Watchguard SA Errors Test
Security associations are negotiated between two computers during the first phase of establishing an Internet key Exchange (IKE) connection. These security associations establish shared session secrets from which keys are derived for encryption of tunneled data. For an optimal encryption process to happen, the packets that are sent thorugh the security associations should be error free. If too many errors are spotted in the data packets, administrators may need to figure out the exact cause of the errors – whether is it due to a fault security association connection or due to a malicious attack? The Watchguard SA errors test helps you in identifying the errors in the data packets!
This test monitors the security association of the firewall and identifies the data packets that were received with errors such as decrypt errors, authenticate errors, replay errors etc. This way, administrators would be alerted if there are too may errors that need to be manipulated for the security association to encrypt tunneled data smoothly.
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.
Parameter | Description |
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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:
|
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:
|
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. |
Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation |
---|---|---|---|
Packets received with decrypt errors |
Indicates the number of packets that were received with decrypt errors. |
Number |
Ideally, the value of this measure should be zero. A high value for this measure is a cause of concern which requires the administrator to identify the errors and rectify them quickly. |
Packets received with authenticate errors |
Indicates the number of packets that were received with authentication errors. |
Number |
|
Packets received with replay errors |
Indicates the number of packets that were received with replay errors. |
Number |
|
Packets received with policy errors |
Indicates the number of packets that were received with errors relating to the security policy. |
Number |
|
Packets received with other errors |
Indicates the number of packets that were received with other type of errors i.e.,.packets received with miscellaneous errors. |
Number |
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