Palo Alto Networks Firewall

Ship your Palo Alto firewall logs using Filebeat to your Logit.io Stack

Configure a Palo Alto firewall to ship logs via Filebeat to your Logit.io stacks via Logstash.

Install Integration

Please click on the Install Integration button to configure your stack for this source.

Install Filebeat

To get started you will need to install filebeat. To do this you have two main options:

Choose the filebeat (opens in a new tab) ZIP file (Windows ZIP x86_64) or
Choose the Microsoft Software Installer MSI (opens in a new tab) file (Windows MSI x86_64 (beta))

To successfully install filebeat and set up the required Windows service you will need to have administrator access.

If you have chosen to download the zip file:

Extract the contents of the zip file into C:\Program Files.
Rename the extracted folder to filebeat
Open a PowerShell prompt as an Administrator (right-click the PowerShell icon and select Run As Administrator).
From the PowerShell prompt, run the following commands to install filebeat as a Windows service:

cd 'C:\Program Files\filebeat'

.\install-service-filebeat.ps1

If script execution is disabled on your system, you need to set the execution policy for the current session to allow the script to run. For example:

PowerShell.exe -ExecutionPolicy UnRestricted -File .\install-service-filebeat.ps1

For more information about Powershell execution policies see here (opens in a new tab).

If you have chosen to download the filebeat.msi file:

double-click on it and the relevant files will be downloaded.

At the end of the installation process you'll be given the option to open the folder where filebeat has been installed.

Open a PowerShell prompt as an Administrator (right-click the PowerShell icon and select Run As Administrator).
From the PowerShell prompt, change directory to the location where filebeat was installed and run the following command to install filebeat as a Windows service:

.\install-service-filebeat.ps1

If script execution is disabled on your system, you need to set the execution policy for the current session to allow the script to run. For example:

PowerShell.exe -ExecutionPolicy UnRestricted -File .\install-service-filebeat.ps1

For more information about Powershell execution policies see here (opens in a new tab).

Configure Palo Alto Logging

Configure the Palo Alto Networks firewall to log to a syslog server:

You can configure the Palo Alto firewall to log to a syslog server through the admin console. To configure, go to the "Device" tab and choose "System" -> "Syslog".

Add a new Syslog Server Profile and give the profile a descriptive name that includes "Logitio"

Name: Enter a name that includes Filebeat
Syslog Server: Your Filebeat server IP address
Transport: UDP
Port: 514
Format: BSD
Facility: Remains as "LOG_USER"

Save the profile.

Read more (opens in a new tab) about how to configure Syslog Monitoring with Palo Alto Networks.

To configure logging for a security policy, follow these steps:

Go to the Policies tab and select Security from the left menu.
Double-click an existing security policy or create a new one to open the Security Policy Rule dialog.
Navigate to the Action tab and select Log at Session Start and Log at Session End.
Choose the log forwarding profile that you created above.
Ensure all required information highlighted is entered.

Commit and save all changes to your firewall.

Configure Filebeat.yml

The configuration file below is pre-configured to send data to your Logit.io Stack.

Copy the configuration file below and overwrite the contents of the Filebeat configuration file typically located at /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml

# ============================== Filebeat inputs ===============================
filebeat.inputs:
 
- type: udp
    max_message_size: 10MiB
    host: "0.0.0.0:514"
    enabled: true
 
    fields:
        type: paloalto
    fields_under_root: true
    encoding: utf-8
    ignore_older: 12h
 
# ================================== Outputs ===================================
output.logstash:
    hosts: ["@logstash.host:@logstash.sslPort"]
    loadbalance: true
    ssl.enabled: true

If you're running Filebeat 7, add this code block to the end. Otherwise, you can leave it out.

# ... For Filebeat 7 only ...
filebeat.registry.path: /var/lib/filebeat

If you're running Filebeat 6, add this code block to the end.

# ... For Filebeat 6 only ...
registry_file: /var/lib/filebeat/registry

It's a good idea to run the configuration file through a YAML validator to rule out indentation errors, clean up extra characters, and check if your YAML file is valid. Yamllint.com (opens in a new tab) is a great choice.

Validate configuration

cd <EXTRACTED_ARCHIVE>
.\@beatname.exe -e -c @beatname.yml

If the yml file is invalid, will print an error loading config file error message with details on how to correct the problem. If you have issues starting see "How To Diagnose No Data In Stack" below to troubleshoot.

Start filebeat

To start Filebeat, run in Powershell:

Start-Service filebeat

Launch Logit.io to view your logs

Data should now have been sent to your Stack.

View My Data

If you don't see take a look at How to diagnose no data in Stack below for how to diagnose common issues.

How to diagnose no data in Stack

If you don't see data appearing in your Stack after following the steps, visit the Help Centre guide for steps to diagnose no data appearing in your Stack or Chat to support now.

Palo Alto Overview

Palo Alto Networks firewalls provide advanced network security features for enterprise environments, protecting against cyber threats and unauthorized access. To effectively monitor and analyze network activity, it is essential to have a reliable and efficient log management solution. The Palo Alto Networks firewalls generate logs that capture information about network traffic, threats, and user activity.

To manage these logs effectively, organizations can use Filebeat, an open-source shipping tool, to send logs from Palo Alto Networks firewalls to various destinations, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, due to its reliability and minimal memory footprint. Filebeat is widely used to send logs from Palo Alto Networks firewalls to various destinations, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, due to its compatibility and ease of use.

To send Palo Alto Networks firewall logs to Filebeat, organizations can configure the firewall to forward logs to a syslog server, and then use Filebeat to collect and forward log data to Elasticsearch or other destinations. This process involves setting up a syslog server to receive the logs, configuring the firewall to send logs to the syslog server, and configuring Filebeat to collect and forward the logs from the syslog server to Elasticsearch or other destinations.

Filebeat provides a filebeat.yml wizard that helps users avoid complex logging concerns, such as large registry files and frequent errors encountered when handling deleted or renamed log files. Users can also consider using the Hosted ELK service to simplify tracking numerous pipelines using this shipper.

In summary, using Filebeat to send Palo Alto Networks firewall logs to various destinations, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, is a reliable and efficient log management solution. By configuring the firewall to forward logs to a syslog server and using Filebeat to collect and forward the logs to Elasticsearch or other destinations, organizations can gain insights into network traffic, threats, and user activity, and take action to protect their networks against cyber threats and unauthorized access.

If you need any further assistance with migrating your log data to ELK we're here to help you get started. Feel free to get in contact with our support team by sending us a message via live chat & we'll be happy to assist.

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