Palo Alto Networks Firewall

To get started first follow the steps below:

• Install
• Root access
• Verify the required port is open

Older versions can be found here 7, 6, 5

Configure the Palo Alto Networks firewall to log to a syslog server:

You can configure the Palo Alto firewall to log to a syslog server through the admin console. To configure, go to the "Device" tab and choose "System" -> "Syslog".

Add a new Syslog Server Profile and give the profile a descriptive name that includes "Logitio"

• Name: Enter a name that includes Filebeat
• Syslog Server: Your Filebeat server IP address
• Transport: UDP
• Port: 514
• Format: BSD
• Facility: Remains as "LOG_USER"

Save the profile.

Read more about how to configure Syslog Monitoring with Palo Alto Networks.

To configure logging for a security policy, follow these steps:

• Go to the Policies tab and select Security from the left menu.
• Double-click an existing security policy or create a new one to open the Security Policy Rule dialog.
• Navigate to the Action tab and select Log at Session Start and Log at Session End.
• Choose the log forwarding profile that you created above.
• Ensure all required information highlighted is entered.

Commit and save all changes to your firewall.

The configuration file below is pre-configured to send data to your Logit.io Stack.

Copy the configuration file below and overwrite the contents of the Filebeat configuration file typically located at /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml

# ============================== Filebeat inputs ===============================
filebeat.inputs:

- type: udp
  max_message_size: 10MiB
  host: "0.0.0.0:514"
  enabled: true

  fields:
     type: 
  fields_under_root: true
  encoding: utf-8
  ignore_older: 12h

# ================================== Outputs ===================================
output.logstash:
    hosts: ["your-logstash-host:your-ssl-port"]
    loadbalance: true
    ssl.enabled: true

If you’re running Filebeat 7, add this code block to the end. Otherwise, you can leave it out.

# ... For Filebeat 7 only ...
filebeat.registry.path: /var/lib/filebeat

If you’re running Filebeat 6, add this code block to the end.

# ... For Filebeat 6 only ...
registry_file: /var/lib/filebeat/registry

It’s a good idea to run the configuration file through a YAML validator to rule out indentation errors, clean up extra characters, and check if your YAML file is valid. Yamllint.com is a great choice.

If you have issues starting in the next step, you can use these commands below to troubleshoot.

Let's check the configuration file is syntactically correct by running directly inside the terminal. If the file is invalid, will print an error loading config file error message with details on how to correct the problem.

deb/rpm

sudo  -e -c /etc//.yml

macOS

cd <EXTRACTED_ARCHIVE>
sudo ./ -e -c .yml

Windows

cd <EXTRACTED_ARCHIVE>
.\.exe -e -c .yml

Start or restart to apply the configuration changes.

Now you should view your data:

Launch Dashboard

If you don't see logs take a look at How to diagnose no data in Stack below for how to diagnose common issues.

If you don't see data appearing in your Stack after following the steps, visit the Help Centre guide for steps to diagnose no data appearing in your Stack or Chat to support now.

Palo Alto Networks firewalls provide advanced network security features for enterprise environments, protecting against cyber threats and unauthorized access. To effectively monitor and analyze network activity, it is essential to have a reliable and efficient log management solution. The Palo Alto Networks firewalls generate logs that capture information about network traffic, threats, and user activity.

To manage these logs effectively, organizations can use Filebeat, an open-source shipping tool, to send logs from Palo Alto Networks firewalls to various destinations, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, due to its reliability and minimal memory footprint. Filebeat is widely used to send logs from Palo Alto Networks firewalls to various destinations, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, due to its compatibility and ease of use.

To send Palo Alto Networks firewall logs to Filebeat, organizations can configure the firewall to forward logs to a syslog server, and then use Filebeat to collect and forward log data to Elasticsearch or other destinations. This process involves setting up a syslog server to receive the logs, configuring the firewall to send logs to the syslog server, and configuring Filebeat to collect and forward the logs from the syslog server to Elasticsearch or other destinations.

Filebeat provides a filebeat.yml wizard that helps users avoid complex logging concerns, such as large registry files and frequent errors encountered when handling deleted or renamed log files. Users can also consider using the Hosted ELK service to simplify tracking numerous pipelines using this shipper.

In summary, using Filebeat to send Palo Alto Networks firewall logs to various destinations, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, is a reliable and efficient log management solution. By configuring the firewall to forward logs to a syslog server and using Filebeat to collect and forward the logs to Elasticsearch or other destinations, organizations can gain insights into network traffic, threats, and user activity, and take action to protect their networks against cyber threats and unauthorized access.

If you need any further assistance with migrating your log data to ELK we're here to help you get started. Feel free to get in contact with our support team by sending us a message via live chat & we'll be happy to assist.