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  3. Logging Network Firewall Events to IPFIX Collectors
Manual Chapter : Logging Network Firewall Events to IPFIX Collectors

Applies To:

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BIG-IP APM

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

BIG-IP Analytics

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

BIG-IP LTM

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

BIG-IP PEM

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

BIG-IP AFM

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

BIG-IP DNS

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

BIG-IP ASM

  • 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0
Manual Chapter

Logging Network Firewall Events to IPFIX Collectors

Overview: Configuring IPFIX logging for AFM

You can configure the BIG-IP system to log information about Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) processes and send the log messages to remote IPFIX collectors.
The BIG-IP system supports logging of AFM events over the IPFIX protocol. IPFIX logs are raw, binary-encoded strings with their fields and field lengths defined by IPFIX templates.
IPFIX collectors
 are external devices that can receive IPFIX templates and use them to interpret IPFIX logs.
Enabling IPFIX logging impacts BIG-IP system performance.

About the configuration objects of IPFIX logging for AFM

The configuration process involves creating and connecting the following configuration objects:
Object
Reason
Applies to
Pool of IPFIX collectors
Create a pool of IPFIX collectors to which the BIG-IP system can send IPFIX log messages.
Assembling a pool of IPFIX collectors.
Destination
Create a log destination to format the logs in IPFIX templates, and forward the logs to the IPFIX collectors.
Creating an IPFIX log destination.
Publisher
Create a log publisher to send logs to a set of specified log destinations.
Creating a publisher.

Assembling a pool of IPFIX collectors

Before creating a pool of IPFIX collectors, gather the IP addresses of the collectors that you want to include in the pool. Ensure that the remote IPFIX collectors are configured to listen to and receive log messages from the BIG-IP system.
You can create a pool of IPFIX collectors to which the system can send IPFIX log messages.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    Local Traffic
    Pools
    .
    The Pool List screen opens.
  2. Click
    Create
    .
    The New Pool screen opens.
  3. In the
    Name
     field, type a unique name for the pool.
  4. Using the
    New Members
     setting, add the IP address for each IPFIX collector that you want to include in the pool:
    1. Type the collector's IP address in the
      Address
       field, or select a node address from the
      Node List
      .
    2. Type a port number in the
      Service Port
       field.
      By default, IPFIX collectors listen on UDP or TCP port
      4739
       and Netflow V9 devices listen on port
      2055
      , though the port is configurable at each collector.
    3. Click
      Add
      .
  5. Click
    Finished
    .

Creating an IPFIX log destination

A log destination of the
IPFIX
 type specifies that log messages are sent to a pool of IPFIX collectors. Use these steps to create a log destination for IPFIX collectors.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    System
    Logs
    Configuration
    Log Destinations
    .
    The Log Destinations screen opens.
  2. Click
    Create
    .
  3. In the
    Name
     field, type a unique, identifiable name for this destination.
  4. From the
    Type
     list, select
    IPFIX
    .
  5. From the
    Protocol
     list, select
    IPFIX
     or
    Netflow V9
    , depending on the type of collectors you have in the pool.
  6. From the
    Pool Name
     list, select an LTM pool of IPFIX collectors.
  7. From the
    Transport Profile
     list, select
    TCP
    ,
    UDP
    , or any customized profile derived from TCP or UDP.
  8. The
    Template Retransmit Interval
     is the time between transmissions of IPFIX templates to the pool of collectors. The BIG-IP system only retransmits its templates if the
    Transport Profile
     is a
    UDP
     profile.
    An
    IPFIX template
     defines the field types and byte lengths of the binary IPFIX log messages. The logging destination sends the template for a given log type (for example, NAT44 logs or customized logs from an iRule) before sending any of those logs, so that the IPFIX collector can read the logs of that type. The logging destination assigns a template ID to each template, and places the template ID into each log that uses that template.
    The log destination periodically retransmits all of its IPFIX templates over a UDP connection. The retransmissions are helpful for UDP connections, which are lossy.
  9. The
    Template Delete Delay
     is the time that the BIG-IP device should pause between deleting an obsolete template and re-using its template ID. This feature is helpful for systems that can create custom IPFIX templates with iRules.
  10. The
    Server SSL Profile
     applies Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) to TCP connections. You can only choose an SSL profile if the
    Transport Profile
     is a
    TCP
     profile. Choose an SSL profile that is appropriate for the IPFIX collectors' SSL/TLS configuration.
    SSL or TLS requires extra processing and therefore slows the connection, so we only recommend this for sites where the connections to the IPFIX collectors have a potential security risk.
  11. Click
    Finished
    .

Creating a publisher

Ensure that at least one destination associated with a pool of remote log servers exists on the BIG-IP system.
Create a publisher to specify where the BIG-IP system sends log messages for specific resources.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    System
    Logs
    Configuration
    Log Publishers
    .
    The Log Publishers screen opens.
  2. Click
    Create
    .
  3. In the
    Name
     field, type a unique, identifiable name for this publisher.
  4. For the
    Destinations
     setting, select a destination from the
    Available
     list, and move the destination to the
    Selected
     list.
    If you are using a formatted destination, select the destination that matches your log servers, such as Remote Syslog, Splunk, or IPFIX.
    If you configure a log publisher to use multiple logging destinations, then, by default, all logging destinations must be available in order to log to each destination. Unless all logging destinations are available, no logging can occur. If you want to log to the available logging destinations when one or more destinations become unavailable, you must set the
    logpublisher.atomic
     db key to
    false
    . If all the remote high-speed log (HSL) destinations are down (unavailable), setting the
    logpublisher.atomic
     db key to
    false
     will not work to allow the logs to be written to local-syslog. The
    logpublisher.atomic
     db key has no effect on local-syslog.
  5. Click
    Finished
    .

Creating a custom Network Firewall Logging profile

You create a custom Logging profile to log messages about BIG-IP system Network Firewall events.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    Security
    Event Logs
    Logging Profiles
    .
    The Logging Profiles list screen opens.
  2. Click
    Create
    .
    The Create New Logging Profile screen opens.
  3. In the
    Name
     field, type a unique name for the profile.
  4. Select the
    Network Firewall
     check box.
  5. If you want to enable optional subscriber ID logging:
    1. Select the
      Network Address Translation
       check box.
    2. Then in the Network Address Translation area, select the
      Log Subscriber ID
       check box.
    3. Click
      Network Firewall
      .
  6. In the Network Firewall area, from the
    Publisher
     list, select the IPFIX publisher the BIG-IP system uses to log Network Firewall events.
  7. Set an
    Aggregate Rate Limit
     to define a rate limit for all combined network firewall log messages per second.
    Beyond this rate limit, log messages are not logged.
    Rate Limits are calculated per-second per TMM. Each TMM throttles as needed independently of other TMMs.
  8. For the
    Log Rule Matches
     setting, select how the BIG-IP system logs packets that match ACL rules. You can select any or all of the options.
    Option
    Enables or disables logging of packets that match ACL rules configured with:
    Accept
    action=Accept
    Drop
    action=Drop
    Reject
    action=Reject
    When an option is selected, you can configure a rate limit for log messages of that type.
  9. Select the
    Log IP Errors
     check box, to enable logging of IP error packets.
    When this setting is enabled, you can configure a rate limit for log messages of this type.
  10. Select the
    Log TCP Errors
     check box, to enable logging of TCP error packets.
    When this is enabled, you can configure a rate limit for log messages of this type.
  11. Select the
    Log TCP Events
     check box, to enable logging of open and close of TCP sessions.
    When this is enabled, you can configure a rate limit for log messages of this type.
  12. Enable the
    Log Translation Fields
     setting to log both the original IP address and the NAT-translated IP address for Network Firewall log events.
  13. Enable the
    Log Geolocation IP Address
     setting to specify that when a geolocation event causes a network firewall action, the associated IP address is logged.
  14. From the
    Storage Format
     list, select how the BIG-IP system formats the log.
    Option
    Description
    None
    Specifies the default format type in which the BIG-IP system logs messages to a remote Syslog server, for example:
    "management_ip_address","bigip_hostname","context_type","context_name","src_ip","dest_ip","src_port","dest_port","vlan","protocol","route_domain","acl_rule_name","action","drop_reason
    Field-List
    Allows you to:
    • Select, from a list, the fields to be included in the log.
    • Specify the order the fields display in the log.
    • Specify the delimiter that separates the content in the log. The default delimiter is the comma character.
    User-Defined
    Allows you to:
    • Select, from a list, the fields to be included in the log.
    • Cut and paste, in a string of text, the order the fields display in the log.
  15. In the IP Intelligence area, from the
    Publisher
     list, select the publisher that the BIG-IP system uses to log source IP addresses, which are identified and configured for logging by an IP Intelligence policy.
    The IP Address Intelligence feature must be enabled and licensed.
  16. Set an
    Aggregate Rate Limit
     to define a rate limit for all combined IP Intelligence log messages per second.
    Beyond this rate limit, log messages are not logged.
    Rate Limits are calculated per-second per TMM. Each TMM throttles as needed independently of other TMMs.
  17. Enable the
    Log Translation Fields
     setting to log both the original IP address and the NAT-translated IP address for IP Intelligence log events.
  18. In the Traffic Statistics area, from the
    Publisher
     list, select the publisher that the BIG-IP system uses to log traffic statistics.
  19. For the
    Log Timer Events
     setting, enable
    Active Flows
     to log the number of active flows each second.
  20. For the
    Log Timer Events
     setting, enable
    Reaped Flows
    to log the number of reaped flows, or connections that are not established because of system resource usage levels.
  21. For the
    Log Timer Events
     setting, enable
    Missed Flows
     to log the number of packets that were dropped because of a flow table miss. A flow table miss occurs when a TCP non-SYN packet does not match an existing flow.
  22. For the
    Log Timer Events
     setting, enable
    SYN Cookie (Per Session Challenge)
     to log the number of SYN cookie challenges generated each second.
  23. For the
    Log Timer Events
     setting, enable
    SYN Cookie (White-listed Clients)
     to log the number of SYN cookie clients whitelisted each second.
  24. Click
    Finished
    .

Configuring an LTM virtual server for Network Firewall event logging with IPFIX

Ensure that at least one log publisher exists on the BIG-IP system.
Assign a custom Network Firewall Logging profile to a virtual server when you want the BIG-IP system to log Network Firewall events to IPFIX collectors on the traffic that the virtual server processes.
This task applies only to LTM-provisioned systems.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    Local Traffic
    Virtual Servers
    .
    The Virtual Server List screen opens.
  2. Click the name of the virtual server you want to modify.
  3. On the menu bar, click
    Security
    Policies
    .
    The screen displays policy settings for the virtual server.
  4. In the
    Log Profile
     setting, select
    Enabled
    . Then, select one or more profiles that log specific events to IPFIX collectors, and move them from the
    Available
     list to the
    Selected
     list.
    To log global, self IP, and route domain contexts, you must enable a Publisher in the
    global-network
     profile.
  5. Click
    Update
     to save the changes.

Implementation result

Now you have an implementation in which the BIG-IP system logs messages about AFM events and sends the log messages to a pool of IPFIX collectors.
Network firewall events are logged only for rules or policies for which logging is enabled.
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