Palo Alto Firewall PCNSE New V9 & V10 Training

Define core security terms—asset, vulnerability, exploit, threat, attack, risk, and countermeasure—and show how to protect assets, address vulnerabilities, and apply ssh and https as secure countermeasures.

Explore malware, a broad category of malicious software, including viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, spyware, adware, rootkits, and botnets, and how they threaten systems.

Explore firewall technology, from basic definitions to generations, including stateful, stateless, and next generation firewalls, with focus on user ID, content ID, and deep packet inspection.

Explore palo alto networks firewall architecture and features, including app id, user id, content id, and single pass software with parallel processing, plus pcnse certification overview.

Install Palo Alto firewall in VMware workstation, import the image, allocate RAM and cores, configure three interfaces as VMX, boot, and log in with admin/admin.

Install and configure the Palo Alto firewall in Gns3 by importing the pa vm image, creating a template, launching the vm, and accessing the management interface via https.

Learn how to deploy Palo Alto on ESXi using OVF or OVA templates, configure networking and provision settings, and compare type 1 and type 2 hypervisors alongside VMware options.

Learn to access a Palo Alto firewall via SSH, switch between operational and configuration modes, and use show commands, nesting, and tab completion to obtain system information.

Learn how the Palo Alto firewall dashboard organizes seven tabs, customize login and main logos, manage commits, and tailor widgets, layout, and logs for real-time monitoring.

Deploy a Palo Alto firewall virtually in VMware, iSCSI, or Gns3 and configure initial access via console or management port with the default 192.168.1.1 and admin credentials.

Configure dns and ntp on Palo Alto firewall to ensure name resolution and time synchronization; learn dns concepts, root servers, A records, CNAME, and nslookup, and ntp settings.

Master activating Palo Alto firewall licenses and subscriptions to enable updates, signatures, threat prevention, and global protect, while using session browser to view logs without a license.

License and activate the Palo Alto firewall to enable dynamic updates and download antivirus, application, wildfire, and GlobalProtect signatures. Explain upgrading OS software using base images and major/minor releases.

Create a two-zone topology on a Palo Alto firewall in VMware Workstation, configure interfaces, IP addresses, routing, net policy, and security policy, then commit and verify using logs.

Configure and secure the Palo Alto management interface, including dhcp and static IPs, access methods (https, ssh, telnet, http), access controls, and related network services like ping, dns, and snmp.

Explore Palo Alto firewall interfaces, including physical, logical, and virtual types, with layer 2 and layer 3 configurations and management profiles. Explore tape mode, virtual wire, subinterfaces, VLANs, and loopback.

Zone based firewalls organize interfaces into zones, enforce policies, and control traffic; one interface belongs to one zone, with intra-zone and inter-zone defaults guiding access.

Explore routing concepts on Palo Alto firewalls, including routed vs routing protocols, static and default routes, dynamic protocols, administrative distance, metrics, and routing tables.

Explore virtual routers in Palo Alto firewalls, enabling routing between interfaces with different subnets using static and default routes, supporting dynamic protocols like RIP, OSPF, BGP, and IPv4 or IPv6.

Configure and verify static routing on a Palo Alto firewall, including creating inside and outside zones, assigning interfaces, setting default routes, and validating reachability with show ip route and ping.

Configure and verify a default route on the edge firewall, forwarding unknown destinations to the ISP via 0.0.0/0, using a next-hop IP and routing table checks.

Explore dynamic routing with Rip on Palo Alto firewalls, configure version 2, advertise interfaces, manage default routes, and secure exchanges with authentication while comparing static vs dynamic routing.

Demonstrates securing rip routing with authentication on Palo Alto firewall, configuring keychains on routers and an authentication profile, and verifying with debug ip rip to prevent unauthorized updates.

Explore how to configure and verify OSPF on a Palo Alto firewall, including area zero backbone, router IDs, LSA exchange, DR/BDR election, hello/dead timers, and key verification commands.

Enable redistribution to merge routing domains by allowing a device to run multiple protocols (OSPF, RIP, static) and exchange routes, using a Palo Alto firewall redistribution profile and export rules.

Learn to design Palo Alto firewall security policies, from top-to-bottom rule evaluation across intra, inter, and universal zones, to granular rules with source, destination, app, port, URL category, and user.

Explains security policy action options on Palo Alto firewalls, including deny, drop, drop silently, and ICMP unreachable, with guidance on testing traffic to observe the differences.

Identify how a shadow rule forms in Palo Alto firewall policies when a broad allow-all rule renders a lower web browsing rule useless.

Explore Palo Alto firewall version nine's test policy match feature to verify which top rule matches traffic by entering source, destination, port, user, protocol, and application.

Explore viewing Palo Alto firewall policies as grouped rule bases using tags, enabling bulk actions like move, clone, and delete by tag across departments in version 9 and above.

learn how policy optimizer helps identify unused firewall rules, disable them, test for a week, and delete stale policies, with version nine introducing usage export, reset, and timeframe options.

Grasp ssl and tls basics, how certificates encrypt and authenticate browser communications, and how a firewall uses a pushed certificate to intercept tls traffic.

Learn to configure ssl forward proxy in pa firewall to decrypt https traffic. Push a trusted certificate to clients and enable a decryption policy to inspect traffic.

Learn how security profiles augment policies with content ID, enabling antivirus, spyware, vulnerability checks, URL filtering, file blocking, and wildfire analysis to inspect and control encrypted traffic.

Configure anti-spyware profiles in Palo Alto firewalls, including default and custom profiles, and attach them to security rules. Create custom spyware signatures and test using monitoring and packet capture.

Configure vulnerability protection profiles on Palo Alto firewalls to block threats in internal networks and DMZs. Create signatures and updates, and manage licenses, then verify protection by applying policy changes.

Configure url filtering to block or allow websites using Palo Alto Networks database or Bright Cloud. Apply categories and custom lists, verify licenses, and monitor logs with password-protected overrides.

Configure file blocking in a Palo Alto security profile, applying block, alert, or continue actions to monitor and restrict uploads and downloads of selected file types.

Configure wildfire analysis on Palo Alto firewall by creating profiles, enabling dynamic update, and testing unknown threats using public or private wildfire, with file-type testing and reporting.

Configure data filtering profiles to detect sensitive data such as credit card and social security numbers, using predefined patrons, regular expressions, and file properties, and enforce alert and block thresholds.

Learn to use security profile groups to attach antivirus, anti spyware, vulnerability, url filtering, file blocking, and data filtering to multiple policies at once, improving efficiency.

Explore how zone protection profiles and packet buffer protection defend against DoS and DDoS, reconnaissance attacks, and flooding attacks (UDP, ICMP, ICMPv6) with aggregate and classified policies.

Configure and verify a DoS protection profile on Palo Alto firewall, enabling sync flood, UDP, and ICMP protections with random early drop and block durations; test against a web server.

Configure a zone protection profile to shield zones from flood and reconnaissance attacks, using thresholds and actions to block or alert on TCP/ICMP/UDP floods and port scans.

Enable packet buffer protection via device-wide settings and zone protection profiles to guard against buffer overflow and ddos attacks. Configure alerts, blocking duration, and test with icmp flooding.

Deploy the Palo Alto firewall as a layer two switch with VLAN ten, two zones (LAN and server), and a policy to permit ping and http between zones.

Deploy Palo Alto firewall in virtual wire mode to create a bump-in-the-wire topology, linking inside and outside zones with two interfaces, DHCP assignment, and bidirectional security policies.

Configure Palo Alto firewall sub-interfaces on a trunk to support VLAN ten, twenty, and thirty with zones hr it sales and a default route to the internet.

Learn how Palo Alto firewalls perform network address translation to conserve IPv4 space, covering source and destination NAT, dynamic and static IP translation, port address translation, and port forwarding.

Explore source nat dynamic ip and port (dipp) theory with a hands-on lab, translating inside addresses to a single public ip or a pool of public ips on Palo Alto.

Explore how source nat uses dynamic ip (dip) for 1-to-1 mapping, first-come, first-served traffic, and an interface-based fallback to maximize concurrent sessions with limited public ips.

Demonstrate static IP source NAT with 1:1 translation, assigning unique public IPs to each internal PC, and compare with dynamic IP behavior in the lab.

Learn destination network address translation on a Palo Alto firewall, including static IP DNAT, port forwarding, and port translation to reach private internal servers.

Learn how u-turn nat lets internal clients reach external or dmz resources using both source and destination translations, with practical palo alto firewall configuration and verification.

Learn to organize a Palo Alto firewall with objects: addresses, address groups, regions, services, and service groups; create static and dynamic address groups using tags for reusable, scalable policies.

Introduce app-id in Palo Alto firewall, showing how app-based traffic identification replaces port-based rules, using signatures, unknown protocol decoding, and decryption to control apps like Facebook, web browsing, and DNS.

Navigate the Palo Alto firewall application window, exploring object, application group, and filter, and review categories, subcategories, and risk factors while using search, disable/enable, and tagging for policy management.

Explore the Palo Alto firewall applications window, identify Skype by name, port type, and tcp/udp usage, then manage dependencies and validate required apps before committing changes.

Demonstrate application shift in Palo Alto firewall, where TCP-based applications reclassify mid-session from web browsing to services like Facebook or YouTube, using the TCP three-way handshake and SSL transitions.

Identify dependent applications in Palo Alto firewall rules, recognizing that some apps like YouTube require Google base to work; verify dependencies in both application window and policy before committing.

Explain implicitly use of applications and how apps like Facebook enable ssl and web browsing automatically. Identify implicitly use via object application and type in the application window.

Create and nest static application groups to simplify management, reuse across policies, and secure traffic, using network and web groups as examples.

Learn how application filters dynamically group apps by category and subcategory, allowing automatic blocking of new apps without manual updates.

Learn to create and register a custom application in Palo Alto firewall, including naming, category, risk, port/protocol, and optional signature, to control non-listed apps.

Learn how to use application override in Palo Alto firewall to bypass layer 7 checks for new or signature-free apps, applying layer 3/4 inspection via a policy.

Update your Palo Alto firewall application signatures using manual downloads or schedule-based updates, verify downloads and installations via device dynamic updates and the dashboard, and review release notes for changes.

Create and test security policies based on application in PA, demonstrating application-based blocking for Facebook and LinkedIn by source IP.

Introduce user-id as the third pillar of the next-generation firewall, enabling policies based on users or groups rather than ip addresses, with improved visibility, logging, and reporting.

Implement captive portal user-id on a Palo Alto firewall using local database users, create visitor groups, and redirect inside users to a portal with temporary credentials, enabling user-based access control.

Learn to configure Active Directory on Windows Server, set up DNS and promote a domain controller, and integrate Palo Alto Firewall with a service account.

Learn how to integrate Palo Alto firewall with Active Directory using LDAP, create service accounts, configure LDAP server profiles, authentication and user/group mapping, and enforce domain-based access.

Explore how DHCP automates IP address, subnet mask, and DNS via UDP-based Dora and how Palo Alto firewall can act as a DHCP server, client, or relay.

Explore how to configure a Palo Alto firewall as a Dhcp client, server, and relay within a three-zone topology, including Dora process, Dhcp server pools, and policy rules.

Configure the Palo Alto firewall as a DHCP relay agent to forward broadcast DHCP requests to an external DHCP server, with a DMZ server and policy for relay traffic.

Configure interface management profiles to control admin access on specific interfaces by enabling services like http, https, ssh, telnet, ping, snmp, and syslog with permitted ip addresses.

Configure service routes on Palo Alto firewalls to route DNS, syslog, updates, and other services to the correct interfaces (management, DMZ, inside), including IPv4/IPv6.

Discover administrator accounts and dynamic roles on the Palo Alto firewall, including super user, super user read only, device administrator, and device administrator read only, with automatic feature inheritance.

Explore administrator accounts and role based configuration on Palo Alto firewall, comparing static predefined roles with custom roles and dynamic rule bases, including web UI and rest API access.

Walk through administrator accounts window, configuring users with password, certificate, and public key authentication, attaching authentication profiles, and testing login via PuTTY and automatic certificate-based login.

Enforce administrator password complexity with minimum eight characters, upper and lower case, digits, and special characters; apply global and per-user password profiles, and configure change, expiration, and grace rules.

Explore redundancy and high availability for Palo Alto firewalls, including H1/H2 control and data links, active-passive and active-active modes, heartbeat and failover concepts.

Configure two firewalls in an active-passive high availability setup, enable preemption, and verify failover via heartbeat and link monitoring across inside and outside zones.

Explains cryptography basics, defines plaintext and ciphertext, explains encryption and decryption algorithms, describes Caesar cipher and vinegar cipher, contrasts symmetric and asymmetric encryption, and covers hash for integrity.

Explore how internet key exchange negotiates security policies, algorithms, and keys between ipsec peers for site-to-site vpn, covering ike v1 vs v2, isakmp, and phase one and two.

Explore how virtual private networks secure data over the internet, using IPsec and SSL VPNs for site-to-site and remote access, with hub-and-spoke and land-to-land architectures, and key classifications and benefits.

Explore IPsec as an open standard for site-to-site and remote access VPNs, detailing confidentiality, integrity, authentication, anti-replay, esp vs ah, tunnel vs transport modes, and key exchange with Diffie-Hellman groups.

Configure a site-to-site ipsec vpn between two Palo Alto firewalls, linking 192.168.1.x and 192.168.2.x networks via a 172.16.x tunnel, with ike phase one and ipsec phase two; verify with ping.

Explore remote access vpn concepts with Palo Alto's GlobalProtect, including ssl vs ipsec, client-based vs browser-based access, portal and gateway architecture, and split tunneling.

Learn how to use the monitor tab to access traffic, threat, and user-id logs, with filters, columns, and export options, plus url filtering, data filtering, wildfire, and unified logs.

Configure and verify syslog on a Palo Alto firewall, forward traffic, system, and policy logs to external servers (syslog, Panorama, SNMP) using UDP 514, with per-zone and service route considerations.

Configure NetFlow on Palo Alto by creating and applying a NetFlow server profile to interfaces, enabling traffic monitoring to identify top bandwidth users, applications, and endpoints.

Configure and verify snmp on a Palo Alto firewall using versions 2 and 3. Use get, get next, get bulk, set, and trap messages with snmp manager, agents, and nms.

Configure and verify Palo Alto firewall packet capture via graphical user interface and command line interface. Filter by interface, source ip, destination ip, port, protocol, drop, receive, transmit, firewall stages.

Explore the Palo Alto firewall monitoring features, including summary, change, and threat monitors. Learn to view top gainers and losers, bandwidth by application, and exportable network maps.

Explore the application command center tab to monitor network, application, and user activity with widgets, apply local and global filters, and export reports to pdf using customizable tapes.

Explore how backup and restore work on a Palo Alto firewall, using candidate and running configurations, commit processes, and saving, loading, and exporting device state snapshots.

Explore eve-ng installation and configuration for emulated networks, compare eve-ng with gns3, choose community edition, set up prerequisites, import router and switch images, and build CCNP labs.