What is Cisco Secure Access

Cisco Secure Access is a cloud Security Service Edge (SSE) solution that is a convergence of network security services delivered from the cloud to connect a hybrid workforce. Cisco SD-WAN Manager uses REST APIs to gather policy information from Cisco Secure Access and then shares this information with the SD-Routing devices. This solution provides seamless, transparent, and secure Direct Internet Access (DIA) to users helping them connect from anything to anywhere.

In Cisco IOS XE 17.14.1a, Cisco SSE provides the capability for SD-Routing devices to connect with SSE providers using IPSec tunnels.

Feature Release Information Description
Configure Cisco Secure Access Cisco IOS XE Release 17.14.1a Cisco Secure Access is a cloud Security Service Edge (SSE) solution that provides seamless, transparent, and secure Direct Internet Access (DIA). This solution can be configured using policy groups in the Cisco SD-WAN Manager.

Restrictions

  • Cisco Secure Access does not support API throttling.
  • After integrating Cisco Secure Access with Cisco SD-Routing, any changes made to the Network Tunnel Group Name in the Cisco Secure Access dashboard is not reflected in the Cisco SD-WAN Manager.

Workflow to Set up Cisco Secure Access

This workflow outlines the high-level steps required to set up Cisco Secure Access. The detailed instructions are covered in the subsequent sections.

Task

Description

Preliminary configurations on the Cisco Secure Access Portal
Check credentials on the Cisco Secure Access portal and ensure that the API Keys have Read/Write privileges.

Go to Admin > Management > API Keys and generate and manage API keys. Ensure that you have Read/Write access to Network Tunnel Group .

API Keys ensure seamless connection between Cisco Secure Access and the SD-Routing device, after tunnels have been set up and deployed using the Cisco SD-WAN Manager.
Preliminary configurations on the Cisco SD-WAN Manager
Enable domain look up for the device

Go to Configuration Groups > System Profile > Global and enable Domain Lookup

Domain Lookup enables DNS-based hostname-to-address translation, allowing the device to resolve hostnames to IP addresses using DNS servers.
Configure DNS and NAT using the CLI Configuration group on the Cisco SD-WAN Manager.

Go to Configuration Groups. select an SD-Routing configuration group. Select Add Profile and select CLI Add-On Profile.

Select + Create New and enter a name and description followed by the command in the CLI section.

Configure DNS for the SD-Routing device

Enter ip http client source-interface name and number of the interface command in the CLI section on the Cisco SD-WAN Manager. For example: ip http client source-interface GigabitEthernet2

This command configures the source interface for HTTP client connections.

Configure NAT on WAN and LAN interface (outside/inside)

Enter these commands in the CLI section on the Cisco SD-WAN Manager.

interface Loopback1
no shutdown
ip nat inside
ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255

ip access-list extended nat-acl1
10 permit ip any any

ip nat inside source list nat-acl1 interface GigabitEthernet2 overload
ip nat settings interface-overload port range start 5062 end 6200

In this example, the WAN interface is GigabitEthernet2 and nat-acl1 is the name of the Access Control List. By doing this you are ensuring that multiple private addresses inside a local network get mapped to a public IP address before transferring the information to the internet.

SSE related configurations on Cisco SD-WAN Manager
Set up Cloud Credentials Configure credentials to enable Cisco SD-WAN Manager for automated tunnel provisioning to Cisco SSE. For more information see, Set up Cloud Provider credentials
Configure source interface address for loopback interface Configure the source interface of the SSE tunnel as the loopback interface. Using a loopback interface as the source for SSE tunnels provides redundancy, as the loopback interface is always up and reachable, unlike physical interfaces that can go down. For more information, see Configure loopback interface as the source interface
Create SSE Policy using Policy Groups Associate an SSE Policy to a Policy Group. For more information see, Create an SSE policy using Policy Group
Configure Traffic Redirection After the tunnels are established, relevant traffic should be forwarded to Cisco Secure Access for security insepction and policy enforcement. For more information, see Create route-based traffic forwarding
Associate the SSE Policy with Policy Group Deploy the policy to SD-Routing devices. For more information, see Associate the SSE Policy with a Policy Group and Deploy the Policy Group to a device
Verify the SSE Configuration Verify the configuration to ensure SSE is working. For more information, see Verify Cisco Secure Access tunnels
Monitor the SSE Tunnels

Identify issues with the SSE tunnels and take corrective measures.

For more information, see Monitor and troubleshoot Cisco Secure Access tunnels from Cisco SD-WAN Manager

Set up Cloud Provider credentials

Configure credentials to enable Cisco SD-WAN Manager for automated tunnel provisioning to Cisco SSE.

Step 1

Click Administration > Settings > Cloud Credentials > Cloud Provider Credentials enable Cisco Secure Access and enter these details. These credentials are used to initiate authentication for a session and are later used in subsequent sessions.

Field

Description
Organization ID Cisco Secure Access organization ID for your organization.
API Key Cisco Secure Access API Key. For SSE with Cisco Secure Access, the key scope must include the Network Tunnel Group with both read and write permissions enabled.
Secret Cisco Secure Access API Secret.

Step 2

Save these details.

Configure loopback interface as the source interface

Configure the source interface of the SSE tunnel as the loopback interface. Using a loopback interface as the source for SSE tunnels provides redundancy, as the loopback interface is always up and reachable, unlike physical interfaces that can go down.

  1. Go to Configuration Groups. Select an SD-Routing configuration group. Select Add Profile and select CLI Add-On Profile.. Select + Create New and enter a name and description.
  2. Enter these commands in the CLI section: 
    interface loopback1
no shutdown
ip nat inside
ip address any valid IP address 255.255.255.255

Create an SSE policy using Policy Group

Policy groups are a collection of different policies that you can configure through workflows and associate with and deploy on different SD-Routing devices. Use this procedure to create an SSE policy to establish secure, Direct Internet Access (DIA) and ensure consistent security enforcement across the network.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have created the SSE credentials.You can do this on the Cisco SD-WAN Manager by going to Administration > Settings > Cloud Provider Credentials > Cisco SSE and enter the details.

Step 1

On the SD-WAN Manager go to Configuration > Policy Groups > Secure Internet Gateway/Secure Service Edge. Click on Add Secure Service Edge (SSE).

Step 2

Enter a name for the SSE policy and specify the solution type as sd-routing and click Create.

Step 3

While creating automatic tunnels, Cisco SD-WAN Manager creates and attaches a default tracker endpoint with default values for failover parameters. However, you can also create customized trackers with failover parameters that suit your requirements.

  1. In the Source IP Address field, enter a source IP address without a subnet mask. This is used for sending http probes to tracker endpoint to detect if there is a unexpected network drops or any latency and is used under the vrf id 65330.

  2. To create a custom tracker, Click Add Tracker. In the Add Tracker window, configure the following and click Add.

 Note

If the underlay transport has high latency, the default endpoint tracker may not load with default values. In this scenario, create a custom tracker and configure higher threshold values corresponding to the underlay network. This is applicable to both the default tracker and the custom tracker.

Tracker Parameters
Field Description
Name Name of the tracker. The name can be up to 128 alphanumeric characters.
API URL of Endpoint The default API URL for the SSE endpoint of the tunnel is service.sig.umbrella.com. If you need to change the default endpoint, specify a different API URL.
Threshold Enter the wait time for the probe to return a response before declaring that the configured endpoint is down. The range is 100 to 1000 milliseconds and the default is 300 milliseconds.
Probe Interval Enter the time interval between probes to determine the status of the configured endpoint. The range is 20 to 600 seconds, and the default is 60 seconds.
Multiplier Enter the number of times to resend probes before determining that a tunnel is up or down. The range is 1 to 10, and the default is 3.

Step 4

Create a Tunnel. Click Configuration.

  1. Click Add Tunnel.

  2. In the Add Tunnel pop-up window, under Basic Settings, configure the following and click Add .

Basic Settings
Field Description
Tunnel Type Cisco Secure Access: (Read only) ipsec
Interface Name (1..255) Name of the interface.
Description Enter a description for the interface.
Tracker By default, a tracker is attached to monitor the health of tunnels.
Tunnel Source Interface Name of the source interface of the tunnel. This interface should be an egress interface and is typically the internet-facing interface. The tunnel source interface supports loopback. Depending on your intent you can configure up to 16 tunnels (8 active/8 backup).
Source Public IP Public IP address of the tunnel source interface that is required to create the tunnel to SSE. Default: Auto.

We recommend that you use the default configuration. With the default configuration, the Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN device finds the public IP address assigned to the tunnel source interface using a DNS query. If the DNS query fails, the device notifies Cisco SD-WAN Manager of the failure. Enter the public IP address only if the DNS query fails.

Data-Center For a primary data center, click Primary, or for a secondary data center, click Secondary. Tunnels to the primary data center serve as active tunnels, and tunnels to the secondary data center serve as back-up tunnels.
Advanced Options (Optional)
Shutdown Click the radio button to enable this option. Default: Disabled
Enable Tracker Click the radio button to enable this option.
IP MTU Specify the maximum MTU size of packets on the interface. Range: 576 to 2000 bytes. Default: 1400 bytes
TCP MSS Specify the maximum segment size (MSS) of TPC SYN packets. By default, the MSS is dynamically adjusted based on the interface or tunnel MTU such that TCP SYN packets are never fragmented. Range: 500 to 1460 bytes. Default: None
DPD Interval Specify the interval for Internet Key Exchange (IKE) to send Hello packets on the connection. Range: 10 to 3600 seconds Default: 10
DPD Retries Specify the number of seconds between Dead Peer Detection (DPD) retry messages if the DPD retry message is missed by the peer. If a peer misses a DPD message, the router changes the state and sends a DPD retry message. The message is sent at a faster retry interval, which is the number of seconds between DPD retries. The default DPD retry message is sent every 2 seconds. The tunnel is marked as down after five DPD retry messages are missed. Range: 2 to 60 seconds. Default: 3
IKE
IKE Rekey Interval Specify the interval for refreshing IKE keys. Range: 3600 to 1209600 seconds (1 hour to 14 days). Default: 14400 seconds.
IKE Cipher Suite Specify the type of authentication and encryption to use during IKE key exchange. Choose one of the following:
  • AES 256 CBC SHA1
  • AES 256 CBC SHA2
  • AES 128 CBC SHA1
  • AES 128 CBC SHA2

Default: AES 256 CBC SHA1
IKE Diffie-Hellman Group Specify the Diffie-Hellman group to use in IKE key exchange, whether IKEv1 or IKEv2.
IPSec
IPsec Rekey Interval Specify the interval for refreshing IPsec keys. Range: 3600 to 1209600 seconds (1 hour to 14 days). Default: 3600 seconds.
IPsec Replay Window Specify the replay window size for the IPsec tunnel. Options: 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, or 4096 packets. Default: 512
IPsec Cipher Suite Specify the authentication and encryption to use on the IPsec tunnel. Options are:
  • AES 256 CBC SHA1
  • AES 256 CBC SHA 384
  • AES 256 CBC SHA 256
  • AES 256 CBC SHA 512
  • AES 256 GCM
Default: AEM 256 GCM
Perfect Forward Secrecy Specify the Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) settings to use on the IPsec tunnel. Choose one of the following Diffie-Hellman prime modulus groups:
  • Group-2 1024-bit modulus
  • Group-14 2048-bit modulus
  • Group-15 3072-bit modulus
  • Group-16 4096-bit modulus
  • None: disable PFS

Step 5

Configure High Availability. To designate active and back-up tunnels and distribute traffic among tunnels, click High Availability and do the following:

  1. Click Add Interface Pair. In the Add Interface Pair pop-up window, configure the following

  2. Click Add to save these configurations.

Field Description
Active Interface Choose a tunnel that connects to the primary data center.
Active Interface Weight Enter weight (weight range 1 to 255) for load balancing. Load balancing helps in distributing traffic over multiple tunnels and this helps increase the network bandwidth. If you enter the same weights to both the tunnels, you can achieve ECMP load balancing across the tunnels. However, if you enter a higher weight for a tunnel, that tunnel has higher priority for traffic flow. For example, if you set up two active tunnels, where the first tunnel is configured with weight of 10, and the second tunnel with weight configured as 20, then the traffic is load-balanced between the tunnels in a 10:20 ratio.
Backup Interface To designate a back-up tunnel, choose a tunnel that connects to the secondary data center. To omit designating a back-up tunnel, choose None.
Backup Interface Weight Enter weight (weight range 1 to 255) for load balancing. Load balancing helps in distributing traffic over multiple tunnels and this helps increase the network bandwidth. If you enter the same weights, you can achieve ECMP load balancing across the tunnels. However, if you enter a higher weight for a tunnel, that tunnel has higher priority for traffic flow. For example, if you set up two back-up tunnels, where the first tunnel is configured with weight of 10, and the second tunnel with weight configured as 20, then the traffic is load-balanced between the tunnels in a 10:20 ratio.

Step 6

Select the Region. When you choose the region, a pair of primary and secondary region is selected. Choose the primary region that Cisco Secure Service Edge provides from the drop-down list and the secondary region is auto-selected in Cisco SD-WAN Manager. If the primary region with a unicast IP address is not reachable then the secondary region with a unicast IP address is reachable and vice versa. Cisco Secure Access ensures that both the regions are reachable at all times.

Create route-based traffic forwarding

After the tunnels are established, relevant traffic should be forwarded to the tunnels. In Cisco IOS XE 17.14.1a, configure traffic forwarding by using the CLI template to add this command:

  1. Go to Configuration Groups. Select an SD-Routing configuration group. Select Add Profile and select CLI Add-On Profile.. Select + Create New and enter a name and description.
  2. Enter this command in the CLI section:ip sdwan route vrf <network> <subnetmask> service sse Cisco-Secure-Access Example: ip sdwan route vrf 2 0.0.0.0/0 service sse Cisco-Secure-Access

Associate the SSE Policy with a Policy Group and Deploy the Policy Group to a device

The SSE policy created earlier has to be associated with a Policy Group and later associated with a device for the policy to work on that device.

Step 1

On the SD-WAN Manager go to Configuration > Policy Groups > Add Policy Group to create a new policy group for SD-Routing devices.

Step 2

Select the Action button and under Policy select the SSE Policy created earlier from the available policies.

Step 3

Click Save to create an association between the SSE Policy and the Policy Group. This association ensures that the SSE policy is now part of the Policy Group.

Step 4

Associate the Policy Group to the device. This association ensures that when you deploy this Policy group to a device, the device inherits all the policies associated with this Policy Group.

Step 5

Deploy the Policy Group to the device. Your device is now ready to use SSE tunnels.

Verify Cisco Secure Access tunnels

To view information about the Cisco Secure Access tunnels that you have configured for the SD-Routing device, use the show sse all command.


Device# show sse all

***************************************
   SSE  Instance Cisco-Secure-Access
***************************************
Tunnel name : Tunnel15000001
Site id: 2678135102
Tunnel id: 617865691
SSE tunnel name: C8K-63a9b72b-f1fa-4973-a323-c36861cf59ee
HA role: Active
Local state: Up
Tracker state: Up
Destination Data Center: 52.42.220.205
Tunnel type: IPSEC
Provider name: Cisco Secure Access

Monitor and troubleshoot Cisco Secure Access tunnels from Cisco SD-WAN Manager

These sections show how to identify issues with the SSE tunnels and take corrective measures.

Monitoring SSE Tunnel state using Cisco SD-WAN Manager

Monitor the state of the SSE tunnels using these options in Cisco SD-WAN Manager:

  • Go to Monitor > Security > SIG/SSE Tunnel dashboard to view information about:
    • Down Tunnels
    • Degraded Tunnels: Degraded state indicates that the SSE tunnel is up but the Layer 7 health of the tunnel as detected by the tracker does not meet the configured SLA parameters. Therefore, the traffic is not routed through the tunnel.
    • Up Tunnels
  • Go to Monitor > Tunnels > SIG/SSE Tunnel to view information about : Data plane tunnels, tunnel end points, and health of the tunnel

The Cisco SD-WAN Manager displays a table that provides these details about each automatic tunnel to Cisco Secure Access:

Field

Description
Host Name Host name of the SD-Routing device.
Site ID ID of the site where the WAN Edge device is deployed.
Tunnel ID Unique ID for the tunnel defined by the SIG/SSE provider.
Transport Type IPSec tunnels used to encrypt traffic over public WAN.
Tunnel Name Unique name for the tunnel that can be used to identify the tunnel at both the local and remote ends. On the SSE provider portal, you can use the tunnel name to find details about a particular tunnel.
HA Pair Active or Backup
Provider Cisco Secure Access
Destination Data Center SIG/SSE provider data center to which the tunnel is connected.
Tunnel Status (Local) Tunnel status as perceived by the device.
Tunnel Status (Remote) Tunnel status as perceived by the SIG/SSE endpoint.
Events Number of events related to the tunnel set up, interface state change, and tracker notifications. Click on the number to display an Events slide-in pane. The slide-in pane lists all the relevant events for the particular tunnel.
Tracker Enabled or disabled during tunnel configuration.

Monitoring and troubleshooting using commands

This section provides details on how to identify and troubleshoot SSE tunnel issues from device commands.

Troubleshooting using alarms and notifications

To view information about a device on which an event was generated :

Execute show notification stream viptela command to view the device notifications.

Device#show notification stream viptela
notification
 eventTime 2023-11-09T06:21:19.95062+00:00
 sse-tunnel-params-absent
  severity major
  host-name vm6
  if-name TunnelSSE
  wan-if-ip 192.1.2.8

Execute show sd-routing alarms detail command to view detailed information about alarms on the the SD-Routing device.

Device#show sd-routing alarms detail
2023-08-08:21:40:27.888885
event-name vmanage-connection-preference-changed
severity-level minor
host-name me1
kv-pair [ system-ip=10.0.1.2 color=default vmanage-connection-preference=5 ]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
alarms 2023-08-08:21:40:30.145551
event-name
control-connection-tloc-ip-change
severity-level minor
host-name me1
kv-pair [ system-ip=10.0.1.2 personality=vedge old-public-ip=0.0.0.0 old-public-port=0
new-public-ip=10.1.1.2 new-public-port=0 ]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Execute show sd-routing alarms summary command to view alarm details such as the timestamp, event name, and severity in a tabular format.

Device#show sd-routing alarms summary
time-stamp            event-name                         severity-level
-------------------------------------------------------------------
2023-08-08:21:40:27.888885 vmanage-connection-preference-changed  minor
2023-08-08:21:40:30.145551 control-connection-tloc-ip-change      minor
2023-08-08:21:40:34.262999 system-reboot-complete                 major

Troubleshooting using crypto session details

Execute show crypto session command to view the crypto session details

Device#show crypto session
Interface: Tunnel15000010
Profile: if-ipsec10-ikev2-profile
Session status: UP-ACTIVE     
Peer: 3.76.88.203 port 4500 
  Session ID: 7  
  IKEv2 SA: local 10.1.15.15/4500 remote 3.76.88.203/4500 Active 
  IPSEC FLOW: permit ip   0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 
        Active SAs: 2, origin: crypto map

Troubleshooting using interface details

Execute the show interface brief command. This command displays the interface details.

Device#show interface brief
Tunnel15000010         10.1.15.15      YES TFTP   up    up

Troubleshooting using endpoint tracker details

Execute the show endpoint tracker command. This command displays all the endpoint tracker details.

Device#show endpoint-tracker
Interface                        Record Name            Status        Address Family   RTT in msecs    Probe ID   Next Hop
Tunnel16000002                   DefaultTracker         Up            IPv4             22              20         None

Troubleshooting using tunnel details

Execute the show running config|sec sse command. This command displays the tunnel and vrf details.

Device#show running config|sec sse
sse instance Cisco-Secure-Access
  ha-pairs
   interface-pair Tunnel15000010 active-interface-weight 1 None backup-interface-weight 1
!
ip sdwan route vrf 2 0.0.0.0/0 service sse Cisco-Secure-Access