Health

The following topics describe how to use health monitoring:

Requirements and prerequisites for health monitoring

This reference provides the requirements and prerequisites needed to implement health monitoring functionality.

Model support

Any

Supported domains

Any

User roles

Admin: Full permissions (create, view, edit, delete, and deploy) for health policies, exclusions, alerts, and related health settings.

Maintenance User and Security Analyst: View-only permissions for health monitoring data (dashboards, status, and events); no create, edit, delete, or deploy permissions.

Health monitoring

Health monitoring is a system capability that

  • tracks various health indicators to ensure hardware and software are working correctly,

  • checks the status of critical functionality across your deployment, and

  • enables configuration of test frequency for alerting and time series data collection.

Health monitoring capabilities

Health monitoring includes two key capabilities: health status monitoring through health policies and health modules, and time series data collection for metrics analysis.

With time series data collection, you can configure how frequently metric data is collected for the device and its health modules. The device monitor reports these metrics in several predefined health monitor dashboards by default. This metric data is collected for analysis. Some alerts are generated from metric values when they cross the thresholds specified in the health policy.


Diagram illustrating how to apply health policies to a managed device and how to collect health data at a Defense Center to monitor the health status.

You can use the health monitor to create a collection of tests, referred to as a health policy, and apply the health policy to one or more appliances. The tests, referred to as health modules, are scripts that test for the criteria you specify. You can modify a health policy by enabling or disabling tests or by changing test settings, and you can delete health policies that you no longer need. You can also suppress messages from selected appliances by excluding them.

The health monitoring system run the tests in a health policy at the configured intervals. You can also run all tests, or a specific test, on demand. The health monitor collects health events based on the test conditions configured.


Note

All appliances automatically report their hardware status via the Hardware Alarms health module. The Firewall Management Center also automatically reports status using the modules configured in the default health policy. Some health modules, such as the Appliance Heartbeat module, run on the Firewall Management Center and report the status of the Firewall Management Center's managed devices. For the health modules to provide managed device status, you must deploy all health policies to the device.

You can use the health monitor to access health status information for the entire system and for a particular appliance. In a multi-domain deployment, you can view the health status summary for a device in the domain where the device is located.

A hexagon-shaped widget and status tables on the Health Status page provide a visual summary of the status of all appliances on your network, including the Firewall Management Center. Individual appliance health monitors let you drill down into health details for a specific appliance.

Fully customizable event views allow you to quickly and easily analyze the health status events gathered by the health monitor. These event views allow you to search and view event data and to access other information that may be related to the events you are investigating. For example, if you want to see all the occurrences of CPU usage with a certain percentage, you can search for the CPU usage module and enter the percentage value.

You can also configure alerting in response to health events. A health alert is an association between a standard alert and a health status level. For example, if you want to make sure an appliance never fails due to hardware overload, you can set up an email alert. You can then create a health alert that triggers an email alert whenever CPU, disk, or memory usage reaches the Warning level you configure in the health policy applied to that appliance. You can set alerting thresholds to minimize the number of repeating alerts you receive.


Note

The health monitoring can take 5–6 minutes from the occurrence of the health event to generate the health alert.

You can also generate troubleshooting files for an appliance if you are asked to do so by Support.

Only users with administrator user role privileges can access system health data.

High availability pair

In a Firewall Management Center high availability deployment, the active peer creates a health monitor page that uses REST APIs to show detailed metric-based information. The standby peer creates the health monitor page that shows the alert information and provide a visual summary of the status of all appliances on your network using pie charts and status tables. The standby peer does not display the metric-based information.

Health modules

Describes health modules that monitor system conditions and provide alerts or metrics for managing device health and performance.

Health modules, or health tests, test for the conditions that you specify in a health policy.

Health monitoring includes both health alerts or tests and metric or time series data collection. The two types of health modules are alert modules and metrics modules. Alerts modules (sometimes called legacy modules) monitor system infrastructure and report only the health status. When the conditions specified in the health policy for these monitored systems are met, these modules raise health alerts. Metrics modules (sometimes called telegraf modules) collect statistics (sometimes called time series data) that you can view on the health monitoring dashboard. Some alerts are also generated from metric values when they cross the thresholds specified in the health policy. You can create custom dashboards with your preferred health metrics, allowing you to monitor statistics or troubleshoot appliance health issues.

Table 1. Device Health Modules

Module

Type

Description

AMP Connection Status

Metrics

The module alerts if the device cannot connect to the AMP cloud or Cisco AMP Private Cloud after an initial successful connection, or if the private cloud cannot contact the public AMP cloud. Disabled by default.

AMP Threat Grid Connectivity

Metrics

The module alerts if the device cannot connect to the AMP Threat Grid cloud after an initial successful connection.

ASP Drop

Metrics

Monitors the connections dropped by the data plane accelerated security path.

Automatic Application Bypass

Alert

Monitors bypassed detection applications.

Chassis Environment Status

Alert

Monitors chassis parameters such as fan speed and chassis temperature, and enables you to set a warning threshold and critical threshold for temperature. The Critical Chassis Temperature (Celsius) default value is 85. The Warning Chassis Temperature (Celsius) default value is 75.

By default, the CPU temperature threshold for the Firepower 1010 is 100 and this module generates a high CPU temperature alert when the CPU temperature of the Firepower 1010 device reaches 100 degrees Celsius.

Cluster/HA Failover Status

Alert

For threat defense clusters, alerts when a unit joins, leaves, or is elected primary.

Configuration Resource Utilization

Alert

Alerts if the size of your deployed configurations puts a device at risk of running out of memory.

The alert shows you how much memory your configurations require, and by how much this exceeds the available memory. If this happens, reevaluate your configurations. You may be able to reduce the number or complexity of access control rules or intrusion policies.

Connection Statistics

Metrics

Monitors connection statistics and NAT translation counts. For standby Firewall Threat Defense devices in a high availability pair, this widget reflects only the statistics of connections replicated from the active device.

CPU Usage (per core)

Metrics

Alerts when CPU core use exceeds a configurable threshold.

Critical Process Statistics

Metrics

Monitors the state of critical processes, their resource consumption, and the restart counts.

Database

Alert

  • Monitors the system for database integrity issues related to schema or configuration data ( sometimes called EO ). If you receive an alert about a database integrity issue, contact Cisco TAC. Database integrity issues can prevent upgrades.

  • Monitors the size of the undo log files and raises alerts when the size exceeds threshold limits. Undo logs record the previous state of data before modifications, allowing changes to be reversed.

    • A warning alert is generated when the undo log file size exceeds 800 MB but is less than 1 GB.

    • A critical alert is generated when the undo log file size exceeds 1 GB.

    To change the default threshold values, contact Cisco TAC.

CPU Usage Date Plane

Metrics

Alerts when data plane CPU use exceeds a configurable threshold.

Memory Usage Data Plane

Metrics

Alerts when data plane memory use exceeds a configurable threshold.

Deployed Configuration Statistics

Metrics

Monitors statistics about the deployed configuration, such as the number of ACEs and IPS rules.

Disk Status

Alert

Alerts if there is an issue with the hard disk or RAID controller. If this module alerts, contact Cisco TAC. This will prevent upgrade.

Disk Usage

Metrics

This module compares disk usage on the appliance’s hard drive to the limits configured for the module and alerts when usage exceeds the thresholds configured for the module. This module also alerts when the system excessively deletes files in monitored disk usage categories, or when disk usage excluding those categories reaches excessive levels, based on module thresholds. For more information, refer to Disk usage and drain of events health monitor alerts for information about troubleshooting scenarios for Disk Usage alerts.

The Disk Usage module sends a health alert if the size of device configuration history files exceeds the allowed limit. For more information, refer to Disk Usage for Device Configuration History Files Health Monitoring Alert for information about troubleshooting scenarios for the disk usage alerts. This health alert is not supported on Secure Firewall Management Center Versions 7.2.0-7.2.5, 7.3.x, and 7.4.0.

Use the Disk Usage health status module to monitor disk usage for the / and /volume partitions on the appliance and track draining frequency. Although the disk usage module lists the /boot partition as a monitored partition, the size of the partition is static so the module does not alert on the boot partition.

File System Integrity Check

Alert

This module performs a file system integrity check and runs if the system has CC mode or UCAPL mode enabled, or if the system runs an image signed with a DEV key.

Firewall Threat Defense HA

Alert

Alerts if a threat defense high availability pair is split brain.

Firewall Threat Defense Platform Faults

Alert

Monitors Secure Firewall 1000 /2100 /3100 /4200 platform faults and generate health alerts for the faults.

A platform fault represents a failure in the Firewall Threat Defense instance or an alarm threshold that has been raised. During the lifecycle of a platform fault, it can change from one state or severity to another. Each fault includes information about the operational state of the affected object at the time the fault was raised. If the fault is transitional and the failure is resolved, then the object transitions to a functional state. For more information, refer to Cisco Firepower 1000/2100 FXOS Faults and Error Messages Guide.

Flow Offload Statistics

Metrics

Monitors hardware flow offload.

Hardware Alarms

Alert

This module determines if hardware needs to be replaced on a physical managed device and alerts based on the hardware status. It also reports on the status of hardware-related daemons.

Inline Link Mismatch Alarms

Alert

Alerts if inline pair interfaces negotiate different speeds.

Interface Statistics

Alert

Determines if the device currently collects traffic and alerts based on the traffic status of physical interfaces and aggregate interfaces. For physical interfaces, the information includes interface name, link state, and bandwidth. For aggregate interfaces, the information includes interface name, number of active links, and total aggregate bandwidth.

For subinterfaces, this module reports health alerts in aggregate rather than generating separate alerts for each affected subinterface. If multiple subinterfaces on the same parent interface experience health issues, Firewall Management Center generates a single summarized alert indicating the number of affected subinterfaces for that parent interface. To view the specific status of individual subinterfaces, refer to the Interfaces tab.

Note

 

  • This module also monitors the high availability standby device traffic flow. Though it is known that the standby device would not be receiving any traffic yet, the Firewall Management Center alerts that the interface is not receiving any traffic. The same alerting principle is applied when traffic is not received by some of the subinterfaces on a port channel.

  • This module displays the traffic rates according to the values from Lina. However, if you use the show interface CLI command to know the interface statistics of your device, the input and output rates in the CLI command result can be different from the traffic rates that appear in the Interface widget. The sampling intervals of Lina and the Firewall Management Center interface statistics are different. Due to the difference in sampling interval, throughput values in the Firewall Management Center GUI can be different from the throughput values appears in the device CLI result.

  • Note that traffic rates in the Interface Traffic Rate widget ( Overview > Dashboards heading > Dashboard page) can be different as it displays the input and output rates from Snort.

Intrusion and File Event Rate

Alert

Alerts if intrusion events per second exceed a configurable threshold.

We recommend a warning threshold of 1.5 times your average intrusion event rate, and a critical threshold of 2.5 times. For example, for an average event rate on network segment of 20 events per second, we recommend a warning value of 30 and a critical value of 50. The critical limit must be lower than 1000, and higher than the warning limit.

Event rates for your devices are available on System (system gear icon) > Monitoring > Statistics. If the rate is zero, the Snort process may be down or the device may not be sending events.

Link State Propagation

Alert

For the ISA 3000, alerts when an interface in a inline set fails.

Memory Usage

Alert

Alerts when memory use exceeds configurable thresholds.

For appliances with more than 4 GB of memory, the preset alert thresholds are based on a formula that accounts for proportions of available memory likely to cause system problems. On >4 GB appliances, because the interval between Warning and Critical thresholds may be very narrow, it is recommended that you manually set the Warning Threshold % value to 50. This will further ensure that you receive memory alerts for your appliance in time to address the issue. For more information, refer to Memory usage thresholds for health monitor alerts for additional information about how thresholds are calculated.

Complex access control policies and rules can command significant resources and negatively affect performance.

Network Card Reset

Alert

Alerts when a network card restarts due to hardware failure.

NTP Statistics

Metrics

Monitors NTP synchronization status. Disabled by default.

Firewall Management Center Access Configuration Changes

Alert

Monitors configuration changes made on the Firewall Management Center directly using the configure network management-data-interface command. This module alerts when there is a conflict between the existing Firewall Management Center configuration and the out of band configuration changes made.

Process Status

Alert

Alerts when processes on the appliance exit or terminate outside of the process manager.

If a process is deliberately exited outside of the process manager, the module status changes to Warning and the health event message indicates which process exited, until the module runs again and the process has restarted. If a process terminates abnormally or crashes outside of the process manager, the module status changes to Critical and the health event message indicates the terminated process, until the module runs again and the process has restarted.

Routing Statistics

Metrics

Monitors the current state of routing table.

SD-WAN Monitoring

Metrics

Monitors the application performance metrics of SD-WAN interfaces.

Snort 3 Statistics

Metrics

Collects Snort 3 statistics for events, flows, and packets.

CPU Usage Snort

Metrics

This module checks that the average CPU usage of the Snort processes on the device is not overloaded and alerts when CPU usage exceeds the percentages configured for the module. The Warning Threshold % default value is 80. The Critical Threshold % default value is 90.

Snort Identity Memory Usage

Alert

Enables you to set a warning threshold for Snort identity processing and alerts when memory usage exceeds the level configured for the module. The Critical Threshold % default value is 80.

This health module specifically keeps track of the total space used for the user identity information in Snort. It displays the current memory usage details, the total number of user-to-IP bindings, and user-group mapping details. Snort records these details in a file. If the memory usage file is not available, the Health Alert for this module displays Waiting for data. This could happen during a Snort restart due to a new install or a major update, switch from Snort 2 to Snort 3 or back, or major policy deployment. Depending on the health monitoring cycle, and when the file is available, the warning disappears, and the health monitor displays the details for this module with its status turned Green.

Memory Usage Snort

Metrics

This module checks the percentage of allocated memory used by the Snort process and alerts when memory usage exceeds the percentages configured for the module. The Warning Threshold % default value is 80. The Critical Threshold % default value is 90.

Snort Reconfiguring Detection

Metrics

Alerts if a device reconfiguration has failed. This module detects reconfiguration failure for both Snort 2 and Snort 3 instances.

Snort Statistics

Metrics

Monitors Snort statistics for events, flows, and packets.

SSE Connection Status

Metrics

The module alerts if the device cannot connect to the security services exchange cloud after an initial successful connection. Disabled by default.

CPU Usage System

Metrics

This module checks that the average CPU usage of all system processes on the device is not overloaded and alerts when CPU usage exceeds the percentages configured for the module. The Warning Threshold % default value is 80. The Critical Threshold % default value is 90.

Threat Data Updates on Devices

Alert

Certain intelligence data and configurations that devices use to detect threats are updated on the Firewall Management Center from the cloud every 30 minutes.

This module alerts you if this information has not been updated on the devices within the time period you have specified.

Monitored updates include:

  • Local URL category and reputation data

  • Security Intelligence URL lists and feeds, including global Block and Do Not Block lists and URLs from Threat Intelligence Director

  • Security Intelligence network lists and feeds (IP addresses), including global Block and Do Not Block lists and IP addresses from Threat Intelligence Director

  • Security Intelligence DNS lists and feeds, including global Block and Do Not Block lists and domains from Threat Intelligence Director

  • Local malware analysis signatures (from ClamAV)

  • SHA lists from Threat Intelligence Director, as listed on the Objects > Object Management > Security Intelligence > Network Lists and Feeds page

  • Dynamic analysis settings configured on the Integration > Dynamic Attributes Connector page

  • Threat Configuration settings related to expiration of cached URLs, including the Cached URLs Expire setting on the Integration > Other Integrations > Cloud Services page. (Updates to the URL cache are not monitored by this module.)

  • Communication issues with the Cisco cloud for sending events. Refer to Cisco Cloud box on the Integration > Other Integrations > Cloud Services page.

Note

 

Threat Intelligence Director updates are included only if TID is configured on your system and you have feeds.

By default, this module sends a warning after 1 hour and a critical alert after 24 hours.

If this module indicates failure on the Firewall Management Center or on any devices, verify that the Firewall Management Center can reach the devices.

VPN Statistics

Metrics

Monitors site-to-site and remote access VPN tunnels between Firewall Threat Defense devices.

XTLS Counters

Metrics

Monitors XTLS/SSL flows, memory and cache effectiveness. Disabled by default.
Table 2. Management Center Health Modules

Module

Type

Description

Certificate Monitoring

Alert

Alerts when service authentication certificates are near expiration or have expired, based on a configurable threshold (in days). To avoid service disruption, renew certificates before they expire.

CPU Usage (per core)

Metrics

This module checks that the CPU usage on all the cores is not overloaded and alerts when CPU usage exceeds the thresholds configured for the module. The Warning Threshold % default value is 80. The Critical Threshold % default value is 90.

Critical Process Statistics

Metrics

Monitors the state of critical processes, their resource consumption, and the restart counts.

Dynamic Attributes Connector Status

Alert

This module monitors the operational status of the Dynamic Attributes Connector (CSDAC) service in Firewall Management Center and raises an alert if the CSDAC service is not available.

If the CSDAC service is not being used by a related service, try disabling and re-enabling it in the Firewall Management Center UI, and check the health alert again after some time. For more information on how to enable CSDAC service, refer to Enable the dynamic attributes connector.

If a related service such as an Azure AD realm is configured, you cannot disable the CSDAC service directly. First delete the Azure AD realm and then disable and re-enable the CSDAC service. For more information, refer to Configure realms and directories.

Database

Alert

Alerts if the configuration database size is too big. It also monitors the system for database schema or configuration data (sometimes called EO ) integrity issues. If this module alerts, contact Cisco TAC. This will prevent upgrade.

Discovery Host Limit

Alert

This module determines if the number of hosts the Firewall Management Center can monitor is approaching the limit and alerts based on the warning level configured for the module. For more information, refer to Host limits.

Disk Status

Alert

This module examines the performance of the hard disk and storage pack (if installed) on the appliance.

The disk status health module generates a critical alert (red) if either of the following conditions is detected:

  • One or more disks may have failed or are experiencing errors.

  • An installed storage pack cannot be detected or unrecognized.

All other disk health conditions generate a warning alert (yellow). For further diagnosis of warning conditions, contact Cisco Technical Assistance Center.

Disk Usage

Metrics

This module compares disk usage on the appliance’s hard drive and malware storage pack to the limits configured for the module and alerts when usage exceeds the thresholds configured for the module. This module also alerts when the system excessively deletes files in monitored disk usage categories, or when disk usage excluding those categories reaches excessive levels, based on module thresholds. Refer to Disk usage and drain of events health monitor alerts for information about troubleshooting scenarios for Disk Usage alerts.

The Disk Usage module sends a health alert if the size of device configuration history files exceeds the allowed limit. Refer to Disk Usage for Device Configuration History Files Health Monitoring Alert for information about troubleshooting scenarios for the disk usage alerts. This health alert is not supported on Secure Firewall Management Center Versions 7.2.0-7.2.5, 7.3.x, and 7.4.0.

Use the Disk Usage health status module to monitor disk usage for the / and /volume partitions on the appliance and track draining frequency. Although the disk usage module lists the /boot partition as a monitored partition, the size of the partition is static so the module does not alert on the boot partition.

eStream Status

Alert

Monitors connections to third-party client applications that use the Event Streamer on the Firewall Management Center.

Event Backlog Status

Alert

Alerts if the backlog of event data awaiting transmission from the device to the Firewall Management Center has grown continuously for more than 30 minutes.

To reduce the backlog, evaluate your bandwidth and consider logging fewer events.

Event Monitor

Metrics

This module monitors overall incoming event rate to Firewall Management Center.

File System Integrity Check

Alert

This module performs a file system integrity check and runs if the system has CC mode or UCAPL mode enabled, or if the system runs an image signed with a DEV key. This module is enabled by default.

Firewall Management Center HA Status

Alert

Monitors Firewall Management Center high availability. This module generates alerts if the HA pairs are not synchronized and if there is a discrepancy in the number of managed devices between the active and standby units.

Firewall Threat Defense HA Status

Alert

Alerts if a threat defense high availability pair is split brain.

Hardware Statistics

Metrics

Monitors Firewall Management Center hardware: fan speed, temperature, and power supply. Alerts when values exceed configurable thresholds.

License Monitor

Alert

This module monitors expiration of Classic licenses.

Memory Usage

Alert

This module compares memory usage on the appliance to the limits configured for the module and alerts when usage exceeds the levels configured for the module.

When calculating the memory usage, the Firewall Management Center Memory Usage health module monitors and includes the usage of RAM, swap memory, and cache memory.

For appliances with more than 4 GB of memory, the preset alert thresholds are based on a formula that accounts for proportions of available memory likely to cause system problems. On >4 GB appliances, because the interval between Warning and Critical thresholds may be very narrow, it is recommended that you manually set the Warning Threshold % value to 50. This will further ensure that you receive memory alerts for your appliance in time to address the issue. For additional information about how thresholds are calculated, refer to Memory usage thresholds for health monitor alerts.

Beginning with Version 6.6.0, the minimum required RAM for Firewall Management Center Virtual upgrades to Version 6.6.0+ is 28 GB, and the recommended RAM for Firewall Management Center Virtual deployments is 32 GB. We recommend you do not decrease the default settings: 32 GB RAM for most Firewall Management Center Virtual instances, 64 GB for the Firewall Management Center Virtual 300 (VMware only).

Attention

 

A critical alert is generated by the health monitor when insufficient RAM is allocated to a Firewall Management Center Virtual deployment.

If the Firewall Management Center reaches a critical system memory condition, the system might terminate the processes that use high memory or reboot the Firewall Management Center if memory usage remains high.

Complex access control policies and rules can command significant resources and negatively affect performance.

MySQL Statistics

Metrics

Monitors the status of the MySQL database, including the database size, number of active connections, and memory use.

MonetDB Statistics

Metrics

MonetDB is the database for firewall events and related data, such as connection summaries. This health module monitors the status of the MonetDB, including its size, the number of active connections, and memory usage. Additionally, it enables you to monitor the number of data requests being processed, and identify any slow-running requests. You can access these metrics and create custom dashboard to monitor MonetDB's health.

RabbitMQ Status

Metrics

Monitors and collects RabbitMQ statistics.

Realm

Alert

Allows you to set a warning threshold for realm or user mismatches, which are:

  • User mismatch: A user is reported to the Secure Firewall Management Center without being downloaded.

    A typical reason for a user mismatch is that the user belongs to a group you have excluded from being downloaded to the Secure Firewall Management Center. Review the information discussed in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Device Configuration Guide.

  • Realm mismatch: A user logs into a domain that corresponds to a realm not known to the Firewall Management Center.

For more information, Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Device Configuration Guide.

This module also displays health alerts when you try to download more users than the maximum number of downloaded users supported per realm. The maximum number of downloaded users for a single realm depends on your management center model.

For more information, refer to User Limit in the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Device Configuration Guide.

RRD Server Process

Alert

Alerts if the round robin data (RRD) server that stores time series data has restarted since the last time it updated. You can configure additional warning and critical thresholds for consecutive restarts.

Time Series Data (RRD ) Monitor

Alert

This module tracks the presence of corrupt files in the directory where time series data (such as correlation event counts) are stored and alerts when files are flagged as corrupt and removed.

Time Server Status

Alert

This module monitors the configuration of the NTP servers and alerts when the NTP server is unavailable or if the NTP server configuration is invalid.

If you receive critical alert from this module, choose System (system gear icon) > Configuration > Time Synchronization and check the configuration of the NTP server specified in the alert.

Requires Version 7.4.1.

Web Server Connection Statistics

Metric

Alerts you when a single IP address exceeds the configurable limit of concurrent HTTP or HTTPS connections to the management center web server. It warns you when maximum number of browser tabs are opened to connect to management center from single IP address, ensuring optimal performance.

Zero-Touch Provisioning

Alert

Alerts if there is a failure when registering a device using the serial number. It also shows errors related to zero-touch provisioning capable Firewall Management Center s in high availability.

Configure health monitoring

Health monitoring enables proactive management of network appliances by tracking their operational status using customizable policies and alert mechanisms. You can configure specific monitoring policies for different appliance types, enabling only the relevant tests for each type.

Procedure

Step 1

Determine which health modules you want to monitor as discussed in Health modules.

You can set up specific policies for each kind of appliance, enabling only the appropriate tests for that appliance.

Tip

 

To quickly enable health monitoring without customizing the monitoring behavior, you can apply the default policy provided for that purpose.

Step 2

Apply a health policy to each appliance where you want to track health status as discussed in Create a health policy.

Step 3

(Optional.) Configure health monitor alerts as discussed in Create a health monitor alert.

You can set up email, syslog, or SNMP alerts that trigger when the health status level reaches a particular severity level for specific health modules.

Health policies

A health policy is a configuration framework that

  • enables you to define test criteria for monitoring the health of appliances,

  • allows selective enabling of health modules and critical alert settings, and

  • provides flexibility to apply, customize, or use default policies for each appliance.

Health policy configuration options

When you configure a health policy, you decide whether to enable each health module for that policy. You also select the criteria that control which health status each enabled module reports each time it assesses the health of a process.

You can create one health policy that can be applied to every appliance in your system, customize each health policy to the specific appliance where you plan to apply it, or use the default health policy provided for you.


Note

When you register an appliance, the Firewall Management Center automatically assigns it the default health policy. To disassociate a health policy from an appliance, you must first associate a different health policy with it. An appliance must have at least one health policy assigned.

Default health policy

The Firewall Management Center setup process creates and applies an initial health policy, in which most—but not all—available health modules are enabled. The system also applies this initial policy to devices added to the Firewall Management Center.

This initial health policy is based on a default health policy. You cannot view or edit the default health policy, but you can copy it when creating a custom health policy.

Upgrades and the default health policy

When you upgrade the Firewall Management Center, any new health modules are added to all health policies, including the initial health policy, default health policy, and any other custom health policies. Usually, new health modules are added in an enabled state.


Note

For a new health module to begin monitoring and alerting, reapply health policies after upgrade.

Create a health policy

If you want to customize a health policy to use with your appliances, you can create a new policy. The settings in the policy initially populate with the settings from the health policy you choose as a basis for the new policy. You can edit the policy to specify your preferences, such as enable or disable modules within the policy, change the alerting criteria for each module as needed, and specify the run time intervals.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy.

Step 2

Click Create Policy.

Step 3

Enter a name for the policy.

Note that the following names are reserved for the default policies, and you cannot create a health policy using these names:

  • Default Device Policy

  • Default Health Policy

Step 4

Choose the existing policy that you want to use as the basis for the new policy from the Base Policy drop-down list.

Step 5

Enter a description for the policy.

Step 6

Choose Save.

What to do next

Apply a health policy

When you apply a health policy to an appliance, the health tests for all the modules you enabled in the policy automatically monitor the health of the processes and hardware on the appliance. Health tests then continue to run at the intervals you configured in the policy, collecting health data for the appliance and forwarding that data to the Firewall Management Center.

If you enable a module in a health policy and then apply the policy to an appliance that does not require that health test, the health monitor reports the status for that health module as disabled.

To stop health monitoring for an appliance, create a health policy with all modules disabled, assign it to the appliance, and remove the appliance’s other health policy assignments. The appliance retains one assigned health policy, but no health modules are monitored.

When you apply a different policy to an appliance that already has a policy applied, expect some latency in the display of new data based on the newly applied tests.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy.

Step 2

Click the Deploy health policy (deploy icon) next to the policy you want to apply.

Step 3

Choose the appliances where you want to apply the health policy.

Note

 

An appliance must have at least one health policy assigned to it. To stop health monitoring for an appliance, create a health policy with all modules disabled, assign it to the appliance, and remove the appliance’s other health policy assignments. The appliance retains one assigned health policy, but no health modules are monitored. To disassociate a health policy from an appliance, you must first associate a different health policy with it.

Step 4

Click Apply to apply the policy to the appliances you chose.

The health policy is successfully applied to the selected appliances, and monitoring begins automatically.

What to do next

  • Optionally, monitor the task status; see View task messages.

    Monitoring of the appliance starts when the policy is successfully applied.

Edit a health policy

Edit a health policy when you need to adjust which modules are monitored, change critical or warning thresholds, or reassign policies to different devices.

Before you begin

  • Ensure you have access to Firewall Management Center.

  • Identify the health policy you need to modify.

Follow these steps to edit a health policy:

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy.

Step 2

Click Edit (edit icon) next to the policy you want to modify.

Step 3

To edit the policy name and its description, click the Edit (edit icon) icon provided against the policy name.

Step 4

The Health Modules tab displays all the device modules and its attributes. Configure your health modules using the following actions:

  • Click the toggle button that is provided against the module and its attributes—turn on (slider enabled) or turn off (slider disabled) to enable or disable testing of health status respectively.

  • To execute a bulk enable or disable testing on the health modules, click the Select All toggle button

Note

 

  • The modules and attributes are flagged with the supporting appliances—Firewall Threat Defense, Firewall Management Center, or both.

  • You cannot choose to include or exclude the individual attributes of CPU and Memory modules.

For information on the modules, refer to Health modules.

Step 5

Where appropriate, set the Critical and Warning threshold percentages.

Step 6

In the Settings tab, enter the relevant values in the fields:

  • Health Module Run Time Interval: The frequency for running the health modules. The minimum interval is 5 minutes.

  • Metric Collection Interval: The frequency of collecting the time series data on the device and its health modules. The device monitor reports these metrics in several predefined health monitor dashboards by default. For detailed information on the dashboard, refer to View the device health monitor. The metric data is collected for analysis and hence no alerting is associated with it.

  • OpenConfig Streaming Telemetry—Configure a health metrics telemetry stream from the Firewall Threat Defense devices to an external data collection system which uses the vendor neutral, OpenConfig model. For more information, refer to Configure OpenConfig Streaming Telemetry.

Step 7

To view and modify the devices to which the policy is assigned, do the following:

  1. Click Policy Assignments & Deploy.

  2. From the Available Devices list, click the + icon next to the device to which you want to assign the health policy.

  3. Click Apply.

    Note

     

    The UI prompts you to save unsaved changes before continuing with assignment and deployment.

Alternatively, you can apply the health policy to your appliance as described in Apply a health policy

Apply the health policy to each appliance where you want to track health status. When you apply the health policy to an appliance, all the modules you enabled in the policy monitor the health of the processes and hardware on the appliance, and forwards that data to the Firewall Management Center.

Step 8

Click Save.

Delete a health policy

You can delete health policies that you no longer need. However, an appliance must have at least one health policy assigned to it. If you delete a policy that is still applied to an appliance, the policy settings remain in effect until you apply a different policy. In addition, if you delete a health policy that is applied to a device, any health monitoring alerts in effect for the device remain active until you disable the underlying associated alert response.


Note

To stop health monitoring for an appliance, create a health policy with all modules disabled, assign it to the appliance, and remove the appliance’s other health policy assignments. The appliance retains one assigned health policy, but no health modules are monitored.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy.

Step 2

Click Delete (delete icon) next to the policy that you want to delete.

Step 3

Click Delete health policy to delete it.

Device exclusion in health monitoring

A device exclusion is a health monitoring configuration that

  • prevents deliberate device or module outages from affecting the overall health summary,

  • allows administrators to temporarily disable health monitoring for selected devices, Firewall Management Center where supported, or specific health modules, and

  • ensures health events generated during exclusion are marked as disabled and do not affect health calculations.

Device exclusion behavior

In the course of normal network maintenance, you may disable managed devices or make them temporarily unavailable. In Firewall Management Center, you can also exclude Firewall Management Center health monitoring where applicable. Because those outages or expected conditions are deliberate, you may not want their health status to affect the overall health summary.

When you disable health monitoring status, health events are still generated, but they have a disabled status and do not affect the health status for the health monitor. If you remove the device or module from the excluded list, the events that were generated during the exclusion continue to show a status of disabled.


Note

If all health modules or a device are added to the exclusion list, the device's health status will be set to disabled. This status refers only to health monitoring and should not be interpreted as the device being offline or disconnected.

You can also disable an individual health module. For example, when you reach the host limit on the Firewall Management Center, you can disable Host Limit status messages. Excluding health modules for individual interfaces is not supported on devices operating in transparent mode.

Note that on the main Health Monitor page you can distinguish between devices that are excluded if you expand to view the list of devices with a particular status by clicking the arrow in that status row.


Note

On Firewall Management Center, Health Monitor exclusion settings are local configuration settings. Therefore, if you exclude a device, then delete it and later re-register it with the Firewall Management Center, the exclusion settings remain persistent. The newly re-registered device remains excluded.

Temporary device exclusion scenario

You can use the health monitor exclude feature to disable health monitoring status reporting for a device, Firewall Management Center where applicable, or specific health modules. For example, if you know that a segment of your network will be unavailable, you can temporarily disable health monitoring for a managed device on that segment to prevent the health status on the Firewall Management Center from displaying a warning or critical state because of the lapsed connection to the device.

To temporarily disable health events from a managed device, or from Firewall Management Center where supported, go to the exclusion configuration page and add the target to the exclusion list. After the setting takes effect, the system no longer considers the excluded device when calculating the overall health status. The Health Monitor Appliance Status Summary lists the device as disabled.

Exclude devices from health monitoring

Exclude devices from health monitoring to disable their events and health status when needed for maintenance or troubleshooting purposes.

You can exclude managed devices individually or by group, model, associated health policy, or other supported scope. In Firewall Management Center exclusion can also apply to Firewall Management Center where supported.

If you need to set the events and health status for an individual managed device to disabled, you can exclude the device from health monitoring. Where supported, you can also exclude Firewall Management Center health monitoring. After the exclusion settings take effect, the device shows as disabled in the Health Monitor Appliance Module Summary, and health events for the device have a status of disabled.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Exclude.

Step 2

Click Add Device.

Step 3

In the Device Exclusion dialog box, under Available Devices, click Add (add icon) against the device that you want to exclude from health monitoring.

Step 4

Click Exclude.

The selected device is displayed in the exclusion main page.

Step 5

To remove the device from the exclusion list, click Delete (delete icon).

Step 6

Click Apply.

Exclude health policy modules on a device

Excluding health policy modules is useful when certain modules produce irrelevant or temporary health alerts, which you do not want to affect the overall device status. Exclusion settings indicate the number of modules excluded from health monitoring.


Note

Excluding health modules for individual interfaces is not supported on devices operating in transparent mode.

Tip

Make sure that you keep track of individually excluded modules so you can reactivate them when you need them. You may miss essential warning or critical messages if you accidentally leave a module disabled.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Exclude.

Step 2

Click Edit (edit icon) next to the Firewall Threat Defense device you want to modify.

Step 3

In the Exclude Health Modules dialog box, by default, all the modules of the device are excluded from health monitoring.

Certain modules are applicable to a specific device only; for more information, refer to Health modules.

Step 4

To choose modules to be excluded from health monitoring, click the Enable Module Level Exclusion link.

The Exclude Health Modules dialog box displays all the modules of the device. The modules that are not applicable for the associated health policies are disabled by default. To exclude a module, perform these steps:

  1. Click the Slider (slider icon) button next to the desired module.

  2. To specify the duration of the exclusion for the selected modules, from the Exclude Period drop-down list, select the duration.

Step 5

If you select an Exclude Period other than Permanent, for your exclusion configuration, you can choose to automatically delete the configuration when it expires. To enable this setting, check the Auto-delete expired configurations check box.

Step 6

Click OK.

Step 7

Click Apply.

Note

 

Interface exclusion differs from other module exclusions because you can exclude selected physical interfaces while still monitoring associated subinterfaces, depending on the UI options available in your version.

Exclude interface health monitoring

Use interface exclusion when you want to suppress health status updates for selected physical interfaces without suppressing health monitoring for the entire device. Interface exclusion is useful when interface state is expected during maintenance or when you want to focus on subinterface health instead of physical interface status.

When you configure interface exclusion, select the physical interfaces that you want to exclude from the list of available interfaces. Depending on the available UI options in your version, selecting a physical interface can also exclude its subinterfaces. If subinterface controls are available, you can continue monitoring subinterfaces while excluding only the physical interface.

Use this option to reduce unnecessary health alerts when traffic loss or interface state changes are expected on a physical interface.

Manage expired health monitor exclusions

When monitoring device or module health, some items may have temporary exclusions. Once these exclusion periods lapse, you need to decide whether to renew the exclusion or clear the device/module from exclusion so alerts resume.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Exclude.

The Warning (warning icon) icon is displayed against the device indicating the expiry of the duration of exclusion of the device or the modules from alerting.

Step 2

To renew the exclusion of the device, click Edit (edit icon) next to the device. In the Exclude Health Modules dialog box, click the Renew link. The exclusion period of the device is extended with the current value.

Step 3

To clear the device from being excluded, click Delete (delete icon) next to the device, click Remove the device from exclusion, and then click Apply.

Step 4

To renew or clear the modules from exclusion, click Edit (edit icon) next to the device. In the Exclude Health Modules dialog box, click the Enable Module Level Exclusion link, and then click the Renew or Clear link against the modules. When you click Renew, the exclusion period is extended on the module with the current value.

Health monitor alerts

A health monitor alert is a notification mechanism that

  • provides email, SNMP, or syslog notifications when module status changes occur,

  • enables association of alert responses with health event levels to trigger notifications based on event severity, and

  • allows customization to monitor specific system conditions such as disk space thresholds.

Disk space monitoring alert example

If you are concerned that your appliances may run out of hard disk space, you can automatically send an email to a system administrator when the remaining disk space reaches the warning level. If the hard drive continues to fill, you can send a second email when the hard drive reaches the critical level.

Health monitor alert information

The alerts generated by the health monitor contain specific information that helps identify issues and their severity.

Health monitor alerts include these attributes:

  • Severity: Indicates the severity level of the alert.

  • Module: Specifies the health module whose test results triggered the alert.

  • Description: Includes the health test results that triggered the alert.

The table describes these severity levels.

Table 3. Alert severities

Severity

Description

Critical

The health test results met the criteria to trigger a Critical alert status.

Warning

The health test results met the criteria to trigger a Warning alert status.

Normal

The health test results met the criteria to trigger a Normal alert status.

Error

The health test did not run.

Recovered

The health test results met the criteria to return to a normal alert status, following a Critical or Warning alert status.

Create a health monitor alert

When you create a health monitor alert, you create an association between a severity level, a health module, and an alert response. You can use an existing alert or configure a new one specifically to report on system health. When the severity level occurs for the selected module, the alert triggers.

If you create or update a threshold in a way that duplicates an existing threshold, you are notified of the conflict. When duplicate thresholds exist, the health monitor uses the threshold that generates the fewest alerts and ignores the others. The timeout value for the threshold must be between 5 and 4,294,967,295 minutes.

Before you begin

  • You must be an Admin user.

  • Ensure that you have configured alert responses that govern the Firewall Management Center's communication with the SNMP, syslog, email server, or webhook where you send the health alert; For more information, refer to Configuring external alerts with alert responses.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor Alerts.

Step 2

Click Add.

Step 3

In the Add Health Alert dialog box, enter a name for the health alert in the Health Alert Name field.

Step 4

From the Severity drop-down list, choose the severity level you want to use to trigger the alert.

Step 5

From the Alert drop-down list, choose the alert response that you want to trigger when the specified severity level is reached. If you have not yet configured the alert responses, click Alerts to visit the Alerts page and set them.

Step 6

From the Health Modules list, choose the health policy modules for which you want the alert to apply.

Step 7

Optionally, in the Threshold Timeout field, enter the number of minutes that should elapse before each threshold period ends and the threshold count resets.

Even if the policy run time interval value is less than the threshold timeout value, the interval between two reported health events from a given module is always greater. For example, if you change the threshold timeout to 8 minutes and the policy run time interval is 5 minutes, there is a 10-minute interval (5 x 2) between reported events.

Step 8

Click Save to save the health alert.

Edit a health monitor alert

Administrators may need to update the alert parameters for health monitor alerts in order to adjust severity, change modules, or select different responses as requirements evolve.

Before you begin

You must be an Admin user to perform this task.

Follow these steps to edit health monitor alerts:

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor Alerts.

Step 2

Click the Edit (edit icon) icon that is provided against the required health alert that you want to modify.

Step 3

In the Edit Health Alert dialog box, from the Alert drop-down list, select the required alert entry, or click Alerts link to configure a new alert entry.

Step 4

Click Save.

Delete health monitor alerts

Health monitor alerts notify you about system events, issues, or warnings. You may need to delete outdated or irrelevant alerts to streamline monitoring.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor Alerts.

Step 2

Click Delete (delete icon) next to the health alert you want to delete.

Step 3

Click Delete health alert to delete it.

What to do next

Disable or delete the underlying alert response to ensure that alerting does not continue. For more information, refer to Configuring external alerts with alert responses.

About the health monitor

The health monitor provides the compiled health status for all devices managed by the Firewall Management Center, plus the Firewall Management Center itself.

The health monitor is composed of:

  • The Health Status summary page ― Provides you with an at-a-glance view of the health of the Firewall Management Center and all of the devices that the Firewall Management Center manages. In a multi-domain deployment, you can view the health status summary for a device in the domain where the device is located. Devices are listed individually, or grouped according to their geolocation, high availability, or cluster status where applicable.

    • View the health summary of the Firewall Management Center and any device when you hover on the hexagon that represents the device health.

    • The dot to the left of a device indicates its health:

      • Green ― No alarms.

      • Orange ― At least one health warning.

      • Red ― At least one critical health alarm.

  • The Monitoring navigation pane ― Allows you to navigate the device hierarchy. You can view health monitors for individual devices from the navigation pane.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor.

Step 2

View the status of the Firewall Management Center and its managed devices in the Health Status landing page.

  1. Hover your pointer over a hexagon to view the health summary of a device. The popup window shows a truncated summary of the top five health alerts. Click on the popup to open a detailed view of the health alert summary.

  2. In the device list, click Expand(expand icon) and Collapse (collapse icon) to expand and collapse the list of health alerts for a device.

    When you expand the row, all of the health alerts are listed, including the status, title, and details.

    Note

     

    Health alerts are sorted by their severity level.

Step 3

Use the Monitoring navigation pane to access device-specific health monitors.

  1. In the device list, click Expand (expand icon) and Collapse (collapse icon) to expand and collapse the list of managed devices.

    When you expand the row, all of the devices are listed.

  2. Click on a device to view a device-specific health monitor.

  3. In the health monitor, hover over a graph to view all metrics and their respective values at that specific point on the graph. Click on the graph to pin the metrics statistics box, allowing you to explore the metrics and their values in detail. To close the statistics box and move to another point on the graph, simply click the close button.

You have accessed the health monitor and can view the compiled health status for all managed devices. You can interact with the Health Status landing page and use the Monitoring navigation pane to access device-specific health information.

What to do next

  • See Device health monitors for information about the compiled health status and metrics for any device managed by the Firewall Management Center.

  • See Using Health Monitor for information about the health status of the Firewall Management Center.

    To return to the Health Status landing page at any time, click Home.

View the Firewall Management Center health monitor dashboard

The Firewall Management Center monitor provides a detailed view of the health status of the Firewall Management Center. The health monitor is composed of:

  • High Availability (if configured): The High Availability (HA) panel displays the current HA status, including the status of the Active and Standby units, the last sync time, and overall device health.

  • Event Rate: The Event Rate panel shows the maximum event rate as a base line as well as the overall event rate received by the Firewall Management Center.

  • Event Capacity: The Event Capacity panel shows the current consumption by event categories, including the retention time of events, the current vs. maximum event capacity, and a capacity overflow mechanism where you are alerted when events are stored beyond the configured maximum capacity of the Firewall Management Center.

  • Process Health: The Process Health panel has an at-a-glance view of the critical processes as well as a tab that lets you see state of all processed, including the CPU and memory usage for each process.

  • CPU: The CPU panel lets you toggle between the average CPU usage (default) and the CPU usage of all cores.

  • Memory: The Memory panel shows the overall memory usage on the Firewall Management Center.

  • Interface: The Interface panel shows average input and output rate of all interfaces.

  • Disk Usage: The Disk Usage panel shows the use of entire disk, and the use of the critical partitions where Firewall Management Center data is stored.

  • Hardware Statistics: The hardware statistics shows the fan speed, power supply, and temperature of the management center chassis. For more information, refer to Hardware statistics on management center appliances.


Tip

Your session normally logs you out after one hour of inactivity (or another configured interval). If you plan to passively monitor health status for long periods of time, consider exempting some users from session timeout, or changing the system timeout settings. For more information, refer to Add or edit an internal user and Configure session timeouts.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor.

Step 2

Use the Monitoring navigation pane to access the Firewall Management Center and device-specific health monitors.

  • A standalone Firewall Management Center is shown as a single node; a high-availability Firewall Management Center is shown as a pair of nodes.

  • The health monitor is available to both the active and standby Firewall Management Center in an HA pair, and the health alerts appear in both the units. However, you must resolve any health alerts from the active Firewall Management Center, as access to various pages can be restricted in the standby Firewall Management Center.

Step 3

Explore the Firewall Management Center dashboard.

The Firewall Management Center dashboard includes a summary view of the HA state of the Firewall Management Center (if configured), as well as at-a-glance views of Firewall Management Center processes and device metrics such as CPU, memory, and disk usage.

Run all health modules for an appliance

Health module tests run automatically at the policy run time interval you configure when you create a health policy. However, you can also run all health module tests on demand to collect up-to-date health information for the appliance.

Follow these steps to run all health modules for an appliance:

Procedure

Step 1

View the health monitor for the appliance.

Step 2

Click Run All Modules.

The status bar indicates the progress of the tests, then the Health Monitor Appliance page refreshes.

Note

 

When you manually run health modules, the first refresh that automatically occurs may not reflect the data from the manually run tests. If the value has not changed for a module that you just ran manually, wait a few seconds, then refresh the page by clicking the device name. You can also wait for the page to refresh again automatically.

Run a health module test

Health module tests run automatically at the policy run time interval you configure when you create a health policy. However, you can also run a health module test on demand to collect up-to-date health information for that module.

Before you begin

You must be an Admin, Maintenance, or Security Analyst user to perform this procedure.

Follow these steps to run a health module test:

Procedure

Step 1

View the health monitor for the appliance.

Step 2

In the Module Status Summary graph, click the color for the health alert status category you want to view.

Step 3

In the Alert Detail row for the alert for which you want to view a list of events, click Run.

The status bar indicates the progress of the test, then the Health Monitor Appliance page refreshes.

Note

 

When you manually run health modules, the first refresh that automatically occurs may not reflect the data from the manually run tests. If the value has not changed for a module that you just manually ran, wait a few seconds, then refresh the page by clicking the device name. You can also wait for the page to refresh automatically again.

Generate health module alert graphs

Health module alert graphs help you track appliance performance and diagnose issues using historical alert data.

Before you begin

Confirm you have access to the desired appliance’s health monitor.

Follow these steps to generate health module alert graphs.
Procedure

Step 1

View the health monitor for the appliance.

Step 2

In the Module Status Summary graph of the Health Monitor Appliance page, click the color for the health alert status category you want to view.

Step 3

In the Alert Detail row for the alert for which you want to view a list of events, click Graph.

Tip

 

If no events appear, you may need to adjust the time range.

Hardware statistics on management center appliances

Management center appliances provide detailed hardware statistics, enabling monitoring of their physical health. The hardware statistics include information on key entities such as fan speed, power supply status, and temperature.

  1. Enable SNMP on the management center for polling the MIBs. By default, the SNMP on the management center is disabled. For more information, refer to Configure SNMP polling.

  2. Add an ACL entry for each of the required SNMP host to enable traps. Ensure to specify the host’s IP address and select the port as SNMP. For more information, refer to Configure an access list.

To view the hardware statistics on the System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor page:

  1. On the System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy page, ensure that the Hardware Statistics module is enabled. You can change the default threshold values.

  2. Add a portlet to the management center health monitoring dashboard—select Hardware Statistics metric group, and then select Fan Speed and Temperature metrics.

You can view the power supply status under the firewall management center in the System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor home page.


Note

  • The fan speed is displayed in RPM.

  • The temperature is displayed in °C (Celsius).

  • When one slot of the power supply is active, the dashboard displays it as Online and the other slot as No Power.

  • Each horizontal line in the graphs shows the status for each PSU and fan respectively.

  • Hover over the graph to view the data of that individual statistics.

Device health monitors

The device health monitor provides the compiled health status for any device managed by the Firewall Management Center. The device health monitor collects health metrics for Secure Firewall devices in order to predict and respond to system events.

The device health monitor is comprised of these components:

  • System Details: Displays information about the managed device, including the installed Secure Firewall version and other deployment details.

  • Troubleshooting & Links: Provides convenient links to frequently used troubleshooting topics and procedures.

  • Health alerts: A health alert monitor provides an at-a-glance view of the health of the device.

  • Time range: An adjustable time window to constrain the information that appears in the various device metrics windows.

  • Device metrics: An array of key firewall device health metrics categorized across predefined dashboards, including:

    • CPU: CPU utilization, including the CPU usage by process and by physical cores. The Firewall Threat Defense CPU core allocation dashboard shows core assignments for these categories:

      • Data Plane: Handles basic network functions, including core packet forwarding and network data processing.

      • Snort: Manages intrusion detection and deep packet inspection features.


        Note

        Multi-threaded Snort processes are allocated across multiple Snort cores to improve device performance. The Snort core allocation shown in the CPU dashboard reflects the total number of Snort process threads assigned to Snort cores.

      • System: Includes all other system processes. While some processes may have dedicated CPU cores allocated, their usage is combined and displayed under the System category in the dashboard.

    • Memory: Device memory utilization, including data plane and Snort memory usage.

    • Interfaces: Interface status and aggregate traffic statistics.

    • Connections: Connection statistics (such as elephant flows, active connections, peak connections, and so on) and NAT translation counts.

    • Snort: Statistics related to the Snort process.

    • Disk Usage: Device disk usage, including the disk size and disk utilization per partition.

    • Critical Processes: Statistics related to managed processes, including process restarts and other select health monitors such as CPU and memory utilization.


    Note

    During a device upgrade or high-availability failover event, the Firewall Threat Defense device may briefly appear as Offline in the device's health monitoring dashboard. This happens because health alerts are cleared during the process and are only updated after the process is complete. Wait for the upgrade or failover operation to finish.

    For a comprehensive list of the supported device metrics, refer to Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Health Metrics.

View system details and troubleshoot devices

Use this task when you need to monitor device health or initiate troubleshooting procedures on specific devices through the management center.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor.

Use the Monitoring navigation pane to access device-specific health monitors.

Step 2

In the device list, click Expand(expand icon) and Collapse (collapse icon) to expand and collapse the list of managed devices.

Step 3

Click on a device to view a device-specific health monitor.

Step 4

Click the link for View System & Troubleshoot Details …

This panel is collapsed by default. Clicking on the link expands the collapsed section to see System Details and Troubleshooting & Links for the device. The system details include:

  • Version: The Secure Firewall software version.

  • Model: The device model.

  • Mode: The firewall mode. The Firewall Threat Defense device supports two firewall modes for regular firewall interfaces: Routed mode and Transparent mode.

  • VDB: The Cisco vulnerability database (VDB) version.

  • SRU: The intrusion rule set version.

  • Snort: The Snort version.

Step 5

You have these troubleshoot choices:

View the device health monitor

The device health monitor compiles device metrics and displays health status and trends using an array of dashboards.

Follow these steps to view the device health monitor.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor.

Use the Monitoring navigation pane to access device-specific health monitors.

Step 2

In the device list, click Expand(expand icon) and Collapse (collapse icon) to expand and collapse the list of managed devices.

Step 3

View the Health Alerts for the device in the alert notification at the top of page, directly to the right of the device name.

Hover your pointer over the Health Alerts to view the health summary of the device. The pop-up window shows a truncated summary of the top five health alerts. Click the pop-up to open a detailed view of the health alert summary.

Step 4

Configure the time range from the drop-down in the upper-right corner.

The time range can reflect a period as short as the last hour (the default) or as long as two weeks. Select Custom from the drop-down to configure a custom start and end date.

Click the refresh icon to set auto refresh to 5 minutes or to toggle off auto refresh.

Step 5

Click the Show the deployment details on top of the graph (Show Deployment Info icon) icon for a deployment overlay on the trend graph, with respect to the selected time range.

The icon indicates the number of deployments during the selected time-range. A vertical band indicates the deployment start and end time. In the case of multiple deployments, multiple bands/lines can appear. Click the icon on top of the dotted line to view the deployment details.

Step 6

View the device monitor reports health and performance metrics in several predefined dashboards by default.

The metrics dashboards include:

  • Overview: Highlights key metrics from the other predefined dashboards, including CPU, memory, interfaces, connection statistics; plus disk usage and critical process information.

  • CPU: CPU utilization, including the CPU usage by process and by physical cores.

  • Memory: Device memory utilization, including data plane and Snort memory usage.

  • Interfaces: Interface status and aggregate traffic statistics.

  • Connections: Connection statistics (such as elephant flows, active connections, peak connections, and so on) and NAT translation counts.

  • Snort: Statistics related to the Snort process.

  • ASP Drops: Statistics related to the Accelerated Security Path (ASP) performance and behavior.

Note

 

  • Multi-threaded Snort processes are allocated across multiple Snort cores to improve device performance. Note that the Snort core allocation shown in the CPUdashboard reflects the total number of Snort process threads assigned to Snort cores.

  • The Process Health widget in Firewall Management Center displays the CPU% usage for each process. The CPU% metric reflects usage relative to the number of cores in the Firewall Threat Defense device, where 100% corresponds to full utilization of one core. For example, on an 8-core device, 200% indicates two fully utilized cores, leaving six available for other processes. To monitor overall system CPU usage, use the CPU widget instead of the Process Health widget.

You can navigate through the various metrics dashboards by clicking on the labels. For a comprehensive list of the supported device metrics, refer to Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Health Metrics.

Step 7

Click the Add New Dashboard(add new dashboard icon) to create a custom correlation dashboard by building your own variable set from the available metric groups.

For more information, refer to Correlating device metrics.

Correlating device metrics

The device health monitor includes an array of key Firewall Threat Defense device metrics that serve to predict and respond to system events. The health of any Firewall Threat Defense device can be determined by these reported metrics.

The device monitor reports these metrics in several predefined dashboards by default. These dashboards include:

  • Overview: Highlights key metrics from the other predefined dashboards, including CPU, memory, interfaces, connection statistics; plus disk usage and critical process information.

  • CPU: CPU utilization, including the CPU usage by process and by physical cores.

  • Memory: Device memory utilization, including data plane and Snort memory usage.

  • Interfaces: Interface status and aggregate traffic statistics.

  • Connections: Connection statistics (such as elephant flows, active connections, peak connections, and so on) and NAT translation counts.

  • Snort: Statistics related to the Snort process.

  • ASP Drops: Statistics related to the Accelerated Security Path (ASP) performance and behavior.

You can add custom dashboards to correlate metrics that are interrelated. Select from predefined correlation groups, such as CPU and Snort; or create a custom correlation dashboard by building your own variable set from the available metric groups. For a comprehensive list of the supported device metrics, refer to Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Health Metrics.

Before you begin

  • To view and correlate the time series data (device metrics) in the health monitor dashboard, enable REST API (System (system gear icon) > Configuration > REST API Preferences).


Note

Correlating device metrics is available only for Firewall Threat Defense 6.7 and later versions. Hence, for Firewall Threat Defense versions earlier than 6.7, the health monitor dashboard does not display these metrics even if you enable REST API.

Follow these steps to correlate device metrics:

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor. In the Devices list, click Expand(expand icon) and Collapse (collapse icon) to expand and collapse the list of managed devices, and choose the device for which you want to modify the dashboard.

Use the Monitoring navigation pane to access device-specific health monitors.

Step 2

Click the Add New Dashboard(add new dashboard icon) icon to add a new dashboard, and specify a name to identify the dashboard.

Step 3

To create a dashboard from a predefined correlation group, click Add from Predefined Correlations drop-down, choose the group, and click Add Dashboard. To create a custom correlation dashboard, choose a group from the Select Metric Group drop-down, then choose corresponding metrics from the Select Metrics drop-down.

For a comprehensive list of the supported device metrics, refer to Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Health Metrics.

Step 4

Click Add Metrics to add and select metrics from another group, and to remove an individual metric, click the Remove remove icon icon on the right side of the item. Click the delete icon to remove the entire group. Click Add Dashboard to add the dashboard to the health monitor.

Step 5

You can Edit or Delete the predefined dashboards and the custom correlation dashboards.

Chassis health monitoring

For supported devices, platform faults are retrieved directly from the chassis through an API and displayed in the health monitor.

The Chassis health faults table displays active and reported health faults for the selected chassis. Each row shows the fault severity, fault code, description, occurrence count, and the time the fault was detected or last reported. Use this information to identify hardware, interface, or subsystem issues and determine the troubleshooting priority.

Table 4. Chassis health fault details
Field Description
Severity

Indicates the impact level of the chassis fault. Use this field to prioritize troubleshooting. It shows these severity levels:

Critical: Indicates a severe fault that can affect chassis operation, availability, or redundancy. Immediate investigation is recommended.

Major: Indicates a serious fault that can affect system performance, availability, or hardware redundancy if not addressed.

Minor: Indicates a lower-impact fault that does not immediately affect overall system operation but should be reviewed.

Warning: Indicates a condition that may require attention before it impacts service.

Informational: Provides status or event information. No immediate corrective action is required.

Cleared: Indicates that a previously reported fault has been resolved or is no longer active.

Code Displays the unique fault code for the reported chassis issue. You can use this code when you review logs or contact Cisco Support.
Faults Describes the detected chassis fault, including the affected component, interface, or subsystem and its current condition.
Occurrence Shows how many times the same fault was detected.
Time Displays the date and time when the fault was last detected or reported.

View chassis platform faults

Firewall Management Center does not support the configuration of chassis-specific health settings. You can only view fault information reported by the chassis with this feature.

Use this procedure to view platform faults for supported chassis.

Before you begin

For Firepower 4100/9300 chassis, Firewall Management Center provides read-only access to health alerts. Use the chassis manager or the FXOS CLI to configure and manage the chassis.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor.

Step 2

From the Monitoring navigation pane, click the chassis.

Step 3

View the platform faults displayed in the chassis health monitor.
You can see the current platform faults for the selected chassis.

Cluster health monitor

When a Firewall Threat Defense is the control node of a cluster, the Firewall Management Center collects various metrics periodically from the device metric data collector.

The cluster health monitor is comprised of these components:

  • Overview dashboard: Displays information about the cluster topology, cluster statistics, and metric charts:

    • The topology section displays a cluster's live status, the health of individual threat defense, threat defense node type (control node or data node), and the status of the device. The status of the device could be Disabled (when the device leaves the cluster), Added out of box (in a public cloud cluster, the additional nodes that do not belong to the Firewall Management Center), or Normal (ideal state of the node).

    • The cluster statistics section displays current metrics of the cluster with respect to the CPU usage, memory usage, input rate, output rate, active connections, and NAT translations.


      Note

      The CPU and memory metrics display the individual average of the data plane and snort usage.

    • The metric charts, namely, CPU Usage, Memory Usage, Throughput, and Connections, diagrammatically display the statistics of the cluster over the specified time period.

  • Load Distribution dashboard: Displays load distribution across the cluster nodes in two widgets:

    • The Distribution widget displays the average packet and connection distribution over the time range across the cluster nodes. This data depicts how the load is being distributed by the nodes. Using this widget, you can easily identify any abnormalities in the load distribution and rectify it.

    • The Node Statistics widget displays the node level metrics in table format. It displays metric data on CPU usage, memory usage, input rate, output rate, active connections, and NAT translations across the cluster nodes. This table view enables you to correlate data and easily identify any discrepancies.

  • Member Performance dashboard: Displays current metrics of the cluster nodes. You can use the selector to filter the nodes and view the details of a specific node. The metric data include CPU usage, memory usage, input rate, output rate, active connections, and NAT translations.

  • CCL dashboard: Displays, graphically, the cluster control link data namely, the input, and output rate.

  • Troubleshooting and Links: Provides convenient links to frequently used troubleshooting topics and procedures.

  • Time range: An adjustable time window to constrain the information that appears in the various cluster metrics dashboards and widgets.

  • Custom Dashboard: Displays data on both cluster-wide metrics and node-level metrics. However, node selection only applies for the threat defense metrics and not for the entire cluster to which the node belongs.

View the cluster health monitor

The cluster health monitor provides a detailed view of the health status of a cluster and its nodes. This cluster health monitor provides health status and trends of the cluster in an array of dashboards.

Before you begin

Ensure you have created a cluster from one or more devices in the Firewall Management Center.

Follow these steps to view the cluster health monitor:

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Monitor.

Use the Monitoring navigation pane to access node-specific health monitors.

Step 2

In the device list, click Expand(expand icon) and Collapse (collapse icon) to expand and collapse the list of managed cluster devices.

Step 3

Click on the cluster name to view the cluster health statistics.

The cluster monitor reports health and performance metrics in several predefined dashboards by default. The metrics dashboards include:

  • Overview: Highlights key metrics from the other predefined dashboards, including its nodes, CPU, memory, input and output rates, connection statistics, and NAT translation information.

  • Load Distribution: Traffic and packet distribution across the cluster nodes.

  • Member Performance: Node-level statistics on CPU usage, memory usage, input throughput, output throughput, active connection, and NAT translation.

  • CCL: Interface status and aggregate traffic statistics.

You can navigate through the various metrics dashboards by clicking on the labels. For a comprehensive list of the supported cluster metrics, refer to Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Health Metrics.

Step 4

Configure the time range from the drop-down in the upper-right corner.

The time range can reflect a period as short as the last hour (the default) or as long as two weeks. Select Custom from the drop-down to configure a custom start and end date.

Click the refresh icon to set auto refresh to 5 minutes or to toggle off auto refresh.

Step 5

Click on deployment icon for a deployment overlay on the trend graph, with respect to the selected time range.

The deployment icon indicates the number of deployments during the selected time-range. A vertical band indicates the deployment start and end time. For multiple deployments, multiple bands/lines appear. Click on the icon on top of the dotted line to view the deployment details.

Step 6

View the Health Alerts for the node in the alert notification at the top of page, directly to the right of the device name.

Hover your pointer over the Health Alerts to view the health summary of the node. The popup window shows a truncated summary of the top five health alerts. Click on the popup to open a detailed view of the health alert summary.

Step 7

View device monitor health and performance metrics in several predefined dashboards.

The metrics dashboards include:

  • Overview: Highlights key metrics from the other predefined dashboards, including CPU, memory, interfaces, connection statistics; plus disk usage and critical process information.

  • CPU: CPU utilization, including the CPU usage by process and by physical cores.

  • Memory: Device memory utilization, including data plane and Snort memory usage.

  • Interfaces: Interface status and aggregate traffic statistics.

  • Connections: Connection statistics (such as elephant flows, active connections, peak connections, and so on) and NAT translation counts.

  • Snort: Statistics that are related to the Snort process.

  • ASP drops: Statistics related to the dropped packets against various reasons.

You can navigate through the various metrics dashboards by clicking on the labels. Refer to Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Health Metrics for a comprehensive list of the supported device metrics.

Step 8

Click the plus sign Add New Dashboard(add new dashboard icon) in the upper right corner of the health monitor to create a custom dashboard by building your own variable set from the available metric groups.

For cluster-wide dashboard, choose Cluster metric group, and then choose the metric.

Health monitor status categories

The table summarizes the available health monitor status categories, their severity levels, icons, associated colors in pie charts, and descriptions.

Table 5. Health status indicator

Status Level

Status Icon

Status Color in Pie Chart

Description

Error

 Error (error icon)

Black

Indicates that at least one health monitoring module has failed on the appliance and has not been successfully re-run since the failure occurred. Contact your technical support representative to obtain an update to the health monitoring module.

Critical

 Critical (critical icon)

Red

Indicates that the critical limits have been exceeded for at least one health module on the appliance and the problem has not been corrected.

Warning

 Warning (warning icon)

Yellow

Indicates that warning limits have been exceeded for at least one health module on the appliance and the problem has not been corrected.

This status also indicates a transitionary state, where, the required data is temporarily unavailable or could not be processed because of changes in the device configuration. Depending on the monitoring cycle, this transitionary state is auto-corrected.

Normal

 Normal (Normal icon)

Green

Indicates that all health modules on the appliance are running within the limits configured in the health policy applied to the appliance.

Recovered

 Recovered (Recovered icon)

Green

Indicates that all health modules on the appliance are running within the limits configured in the health policy applied to the appliance, including modules that were in a Critical or Warning state.

Disabled

 Disabled (disabled icon)

Blue

Indicates that an appliance is disabled or excluded, that the appliance does not have a health policy applied to it, or that the appliance is currently unreachable.

Health event views

Health event views enable you to monitor health events logged by the health monitor in the Firewall Management Center. The views are fully customizable, allowing you to analyze health statuses efficiently and access related event data.

You can search event data to easily access other information that may be related to the events you are investigating. If you understand what conditions each health module tests for, you can more effectively configure alerting for health events.

You can perform many of the standard event view functions on the health event view pages.

View health events

Use this task when you need to monitor the health of your appliances and review any incidents or events recorded.

When you access health events from the Health Monitor page on your Firewall Management Center, you retrieve all health events for all managed appliances.


Tip

You can bookmark this view to allow you to return to the page in the health events workflow containing the Health Events table of events. The bookmarked view retrieves events within the time range you are currently viewing, but you can then modify the time range to update the table with more recent information if needed.

Follow these steps to view health events.

Procedure

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Events.

Tip

 

If you are using a custom workflow that does not include the table view of health events, click (switch workflow). On the Select Workflow page, click Health Events.

Note

 

If no events appear, you may need to adjust the time range.

View health events by module and appliance

This task helps you efficiently monitor appliance health by filtering health events based on module status and viewing detailed alerts for specified events.

Procedure

Step 1

View the health monitor for the appliance; refer to View the device health monitor.

Step 2

In the Module Status Summary graph, click the color for the event status category you want to view.

The Alert Detail list toggles the display to show or hide events.

Step 3

In the Alert Detail row for the alert for which you want to view a list of events, click Events.

The Health Events page appears, containing results for a query with the name of the appliance and the name of the specified health alert module as constraints. If no events appear, you may need to adjust the time range.

Step 4

If you want to view all health events for the specified appliance, expand Search Constraints, and click the Module Name constraint to remove it.

View the health events table

The Health Events Table provides actionable insight into system health and allows users to organize, modify, and respond to health events.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Events.

Step 2

You have the following choices:

  • Bookmark: To bookmark the current page so that you can quickly return to it, click Bookmark This Page, provide a name for the bookmark, and click Save.
  • Change Workflow: To choose another health events workflow, click (switch workflow).
  • Delete Events: To delete health events, check the check box next to the events you want to delete, and click Delete. To delete all the events in the current constrained view, click Delete All, then confirm you want to delete all the events.
  • Generate Reports: Generate a report based on data in the table view — click Report Designer.
  • Modify: Modify the time and date range for events listed in the Health table view. Note that events that were generated outside the appliance's configured time window (whether global or event-specific) may appear in an event view if you constrain the event view by time. This may occur even if you configured a sliding time window for the appliance.
  • Navigate: Navigate through event view pages.
  • Navigate Bookmark: To navigate to the bookmark management page, click View Bookmarks from any event view.
  • Navigate Other: Navigate to other event tables to view associated events.
  • Sort: Sort the events that appear, change what columns display in the table of events, or constrain the events that appear
  • View All: To view event details for all events in the view, click View All.
  • View Details: To view the details associated with a single health event, click the down arrow link on the left side of the event.
  • View Multiple: To view event details for multiple health events, choose the check box next to the rows that correspond with the events you want to view details for and then click View.
  • View Status: To view all events of a particular status, click status in the Status column for an event with that status.
  • Search: Search for specific health events or health metrics recorded within your deployment. Customize your search query to analyze health events and other monitored data and save the search constraints for quick access. For more information, refer to Event searches.

Health event fields

The health monitor modules you enable in your health policy run tests to determine appliance health status. When the health status meets specified criteria, a health event is generated. The health event table includes fields that are searchable and viewable for monitoring appliance health.

Table 6. Health event fields

Field

Description

Module Name

Specify the name of the module which generated the health events you want to view. For example, to view events that measure CPU performance, type CPU . The search should retrieve applicable CPU Usage and CPU temperature events.

Test Name

(Search only)

The name of the health module that generated the event.

Time

(Search only)

The timestamp for the health event.

Description

The description of the health module that generated the event. For example, health events generated when a process was unable to execute are labeled Unable to Execute .

Value

The value (number of units) of the result obtained by the health test that generated the event.

For example, if the Firewall Management Center generates a health event whenever a device it is monitoring is using 80 percent or more of its CPU resources, the value could be a number from 80 to 100.

Units

The units descriptor for the result. You can use the asterisk (*) to create wildcard searches.

For example, if the Firewall Management Center generates a health event when a device it is monitoring is using 80 percent or more of its CPU resources, the units descriptor is a percentage sign (%).

Status

The status (Error, Critical, Warning, Normal, Recovered, or Disabled) reported for the appliance.

Device

The appliance where the health event was reported.

Sending device health metrics to OpenConfig

OpenConfig is a vendor-independent software layer that provides a single way of streaming network telemetry data to multiple vendors to manage and monitor networks. The OpenConfig streaming telemetry option in the secure firewall uses gNMI (gRPC Network Management Interface) protocol and allows you to control and generate telemetry streams from your Firewall Threat Defense devices to a data collection system.

The Firewall Threat Defense health policy contains all the configurations to support and enable the OpenConfig streaming telemetry functionality. When you deploy the health policy to the device, the OpenConfig streaming telemetry configuration activates a gNMI server and starts listening to Remote Procedure Call (RPC) messages from the data collectors.

Subscription model of OpenConfig telemetry streams

OpenConfig uses a subscription-based model where the data collectors query the Firewall Threat Defense devices for telemetry data or act as collector for the streamed telemetry data. When a data collector wishes to receive updates and metrics from the Firewall Threat Defense device, it sends a subscribeRequest RPC message to the Firewall Threat Defense gNMI server. The subscription request includes details of one or more paths to which the data collector wishes to subscribe. The message also includes subscription mode which describes the longevity of the subscription.

The Firewall Threat Defense server supports these subscription modes:

  • Once subscription: The Firewall Threat Defense device sends requested data to the gNMI paths only once.

  • Stream subscription: The Firewall Threat Defense continuously streams telemetry data according to the triggers specified in the SubscribeRequest RPC message.

    • Sampled subscription: The Firewall Threat Defense server streams the requested data as per the interval specified in the subscription message. The minimum interval that the threat defense support is one minute.

    • On-change subscription: The Firewall Threat Defense sends the data whenever the requested values change.

The Firewall Threat Defense server generates SubscribeResponse RPC messages according to the type of subscription that is created, at the frequency requested by the data collectors.

You can use these deployment modes for OpenConfig streaming telemetry configuration:

  • DIAL-IN: In this mode, the gNMI server opens a port on the Firewall Threat Defense and waits for SubscribeRequest RPC messages from data collectors. In the device health policy, you can specify the port number to use by the gNMI server and the IP address of the data collector that can connect with the gNMI service. If not specified, the gNMI server uses port number 50051. The DIAL-in mode is ideal to use in a trusted network where the endpoint that subscribes to telemetry streams are trusted.

  • DIAL-OUT: The gNMI service is designed to work in server mode where it accepts subscription requests from gNMI data collectors and serve the telemetry data. If the gNMI data collectors cannot reach the gNMI server, the Firewall Threat Defense uses a tunnel client and establishes a gRPC tunnel with the external server. This tunnel allows exchange of RPC messages between gNMI server and client. The DIAL-OUT mode is ideal to use when the data collectors are hosted on the cloud or outside the trusted network.

In both DIAL-IN and DIAL-OUT mode, all the communication between gNMI server and gNMI client uses TLS encryption and this requires to generate a set of certificates with private keys for the TLS encryption. DIAL-OUT mode requires extra keys for the tunnel infrastructure. For more information, refer to How to Generate Certificate with Private Key.

Generate certificates and private keys

Certificates and private keys are required for OpenConfig streaming telemetry. You must use the same certificate authority (CA) for all components to ensure secure and consistent authentication.


Note

To ensure that you generate certificates using the same CA, run these commands together and from the same endpoint. If you want to retry the commands, you must retry all commands.

Procedure

Step 1

Make a folder, for example keys, in the endpoint where you want to run these commands.

Example:

mkdir keys

Step 2

Create a self-signed CA certificate with a corresponding private key.

Example:

This sample command generates a new RSA private key and uses it to create a self-signed X.509 certificate with provided subject information: 
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -days 365 -nodes -keyout keys/ca-key.pem -out keys/ca-cert.pem -subj "/C=XX
/ST=YY/L=ZZZ/O=Example/OU=EN/CN=gnmi-ca/emailAddress=abc@example.com"

The subject information includes the provided Country (C), State (ST), Locality (L), Organization (O), Organizational Unit (OU), Common Name (CN), and email address.

The private key is saved as CA-key.pem file, and the certificate is saved as CA-cert.pem file in the keys folder.

Step 3

Create a self-signed server certificate with the specified Common Name (CN) and Subject Alternative Name (SAN):

Example:

This sample command generates a new RSA private key and uses it to create a self-signed X.509 certificate with provided subject information. In this example, 192.168.0.200 is the IP address of the Firewall Threat Defense device and 192.168.0.202 is the IP address of the client.

Note

 

Client IP is not required if you want to use this certificate and key sets in dial-in mode.

 
CN="192.168.0.200"
SAN="IP:192.168.0.200,IP:192.168.0.202"
openssl req -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout keys/server-key.pem -out keys/server-req.pem -subj "/C=XX/ST=YY/L=ZZZ/O=Example/OU=EN/CN=${CN}/emailAddress=abc@example.com}"
openssl x509 -req -extfile <(printf "subjectAltName=${SAN}") -in keys/server-req.pem -days 60 -CA keys/ca-cert.pem -CAkey keys/ca-key.pem -CAcreateserial -out keys/server-cert.pem
cat keys/server-key.pem keys/server-cert.pem keys/ca-cert.pem > keys/server-combined.pem

The openssl req command generates a new RSA private key and a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). The private key is saved as server-key.pem file, and the CSR is saved as server-req.pem file in the keys folder.

The openssl x509 command processes the CSR and generates a server certificate. The server certificate is saved as server-cert.pem file in the keys folder.

The cat command combines the server key, server certificate, and the CA certificate into a single file named server-combined.pem and saves the file in the keys folder.

You have to upload the server-combined.pem while configuring OpenConfig Streaming telemetry from the Firewall Management Center. The gNMI server that runs on the Firewall Threat Defense and the tunnel server (dial-out mode) uses this certificate for TLS communication. If you encrypt the private key with a passphrase, ensure that you specify the passphrase while uploading the certificate to the Firewall Management Center.

Step 4

Create client certificate with the specified Common Name (CN) and Subject Alternative Name (SAN).

Example:

This sample command generates a new RSA private key and uses it to create a self-signed X.509 certificate with provided subject information. In this example, 192.168.0.202 is the IP address of the client.
CN="192.168.0.202"
SAN="IP:192.168.0.202"
openssl req -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout keys/client-key.pem -out keys/client-req.pem -subj "/C=XX/ST=YY/L=ZZZ/O=example/OU=EN/CN=${CN}/emailAddress=abc@example.com"
openssl x509 -req -extfile <(printf "subjectAltName=${SAN}") -in keys/client-req.pem -days 60 -CA keys/ca-cert.pem -CAkey keys/ca-key.pem -CAcreateserial -out keys/client-cert.pem

The gNMI client uses the client certificate client-cert.pem and the private key for TLS communication.

Step 5

(Optional) For dial-out mode, create the tunnel server certificate with the specified Common Name (CN) and Subject Alternative Name (SAN).

Example:

This sample command generates a new RSA private key and uses it to create a self-signed X.509 certificate with provided subject information. In this example, 192.168.0.202 is the IP address of the client.
CN="192.168.0.202"
SAN="IP:192.168.0.202"
openssl req -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout keys/tunnel-server-key.pem -out keys/tunnel-server-req.pem -subj " /C=XX/ST=YY/L=ZZZ/O=Example/OU=EN/CN=${CN}/emailAddress=abc@example.com}"
openssl x509 -req -extfile <(printf "subjectAltName=${SAN}") -in keys/tunnel-server-req.pem -days 60 -CA keys/ca-cert.pem -CAkey keys/ca-key.pem -CAcreateserial -out keys/tunnel-server-cert.pem

Configure OpenConfig streaming telemetry

OpenConfig streaming telemetry allows network monitoring systems to collect real-time data from threat defense devices using the gNMI protocol. This configuration supports both DIAL-IN and DIAL-OUT deployment modes for flexible integration with existing network management infrastructure.

Before you begin

  • Make sure the Firewall Threat Defense device where you want to deploy the health policy configuration allows installation of the SSL certificate and PRIVATE KEY.

  • Ensure that you configure a gNMI client that supports the OpenConfig streaming telemetry implementation, from which you can make the gRPC requests to the gNMI server on the Firewall Threat Defense.

  • To use DIAL-OUT mode and configure OpenConfig streaming telemetry, ensure that you configure a gRPC tunnel server and client on the management system. This tunnel configuration enables communication between the gNMI client and the Firewall Threat Defense device.

  • You must be an admin user to perform this task.

Follow these steps to configure OpenConfig streaming telemetry:

Procedure

Step 1

Choose System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy.

Step 2

Click the Edit health policy icon next to the threat defense health policy that you want to modify.

Step 3

Go to the Settings tab.

Step 4

Move the OpenConfig Streaming Telemetry slider to enable the configuration. This configuration is disabled by default.

Step 5

Upload the SSL Certificate. The gNMI server uses this certificate to enable server authentication for the TLS connection and encrypt all communications through the channel.

The OpenConfig streaming telemetry configuration supports only certificate with PEM format. The Firewall Management Center performs the following certificate validations to ensure encrypted communication between the appliance and gNMI collectors without connection failures:

  • Verifies that the ASCII text is a valid certificate file.

  • Checks the expiration date of the uploaded certificate.

  • Verifies the number of expected certificates and PRIVATE KEY in the uploaded PEM file. The file must have minimum one certificate and the number of PRIVATE KEY in the certificate must always be 1.

  • Verify and accept KEY block types PRIVATE KEY, RSA PRIVATE KEY, ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY, or RSA ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY.

  • For the ENCRYPTED PEM file, verify that the Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED? keyword is present.

  • Verifies that the passphrase is valid for the ENCRYPTED PEM files.

Step 6

(Optional) Specify the Passphrase if the PRIVATE KEY files are ENCRYPTED.

Step 7

Choose the deployment mode to use for streaming telemetry over gNMI protocol.

For DIAL-IN mode:

  1. Assign a port number for the gNMI service.

    The gNMI server opens the port and waits for gRPC requests from the collector.

  2. Specify the IPv4/IPv6 address of the gNMI collectors that can connect to the Firewall Threat Defense device.

  3. Click Add Collector to add more gNMI collectors. You can add a maximum of five collectors.

For DIAL-OUT mode:

  1. Specify the hostname and port number for the gNMI collector, which can subscribe to streaming telemetry from the Firewall Threat Defense device.

  2. Click Add Collector to add more gNMI collectors. You can add a maximum of five collectors.

Step 8

Specify the username and password to validate the gNMI collector.

The Firewall Threat Defense server uses this credential to authenticate the gNMI collector when receiving the SubscribeRequest RPC message. Each telemetry message is not authenticated using the username and password. The system uses the previously authenticated ENCRYPTED streaming channel to carry telemetry messages.

Step 9

Click Save.

What to do next

Deploy the health policy to your Firewall Threat Defense device, for the configuration changes to take effect.

Troubleshoot OpenConfig streaming telemetry

This reference provides troubleshooting procedures for OpenConfig streaming telemetry issues including certificate errors, server response failures, and status verification methods.

Certificate signed by unknown authority

  • Ensure that you have uploaded the correct certificate to the Firewall Management Center.

  • Verify the certificate and key generation steps. Ensure that the IP Subject Alternative Name (SAN) is specified correctly.

Certificate is not valid

If the Firewall Management Center displays the error "Request was made for (IP), but the certificate is not valid for (IP)" then verify the server certificate and key generation steps.

  • Ensure that the IP SAN is correctly specified in the server certificate. If the configuration applies to more than one Firewall Threat Defense device, you must specify all the devices in the IP SAN field.

  • If you are using dial-out mode, ensure that the client IP is specified in the server certificate.

Failed to generate response object

If you receive "Failed to generate response object, did not receive any data" error, the gNMI input plug-in is waiting for metric export. This is the sample response that appears when the telegraf is restarting: 

root@cronserver:/home/secanup/openconfig-test# gnmic -a $ADDRESS:$PORT --tls-cert $CLIENTCERT --tls-ca $CACERT --tls-key $CLIENTKEY -u $USER -p $PASS sub --mode once --path "openconfig-system/system/memory"
rpc error: code = Aborted desc = Error in gnmi_server: failed to generate response object.did not receive any data
Error: one or more requests failed

Wait for the gNMI input plug-in to restart and retry your request.

Restart telegraf

When telegraf is not responding, restart the process using this command on the Firewall Threat Defense CLI console: 

pmtool restartbyid hmdaemon

Get current status of gNMI server

When OpenConfig streaming telemetry is enabled, to know the status of the gNMI server, run this command using the Firewall Threat Defense CLI console: 

curl localhost:9275/OpenConfig/status

This is the sample response to the command:

root@firepower:/home/admin# curl localhost:9275/openconfig/status
Mode (Dialin/Dialout): DialIn
Subscription Details:
    Active Subscription Details:
        Stream Mode Subscription Details:
            Total Stream Subscription Request Count: 1
            'Ip of Collector- Subscribe paths:'
                172.16.0.101:45826:
                - /openconfig-system/system/state/hostname
            Sample Subscription Count: 1
            On Change Subscription Count: 0
        Once Mode Subscription Details:
            Total Subscription Request Count: 0
            Total Subscription Count: 0
            'Ip of Collector- Subscribe paths:': {}
    Total Subscription Details:
        Stream Mode Subscription Details:
            Total Stream Subscription Request Count: 1
            'Ip of Collector- Subscribe paths:':
                 172.16.0.101:45826:
                 - /openconfig-system/system/state/hostname
        Sample Subscription Count: 1
        On Change Subscription Count: 0
    Once Mode Subscription Details:
        Total Subscription Request Count: 0
        Total Subscription Count: 0
        'Ip of Collector- Subscribe paths:': {}

History for health monitoring

Provides the history of health monitoring features and enhancements for each release of Secure Firewall Management Center.

Table 7. History for health monitoring

Feature

Minimum Firewall Management Center

Minimum Firewall Threat Defense

Details

Updated the Firewall Management Center memory usage module default thresholds.

7.4.1

Any

The default thresholds for the management center memory usage warning and critical alarms are now set to 88% and 90% respectively.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Policy > edit the Firewall Management Center Health Policy > Health Modules > Memory Usage.

Improved memory usage calculation for Firewall Management Center.

7.4.1

Any

The management center memory usage module to consider the amount of swap memory available and the cache memory when calculating the memory usage to accurately determine the memory usage and send health alerts.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Monitor > Firewall Management Center > Add New Dashboard.

Health alerts for NTP server sync issues.

7.4.1

Any

Introduced the Time Server Status module in the Secure Firewall Management Center Health Policy. When enabled, this module monitors the configuration of the NTP servers and alerts when the NTP server is unavailable or if the NTP server configuration is invalid.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Policy > Firewall Management Center Health Policy > Health Modules > Time Synchronization.

CPU and chassis temperature alerts for firepower 1010 and 1100 devices.

7.4.1

7.4.1

Alerts for CPU or chassis temperature warnings or critical levels appear in the management center for Firepower 1010 and 1100 devices.

Stream telemetry to an external server using OpenConfig.

7.4

7.4

You can now send metrics and health monitoring information from your threat defense devices to an external server (gNMI collector) using OpenConfig. You can configure either threat defense or the collector to initiate the connection, which is encrypted by TLS.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Policy > Firewall Threat Defense Policies > Settings > OpenConfig Streaming Telemetry.

Health monitor usability enhancements.

7.4

Any

Improved Add New Dashboard dialog box which helps to create the custom dashboards with ease. Included option to edit or delete the predefined device health monitor dashboards.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Monitor > Devices > Add New Dashboard.

New cluster health monitor dashboard.

7.3

Any

A new dashboard to view the cluster health monitor metrics was introduced with the following components:

  • Overview: Displays information about the cluster topology, cluster statistics, and metric charts.

  • Load Distribution: Displays load distribution across the cluster nodes.

  • Member Performance: Displays current metrics of all the member nodes of the cluster.

  • CCL: Displays, graphically, the cluster control link data namely, the input, and output rate.

Note

 

These features are applicable only for a cluster. Hence, you must select the cluster under the Devices list on the Monitoring pane to view and use the cluster dashboard.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Monitor.

New hardware statistics module.

7.3

Any

The Firewall Management Center hardware and environment status statistics were added to the health monitor dashboard:

  • A new policy module, Hardware Statistics, was introduced to enable monitoring of hardware daemons on the management center hardware. The metrics included fan speed, temperature, and power supply.

  • A custom metric group, Hardware Statistics, was also added to view graphical representation of the hardware health metrics on the monitoring dashboard.

  • The power supply status is captured in Health Alerts of the management center.

Note

 

These features are applicable only for the management center. Hence, they are available only on the management center dashboard.

New/modified screens:

  • System > Health > Monitor.

  • System > Health > Policy.

New hardware and environment status metric group,

7.3

Any

The threat defense hardware and environment status statistics were added to the health monitor dashboard:

  • A custom metric group, Hardware / Environment Status, was introduced to view hardware-related statistics on the threat defense. The metrics included fan speed, chassis temperature, SSD status, and power supply.

  • The device Health Alerts was enhanced to include the power supply status of the threat defense hardware—Critical alert is displayed for abnormal thermal status, and Normal alert is displayed for normal thermal status.

Note

 

These features are applicable only for threat defense. Hence, you must select the appropriate device under the Devices list on the Monitoring pane.

New/modified screens: System > Health > Monitor.

Health alert for device configuration history files size

7.2.6

Any

The Disk Usage module sends health alert when the size of device configuration history files on the Firewall Management Center exceeds the allowed limit. This alert is enabled by default.

Health alert for exceeding the configuration versions size is not supported on the Secure Firewall Management Center versions 7.3.0 and 7.4.0.

Health monitor usability enhancements.

7.1

Any

Following UI page were improved for better usability and presentation of data:

  • Policy

  • Exclude

  • Monitor Alerts

New/modified screens:

  • System > Health > Policy.

  • System > Health > Exclude.

  • System > Health > Monitor Alerts.

Elephant flow detection.

7.1

Any

The health monitor includes the following enhancements:

  • The Connection statistics includes active elephant flows.

  • The Connection Group Metrics includes the number of active elephant flows.

The Elephant Flow Detection feature is not supported on the Cisco Firepower 2100 series.

Discontinued high unmanaged disk usage alerts.

7.0.6

Any

The Disk Usage health module no longer alerts with high unmanaged disk usage. After upgrade, you may continue to see these alerts until you either deploy health policies to managed devices (stops the display of alerts) or upgrade the devices (stops the sending of alerts).

Note

 

Versions 7.0–7.0.5, 7.1.x, 7.2.0–7.2.3, and 7.3.x continue to support these alerts. If your Firewall Management Center is running any of these versions, you may also continue to see alerts.

New health modules.

7.0

Any

We added the following health modules:

  • AMP connectivity and cloud status

    • AMP Connection Status: Monitors AMP cloud connectivity from the Firewall Threat Defense.

    • AMP Threat Grid Status: Monitors AMP Threat Grid cloud connectivity from the Firewall Threat Defense.

    • Security Services Exchange Connection Status: Monitors security services exchange cloud connectivity from the Firewall Threat Defense.

  • Firewall Threat Defense and Firewall Management Center status

    • FMC Access Configuration Changes: Monitors access configuration changes made directly on the Firewall Management Center.

    • FTD HA Status: Monitors the active and standby Firewall Threat Defense HA pair and the sync status between the devices.

    • FMC HA Status: Monitors the active and standby Firewall Management Center and the sync status between the devices. Replaces the HA Status module.

  • Network and traffic monitoring

    • ASP Drop: Monitors the connections dropped by the data plane accelerated security path.

    • Flow Offload: Monitors hardware flow offload statistics on the Firepower 9300 and 4100 platforms.

    • Routing Statistics: Monitors both IPv4 and IPv6 route information from the Firewall Threat Defense.

    • VPN Statistics: Monitors site-to-site and remote access VPN tunnel statistics.

  • Snort and intrusion detection statistics

    • Advanced Snort Statistics: Monitors Snort statistics related to packet performance, flow counters, and flow events.

    • Hit Count: Monitors the number of times a particular rule is hit on the access control policy.

    • xTLS Counters: Monitors xTLS/SSL flows, memory and cache effectiveness.

  • System and hardware health

    • File System Integrity Check: Performs a file system integrity check if the system has CC mode or UCAPL mode enabled.

    • MySQL Status: Monitors the status of the MySQL database.

    • RabbitMQ Status: Monitors the status of the RabbitMQ messaging broker.

    • Sybase Status: Monitors the status of the Sybase database.

    • NTP Status FTD: Monitors the NTP clock synchronization status of the managed device.

  • Event and policy monitoring

    • Event Stream Status: Monitors connections to third-party client applications that use the Event Streamer.

    • Unresolved Groups Monitor: Monitors the unresolved groups used in access control policies.

Health monitor enhancements.

7.0

Any

The health monitor adds the following enhancements:

  • Enhanced Firewall Management Center dashboard with summary views of:

    • High Availability

    • Event Rate & Capacity

    • Process Health

    • CPU thresholds

    • Memory

    • Interface rates

    • Disk Usage

  • Enhanced Firewall Threat Defense dashboard:

    • Health alert for split brain scenario

    • Additional health metrics available from new Health Modules

New health modules.

6.7

Any

The CPU Usage module is no longer used. Instead, see the following modules for CPU usage:

  • CPU Usage (per core): Monitors the CPU usage on all of the cores.

  • CPU Usage Data Plane: Monitors the average CPU usage of all data plane processes on the device.

  • CPU Usage Snort: Monitors the average CPU usage of the Snort processes on the device.

  • CPU Usage System: Monitors the average CPU usage of all system processes on the device.

The following modules were added to track statistics:

  • Connection Statistics: Monitors the connection statistics and NAT translation counts.

  • Critical Process Statistics: Monitors the state of critical processes, their resource consumption, and the restart counts.

  • Deployed Configuration Statistics: Monitors statistics about the deployed configuration, such as the number of ACEs and IPS rules.

  • Snort Statistics: Monitors the Snort statistics for events, flows, and packets.

The following modules were added to track memory usage:

  • Memory Usage Data Plane: Monitors the percentage of allocated memory used by the Data Plane processes.

  • Memory Usage Snort: Monitors the percentage of allocated memory used by the Snort process.

Health monitor enhancements.

6.7

Any

The health monitor adds the following enhancements:

  • Health Status summary page that provides an at-a-glance view of the health of the Firepower Management Center and all of the devices that the Firewall Management Center manages.

  • The Monitoring navigation pane allows you to navigate the device hierarchy.

  • Managed devices are listed individually, or grouped according to their geolocation, high availability, or cluster status where applicable.

  • You can view health monitors for individual devices from the navigation pane.

  • Custom dashboards to correlate interrelated metrics. Select from predefined correlation groups, such as CPU and Snort; or create a custom correlation dashboard by building your own variable set from the available metric groups.

Functionality moved to the Threat Data Updates on Devices module.

6.7

Any

The Local Malware Analysis module is no longer used. Instead, refer to the Threat Data Updates on Devices module for this information.

Some information formerly provided by the Security Intelligence module and the URL Filtering Module is now provided by the Threat Data Updates on Devices module.

New health module: Configuration Memory Allocation.

7.0

6.6.3

Any

Version 6.6.3 improves device memory management and introduces a new health module: Configuration Memory Allocation.

This module alerts when the size of your deployed configurations puts a device at risk of running out of memory. The alert shows you how much memory your configurations require, and by how much this exceeds the available memory. If this happens, re-evaluate your configurations. Most often you can reduce the number or complexity of access control rules or intrusion policies.

URL Filtering Monitor improvements.

6.5

Any

The URL Filtering Monitor module now alerts if the Firewall Management Center fails to register to the Cisco cloud.

URL Filtering Monitor improvements.

6.4

Any

You can now configure time thresholds for URL Filtering Monitor alerts.

New health module: Threat Data Updates on Devices.

6.3

Any

A new module, Threat Data Updates on Devices, was added.

This module alerts you if certain intelligence data and configurations that devices use to detect threats has not been updated on the devices within the time period you specify.