a log file can be exported:

Table 9-2 Exporting Logs

Format Environment Export to... Event

simple text file Customer or file any time
Provider-1
database Customer or external Oracle manual one time
Provider-1 database event
database Provider-1 external Oracle daily event
database

In This Section

Log Export to Text page 224

Manual Log Export to Oracle Database page 224
Automatic Log Export to Oracle Database page 225
Log Forwarding page 226
Cross Domain Logging page 226

Log Export to Text

Export logs to a text file at any given time using SmartView Tracker. For more
information, see the SmartView Tracker documentation in the Security Management
Administration Guide.

Manual Log Export to Oracle Database

Export logs manually to an external Oracle Database at any given time.

224
 Exporting Logs

Automatic Log Export to Oracle Database

In This Section

Log Files page 225

Export Profiles page 225
Choosing Fields to Export page 226

You can export Check Point and OPSEC logs to Oracle commercial relational
databases. To do this, you must configure the MDS to support log exports (see
“Configuring an MDS to Enable Log Export” on page 230). Logs can automatically
be exported once a day at a scheduled time.
Logs exports can only be done on log files that are not currently open and Active.
The automatic log export will not take place in the following cases:
• The MDS, CMA or CLM is down at the scheduled log export time.
• The latest log file has not been closed and all previous logs were already
exported.

Log Files
For each CLM, an Active log file, the fw.log file, is created. Logged data is stored
to this file for a scheduled period or until it reaches a certain size limit, after which
the fw.log file is saved with a new extension, say fw.log.109, and a new file is
opened (this process is also known as log “switching”). Once a log file is closed, it
is possible to export the file, automatically or manually.

Export Profiles
Automatic log exports are performed according to a Log Export Profile. This profile
defines log export parameters, such as the schedule and the log fields to be
exported. Each CMA and CLM can be assigned a Log Export Profile. The same log
profile can be applied to a number of CMAs and CLMs that share the same logging
needs.
Logs exports are performed on log files that are not currently open. The file must
be inActive and not yet exported.

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 225

Exporting Logs

Choosing Fields to Export

As part of the Log Export Profile, a Provider-1 Superuser designates a list of log fields
to export. You can set Default fields to automatically be included in each new Log
Export Profile, or modify the fields selection as needed. If you need to define a new
profile that is similar to an existing Profile, you can duplicate an existing profile
and modify its properties as needed.

Log Forwarding
It is possible to use SmartView Tracker to forward a log file from one MLM to
another computer. For more information, see the SmartView Tracker documentation
in the Security Management Administration Guide.

Cross Domain Logging

By default, each security gateway managed by a Provider-1 CMA can send its logs
either to the CMA (primary or secondary) or to a Log server (a physical machine or
a CLM hosted on an MLM). When using Log servers or CLMs, the security gateways
can send logs only to Log servers defined in the same management domain (i.e.,
belonging to the same Provider-1 Customer).
If required, a manual workaround can allow cross-domain (cross-Customer) logging.
The workaround is recommended in very limited cases, as it has scalability
restrictions, and its setup requires manual intervention in the SIC (Secure Internal
Communications) authentication process.
The procedure for setting this up is detailed in SecureKnowledge; see SK12882.

226
 Logging Configuration

Logging Configuration
The following section outlines the configuration issues that are involved with
logging in Provider-1.

In This Section

Setting Up Logging page 227

Working with CLMs page 228
Setting up Customer Gateway to Send Logs to the CLM page 229
Synchronizing the CLM Database with the CMA Database page 230
Configuring an MDS to Enable Log Export page 230
Configuring Log Export Profiles page 230
Choosing Log Export Fields page 231
Log Export Troubleshooting page 232
Using Eventia Reporter page 233

Setting Up Logging
1. To create an MLM, follow the same procedure that is done for creating a
Container. See Chapter 3, “Provisioning Provider-1”.
2. Using the MDG, create one or more CLMs per customer. Each must be on a
different MDS.
Remember to enable communication between the Provider-1 network and the
customer's gateways. Add appropriate rules permitting the CLMs to
communicate from the Provider-1 network with the customer's gateways, and
install the policy on the relevant gateways.
3. Setup each relevant gateway to the send its logs to the new CLM.
4. Synchronize the new CLM database with the CMA’s database using the
"install-database" operation. This must be done so that logs are properly
processed. See “Synchronizing the CLM Database with the CMA Database” on
page 230”
5. Configure the MDS for the log exporting procedure. See “Configuring an MDS to
Enable Log Export” on page 230

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 227

Logging Configuration

6. If you want to enable automatic log exporting, create a Log Export Profile and
assign it to the customer’s CLMs and CMAs. See “Configuring Log Export
Profiles” on page 230, and “Choosing Log Export Fields” on page 231.
If you experience any difficulty, consult the Troubleshooting section. See “Log
Export Troubleshooting” on page 232

Working with CLMs

In This Section

Add a CLM page 228

Starting or stopping a CLM page 229
Deleting a CLM page 229

Add a CLM
CLMs can be added through the MDG. Note the following:
• A Customer must have at least one CMA before a CLM can be added to it.
• Each CLM created for the same customer must be deployed on a different
MDS.
• A Customer's CLM and CMA cannot be installed on the same MDS.
To add the new CLM:
1. In the MDG Customer View, select a customer, then select Add Customer Log
Module from the Manage menu, or right-click the Customer and select Add
Customer Log Module.
2. You are required to enter values for the displayed fields.
• Enter a name for the CLM.
• Select the Container MDS on which this CLM will be maintained.
3. Assign a virtual IP address to the CLM. Configuration details for creating Virtual
IPs and installing licensing are similar to those of the CMA, see “Planning the
Provider-1 Environment” on page 59.
4. Next, fill in the license information, if required.

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 Logging Configuration

Starting or stopping a CLM

To start or stop a CLM from the MDG General View, proceed as follows:
1. Select the CLM.
2. Do one of the following:
• Choose Manage > Start Customer Management/Start Customer Log Module or
Stop Customer Management/Stop Customer Log Module as appropriate, or
• select Start or Stop from the toolbar.
The run status of the CLM will change accordingly, and the change will be
reflected in the Status column.
An alternative way to start or stop a CLM is from the MDS command line, by using
the mdsstart_customer and mdsstop_customer commands.

Deleting a CLM
Before deleting a CLM, make sure to stop it. Select it in the MDG Customer
Contents view and then choose the delete tool in the menu bar, or Manage > Delete,
or right-click the CLM and select Delete Customer Management Add-on/Delete
Customer Log Module (respectively) from the right-click menu.

Setting up Customer Gateway to Send Logs to the

CLM
Logs are not automatically forwarded to new CLMs. You must manually setup each
relevant gateway to send its logs to the new CLM, as follows:
1. Launch SmartDashboard for the Customer’s CMA and double-click the gateway
object to display its Check Point Gateway window.
2. Display the Additional Logging page (under Logs and Masters) and check Forward
log files to Security Management Server. The Security Management Servers
drop-down list is enabled.
3. Select the new CLM from the Security Management Servers drop-down list and
click OK.

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 229

Logging Configuration

Synchronizing the CLM Database with the CMA

Database
To process logs properly, the CLM database should be synchronized with the CMA
database. This is done as follows:
1. In SmartDashboard, select Policy > Install Database. The Install Database window
is displayed.
2. Under Install Database on, check the CLM you have created and click OK. The
Install Users Database status window is displayed. From this window you can
follow the progress of the installation.

Configuring an MDS to Enable Log Export

1. Stop the MDS processes.
2. Install and configure the Oracle Client.
3. Define the environment variable ORACLE_HOME according to the installation.
4. Add $ORACLE_HOME/lib to the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
5. Add $ORACLE_HOME/bin to the $PATH.
6. Restart the MDS processes.

Configuring Log Export Profiles

The first time you perform a Log Export, a log field table is created in the external
database. The table is structured according to the log fields settings defined in the
Log Export Profile. The table’s naming convention is <CMA Name>_<Customer
Name>_CPLogs. For example, for CMA1 of Customer1, the table will be named
CMA1_Customer1_CPLogs.
1. Select Manage > Log Export > Profiles... from the menu.
2. To view the CMAs and CLMs assigned a selected profile, click Show Assigned.
To remove a specific CMA or CLM, click Remove.
3. In the General tab, specify basic export parameters, such as the Oracle server
receiving the logs, the name and password of the administrator managing that
Oracle server, the schedule etc.
4. In the Log Fields tab, select the fields to be exported. Some fields are checked
by default. Change these settings as needed.

230
 Logging Configuration

If you modify this list (for example, changing a field’s length), once the data is
exported, the list details will become incompatible with the target table and
future Log Exports will fail. To avoid this, rename the current table.
Next time you perform a Log Export, the process will create a new table using
the original table’s name.
5. In the Assign tab, specify which CMAs and CLMs are assigned this profile.
6. To find the profile assigned to a specific CMA or CLM, click Find in the Log
Export Profiles window. The window will either display the Log Export Profile's
name, or indicate that no profile has been assigned.

Choosing Log Export Fields

Use the Log Export Fields window to determine which log fields are exported. You
can add, edit and delete fields as needed. Default fields can be selected in this
window, to be automatically included in each new Log Export Profile.
Be aware that changing or removing log export fields affects all profiles using these
fields.
Proceed as follows:
1. Select Manage > Log Export > Fields... from the menu.
2. Use the Add, Edit and Delete buttons to create a list of fields according to the
logging data you want to export.
The Name of the field is as it appears in the Log File. The Exported Name is the
name you give to the field you want to appear in the exported Oracle table. The
Exported Name should follow Oracle naming restrictions.
Enter a Type, and Length. Check Export by default to have a field selected by
default for all new Log Export Profiles.
3. These select fields to automatically include in each new Log Export Profile,
check Export by default in the Add Log Export Field window (or double-click an
existing field). You can later modify this selection as needed.

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 231

Logging Configuration

Log Export Troubleshooting

Log Export troubleshooting suggestions are presented below:

Table 9-3 Log Export Troubleshooting

Error Message What to do

No connection with Verify the following:
CMA. • The CMA is running properly.
• The CMA has a valid license.
Configuration file not Update the Log Export Profile using the MDG.
found.
No data to export. Run two commands:
• mdsenv <cmaname>
• fw lslogs -e.
Failed to load dll. The external database’s client is not configured
properly.
Proceed as follows:
1. Stop the MDS.
2. Prepare your system for the Log Export process
(see “Configuring an MDS to Enable Log Export”
on page 230).
3. Start the MDS.
Failed to connect to the Verify the following:
external database. • The external database is accessible and running
properly.
• The external database's client is configured
correctly.
• The administrator name and password specified
in the Log Export Profile can indeed be used to
login to the database.
• The Oracle Client and the MDG use the same
Oracle server name.

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 Logging Configuration

Table 9-3 Log Export Troubleshooting

Failed to create table in Verify the following:

database. • The administrator has been assigned the
appropriate permissions.
• The exported log field names conform to the
external database's naming conventions.
Failed to read Check Verify the following:
Point logs. • The CMA is running properly.
• The CMA has a valid license.
Failed to write to Verify that the external database's table structure
external database. (e.g. the log field names and the columns' width)
conforms to its definition in the Log Fields tab of the
Log Export Profile window.
If the two are incompatible, rename the table.

Using Eventia Reporter

Eventia Reporter can now produce both Log Based reports and Express reports for
gateways managed by Provider-1 CMAs. Use Eventia Reporter to create selected
reports for specified customers and gateways. Reports can be scheduled at any
time, and can be sent by email or uploaded to an FTP site. Eventia Reporter needs
to be properly configured to work with Provider-1, see the “Getting Started” chapter
of the Eventia Reporter Administration Guide for further details.

Chapter 9 Logging in Provider-1 233

Logging Configuration

234
Chapter 10
Monitoring in Provider-1
In This Chapter

Overview page 236

Monitoring Components in the Provider-1 System page 237
Checking the Status of Components in the System page 239
Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features page 243
Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components page 252

235
Overview

Overview
Provider-1’s MDG is designed to support daily monitoring and maintenance
activities. It has a variety of MDG views that can be used by administrators to
confirm that the system is running smoothly and that management activities are
being successfully performed.
By default, management activities receive system confirmation within five minutes.
Once confirmation has been received, Administrators can use status indicators to
determine if management activities were performed successfully. The following
status checks can be executed:

Table 10-1 What can be checked?

Components Status Check
Gateways Are they responding?
CMAs/CLMs Are they started or stopped?
High Availability Which MDS or CMA is Active?
Which MDS or CMA is Standby?
Global Policies Which Global Policies are available
When were the Global Policies assigned?
Was the Global Policy Assign operation a success?
Local Policies Which Policy is installed on the gateway?
Global VPN Communities What Global VPN Communities are available?
Are the peer Policies updated?
Administrators Which Administrators are currently logged on?
GUI Clients Which GUI Clients are in use?

If status check reveal that management activities were not successful, you can use
the MDG views such as the Critical Notification window to yield further information
for troubleshooting purposes.
It is also possible to use the SmartView Console clients (such as SmartView Monitor
and SmartView Tracker) for monitoring, tracking and troubleshooting purposes.

236
 Monitoring Components in the Provider-1 System

Monitoring Components in the Provider-1

System
The MDG’s General View provides a Customer Contents mode which lets you see at a
glance all the components of the system, including Customers, CMAs and their
network gateways.
Figure 10-1 General View — Customer Contents mode

The Customer Contents mode is divided into 2 sections or panes. The far right pane
gives a statistical breakdown, or summary of the components in the system
depending on what you have selected in the left pane.
For example, if you select the Provider-1 root, a summary of Provider-1 root
Customer-related statistics is displayed: the number of Customers, CMAs, gateways,
Administrators and GUI Clients in the system. Another example, if you select a
Customer in the left pane, Customer Properties are displayed, including:
user-defined free field information (e.g. Contact Person), entered in the Properties
tab of the Customer Configuration window.

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 237

Monitoring Components in the Provider-1 System

The left pane provides a view of all the Customers in the system, their CMAs and
gateways. Information displayed in this pane includes:
• The MDS which contains the CMA and CLM.
• The IP addresses of all the components in the system
• Whether the component is Active or Standby (for High Availability).
• Whether the component has been enabled for global use, in this case the global
name is displayed.

Exporting the List Pane’s Information to an External

File
You can save List Pane information to an external file (such as an Excel sheet) for
future examination by selecting Manage > Export to File.

Working with the List Pane

You can change the way that the Network Objects mode List Pane looks in order to
focus on specific components or networks in the system.

Filtering
To focus on a specific group of objects that share a certain common denominator
(such as their IP address range, Customer name or the MDS they are installed on),
filter any of the List pane's columns by right-clicking the column heading and
selecting Column Filter... from the displayed menu. Additionally:
• To view existing filters, select View > Filter Details.
• To clear all filters, select View > Clear All.

Showing and Hiding Selected List Pane Columns

• You can set the List pane to display only the columns you are interested in and
hide all others. To hide a specific column, right-click its header and choose
Hide Column from the menu. To hide or show more than one column at a time,
select View > Show/Hide Columns.

238
 Checking the Status of Components in the System

Checking the Status of Components in the

System
The most basic monitoring activity is to check that all components in the system
(Security Gateways, UTM-1 Edge appliances, CLMs, CMAs, MDSs) are up and
running. This can be done via the MDG’s General View in the Network Objects mode.
In this mode, administrators can examine how system components are functioning.
Figure 10-2 General View - Network Objects mode

The Network Objects mode shows general and status information for all components
in the system. This information is displayed in the upper part of the window, or the
List pane.

In the Network Objects mode List Pane you can right-click or double-click on a
component and execute a command. For example, you can start, stop, configure or
update a selected component. Additionally you can launch any of the SmartView
Console clients and take advantage of their facilities. For example, if a Customer’s
gateway is behaving sluggishly, launch SmartView Monitor and/or SmartView
Tracker from the said gateway to check what activities are taking place at the
gateway so as to determine the root of the sluggishness.

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 239

Checking the Status of Components in the System

Status symbols in the List pane include:

Table 10-2 Statuses Available per Object

Status Applies to... Description

All objects Displayed from the time the MDG starts
running until the time the first status is
received. This takes no more than 30
seconds.
MDS/CMA/CLM The object has been started.

MDS/CMA/CLM The object has been stopped.

MDS The object has been disconnected.

Gateway An application is installed on this gateway

and is responding to status update requests
from the Security Management Server.
Gateway At least one of the applications installed on
this gateway is not running properly.
Gateway There is either no application installed on
this gateway, or the application is installed,
but cannot be reached.
Gateway A status has been received from the server,
but the system does not recognize it.
N/A Clusters Cluster objects report the status N/A (Not
Available). However the status of each
member of the cluster is displayed.

240
 Checking the Status of Components in the System

Viewing Status Details

To get more details about a network component, select it in and choose Get Status
Details... from the Manage menu. The Status Details window provides hardware,
policy and/or run status details according to the selected object.Status details
include:

Table 10-3 Status Details Available per Object Type

Object Status Details Available
MDS • Version
• Operating System
• CPU
• Memory
• Disk
Gateway • Policy name and installation time
• Interface table
• Encryption and description
• Virtual and real memory
• CPU
• Disk
Application • Run status
• Policy name

Locating Components with Problems

The Critical Notifications Pane; which is the lower pane in the Network Objects
mode, focuses on components which need critical attention. If a component stops
or disconnects, this is displayed in the Critical Notifications pane.
The following types of statuses appear in the Critical Notifications Pane:

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 241

Checking the Status of Components in the System

Table 10-4 Statuses in the Critical Notifications Pane

Table 10-5

Status Applies to... Description

MDS/CMA/CLM The object has been stopped.

MDS The object has been disconnected.

Gateway At least one of the applications

installed on this gateway is not
running properly.
Gateway There is either no application installed
on this gateway, or the application is
installed, but cannot be reached.

For each object, the name, status and time of status update is displayed.

242
 Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Monitoring Issues for Different Components

and Features
In this section you will find specific information about different Provider-1
elements and the status issues that are raised for each one individually.

In This Section

MDS page 243

Global Policies page 245
Customer Policies page 246
Gateway Policies page 246
High Availability page 247
Global VPN Communities page 248
Administrators page 249
GUI Clients page 250

MDS
MDSs are managed via their own special view, MDG’s General View - MDS Contents
mode, for administrator convenience. Since MDSs are so vital to smooth Provider-1
operations, only the Provider-1 Superuser administrator has the ability to view and
manage the MDS Contents mode. This mode allows the Provider-1 Superuser
administrator to perform MDS management activities and check all MDS statuses
at a glance.

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 243

Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Figure 10-3 General View — MDS Contents mode

However, non Provider-1 Superuser administrators can view the status of MDSs in
the MDG’s General View - Network Objects mode. This view displays all system
components and how they are functioning.
For a granular view of MDS activity, the Provider-1 Superuser administrator can
launch SmartView Tracker in Audit mode. In SmartView Tracker you can see:
• the management activity logs generated by the administrator
• the time the log was generated
• the GUI Client source
• the administrator performing the actions, and changes to network objects.
The Provider-1 Superuser administrator can also start, stop, add or delete an MDS.

244
 Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Global Policies
Customer network systems operate according to the behavior specified in their
Security and Global Policy rules. To see how Global Policies have been applied to
Customers in the Provider-1 system, use the Global Policies View - Security Policies
mode. This mode displays:
• the Global Policies in the system,
• the Customers and CMAs that are assigned to these policies,
• the time when the assignment took place,
• the last time that the global policy was modified,
• the status of the assignment operation (whether or not it was successful).
Figure 10-4 Global Policies View - Security Policies mode

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 245

Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Customer Policies
Checking a CMA’s Policy
A CMA’s policy may or may not contain global rules, depending on whether a global
policy was assigned to the Customer. Use the Global Policies View - Security Policies
mode to check:
• if a Customer’s CMA has been assigned a global policy,
• which Global Policy was assigned,
• the time of the assignment,
• the time that the Global Policy was last changed,
• whether the assignment operation was successful.
You can also use the MDG’s General View - Network Objects mode to see which
Customer policy is assigned to a CMA.

Gateway Policies
Checking a Gateway’s Current Policy
To see which policy is installed on a specific gateway, you can use the General View
- Network Objects mode. For each gateway the following information is displayed:
• the Policy Name,
• the Gateway Local Installation Time,
• the local date and time when the policy was installed.
If there are problems with the gateway, they will be displayed in the Critical
Notifications Pane, which focuses on components that need attention.

246
 Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

High Availability
Provider-1 implements High Availability on the following levels:
• The gateway level.
• The CMA level - multiple CMAs are supported, as well as an optional Security
Management Backup server.
• The MDS level.
CMA and MDS High Availability are managed through the MDG’s High Availability
View. The administrator can do all management activities relating to MDS High
Availability through this view, and examine the status of these actions.
In the High Availability - MDS Contents mode, the following information is displayed:
• MDSs Active/Standby (login) status,
• The Sync Status. This status displays synchronization statuses for MDSs and
CMAs. Every synchronization takes a certain amount of time to update the
status. The default is 5 minutes. Statuses are as follows:
• Unknown, no information has been received about this CMA synchronization
status.
• Never synced, this CMA has never been synchronized with the other CMA.
• Synchronized, this CMA is synchronized with the other CMA.
• Lagging, the data of this CMA is less updated than the data of the other
CMA.
• Advanced, the data of this CMA is more updated than the data of the other
CMA.
• Collision, the data of this CMA conflicts with the data of the other CMA.

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Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Global VPN Communities

The Global Policies - VPN Communities mode is dedicated to Global VPN
Communities. This view shows which Global VPN Communities exist in the system.
Figure 10-5 Global Policies View - VPN Communities mode

After the Global VPN Communities are defined in the Global SmartDashboard, the
Global Policies View - VPN Communities mode displays the configuration update
status for each community, and the Customers and gateways that participate in the
community.

248
 Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Administrators
To view all the administrators that have been created in the system, and the
Customers for which they are responsible for, use the Administrators View -
Customers per Administrator mode.
Figure 10-6 Administrators View - Customers per Administrator

The Administrators View allows you to:

• Add, edit and delete an Administrator.
• Specify and edit the Administrator's password.
• Specify and edit the Administrator's Provider-1 permissions.
• Specify and edit the Administrator's Customer permissions (for various Check
Point applications).
• Assign or remove an Administrator from managing a Customer's network.
Alternatively, you can view the system by looking at a list of Customers, and which
Administrators are assigned to each of them, through the Administrators View -
Administrators per Customers mode.

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 249

Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Connected Administrators
To see which administrators are Active in the system at any time, use the Connected
Administrators View. This view allows you determine if any questionable activity has
taken place. This view also allows the Provider-1 Superuser to use mouse’s
right-click and regular menus to delete an administrator’s connection.
Figure 10-7 Connected Administrators View

GUI Clients
To see which GUI Clients have been assigned for use, and to which MDSs or
Customer environments they are connected, use the GUI Clients View. In this view
information is displayed by default in a Customer per GUI Client hierarchy, in other
words where you can see the GUI Clients and the Customers assigned to each. You
can manage these entities by right-clicking on the GUI Client and selecting to
assign Customers to it. This view can be toggled so that the hierarchy is reversed,
in other words where you can see GUI Clients per Customer. Similarly, by
right-clicking on a Customer you can select to assign GUI Clients to it.

250
 Monitoring Issues for Different Components and Features

Figure 10-8 GUI Clients window - Customers per GUI Client

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 251

Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components

Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1

Components
In This Section

Log Tracking page 252

Tracking Logs using SmartView Tracker page 252
Real-Time Network Monitoring with SmartView Monitor page 253
Eventia Reporter Reports page 255

Log Tracking
The Provider-1 system uses either CMAs or CLMs to gather information about
Customer gateways' activities. CMAs and CLMs can gather detailed log information
from Security Gateways, UTM-1 Edge appliances, and many OPSEC-certified
security applications. This information can then be accessed using the
SmartConsole Clients.

Tracking Logs using SmartView Tracker

All administrator activity using SmartConsole Client applications, such as
SmartDashboard, is logged in audit logs. These logs can be monitored using
SmartView Tracker, which can dramatically reduce the time needed to troubleshoot
configuration errors.
The graphical SmartView Tracker uses the logging data on the server to provide
real-time visual tracking, monitoring, and accounting information for all
connections including VPN remote user sessions. Administrators can perform
searches or filter log records to quickly locate and track events of interest. To use
SmartView Tracker, in the MDG, select a CMA, then right click and choose Launch
Application > SmartView Tracker.

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 Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components

Figure 10-9 SmartView Tracker

If there is an attack or other suspicious network activity, administrators can use

SmartView Tracker to temporarily or permanently terminate connections from
specific IP addresses. For more information about using SmartView Tracker, see the
Security Management Administration Guide.

Real-Time Network Monitoring with SmartView

Monitor
SmartView Monitor is an easy-to-use monitoring tool that allows you to inspect
network traffic and connectivity. In addition, it provides real-time information about
the performance and security state of both gateway and VPN operations.

Monitoring the Status of a CMA

To use SmartView Monitor, select a CMA from any view, then right click and choose
Launch Application > SmartView Monitor.

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 253

Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components

Figure 10-10SmartView Monitor

If your network experiences problems such as sluggishness, loss of data or security

related problems, it is important to immediately identify these phenomena.
SmartView Monitor provides a real-time monitoring tool designed to help
administrators find the cause of these problems, when and why they occur, and
how to fix them. Use SmartView Monitor to examine traffic, requested services, and
network load in the customer network. For more information, see the SmartView
Monitor Administration Guide.

Check Point System Counters

SmartView Monitor uses Check Point System Counters to collect information about
the status, activities, hardware and software usage of different Check Point
products in real time. System Counters are used to plot graphs and to view reports
of current or archived data collected by Counter Logs.

Traffic Flow and Virtual Link Monitoring

Traffic flow can be monitored per service or network object. SmartView Monitor also
enables monitoring based on a variety of parameters, for example the QoS Policy
rules installed on an interface, etc. Compliance to a Service Level Agreement (SLA)

254
 Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components

can be monitored, and alerts can be generated. Traffic can be monitored between
two Check Point Security Gateways or two QoS gateways for real time analysis of
bandwidth and latency.

Blocking Suspicious Connections

Suspicious Activity rules are security rules that enable the administrator to
instantly block suspicious connections not restricted by the currently enforced
Security Policy.

Using Thresholds
SmartView Monitor can be used to configure predefined actions that are triggered
when certain changes in status occur. For instance, a rule can be defined to send
an email to a certain address if the load on a gateway’s CPU surpasses a threshold
that you set.
By default the engine responsible for triggering the events is disabled for Provider-1
CMAs, but it can be enabled per CMA by running the following commands from the
root shell of the MDS machine:
1. Change to the CMA’s environment with the command mdsenv <CMA Name>
2. cpstat_monitor &
After running this command, thresholds are monitored until the CMA is stopped.
To permanently enable this functionality for a specific CMA, you must modify the
value of the registry key that sets whether the cpstat_monitor process auto-starts
whenever the CMA is started. You can do so by running the following command
from the CMA’s environment:
cpprod_util CPPROD_SetValue PROVIDER-1 RunCpstatMonitor 1 1 1
Note - To revert to the registry’s original setting, enter the following on the MDS in the
CMA’s environment:

cpprod_util CPPROD_SetValue PROVIDER-1 RunCpstatMonitor 1 0 1

Eventia Reporter Reports

The Eventia Reporter delivers a user-friendly solution for auditing traffic and
generating detailed or summarized reports in the format of your choice (list, vertical
bar, pie chart etc.) for events logged by CMA-managed gateways that are running
SmartView Monitor. Eventia Reporter produces reports for these gateways.

Chapter 10 Monitoring in Provider-1 255

Using SmartConsole to Monitor Provider-1 Components

See the Eventia Reporter Administration Guide to understand how to generate

Eventia Reports.

256
Chapter 11
Architecture and Processes
In This Chapter

Packages in MDS Installation page 258

MDS File System page 259
Processes page 262
MDS Configuration Databases page 266
Connectivity Between Different Processes page 268
Issues Relating to Different Platforms page 271

257
Packages in MDS Installation

Packages in MDS Installation

Provider-1 Multi-Domain Server installation consists of the following packages:

Table 11-1 Common MDS Packages

Package Description
CPCON62CMP-R70 Check Point Connectra CM Compatibility Package
CPEdgecmp-R70 Check Point UTM-1 Edge Compatibility Package
CPPIconnectra-R70 Check Point Connectra Plug-in
CPmds-R70 Check Point Multi-Domain Server
CPsuite-R70 Check Point Security Gateway
CPvsxngxcmp-R70 Check Point Power VSX

On Linux and SecurePlatform, package names contain the suffix “-00”. For
example, the full name of CPsuite-70 package for these platforms is
CPsuite-R70-00.
All of these packages have pre-defined dependencies between them. Under no
circumstances should these packages be manually removed.

Warning - Manually removing a package has negative implications on the Multi-Domain

Server.

258
 MDS File System

MDS File System

In This Section

MDS Directories on /opt and /var File Systems page 259

Structure of CMA Directory Trees page 260
Check Point Registry page 261
Automatic Start of MDS Processes, Files in /etc/rc3.d, /etc/init.d page 261

MDS Directories on /opt and /var File Systems

MDS Installation creates subdirectories under /opt and /var/opt directories.
Following is the list of subdirectories created under /opt:

Table 11-2 Subdirectories under /opt

Subdirectory Description
CPInstLog Contains installation and upgrade log files.
CPsuite-R70 Contains the installation of the CPsuite-R70 package.
CPshrd-R70 Contains information from the CPsuite-R70 package.
CPshared Exists for compatibility with previous versions.
CPEdgecmp Contains the installation of the CPEdgecmp package.
CPngcmp-R70 Contains the installation of the CPngcmp-R70 package.
CPmds-R70 Contains the installation of the CPmds-R70 package.

Following is the list of subdirectories created under /var/opt:

Table 11-3 Subdirectories under /var/opt

Subdirectory Description
CPsuite-R70 Contains configuration, state and log files for Check Point
Security Gateway management.
CPshrd-R70 Contains the configuration of Check Point SVN Foundation, a
well as the registry files.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 259

MDS File System

Table 11-3 Subdirectories under /var/opt

Subdirectory Description
CPEdgecmp-R70 Contains configuration files for the CPEdgecmp package.
CPngcmp-R70 Contains configuration files for the CPngcmp-R70 package.
CPmds-R70 Contains configuration of the Multi-Domain server, MDS-level
logs and configuration/state/log files of Customer databases.

Structure of CMA Directory Trees

On Multi-Domain Container server, the CMA directories can be found under
/var/opt/CPmds-R70/customers directory. For each CMA residing on the server, there is
a separate directory under this path. Each CMA directory contains the following
subdirectories:

Table 11-4 CMA Subdirectories

Subdirectory Description
CPsuite-R70 Contains the configuration, state and log files of this Customer,
as well as links to the shared binaries and library files.
CPshrd-R70 Contains the configuration for the SVN Foundation for the
Customer owning this CMA, as well as links to shared binaries
and library files.
CPEdgecmp Contains configuration files of the CPEdgecmp package for the
Customer owning this CMA, as well as links to shared binaries
and library files.
CPngcmp-R70 Contains configuration files of the CPngcmp-R70 package for the
Customer owning this CMA, as well as links to shared binaries
and library files.

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 MDS File System

Check Point Registry

Information related to the installation and versioning issues of different
components that is requested by different Check Point processes, is centrally
stored in a registry file.
The registry is stored in $CPDIR/registry/HKLM_registry.data (where the value of
CPDIR environment variable is different whether you are in the MDS environment or
whether you are in different CMA environments. This means that there are separate
registry files for the MDS and for the CMAs.

Automatic Start of MDS Processes, Files in

/etc/rc3.d, /etc/init.d
The script for the automatic start of MDS processes upon boot can be found in
/etc/init.d. The name of the file is firewall1. A link to this file appears in
/etc/rc3.d directory under the name S95firewall1.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 261

Processes

Processes
In This Section

Environment Variables page 262

MDS Level Processes page 264
CMA Level Processes page 265

Environment Variables
Different Multi-Domain server processes require standard environment variables to
be defined. The variables have the following functionality, they:
• Point to the installation directories of different components.
• Contain management IP addresses.
• Hold data important for correct initialization and operation of the processes.
Additionally, specific environment variables control certain parameters of different
functions of Multi-Domain server.
MDS installation contains shell scripts for C-Shell and for Bourne Shell, that define
the necessary environment variables:
• The C-Shell version is /opt/CPshrd-R70/tmp/.CPprofile.csh
• The Bourne Shell version is /opt/CPshrd-R70/tmp/.CPprofile.sh
Sourcing these files (or in other words, using “source” command in C-Shell or “.”
command in Bourne Shell) will define the environment necessary for the MDS
processes to run.

262
 Processes

Standard Check Point Environment Variables

Table 11-5 Standard Check Point Environment Variables
Variable Description
FWDIR Location of Check Point Security Gateway
binary/configuration/library files.
• In the MDS environment, this environment variable is
equal to MDSDIR
• In CMA environment, it contains
/opt/CPmds-R70/customers/<CMA Name>/CPsuite-R70/fw1
CPDIR Location of Check Point SVN Foundation
binary/configuration/library files. It points to different
directories in MDS and CMA environments.
MDSDIR Location of the MDS installation. In Provider-1 the path is
/opt/CPmds-R70
SUROOT Points to the location of SmartUpdate packages

Parameters/Thresholds for Different MDS functions

Logging Cache Size
By default, the CMA reserves 1MB memory for log caching on the Management. In
very intensive logging systems it is possible to raise the cache size. This requires
more memory, but boosts the performance. To change the cache size, set:
LOGDB_CACHE_SIZE variable to the desired size in Kilobytes. For example, to set the
cache to 4MB enter:
setenv LOGDB_CACHE_SIZE 4096 (in C-Shell syntax)
Additional environment variables controlling such mechanism as statuses collection
mechanism (like MSP_SPACING_REG_CMAS_FOR_STATUSES) or connection retries (like
MSP_RETRY_INTERVAL) are described later in this chapter.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 263

Processes

MDS Level Processes

Each MDS Level process has one instance on every MDS/MLM machine, when the
MDS/MLM server is running. The following processes run on the MDS level:

Table 11-6 MDS Level Processes

Process Description
cpd SVN Foundation infrastructure process.
cpca The Certificate Authority manager process. This process
doesn’t run on Log Managers or Container MDSs.
fwd Audit Log server process.
fwm mds MDS main process.

For proper operation of the Multi-Domain server all four processes must be running,
unless dealing with configurations where cpca shouldn’t be running.

264
 Processes

CMA Level Processes

Each one of these processes has a separate instance for every running CMA. The
following processes run on the CMA level:

Table 11-7 MDS Level Processes

Process Description
cpd SVN Foundation infrastructure process.
cpca The Certificate Authority manager process. This process
doesn’t run on Log Managers and Container MDSs.
fwd Log server process.
fwm Security Management server main process.
status_proxy Status collection of SmartLSM Security Gateways. This
process runs only on CMAs that were enabled for Large Scale
Management.
sms Manages communication (status collection, logs collection,
policy update, configuration update) with UTM-1 Edge
gateways. This process runs only on CMAs that manage
UTM-1 Edge devices.

For proper operation of the CMA, at least cpd, cpca, fwd and fwm must be running,
unless dealing with configurations where cpca shouldn’t be running. Other
processes are required only for CMAs using specific functionality for which these
processes are responsible.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 265

MDS Configuration Databases

MDS Configuration Databases

The Multi-Domain Server environment contains a number of configuration
databases, as opposed to a single Security Management server, that contains only
one.
Each Multi-Domain Server contains:
• one Global Database (located in /var/opt/CPmds-R70/conf directory)
• one MDS Database (located in /var/opt/CPmds-R70/conf/mdsdb directory)
• a number of CMA databases (on Multi-Domain Server Containers only).
Each CMA database is located in /var/opt/CPmds-R70/customers/<CMA
Name>/CPsuite-R70/fw1/conf directory.

In This Section

Global Policy Database page 266

MDS Database page 266
MDS Connection to CMAs page 268

Global Policy Database

This database contains the definitions of global objects and global Security
Policies. It can be viewed and edited using Global SmartDashboard client.
When the Assign Global Policy operation is invoked, the objects and policies defined
in Global Policy database are copied to CMA databases, where they can be seen
and used by SmartDashboard. These objects are editable only from Global
SmartDashboard, CMA databases will contain read-only copies.

MDS Database
This database contains two kinds of objects:
• MDS-level management objects – such as like administrators, customers, MDSs
and CMAs. These objects are defined either using the Multi-Domain GUI or the
MDS Command Line utilities.

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 MDS Configuration Databases

• CMA-level Check Point objects – in order to display all customers’ network

objects in Multi-Domain GUI, these are centrally collected in MDS Database.
Each time the object is updated in SmartDashboard, the changes are
automatically updated in MDS Database as well.

CMA Database
This database contains:
• Definitions of objects and policies created and edited by SmartDashboard,
when connecting to the CMA.
• Global Objects (in read-only mode) copied by the Assign Global Policy operation.
• SmartLSM Security Gateways definitions made by SmartProvisioning.
Different CMAs residing on the same MDS have different separate databases.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 267

Connectivity Between Different Processes

Connectivity Between Different Processes

In This Section

MDS Connection to CMAs page 268

Status Collection page 269
Collection of Changes in Objects page 269
Connection Between MDSs page 270
Large Scale Management Processes page 270
UTM-1 Edge Processes page 270
Reporting Server Processes page 270
High Availability Scenarios page 271

MDS Connection to CMAs

The main MDS process (fwm mds) looks for CMAs which are up and can be reached,
but with which it has no CPMI connections. This connection is used for collecting
statuses on the CMA and its gateways, and for receiving changes in objects that are
relevant to the MDS/MDG system.
Normally, a special task wakes up every 120 seconds and searches for “CMA
connection candidates”. If the task has found connection candidates previously,
then by default it wakes up after only 90 seconds. This shorter interval boosts
CMAs connections upon MDS startup.
You can change the values of the default intervals:
• To change the CMA connection candidates search interval, set the
MSP_RETRY_INTERVAL variable to the desired number of seconds.
• To change the status collection interval, set the MSP_RETRY_INIT_INTERVAL
variable to the desired number of seconds.

Note - Changing these values (especially MSP_RETRY_INIT_INTERVAL) makes the

MDS-CMA connections faster during MDS startup, but may overload the connection if the
value is set too low.

By default this task attempts to reconnect the MDS to no more than five CMAs per
iteration. So, a system with 50 CMAs requires 10 iteration (of 90 seconds each, by
default), so connecting to all the CMAs could take up to 15 minutes.

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 Connectivity Between Different Processes

To change the maximum number of CMAs to which the MDS can connect per cycle,
set the MSP_RETRY_INIT_INTERVAL variable to the desired value.

Note - Raising this value makes the MDS connect to all CMAs faster during startup, but
may overload if it is set too low.

Status Collection
Status collection begins when an MDG connects to a Manager. The MDS sends all
CMAs a request to start collecting statuses. The MDS contacts the CMAs one by
one, spacing these requests by one second, thus preventing the MDS load from
peaking when multiple statuses arrive. You can change this default spacing and set
the required spacing in milliseconds, with the environment variable
MSP_SPACING_REG_CMAS_FOR_STATUSES.

Changing the Status Collection Cycle

The default status collection cycle takes 300 seconds, i.e. each system entity is
monitored once every 5 minutes. This value can be changed per MDS in the MDG
as follows:
1. In the General View, display the MDS Contents Mode. Choose and double click
an MDS. The Configure Multi Domain Server - General window opens.
2. Under Status Checking Interval, specify the desired number of seconds in the
Set to field (this value is saved in the $MDSDIR/tmp/status_interval.dat file).
Once the Status Checking Interval is set in the MDG, it is effective immediately,
with no need to restart the MDS. The higher you raise this value, the longer it takes
to detect a change in a gateway’s status.

Collection of Changes in Objects

Check Point objects defined in CMA databases are copied to the MDS database and
presented in the Network Objects view of the MDG. Every time one of these objects
is updated by SmartDashboard that is connected to the customer’s Active CMA,
this change is immediately propagated to the MDS database of the MDS hosting
the Active CMA. From there it is distributed to the other MDSs participating in the
High Availability environment.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 269

Connectivity Between Different Processes

Connection Between MDSs

Whenever the MDS/MLM servers are connected in High Availability environment
they keep a constant network connection open between them. This connection is
used to distribute:
• The statuses of CMAs and gateways between the MDS Containers.
• The status of administrators connected to MDS Managers.
• Latest updates of the objects propagated from CMAs.

Large Scale Management Processes

The Status Proxy process runs for each CMA that is enabled for Large Scale
Management, and is constantly connected to the CMA to which it belongs. This
process, amongst other functions, updates the CMA configuration database with
such details as the last known IP address of the Dynamic IP address SmartLSM
Security Gateway, as well as, the gateway status.

UTM-1 Edge Processes

The SMS process runs for each CMA that manages UTM-1 Edge devices, and is
constantly connected to the CMA to which it belongs. UTM-1 Edge devices can be
created either using SmartDashboard or using SmartProvisioning (where they are
defined as UTM-1 Edge SmartLSM Security Gateways).

Reporting Server Processes

When the Eventia Reporter Add-on for Provider-1 one is used, the Eventia Reporter
server maintains a connection to the MDS. Whenever reports are generated, another
component called Eventia Reporter Generator opens a connection to the MDS as
well.

270
 Issues Relating to Different Platforms

Issues Relating to Different Platforms

The Multi-Domain Server supports the following platforms:
• Check Point SecurePlatform
• RedHat Enterprise Linux 3.0
• Solaris

In This Section

High Availability Scenarios page 271

Migration Between Platforms page 272

High Availability Scenarios

When creating High Availability environments with:
• a number of Multi-Domain Managers/Containers
• a number of MLMs
Provider-1 Multi-Domain Servers (MDSs) connected to a single environment can run
on different platforms (for example, one MDS can be installed on Solaris and
another on RedHat Enterprise Linux or SecurePlatform.

Chapter 11 Architecture and Processes 271

Issues Relating to Different Platforms

Migration Between Platforms

Use the existing Provider-1 migration tools to move configuration databases (such
as the Global Policies databases or the CMA databases) between different
Provider-1/ SiteManager-1 platforms:

Table 11-8
Action Use Script/Command Comment
Migrate the migrate_global_policies Run this script without any
Global Policies script parameters in order to see its
Database usage. The files required before
executing this script are
specified in the script's usage.
The specified files should be
copied manually to the
destination MDS.
Export a CMA, export_database script This script exports the
Security comprehensive database files
Management, into one .tgz file on the source
or Global machine that can be imported
Policy to a different MDS machine
database from
one machine
to another.
Migrate migrate_assist script This script retrieves all of the
complete CMA required files for the migration
databases from of the CMA, including its
one MDS configuration database and log
machine to files. The script works remotely,
another. file by file.
Migrate the Use any one of:
CMA into the • Import Customer
destination Management Add-on
environment. command from the MDG
• cma_migrate script
• mdscmd migratecma
utility

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Chapter 12
Commands and Utilities
In This Chapter

Cross-CMA Search page 274

P1Shell page 278
Command Line Reference page 284

273
Cross-CMA Search

Cross-CMA Search
In This Section

Overview page 274

Performing a Search page 274
Copying Search Results page 275
Performing a Search in CLI page 275

Overview
The Cross-CMA Search feature enables searching across multiple CMA databases
for defined network objects (including groups, dynamic objects and Global objects)
and for rules (including Global and implied rules) that contain or affect a specified
object.
Cross-CMA Search is a powerful tool for analyzing the functioning of network
components in the context of a Provider-1 environment. The search function is
similar to SmartDashboard’s Where Used.

Performing a Search
You can access Cross-CMA search from the General - Customer Contents or from the
General - Network Objects view of the MDG.
To open the Cross-CMA search window, select Cross-CMA Search from the Manage
menu, or click the Cross-CMA Search icon.
Select a query and the Customer or Customers to search in. The following queries
are available:
• Specified Object query:
• Find network objects by exact name - finds objects defined in the CMA
database, where the object’s name exactly matches the query entry.
• Find network objects by partial name - finds objects defined in the CMA
database, where the object’s name contains the query entry.
• Find network objects by IP address - finds objects defined in the CMA
database, where the object’s IP address matches the query entry.
Results for object queries include object and Customer information.

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 Cross-CMA Search

• Find Policy rules that use a global object - the query entry is a global object
name. The query finds rules in the CMA policies, where the global object is part
of the rule definition. This includes cases where the global object is not explicit
in the rule definition, but is included in some object (such as a group or
cluster) that appears in the rule.
Results include Customer, policy and rule information, and the specific rule
column where the global object appears. The first Results column, Object Name,
indicates the relevant object as defined in the rule. This object may be one that
includes, but is not identical to, the query entry.
• Find Policy rules that use a global object explicitly - this query is the same as
the previous query, except that the results are limited to rules where the global
object is explicit. Rules where the global object is merely included in some
object (such as a group or cluster) that appears in the rule are excluded.
Results include Customer, policy and rule information, and the specific rule
column where the global object appears. Two additional Results columns are:
Last in Cell? - indicates whether the object is the sole object in its rule column,
so that removing it would cause the cell content to become Any.
Is Removable? - indicates whether an object is not a non-deletable object.
• Find network objects that use a global object explicitly- the query entry is the
name of a global object. The query finds network objects (such as groups or
clusters), defined in the CMA database, that contain the global object explicitly.
Results include object and Customer information.
The Object Name Results column indicates the relevant object as defined in the
rule. This object may be one that includes, but is not identical to, the query
entry.
Is Removable? - indicates whether an object is not a non-deletable object.

Copying Search Results

You can copy search results to use them in other applications.
To copy search results to the clipboard, right-click in the Results pane and select
Copy. The copied results are in Comma Separated Values (CSV) text format.

Performing a Search in CLI

You can perform a cross-CMA search in the CLI. The search results will be sent to
standard output in Comma Separated Values (CSV) format.

Chapter 12 Commands and Utilities 275

Cross-CMA Search

The command syntax is:

mdscmd runcrosscmaquery <find_in> <query_type> <entry_type> <entry>
where <find_in> is one of the following parameters:

Table 12-1 Options for <find_in> in Cross-CMA Command Syntax

Parameter Description

-f <filename> Searches in Customers listed in file <filename>.

-list <list> Searches in Customers in <list>. <list> should be Customer names
separated by commas (e.g. cust1, cust2).

-all Searches in all Customers.

<query_type> is one of the following parameters:

Table 13 Options for <query_type> in Cross-CMA Command Syntax

Parameter MDG version of the query

query_network_obj One of the Specified Object queries (according to <entry_type>)

query_rulebase Find Policy rules that use a global object

whereused_rules Find Policy rules that use a global object explicitly

whereused_objs Find network objects that use a global object explicitly

<entry_type> is one of the following parameters:

Table 14 Options for <entry_type> in Cross-CMA Command Syntax

Parameter Description

-n Specifies that <entry> is the full object name. Available for all values of
<query type>.

-c <entry> is a partial object name. Available only for

Specifies that
query_network_obj.
-i <entry> is an IP address. Available only for
Specifies that
query_network_obj.

<entry> is the query entry.

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 Cross-CMA Search

Example
To search CMAs for all Customers for objects containing ‘my_gw’ in their names:
mdscmd runcrosscmaquery -all query_network_obj -n my_gw

Chapter 12 Commands and Utilities 277

P1Shell

P1Shell
In This Section

Overview page 278

Starting P1Shell page 279
File Constraints for P1Shell Commands page 279
P1Shell Commands page 280
Audit Logging page 283

Overview
P1Shell is a command line shell that allows administrators to run Provider-1 CLI
commands on the MDS, in both MDS and CMA environments, without root
permissions. P1Shell authorizes users who are recognized by the MDS as Provider-1
Superusers or Customer Superusers. Lower level Provider-1 administrators must use
the MDG (unless they have root permissions).
P1Shell can be defined as the default login shell for Provider-1 users, or it can be
manually started in the CLI.
Because Provider-1 authentication is provided by the MDS, MDS processes must be
running for an administrator to be authorized for P1Shell. However, starting MDS
processes should not be available to non-Provider-1 administrators, so a password
is required for mdsstart. The Start-MDS password can be set in mdsconfig, and
should be given to Provider-1 administrators.
P1Shell maintains a connection with the MDS. P1Shell may be disconnected from
the MDS by an MDG user (from the Connected Administrators view of the MDG),
but as soon as P1Shell processes a command, P1Shell will reconnect to the MDS.
The P1Shell user will be notified neither of the disconnecting nor of reconnecting.
The MDG Connected Administrators view will display the reconnected P1Shell user
only when the view is refreshed.

Note - P1Shell settings and commands are defined in configuration files that should not be
changed. Any change to P1Shell configuration files will block P1Shell. If that happens,
restore the files to their original versions to enable access to P1Shell.

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 P1Shell

Starting P1Shell
To work in P1Shell, it must first be enabled. To enable P1Shell, run:
mdsconfig
and select P1Shell.
To start P1Shell, if it is not your default login shell, run:
p1shell
If the MDS is not running, you will be prompted for the Start-MDS password to
authorize starting the MDS. Then, you will be prompted to enter your Provider-1
user name and password to authorize you for P1Shell.

File Constraints for P1Shell Commands

For security reasons, commands that run in P1Shell can read files only from within
a defined input directory. Commands can write only to a defined output directory.

Note - The mds_backup command is an exception to this rule. The output of the backup is
created at the path: /var/opt/mds_backups/<timestamp>, where <timestamp> is the
time that the backup started.

Upon starting, P1Shell defines both input and output directories as the user’s
home directory. They can be changed for the work session, only within the home
directory. Change the directories with the following commands:
set_inputdir <path>
set_outputdir <path>
where <path> is an existing directory, defined relative to the user’s home directory.
To view existing input and output directories, enter:
display_io_dirs
Filenames appearing in commands cannot be paths (/ will be considered an illegal
character) and must be located in the defined input or output directory.

Note - For security reasons, the output directory cannot be soft linked.

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P1Shell Commands
P1Shell enables both general Provider-1 commands and its own “Native P1Shell
Commands”.
To view a list of available Provider-1 commands, enter help or ? . When the
logged-in user is a Customer Superuser, commands that are available only to
Provider-1 Superusers, not to Customer Superusers, will not appear in the list.

In This Section

General Provider-1 Commands page 280

Native P1Shell Commands page 282

General Provider-1 Commands

Available commands are listed below. For further command details see the
Provider-1 Administration Guide and the Command Line Interface Reference Guide.
Commands indicated as Limited are available only to Provider-1 superusers, not to
Customer superusers. All other listed commands are available to both Provider-1
superusers and to Customer superusers.
Any commands listed in the Not Supported column are not currently supported in
P1Shell. If the Available Command Options column says All, it should be understood
as: All commands are available, except for those in the Not Supported column.

Table 15 General Provider-1 Commands for P1Shell

Command Limited ? Not Available Command Options

Supported

cpca_dbutil print; convert; d2u;

get_crl_mode
cpd_admin For Provider-1 superuser: All; for Customer
superuser: debug on; list; ver
cpinfo All

cplic All

CPperfmon hw; mdsconfig; procmem; monitor;

off; summary
cppkg add; setroot; del; print;
getroot; get

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 P1Shell

Table 15 General Provider-1 Commands for P1Shell

Command Limited ? Not Available Command Options

Supported

cpprod_util Limited All

cprinstall get; verify; install; transfer;

uninstall; boot; cprestart;
cpstart; cpstop; show; snapshot;
revert; delete
cprlic All

cpstat All

cpstat_monitor All
cpvinfo All

cpwd_admin list
dbedit All

dbver -help; -s; -c; -u; -w; -m; -p

enable_mds_deletion Limited

fw fetch; log; For Provider-1 superuser: All

fetchlogs; for Customer superuser: logswitch;
monitor; debug fwd; debug fwm
stat; tab;
mergefiles

fwm dbimport; For Provider-1 superuser: All

logexport for Customer superuser: load;
dbload;
ver; unload; logexport; mds
recalc_lics; mds fwmconnect; mds
rebuild_global_communities_status
LSMcli cpinstall; All
snapshot;
delete;
revert

mds_backup Limited All

mds_user_expdate All

mdscmd Limited migratec All

ma

mdsconfig Limited All

mdsenv All

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Table 15 General Provider-1 Commands for P1Shell

Command Limited ? Not Available Command Options

Supported

mdsquerydb All

mdsstart Limited All

mdsstart_customer All

mdsstat All

mdsstop Limited All

mdsstop_customer All
promote_util All

sam_alert All

Native P1Shell Commands

Besides enabling Provider-1 commands, P1Shell implements the following shell
commands:

Table 16 Native P1Shell Commands

Command Description

help [<command>] Displays the command’s help text, or (without arguments) lists
available commands.
Idle [<minutes>] Sets idle time before automatic logout to <minutes>, or (without
arguments) displays current idle time (default is 10 minutes).
exit Exits P1Shell.
? [<command>] Same as help.
set_outputdir <path> Sets the output directory to be <path>, where <path> is relative to
the user’s home directory.
set_inputdir <path> Sets the input directory to be <path>, where <path> is relative to
the user’s home directory.
display_io_dirs Displays the input and output directories.

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Table 16 Native P1Shell Commands

Command Description

copy_logfiles Copies the process’s debug log files according to the environment
-<process_name> [<-l>] context (CMA/MDS) to the output directory. <process_name> is one
of: fwm, fwd, cpd, cpca. If -l is used, only the most recent log file
is copied.
run <batch_file> Runs a batch of MDS commands in sequence. The batch file must
be in the defined input directory.
scroll [on | off] Sets output scrolling on or off, or displays current scroll setting.
Scrolling is similar to the 'more' command.

Audit Logging
P1Shell logs audits in two different ways.
P1Shell saves all audits to a text file:
$MDS_SYSTEM/p1shell/log/p1shell_cmd_audit.log
In addition, P1Shell sends audits to the MDS to be logged. These audits can be
viewed in SmartView Tracker. If the MDS is not running at the time as the audited
event, and the MDS later starts during the same P1Shell session, the audit is then
sent to the MDS. If the MDS is down from the time of the event until the end of
the P1Shell session, the MDS does not receive the audit.

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Command Line Reference

In This Section

cma_migrate page 285

CPperfmon - Solaris only page 286
cpmiquerybin page 294
dbedit page 296
export_database page 297
mcd bin | scripts | conf page 299
mds_backup page 299
mds_restore page 300
mds_user_expdate page 301
mdscmd page 301
mdsenv page 315
mdsquerydb page 315
mdsstart page 317
mdsstat page 317
mdsstop page 318
merge_plugin_tables page 318
migrate_assist page 319
migrate_global_policies page 320

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 Command Line Reference

cma_migrate
Description This command imports an existing Security Management server or CMA
into a Provider-1/SiteManager-1 MDS so that it will become one of its
CMAs. If the imported Security Management or CMA is of a version
earlier than the MDS to which it is being imported, then the Upgrade
process is performed as part of the import.
It is recommended to run cma_migrate to import CMA or Security
Management database files created using the export_database tool.
Bear in mind that the source and target platforms may be different. The
platform of the source management to be imported can be Solaris,
Linux, Windows, SecurePlatform or IPSO.
Usage cma_migrate <source management directory path> <target CMA
FWDIR directory>

Syntax Argument Description

source database directory The root of the original source

path database directory; the FWDIR
directory, or a copy of it.
target CMA FWDIR directory The directory of the CMA that you
are migrating to.
The target CMA cannot ever have
been started before running
cma_migrate. There is no need to
stop the MDS before running
cma_migrate

Further Info. For further information and procedures for using the cma_migrate
command, refer to the High End Installation and Upgrade Guide at
http://supportcontent.checkpoint.com/documentation_download?ID=875
2.

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Command Line Reference

CPperfmon - Solaris only

CPperfmon is a performance monitoring utility. Call it with specific arguments to
initiate or interrupt various performance monitoring processes.

In This Section

CPperfmon hw - Solaris only page 286

CPperfmon procmem - Solaris only page 288
CPperfmon monitor - Solaris only page 289
CPperfmon mdsconfig - Solaris only page 290
CPperfmon summary - Solaris only page 292
CPperfmon off - Solaris only page 293
CPperfPack page 293

CPperfmon hw - Solaris only

In this mode the performance monitoring tool collects hardware configuration
information and either displays it to the user or stores it to the repository. There are
three possible parameter configurations for the execution of the “hw” mode.
Without any arguments, the command displays hardware information to the user (to
screen).
Usage CPperfmon hw
CPperfmon hw store
CPperfmon hw store=/new_path/new_sub_path

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Syntax Argument Description

store Stores the collected hardware

information in the default
repository
($MDSDIR/log/pmrepository).
The generated file name contains a
timestamp, and its extension is
.hardware. For instance, the file
0207111112.hardware was
generated at 07/11/2002
(DD/MM/YYYY) at 11:11 (local time).
Using this convention the user can
“record” the changes in the
hardware configuration by
executing “CPperfmon hw store”
command after every change.
store=/new_path/new_sub_path If the intended repository directory
is different from the default one,
the argument
“store=/new_path/new_sub_path”
should be added. The default
repository base path is
$MDSDIR/log, under which the
performance monitor creates
“pmrepository” subdirectory where
it stores all of the data files.

Further Info. To list system swap configuration, run:

/usr/sbin/swap -l
To view swap status, run:
/usr/sbin/swap -s
Output Following is a sample output:

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Command Line Reference

System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Ultra 5/10

UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-IIi 360MHz)
System clock frequency: 90 MHz
Memory size: 256 Megabytes
========================= CPUs =========================
Run Ecache CPU CPU
Brd CPU Gateway MHz MB Impl. Mask
--- --- ------- ----- ------ ------ ----
0 0 0 360 0.2 12 9.1

========================= IO Cards =========================

Bus# Freq
Brd Type MHz Slot Name Model
--- ---- ---- ---- --------------------------------
----------------------
0 PCI-1 33 1 ebus
0 PCI-1 33 1 network-SUNW,hme
0 PCI-1 33 2 SUNW,m64B ATY,GT-C
0 PCI-1 33 3 ide-pci1095,646

No failures found in System

===========================
swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 136,9 16 1049312 740912
total: 204864k bytes allocated + 14664k reserved = 219528k used,
483560k available

CPperfmon procmem - Solaris only

Description Use the performance monitoring tool in this mode to schedule MDS
processes memory monitoring. This mode consists of periodic
sampling of address space maps of all running MDS and CMA
processes. The user must provide sampling frequency (number of
samples per single day). When scheduling sampling process,
CPperfmon creates crontab entries with equal gap between them, i.e.
if the requested frequency is twice a day, then two executions will be
scheduled, one at 24:00 and one at 12:00. Address space maps
sampling process (when initiated by cron) iterates through all of the
defined CMAs and collects information.

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Usage CPperfmon procmem <frequency>

CPperfmon procmem <frequency> store= /new_path/new_sub_path
CPperfmon procmem off

Syntax Argument Description

frequency For continuous monitoring, specify

how often to store data.
store Store to the repository. If the
intended repository directory is
different from the default one, the
argument
“store=/new_path/new_sub_path”
should be added. The default
repository base path is
$MDSDIR/log, under which the
performance monitor creates
“pmrepository” subdirectory where
it stores all of the data files.
off De-schedules all of the scheduled
periodic tasks.

Example CPperfmon procmem 4 store=/tmp/mdsmon

Schedule MDS processes memory monitoring to run 4 times a day
and store the results in /tmp/mdsmon/pmrepository.

CPperfmon monitor - Solaris only

Description Use the performance monitoring tool in this mode to schedule MDS
processes memory monitoring. This mode consists of periodic
sampling of system virtual memory statistics, system paging activity,
Active processes statistics and connected clients statistics.
Parameters which change frequently are sampled every 30 seconds,
while other parameters are sampled every 30 minutes.
Usage CPperfmon monitor <duration>
CPperfmon monitor <duration> store=/new_path/new_sub_path
CPperfmon monitor off

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Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

duration Duration of monitoring.

monitor off De-schedules all of the scheduled
monitoring processes. Removes
crontab entries for low frequency
processes, terminates high
frequency monitoring processes.
store Store to the repository. If the
intended repository directory is
different from the default one, the
argument
“store=/new_path/new_sub_path”
should be added. The default
repository base path is
$MDSDIR/log, under which the
performance monitor creates
“pmrepository” subdirectory where
it stores all of the data files.

Example CPperfmon monitor 3

Schedule system performance monitoring to run for 3 hours and use
the default repository directory.

CPperfmon mdsconfig - Solaris only

Description Collects statistics and information about the user’s MDS and CMA
databases. The information is either displayed to screen or stored in
the repository. The user can record the changes in various
configuration databases by occasionally executing the “CPperfmon
mdsconfig store” command.
Usage CPperfmon mdsconfig
CPperfmon mdsconfig store
CPperfmon mdsconfig store=/new_path/new_sub_path

290
 Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

store Path of the CPPerfmon repository.

The default repository base path is
$MDSDIR/log, under which the
performance monitor creates
“pmrepository” subdirectory where
it stores all of the data files.
store=/new_path/new_sub_pat Stores the collected databases
h information in the specified
repository (creates a pmrepository
subdirectory if necessary). The
generated file name contains a
timestamp, and has extension
.mdsconf.
For example, the file
0207111112.mdsconf was generated
at 07/11/2002 (DD/MM/YYYY) at
11:11 (local time).

Further Info. Collected parameters are:

• Size of CMA’s objects_5_0.C file.
• Size of CMA’s rulebases_5_0.fws file.
• Number of network objects in CMA’s objects_5_0.C file.
• Number of gateways with firewall installed among the defined
network objects.
• Number of rule bases and number of rules in every rule base.
Output Following is a sample output:

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Command Line Reference

************************************************
Customer: b52-1

Network Objects: 8
Gateways With Firewall Installed: 2
Objects Database Size: 337296
Rules Database Size: 11369

No. of Rules Rulebase Name

-----------------------------------------
3 Exceptional
2 Standard
-----------------------------------------
5 2

************************************************

CPperfmon summary - Solaris only

Description This mode collects data from the “mdsconfig” mode. It displays it to
screen if no argument is provided. Otherwise it stores data to the
repository, with a short summary of hardware configuration, and a
time stamp both in local time and in UTC. Record the changes in
various configuration databases by executing CPperfmon mdsconfig
store command every once in a while.
Usage CPperfmon summary
CPperfmon summary store
CPperfmon summary store=/new_path/new_sub_path

292
 Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

store Path to the repository file. The

default repository base path is
$MDSDIR/log, under which the
performance monitor creates
“pmrepository” subdirectory where
it stores all of the data files.
store=/new_path/new_sub_pat Stores the collected databases
h information in the specified
repository (creates the
pmrepository subdirectory when
necessary). The generated file
name contains a timestamp and
extension .mdsconf.

Output Following is a sample output:

Date: Thu Jul 11 15:12:31 IDT 2002

GMT Date: Thu Jul 11 12:12:31 GMT 2002
Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Ultra 5/10 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-IIi
360MHz 256 Megabytes
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 136,9 16 1049312 741040
CMA Rulebase Objects Network Gateways Rules Rulebases
Name Size Size Objects
b52-1 11369 337296 8 2 5 2
b52-2 20 317520 5 0 0 0

CPperfmon off - Solaris only

Description Use this utility to de-schedule all of the currently scheduled
monitoring processes. It is equivalent to calling CPperfmon monitor
off and CPperfmon procmem off together.

CPperfPack
Description This utility is used to package the performance monitor repository
into single compressed file in order to send it to Check Point
technical personnel.
Usage CPperfPack [store=<your store>] [target=<your target>]

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Syntax Argument Description

store Path to the repository file. The

default repository base path is
$MDSDIR/log.

target CPperfPack compresses the

performance monitor repository and
saves it in .tar.gz file in the target
directory ($MDSDIR/tmp unless
specified otherwise). The extension
is “.tar.gz”. Example: the file
CPperfMon0207111718.tar.gz was
generated at 07/11/2002
(DD/MM/YYYY) at 17:18 (local time).
If the performance monitor repository
does not reside in the default path
($MDSDIR/log) the user must provide
base path of the repository (the path
containing the pmrepository
directory).

Example CPperfPack store

store=$MDSDIR/log and saves the compressed file in $MDSDIR/tmp.

cpmiquerybin
Description cpmiquerybin utility is the binary core of the Database Query Tool.
(For the Database Query Tool, see “mdsquerydb” on page 315.)
This command-line CPMI client connects to the specified database,
executes a query and displays results as either a collection of FW-1 Sets
or tab-delimitered list of requested fields from each retrieved object. The
target database of the query tool depends on the environment settings of
the shell being used by the user.
Whenever the user desires to access one of MDS databases, he/she
should execute the mdsenv command, in order to define the environment
variables necessary for database connection. In order to connect to a

294
 Command Line Reference

database of a certain CMA, the user should execute mdsenv command

providing CMA name or IP address as a first parameter. (See also
“mdsenv” on page 315.)

Note - A MISSING_ATTR string is displayed when the user specifies an attribute name that
does not exist in one of the objects in query result. The MISSING_ATTR string indicates
that that attribute is missing.

Exit Code
0 when query succeeds, 1 if query fails, or query syntax is bad.
Usage cpmiquerybin <query_result_type> <database> <table> <query>
[-a <attributes_list>]

Syntax Argument Description

query_result_type Requested format of the query

result. Possible values:
• attr – display values of specified
(with –a parameter) field of each
retrieved object
• object – display FW-1 sets
containing data of each retrieved
object.
database Name of the database to connect to,
in quotes. For instance, “mdsdb” or
“”.
table Table to retrieve the data from, for
instance, network_objects
query Empty query (“”) or a query
specifying objects range for retrieval,
for instance name=’a*’.
-a attributes_list If query_result_type was specified
“attr”, this field should contain a comma
delimited list of objects fields to display.
Object name can be accessed using a
special “virtual” field called
“__name__”. Example:
__name__,ipaddr

Example ƒPrint all network objects in the default database

cpmiquerybin object “” network_objects “”

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Command Line Reference

ƒPrint hosted_by_mds and ipaddr attributes of all network objects in

database “mdsdb”
mdsenv
cpmiquerybin attr “mdsdb” network_objects “” -a
hosted_by_mds,ipaddr

dbedit
Description This utility can be used in Provider-1 configuration and is further
described in the Security Management Administration Guide. It is used
in conjunction with the mdsenv command. Particular commands for
accessing the MDS and CMA environment are included here.
Usage dbedit –mds
dbedit –s <MDS_IP> –d mdsdb -u <P1_Admin> -p <password>
dbedit –s <CMA_IP> -u <CMA_Admin> -p <password>

Syntax Argument Description

–mds Access without user name and

password. Use this command only
for CMA- or MDS-configuration on
the same machine as the command
line is executed.
–s <MDS_IP> Specifies the IP of the MDS Manager
you want to connect to.
-u <P1_Admin> -p -u <P1_Admin> and -p <password>
<password> are used as a pair must specify a
valid Provider-1 administrator and
password for proper remote login. In
addition, the computer on which the
command is executed must be a
valid MDS GUI Client. Beware not to
expose your administrator password
during remote login.
–d mdsdb Edit the MDSDB database.

Example To edit the database that resides on the MDS Global database, use the
following commands:
mdsenv
dbedit –mds

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 Command Line Reference

To edit the database that resides on the MDS MDSDB database, use the
following commands:
mdsenv
dbedit –mds –d mdsdb
To edit the CMA database, use the following command:
mdsenv CMA_Flower
dbedit 10.10.10.10 -mds
where 10.10.10.10 is the CMA IP.
To use dbedit on a remote MDS/CMA the computer that you are running
the dbedit on must be defined as an authorized GUI Client of the
MDS/CMA. The user must be a Provider-1 administrator and provide a
user name and password:
dbedit –s 10.10.10.10 -u CANDACE -p ****
where 10.10.10.10 is the MDS or CMA IP, and **** is a password.
To edit the remote MDS MDSDB database:
dbedit –s 10.10.9.1 –d mdsdb -u ROGER -p ****
where 10.10.9.1 is the MDS IP, ROGER is an administrator and **** is
a password.
To edit the remote CMA database:
dbedit –s 10.10.19.1 -u SAMANTHA -p ****
where 10.10.19.1 is the CMA IP, SAMANTHA is an administrator and
**** is a password.

export_database
Description The export_database utility allows you to export an entire database into
one .tgz file that can be imported into a different MDS machine. The
following files can be exported:
• An entire CMA database
• An entire Security Management database
• An MDS Global Policy database
The export_database utility exports the database as one comprehensive
file on the source machine, as opposed to migrate_assist which exports
the database as multiple files to a remote location.
The export_database tool is supported on Linux 3.0, Secure Platform
and Solaris 2. If you are running other platforms, use migrate_assist to
export all files, including the Global Policy.

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Before using the export_database utility, you must:

Copy the export tool .tgz file for your operating system to the source
CMA or Security Management server. The export tool files can be found
on your installation CD or on the Check Point support website,
http://support.checkpoint.com.
Unntar the export tool .tgz file to some path in the source machine.
A directory called export_tools is extracted.
Run the export_database commands from the export_tools directory.
After exporting the databases using export_database, transfer the .tgz
files to the target machine. Import the CMA or Security Management
files using cma_migrate and import the Global Policy file using
migrate_global_policies.
Usage ./export_database.sh [<path for the output file> –c <name of
CMA> -h -b -l -m -g]

• Exporting a CMA:
./export_database.sh <path for the output file> –c <name of
CMA>
• Exporting a Security Management:
./export_database.sh <path for the output file>
• Exporting an MDS global database:
./export_database.sh <path for the output file> –g
Syntax Argument Description

-c Export a CMA database

-g Export a Global Policy database
-b Batch mode - run command without asking anything
-m Include the SmartMap database.
-l Include the log database.
-h Display usage

Example To export the database of a CMA, CMA1, including its log database to a
file path, /var/tmp, use the following command:
./export_database.sh /var/tmp –c CMA1 -l

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To export the database of a Security Management, including its

Smartmap database to a file path, /var/tmp, use the following
command:
./export_database.sh /var/tmp -m
To export an MDS’s Global Policy to a file path, /var/for_export, use
the following command:
./export_database.sh /var/for_export –g

mcd bin | scripts | conf

Description This command provides a quick directory change to $FWDIR/<param>.
Example mdsenv MyCma1
mcd conf
Brings you to:
/opt/CPmds-R70/customers/MyCma1/CPsuite-R70/fw1/conf.

mds_backup
Description This utility stores binaries and data from your MDS installation. Runs the
gtar command on the root directories of data and binaries. Any extra
information located under these directories is backed up except from
files that are specified in mds_exclude.dat file. The collected
information is wrapped in a single zipped tar file. The name of the
created backup file is constructed by the date and time of the backup,
followed by the extension .mdsbk.tgz. For example:
13Sep2002-141437.mdsbk.tgz.
Usage mds_backup [-g -b {-d <target dir name>} -v -h]

Syntax Argument Description

-g Execute command without asking whether to disconnect

GUI clients
-b Batch mode - execute command without asking anything
(-g is implied)
-d Specify a directory to which to write the backup file.
When not specified, the backup directory is the current
directory. Backing up to a directory within the Check
Point directory tree is not permitted.

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Argument Description

-v Verbose mode - list all files to be backed up, but do not

perform the backup operation
-l Exclude logs from the backup
-h Help - display this help

Comments When using the -g or -b options, make sure that no GUI clients or
Eventia Reporter servers are connected. Otherwise, the backup may
contain inconsistencies due to database changes made during the
backup process.

It is important not to run mds_backup from one of the directories that will
be backed up. For example, when backing up an MDS, do not run
mds_backup from /opt/CPmds-R70 since it is a circular reference (zipping
the directory you need to write into).
Active log files are not backed up, in order to avoid read-during-write
inconsistencies. It is recommended to perform a log switch prior to the
backup procedure.
Further Info. The MDS configuration can be backed up without backing up the log
files. Such a backup will usually be significantly smaller in size than a
full backup with logs. To backup without log files, add the following line
to the file $MDSDIR/conf/mds_exclude.dat:
log/*

mds_restore
Description Restores a MDS that was previously backed up with mds_backup. For
correct operation, mds_restore should be restored onto a clean MDS
installation.
Usage mds_restore <backup file>

Note - The mds_restore command must use the script that was created in the directory into
which the backup file was created.

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 Command Line Reference

mds_user_expdate
Description This command is used to modify the expiration date of the users defined
in the CMAs.
Usage mds_user_expdate

Further Info. After entering the command mds_user_expdate, you are required to
choose between two modes:
• Run on all CMAs located on the MDS where the command is
executed.
• Run on a specific CMA.
After selecting the run method, specify the expiration date in the
following format: <dd-mmm-yyyy>, e.g., 24-Feb-2003.
Comments Make sure to disconnect any GUI client before running this utility so
that the changes made by the command will not be overwritten by the
client. This utility can work only on Active CMAs. After running this
utility, you will need to manually synchronize your CMAs.

mdscmd
Description This command is used to execute different commands on the MDS
system. It connects to an MDS Manager as a CPMI client and causes it
to execute one of the specified commands described below. Connection
parameters [-m MDS server -u user -p password] are required in order
to log into a remote MDS manager. If these arguments are omitted,
mdscmd connects to the local machine. As the command is a CPMI client,
it has an audit log.
Usage mdscmd <sub command and sub command parameters> [-m MDS server
-u user -p password]
mdscmd help

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Syntax Argument Description

-m MDS server For remote login; specifies the

name or IP address of the MDS
Manager you want to connect to.
-u user Used as a pair, they must specify a
-p password valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.
help Print the usage of an mdscmd
command and a list of examples.

In This Section

mdscmd addcustomer page 302

mdscmd addcma page 304
mdscmd addclm page 305
mdscmd deletecustomer page 306
mdscmd deletecma page 307
mdscmd deleteclm page 308
mdscmd enableglobaluse page 309
mdscmd disableglobaluse page 310
mdscmd startcma page 311
mdscmd stopcma page 312
mdscmd migratecma page 313
mdscmd mirrorcma page 314

mdscmd addcustomer
Description This command is used to create a Customer, locally or remotely. If
run remotely, add login details. A first CMA can be created at the
same time using this command.
Usage mdscmd addcustomer <customerName> [-n cma_name] [-i IP] [-t
target_mds] [-m mds -u user -p password]

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Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to add.
-n cma_name A first CMA is created when the
customer is created, using the
name you provide (cma_name).
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.
-i IP Specify the virtual IP address (VIP)
assigned to the CMA. If -n
cma_name is used but no IP address
is specified, yet a VIP range has
been defined for the MDS, the next
available VIP is assigned to the
CMA.
If you use -i IP without -n
cma_name, a name is automatically
generated with the format:
<customer name>_First_CMA.
-t target_mds Specify the MDS to which the CMA
is added. If not specified, the
mdscmd attempts to add the CMA to
the MDS to which it is connected.

Example Add a new Customer named BestCustomer without a CMA:

mdscmd addcustomer BestCustomer
Add a new Customer named BestCustomer with a CMA named
BestCustomerCma, using the Virtual IP address 4.4.4.4:
mdscmd addcustomer BestCustomer -n BestCustomerCma -i 4.4.4.4

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mdscmd addcma
Description A customer must already be created in order to use this command.
Usage mdscmd addcma <customerName> <-i IP> [-n cma_name] [-t
target_mds] [-m mds -u user -p password]

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the CMA is
added.
-n cma_name Create a CMA with this name. If you do
not specify -n cma_name, cma_name
is generated automatically in the
format: <customer
name>_First_CMA.
-i IP Specify the virtual IP address (VIP)
used by the CMA. If -n cma_name
is used but no IP address is
specified, yet a VIP range has been
defined for the MDS, the next
available VIP is assigned to the
CMA.
If you use -i IP without -n
cma_name, a name is automatically
generated with the format:
<customer name>_First_CMA.

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 Command Line Reference

Argument Description

-t target_mds Define the MDS to which the CMA

is added. If you do not specify this
parameter, the mdscmd attempts to
add the CMA to the MDS to which
it is connected.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Example Add a new CMA to the Customer BestCustomer using the Virtual IP address
4.4.4.4:
mdscmd addcma BestCustomer -i 4.4.4.4
Add a new CMA to the Customer BestCustomer named
BestCustomerCma using the Virtual IP address 4.4.4.4:
mdscmd addcma BestCustomer -i 4.4.4.4 -n BestCustomerCma
Add a new CMA to the Customer BestCustomer on host AnotherMds
using the Virtual IP address 4.4.4.4:
mdscmd addcma BestCustomer -i 4.4.4.4 -t AnotherMds

mdscmd addclm
Description Use the addclm sub-command to add a CLM to an existing Customer.
addclm adds either the first or any subsequent CLM of the Customer.
To add a CLM to a Customer, it must already have at least one CMA.
Usage mdscmd addclm <customerName> [-i IP] [-t target_mds] [-m mds
-u user -p password]

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Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the CLM is
added.
-i IP Specify this parameter to select the
Virtual IP address (VIP) to be used
by the CLM.
-t target_mds Define the MDS to which the CLM
is added. If you do not specify this
parameter, the mdscmd attempts to
add the CMA to the MDS to which
it is connected.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

mdscmd deletecustomer
Description Use this command to delete an existing Customer. When deleting a
Customer, you also delete the Customer’s CMAs.
Usage mdscmd deletecustomer <customerName> -m mds -u user name -p
password

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 Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to be deleted.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Example Delete the Customer BestCustomer

mdscmd deletecustomer BestCustomer

mdscmd deletecma
Description Use this command to delete an existing CMA.
Usage mdscmd deletecma <customerName> <-n cma_name | -i IP > [-m
mds -u user -p password]

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer whose CMA is deleted.
-n cma_name Specify the name of the CMA to be
deleted.

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Argument Description

-i IP Specify the Virtual IP address (VIP)

used by the CMA.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Comments One or the other of the following parameters must be specified:

• -i IP — specify this parameter to delete the CMA by its Virtual IP
address.
• -n cma_name — Specify this parameter to delete the CMA by its
name (set in cma_name).
Example Delete a CMA from the Customer BestCustomer (by stating its virtual
IP address — 4.4.4.4):
mdscmd deletecma BestCustomer -i 4.4.4.4
Delete a CMA from the Customer BestCustomer, using the CMA’s
name — BestCustomerCMA, and running from the remote host
AnotherMds (using user name: MyUser and password: MyPassword):
mdscmd deletecma BestCustomer -n BestCustomerCMA -m AnotherMds
-u MyUser -p MyPassword

mdscmd deleteclm
Description Use this command to delete an existing CLM.
Usage mdscmd deleteclm <customerName> <-i IP > [-m mds -u user -p
password]

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 Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to add.
-i IP Specify this parameter to select the
Virtual IP address (VIP) to be used
by the CLM.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

mdscmd enableglobaluse
Description Use this command to connect a customer gateway to a Global VPN
Community. Executing this command with a customer’s name and a
gateway name, creates a global gateway object and a VPN Domain
object for the specific customer gateway in the Global database.
[-g global name] is used to determine the global gateway object
name. If [-g global name] is omitted, the global name will be
gGW1_of_CUST1 for the gateway GW1 and customer CUST1.
The VPN domain object will receive the same name as the global
gateway object with a ‘_Domain’ extension.
Usage mdscmd enableglobaluse <customerName> <gatewayName> [-g
globalName] [-m mds -u user -p password]

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Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the CMA
belongs.
gatewayName Specifies the name of the gateway.
-g global name This command is used to
determine the global gateway
object name. If [-g global name]
is omitted, the global name will be
gGW1_of_CUST1 for the gateway GW1
and customer CUST1
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Comments mdscmd enableglobaluse is equivalent to enabling global use of a

gateway from MDG.

mdscmd disableglobaluse
Description Use this command to remove a customer global gateway object and
VPN Domain object from the global database.
Usage mdscmd disableglobaluse <customerName> <gatewayName> [-m
mds -u user -p password]

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 Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the CMA
belongs.
gatewayName Specifies the name of the gateway.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Comments mdscmd disableglobaluse is equivalent to disabling the global use of

a gateway from MDG.

mdscmd startcma
Description Use this command to start an existing CMA.
Usage mdscmd startcma <customerName> <-n cma_name | -i IP > -m mds
-u user name -p password

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the CMA
belongs.
-n cma_name Specify the name of the CMA to be
started.

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Argument Description

-i IP Specify this parameter to select the

CMA’s Virtual IP address.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Comments One or the other of the following parameters must be specified:

• -i IP — Specify this parameter to start the CMA by its Virtual IP
address.
• -n cma_name — Specify this parameter to start the CMA by its
name (cma_name).
Example Run the CMA BestCustomerCMA, which is defined for the Customer
BestCustomer:
mdscmd startcma BestCustomer -n BestCustomerCMA

mdscmd stopcma
Description Use this command to stop a running CMA.
Usage mdscmd stopcma <customerName> <-n cma_name | -i IP > -m mds
-u user name -p password

Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the CMA
belongs.
-n cma_name Specify the name of the CMA to be
stopped.

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 Command Line Reference

Argument Description

-i IP Specify this parameter to select the

CMA’s Virtual IP address.
-m mds Specifies the name or IP of the
MDS Manager you want to connect
to.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Comments One or the other of the following parameters must be specified:

• -i IP —Specify this parameter to stop the CMA using its Virtual
IP address.
• -n cma_name — Specify this parameter to stop the CMA using its
name (cma_name).
Example Stop the CMA BestCustomerCMA, which is defined for the Customer
BestCustomer:
mdscmd stopcma BestCustomer -n BestCustomerCMA

mdscmd migratecma
Description Use this command to migrate/import an existing source database
(from a Security Management server or CMA) into another CMA.
You can use mdscmd migratecma to import files created using the
export_database tool.
Usage mdscmd migratecma <customerName> <-l cma_path> <-n cma_name>

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Syntax Argument Description

CustomerName Specifies the name of the

Customer to which the new CMA
belongs.
-n cma_name Specifies the name of the new
CMA into which the source
database information is migrated.
-l cma_path Specifies the path containing the
conf directory migrated into the
new CMA.

Example Migrate a source database from an NGX (R60) version CMA, named
MyFirstCMA, into the CMA BestCustomerCMA, defined for the Customer
BestCustomer:
mdscmd migratecma BestCustomer -l/opt/CPmds-R60/customers/
MyFirstCMA/CPfw1-R60 -n BestCustomerCMA
See also “cma_migrate” on page 285.

mdscmd mirrorcma
Description Use this command to mirror the CMA configuration from one MDS to
another MDS. This command is used to create CMA High Availability.
This command parses all Customers and checks which Customers
have a single CMA defined. If a Customer has a CMA on the source
MDS, a secondary CMA is created on the target MDS.
Usage mdscmd mirrorcma -s source_mds -t target_mds [-m mds -u user
-p password]

314
 Command Line Reference

Syntax Argument Description

-s source_mds Specifies the name of the MDS the

mirroring is performed from.
-t target_mds Specifies the name of the MDS the
mirroring is targeted toward.
-u user and -p password Used as a pair, they must specify a
valid Superuser administrator and
password for remote login. In
addition, the computer on which
the command is executed must be
a valid MDS GUI Client. Beware
not to expose your administrator
password during remote login.

Example Mirror the configuration from the MDS FirstMDS to the MDS
SecondMDS:
mdscmd mirrorcma -s FirstMDS -t SecondMDS

mdsenv
Description This command prepares the shell environment variables for running MDS
level command lines or specific CMA command lines. Without an
argument, the command sets the shell for MDS level commands
(mdsstart, mdsstop, etc.).
Usage mdsenv [cma name]

Syntax Argument Description

cma name With a CMA name, the command

prepares the shell for the CMA’s
command line (fw load etc.)

mdsquerydb
Description The mdsquerydb command runs the Database Query Tool. The purpose of
the Database Query Tool is to allow advanced users to create UNIX shell
scripts which can easily access information stored inside the CheckPoint
Security Management server databases. These include the Global
Database (which are usually accessed from the Global SmartDashboard),
MDS Database (usually accessed from the MDG) and the CMA databases

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Command Line Reference

(usually accessed from SmartDashboard).

Just as the mdscmd tool allows users to write UNIX shell scripts that add,
remove or alter specified Provider-1 database objects, the Database
Query Tool allows users to access the information related to these
database objects. The command is used with specific arguments to
perform various queries on Security Management server databases.
Usage mdsquerydb key_name [-f output_file_name]

Syntax Argument Description

key_name Query key, that must be defined in the

pre-defined queries configuration file.
-f output_file_nam Write query results to file with the
specified file name, instead of to the
standard output.

Example Retrieve list of all defined keys:

mdsquerydb
Send the list of customers in the MDS database to the standard output:
mdsenv
mdsquerydb Customers
Retrieve the list of network objects in the Global database and place the
list in:
/tmp/gateways.txt:
mdsenv
mdsquerydb NetworkObjects –f /tmp/gateways.txt
Retrieve the list of gateways objects of the CMA called cma1:
mdsenv cma1
mdsquerydb Gateways –f /tmp/gateways.txt

Comments The purpose of the Database Query Tool is to provide advanced users of
Provider-1 with means of querying different Security Management server
databases from UNIX shell scripts. Some Database queries are
pre-defined in the configuration file. The configuration file
(queries.conf) can be found in $MDSDIR/conf. The file should not be
edited by the end-users in any case.

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 Command Line Reference

mdsstart
Description This command starts the MDS server and all CMAs. You can reduce the
time it takes to start and stop the MDS if you have many CMAs. To do
so, set the variable NUM_EXEC_SIMUL to the number of CMAs to be
launched or stopped simultaneously. When this variable is not defined,
the system attempts to start or stop up to 10 CMAs simultaneously.
Usage mdsstart [-m|-s]

Syntax Argument Description

-m Starts only the MDS server and not

the CMAs.
-s Starts the CMAs sequentially: waits
for each CMA to come up before
starting the next.

mdsstat
Description This command utility gives detailed information on the status of the
processes of the MDS and CMAs, the up/down status per process.
Usage mdsstat [-h] [-m] [<cma name>]

Syntax Argument Description

-h Displays help message.

-m Test status for MDS only.
cma name The name of the CMA whose status
is tested.

Further Info. Status Legend:

up: The process is up.
down: The process is down.
pnd: The process is pending initialization.
N/A: The process's PID is not yet available.
N/R: The process is not relevant container MDS.

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mdsstop
Description This command stops the MDS server and all the CMAs. You can reduce
the time it takes to start and stop the MDS if you have many CMAs. To
do so, set the variable NUM_EXEC_SIMUL to the number of CMAs to be
launched or stopped simultaneously. When this variable is not defined,
the system attempts to start or stop up to 10 CMAs simultaneously.
Usage mdsstop [-m]

Syntax Argument Description

-m Use the -m option to stop the MDS

server without stopping CMAs.

merge_plugin_tables
Description The merge_plugin_tables utility is included in the export_database
utility. It searches for all CMA or Security Management plug-ins and
merges the plug-in tables with the CMA or Security Management tables.
In linux 3.0 and Solaris 2.x and higher, the merge_plugin_tables tool
runs automatically when you run the export_database tool and its
output becomes part of the CMA database .tgz file.
If you have a Security Management running on FreeBSD, IPSO 6.x, or
Windows, you can and should use merge_plugin_tables to consolidate
your plug-in information before exporting files using migrate_assist.
Before using the merge_plugin_tables utility, you must:
1.Copy the export tool .tgz file for your operating system to the source
CMA or Security Management machine. The export tool files can be
found on your installation CD or on the Check Point support website,
http://support.checkpoint.com.
2.Unntar the export tool .tgz file to some path in the source machine.
A directory called export_tools is extracted.
3.Run the merge_plugin_tables command from the export_tools
directory.
Usage merge_plugin_tables <-p conf_dir> [-s] [-h]

where <-p conf_dir> is the path of $FWDIR directory of the

CMA/Security Management, -s performs the utility in silent mode
(default is interactive mode), and -h displays usage.

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 Command Line Reference

Example To merge the plug-in tables of a CMA, CMA1, run the following
commands:
mdsenv cma1
merge_plugin_tables -p "$FWDIR"

migrate_assist
Description This utility is a helper utility for cma_migrate. It copies all relevant files
from the original source database (from a Security Management server or
CMA) to the MDS machine. It uses FTP to transfer the original source
database directories to current disk storage. This file copy is NOT
encrypted. Once finished with migrate_assist, you can run cma_migrate,
whose input directory is the output directory of migrate_assist.
It is recommended to use the export_database tool instead of
migrate_assist if your source machine is running on a running linux
3.0 or Solaris 2.x and higher operating system.
Usage $ migrate_assist
migrate_assist <source machine name/ip> <source FWDIR folder>
<user name> <password> <target folder> <source CPDIR folder>

Syntax Argument Description

<user name> <password> The user name and password are

needed to gain access to the remote
MDS via ftp.
source machine name/ip The original Security Management
server or CMA’s resolvable DNS name
or IP.
source FWDIR folder The original Security Management
server or CMA’s source FWDIR folder
path.
source CPDIR folder If the source CPDIR parameter is
specified, migrate_assist assumes
the source database is NG or later,
and imports the source CPDIR folder
to the target folder as well.

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Further Info. You can run the cma_migrate utility (or use the Import Customer
Management Add-on command in the MDG) after using this utility. The
source folder for these actions should be the destination folder of
migrate_assist.
When migrating from an NG source Security Management server or CMA,
the Name and IP address of the Primary Security Management
server/CMA object become the Name and IP address of the new CMA,
and are adjusted accordingly by cma_migrate. An ftp server must be
running on the source machine.
Before running migrate_assist, use the merge_plugin_tables tool if
you have plug-ins installed.

migrate_global_policies
Description This utility transfers (and upgrades, if necessary) the global policies
database from one MDS to the global policies database of another MDS.
migrate_global_policies replaces all existing Global Policies and
Global Objects. Each of the existing Global Policies is saved with a
*.pre_migrate extension.
If you only migrate the global policies (without the CMAs) to a new MDS,
you should disable any gateways that are enabled for global use.
You can migrate global policies from the following Provider-1 versions:
• R60, R60A, R61, R62, R65, R70
You can use migrate_global_policies to import files created using the
export_database tool.
Usage migrate_global_policies <path>

Syntax Argument Description

path Specifies the fully qualified path to the directory

where the global policies files, originally exported
from the source MDS ($MDSDIR/conf), are located.

Example migrate_global_policies
/tmp/exported_global_db.22Jul2007-124547.tgz

320