Watchguard Connections Details Test

In computing, a stateful firewall (any firewall that performs stateful packet inspection (SPI) or stateful inspection) keeps track of the state of network connections (such as TCP streams, UDP communication) travelling across it. The firewall is programmed to distinguish legitimate packets for different types of connections. The firewall will allow packets matching a known active connection only and all other connections will either be dropped or rejected. Connections may also be dropped when the firewall is not able to handle a huge volume of traffic. This is where the Watchguard Connections Details test helps!

This test not only reports the total connections requested to the firewall, but also continuously tracks the connections that are currently active and enumerates the number of dropped connections, so that administrators can rapidly detect an abnormal increase in the number of dropped connections and determine what is causing it. This way, administrators can be proactively alerted to probable virus attacks/spams and initiate measures to protect their network from harm!

Target of the test : A WatchGuard Firewall server

Agent deploying the test : An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the WatchGuard Firewall server that is to be monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the WatchGuard Firewall for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to.

SNMPPort

The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; The default value is 161.

SNMPVersion

By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPVersion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

SNMPCommunity

The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

UserName

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter. 

Context

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the UserName provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the UserName in the Context text box.  By default, this parameter is set to none.

AuthPass

Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned UserName. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPVersion selected is v3.

Confirm Password

Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here.

AuthType

This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

  • MD5 – Message Digest Algorithm
  • SHA – Secure Hash Algorithm

EncryptFlag

This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option. 

EncryptType

If this EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

  • DES – Data Encryption Standard
  • AES – Advanced Encryption Standard

EncryptPassword

Specify the encryption password here.

Confirm Password

Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.

Timeout

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

Data Over TCP

By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Total connections

Indicates the total number of connections that were requested to this firewall since startup.

Number

This measure is a good indicator of the load on the firewall.

Active connections

Indicates the number of connections that were active or open on this firewall.

Number

An abnormally high value for this measure could indicate a probable virus attack or spam to a mail server in the network.

Connections dropped

Indicates the number of connections that were dropped by this firewall.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure should be zero. If there is a consistent increase in the value of this measure, then it clearly indicates that the firewall is either processing a lot of malicious traffic or is under attack.