Finally got some time to start exploring the CheckPoint management server’s API via web. As with most vendors, the tricky part was understanding the required steps for access and making basic calls. Here’s a quick walk-through.
Getting Management API Access
By default, access is only permitted from the Management server itself. To change this, do the following:
In SmartConsole, navigate to Manage & Settings -> Blades -> Management API
2. Change this to “All IP Addresses that can used by GUI clients” or simply “All IP Addresses”.
3. Click OK. You’ll see a message about restarting API
4. Click the the “Publish” button at the top
5. SSH to the Management Server and enter expert mode. Then enter this command:
api restart
6. After the restart is complete, use the command api status to verify the accessibility is no longer “Require Local”
[Expert@chkp-mgmt-server:0]# api status
API Settings:
---------------------
Accessibility: Require all granted
Automatic Start: Enabled
Verifying API Permissions
While in Smart Console , also verify that your account and permission profile has API login access by examining the Permission profile and look under the “Management” tab. This should be true by default.
Generating a Session Token
Now we’re ready to hit the API. First step generally is do a POST to /web_api/login to get a SID (session token). There are two required parameters: ‘user’ and ‘password’. Here’s a postman example. Note the parameters are raw JSON in the body (not the headers):
Making an actual API Call
With the SID obtained, we can copy/paste it and start sending some actual requests. There’s a few things to keep in mind
The requests are always POST, even if retrieving data
Two headers must be included: X-chkp-sid (which is the sid generated above) and Content-Type (which should be ‘application/json’)
All other parameters are set in the body. If no parameters are required, the body must be an empty object ({})
Here’s another Postman example getting the a list of all Star VPN Communities:
Retrieving details on specific objects
To get full details for a specific object, we have to specify the name or uuid in the POST body. For example, to get more information about a specific VPN community, make a request to /web_api/show-vpn-community-star with this:
{
"uid": "fe5a4339-ff15-4d91-bfa2-xxxxxxxxxx"
}
You’ll get back an object (aka python dictionary) back.
I desperately need to get some graphs on connections for Checkpoint after being unable to activate the monitoring blade for a cloud deployment with a PAYG license. Good ol’ Cacti was the quickest way to do accomplish that.
I upgraded my FreeBSD VM from 11 to 12 last weekend. Installing Google Cloud SDK was no problem; just use the FreeBSD package:
pkg install google-cloud-sdk
But for AWS CLI tools, there’s only a package for AWS CLI Tools version 1 . CLI Tools version 2 has been out for 3 years now, so we really don’t want to still be using v1.
Usually there’s a simple work-around: since AWS CLI tools is mostly Python scripts, you can install it via PIP. First, verify the version of Python installed, then install PIP3 for that version:
python -V
Python 3.9.16
pkg install py39-pip
Then install AWS CLI Tools v2 via PIP:
pip install awscliv2
But when we go to complete the install, we get this error:
awscliv2 --install
09:27:26 - awscliv2 - ERROR - FreeBSD amd64 is not supported, use docker version
This is because AWS CLI v2 does rely on a binary, and is only compiled for Linux. We can work around this by enabling Linux emulation.
Add the following line near the bottom of /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/awscliv2/installers.py to allow it to support FreeBSD:
if os_platform == "FreeBSD" and arch == "amd64":
return install_linux_x86_64()
Now we can complete the install successfully:
arnie@freebsd:~ % awscliv2 --install
10:07:13 - awscliv2 - INFO - Installing AWS CLI v2 for Linux
10:07:13 - awscliv2 - INFO - Downloading package from https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip to /tmp/tmpan_dsh2c.zip
10:07:17 - awscliv2 - INFO - Extracting /tmp/tmpan_dsh2c.zip to to /tmp/tmpnwvl45tn
10:07:26 - awscliv2 - INFO - Installing /tmp/tmpnwvl45tn/aws/install to /home/arnie/.awscliv2
10:08:37 - awscliv2 - INFO - Now awsv2 will use this installed version
10:08:37 - awscliv2 - INFO - Running now to check installation: awsv2 --version
Verify the binary and libraries are installed correctly:
Previously, the envoy-based Internal HTTP(S) load balancers could only be accessed within the same region. For orgs that leverage multiple regions and perform cross-region traffic, this limitation was a real pain point, and not a problem for AWS ALBs. So, I’m glad to see it’s now offered:
Oddly, the radio button only shows up during the ILB creation. To modify an existing one, use this gcloud command:
gcloud compute forwarding-rules update NAME --allow-global-access
It’s also important to be aware that Global access on the HTTP(S) ILB must be enabled if accessing from another load balancer via PSC. If not, you’ll get this error message:
Error 400: Invalid value for field 'resource.backends[0]': '{ "resourceGroup": "projects/myproject/regions/us-west1/networkEndpointGroups/psc-backend", ...'. Global L7 Private Service Connect consumers require the Private Service Connect producer load b
alancer to have AllowGlobalAccess enabled., invalid
For most of my troubleshooting tools, I want to avoid the security concerns that come with managing service accounts. Using my account also lets me access multiple projects. To do the authentication in Python, I’d originally installed google-api-python-client and then authenticated using credentials=None
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
try:
resource_object = build('compute', 'v1', credentials=None)
except Exception as e:
quit(e)
This call was a bit slow (2-3 seconds) and I was wondering if there was a faster way. The answer is ‘yes’ – just use OAuth2 tokens instead. Here’s how.
If not done already, generate a login session via this CLI command:
gcloud auth application-default login
You can then view its access token with this CLI command:
If you’ve got an ISP that forces all outbound e-mail to go via their servers, the solution to this is called SMTP smart hosting, where one SMTP server uses another SMTP server as a relay or proxy, essentially acting like a Mail User Agent (client) than a Mail Transfer Agent (server). If running FreeBSD, the default mail server will be sendmail and it’s a little unclear how to set this up.
For me, I just decided to really start from scratch with a custom config file with the SMART_HOST setting. Here’s the file I created, saving it as /etc/mail/custom.mc:
The VMs were deployed via Terraform using instance templates, managed instance groups, and an internal TCP/UDP load balancer with a forwarding rule for port 3128. Debian 11 (Bullseye) was selected as the OS because it has a low memory footprint while still offering an nice pre-packaged version of Squid version 4.
The first problem is the older stackdriver agent isn’t compatible with Debian 11. So I had to install the newer one. I chose to just add these lines to my startup script, pulling the script directly from a bucket to avoid the requirement of Internet access:
This was confusing because while it didn’t show any errors, the actual log was dumped to disk in a sub-directory of /var/tmp/google-agents/. and did indicate a problem in the agent-info.txt file:
API Check - Result: FAIL, Error code: LogApiPermissionErr, Failure:
Service account is missing the roles/logging.logWriter role., Solution: Add the roles/logging.logWriter role to the Google Cloud service account., Res
ource: https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/docs/solutions/agents/ops-agent/authorization#create-service-account
And this made sense, because in order for Ops Agent to function, it needs these two IAM roles enabled for the service account:
Monitoring > Monitoring Metric Writer.
Logging > Logs Writer.
Here’s a Terraform snippet that will do that:
# Add required IAM permissions for Ops Agents
locals {
roles = ["logging.logWriter", "monitoring.metricWriter"]
}
resource "google_project_iam_member" "default" {
for_each = var.service_account_email != null ? toset(local.roles) : {}
project = var.project_id
member = "serviceAccount:${var.service_account_email}"
role = "roles/${each.value}"
}
Within a few minutes of adding these, data started showing up in the graphs.
Launch a new R81.10 VM and create /var/log/mdss.json with the hostname and new IP address
On the old R80.40 VM, perform an export (this will result in services being stopped for ~ 15 minutes)
On the new R81.10 VM, perform an import. This will take about 30 minutes
If using BYOL, re-issue the license with the new IP address
Performing Export on old R80.40 Server
On the old R80.40 server, in GAIA, navigate to Maintenance -> System Backups. If not done already, run a backup. This will give a rough idea of how long the export job will take and the approximate file size including logs.
So for me, the export size can be assumed to be just under 1.2 GB. Then go to CLI and enter expert mode. First, run migrate_server verify
expert
cd $FWDIR/scripts
./migrate_server verify -v R81.10
The verify operation finished successfully.
Now actually do the export. Mine took about 15 minutes and resulted in 1.1 GB file when including logs.
./migrate_server export -v R81.10 -l /var/log/export.tgz
The export operation will eventually stop all Check Point services (cpstop; cpwd_admin kill). Do you want to continue (yes/no) [n]? yes
Exporting the Management Database
Operation started at Thu Jan 5 16:20:33 UTC 2023
[==================================================] 100% Done
The export operation completed successfully. Do you wish to start Check Point services (yes/no) [y]? y
Starting Check Point services ...
The export operation finished successfully.
Exported data to: /var/log/export.tgz.
Then copy the image to something offsite using SCP or SFTP.
ls -la /var/log/export.tgz
-rw-rw---- 1 admin root 1125166179 Jan 5 17:36 /var/log/export.tgz
scp /var/log/export.tgz billy@10.1.2.6:
Setting up the new R81.10 Server
After launching the VM, SSH in and set an admin user password and expert mode password. Then save config:
set user admin password
set expert-password
save config
Login to the Web GUI and start the setup wizard. This is pretty must just clicking through a bunch of “Next” buttons. It is recommend to enable NTP though and uncheck “Gateway” if this is a management-only server.
When the setup wizard has concluded, download and install SmartConsole, then the latest Hotfix
One rebooted, login via CLI, go to expert mode, and create a /var/log/mdss.json file that has the name of the Management server (as it appears in SmartConsole) and the new server’s internal IP address. Mine looks like this:
It’s not a bad idea to paste this in to a JSON Validator to ensure the syntax is proper. Also note the square outer brackets, even though there’s only one entry in the array.
Importing the Database
Now we’re ready to copy the exported file from the R80.40 server. /var/log typically has the most room, so that’s a good location. Then run the import command. For me, this took around 20-30 minutes.
scp billy@10.1.2.6:export.tgz /var/log/
cd $FWDIR/scripts
./migrate_server import -v R81.10 -l /var/log/export.tgz
Importing the Management Database
Operation started at Thu Jan 5 16:51:22 GMT 2023
The import operation finished successfully.
If a “Failed to import” message appears, check the /var/log/mdss.json file again. Make sure the brackets, quotes, commas, and colons are in the proper place.
After giving the new server a reboot for good measure, login to CLI and verify services are up and running. Note it takes 2-3 minutes for the services to be fully running:
cd $FWDIR/scripts
./cpm_status.sh
Check Point Security Management Server is during initialization
./cpm_status.sh
Check Point Security Management Server is running and ready
I then tried to login via R81.10 SmartConsole and got this message:
This is expected. The /var/log/mdss.json only manages the connection to the gateways, it doesn’t have anything to do with licensing for the management server itself. And, I would guess that doing the import results in the 14 day trial license being overridden. Just to confirm that theory, I launched a PAYG VM, re-did the migration, and no longer saw this error.
Updating the Management Server License
Login to User Center -> Assets/Info -> Product Center, locate the license, change the IP address, and install the new license. Since SmartConsole won’t load, this must be done via CLI.
cplic put 10.22.33.44 never XXXXXXX
I then gave a reboot and waited 2-3 minutes for services to fully start. At this point, I was able to login to SmartConsole and see the gateways, but they all showed red. This is also expected – to make them green, policy must be installed.
I first did a database install for the management server itself (Menu -> Install Database), which was successful. Then tried a policy install on the gateways and got a surprise – the policy push failed, complaining of
From the Management Server, I tried a basic telnet test for port 18191 and it did indeed fail:
telnet 10.22.33.121 18191
Trying 10.22.33.121..
At first I thought the issue was firewall rules, but concluded that the port 18191 traffic was reaching the gateway but being rejected, which indicates a SIC issue. Sure enough, a quick Google pointed me to this:
Indeed, the CheckPoint deployment template for GCP uses “member-a” and “member-b” as the hostname suffix for the gateways, but we give them a slightly different name in order to be consistent with our internal naming scheme.
The fix is change the hostname in the CLI to match the gateway name configured in SmartConsole:
cp-cluster-member-a> set hostname newhostname
cp-cluster-member-01> set domainname mydomain.org
cp-cluster-member-01> save config
After that, the telnet test to port 18191 was successful, and SmartConsole indicated some communication:
Now I have to reset SIC on both gateways:
cp-cluster-member-01> cpconfig
This program will let you re-configure
your Check Point products configuration.
Configuration Options:
----------------------
(1) Licenses and contracts
(2) SNMP Extension
(3) PKCS#11 Token
(4) Random Pool
(5) Secure Internal Communication
(6) Disable cluster membership for this gateway
(7) Enable Check Point Per Virtual System State
(8) Enable Check Point ClusterXL for Bridge Active/Standby
(9) Hyper-Threading
(10) Check Point CoreXL
(11) Automatic start of Check Point Products
(12) Exit
Enter your choice (1-12) :5
Configuring Secure Internal Communication...
============================================
The Secure Internal Communication is used for authentication between
Check Point components
Trust State: Trust established
Would you like re-initialize communication? (y/n) [n] ? y
Note: The Secure Internal Communication will be reset now,
and all Check Point Services will be stopped (cpstop).
No communication will be possible until you reset and
re-initialize the communication properly!
Are you sure? (y/n) [n] ? y
Enter Activation Key:
Retype Activation Key:
initial_module:
Compiled OK.
initial_module:
Compiled OK.
Hardening OS Security: Initial policy will be applied
until the first policy is installed
The Secure Internal Communication was successfully initialized
Configuration Options:
----------------------
(1) Licenses and contracts
(2) SNMP Extension
(3) PKCS#11 Token
(4) Random Pool
(5) Secure Internal Communication
(6) Disable cluster membership for this gateway
(7) Enable Check Point Per Virtual System State
(8) Enable Check Point ClusterXL for Bridge Active/Standby
(9) Hyper-Threading
(10) Check Point CoreXL
(11) Automatic start of Check Point Products
(12) Exit
Enter your choice (1-12) :12
Thank You...
cpwd_admin:
Process AUTOUPDATER terminated
cpwd_admin:
Process DASERVICE terminated
The services will restart, which triggers a failover. At this point, I went in to Smart Console, edited the member, reset SIC, re-entered the key, and initialized. The policy pushes then were successful and everything was green. The last remaining issue was an older R80.30 cluster complaining of the IDS module not responding. This resolved itself the next day.
Last year I started hearing more about TOML, which is a markup language (like YAML, JSON, and XML) which reminds me of configparser. The nice thing about TOML is the syntax and formatting very closely resemble Python and Terraform syntax, so it’s a very natural thing to use and is worthwhile learning
To install the package via PIP:
sudo pip3 install tomli
On FreeBSD, use a package:
pkg install py39-tomli
Create some basic TOML in a “test.toml” file:
[section_a]
key1 = "value_a1"
key2 = "value_a2"
[section_b]
name = "Frank"
age = 51
alive = true
[section_c]
pi = 3.14
Now some Python code to read it:
import tomli
from pprint import pprint
with open("test.toml", mode="rb") as fp:
pprint(tomli.load(fp))
As we enter the last year of support for CheckPoint R80.40, it’s time to finally get all management servers upgraded to R81.10 (if not done already). But I ran in to a problem when creating a snapshot on our management server in GCP:
This screen didn’t quite make sense because it says 6.69 GB are free, but the root partition actually shows 4.4 GB:
As it turns out, the 6 GB mentioned is completely un-partitioned space set aside for GAIA internals:
[Expert@chkpt-mgr:0]# lvm_manager -l
Select action:
1) View LVM storage overview
2) Resize lv_current/lv_log Logical Volume
3) Quit
Select action: 1
LVM overview
============
Size(GB) Used(GB) Configurable Description
lv_current 20 16 yes Check Point OS and products
lv_log 43 27 yes Logs volume
upgrade 22 N/A no Reserved for version upgrade
swap 8 N/A no Swap volume size
free 6 N/A no Unused space
------- ----
total 99 N/A no Total size
This explains why the disk space is always inadequate – 20 GB for root, 43 GB for log, 22 GB for “upgrade” (which can’t be used in GCP), 8 GB swap, and the remaining 6 GB set aide for snapshots (which is too small to be of use).
To create enough space for a snapshot we have only one solution: expand the disk size.
List of Steps
After first taking a Disk Snapshot of the disk in GCP, I followed these steps:
! On VM, in expert mode:
rm /etc/autogrow
shutdown -h now
! Use gcloud to increase disk size to 160 GB
gcloud compute disks resize my-vm-name --size 160 --zone us-central1-c
! Start VM up again
gcloud compute instances start my-vm-name --zone us-central1-c
After bootup, ran parted -l and verify partition #4 has been added:
Expert@ckpt:0]# parted -l
Model: Google PersistentDisk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 172GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 17.4kB 315MB 315MB ext3 boot
2 315MB 8902MB 8587MB linux-swap(v1)
3 8902MB 107GB 98.5GB lvm
4 107GB 172GB 64.4GB Linux LVM lvm
Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/vg_splat-lv_log: 46.2GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 46.2GB 46.2GB xfs
Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/vg_splat-lv_current: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 21.5GB 21.5GB xfs
Then converted the partition to an empty volume and gave it to GAIA:
Layer 77 