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.
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.
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:
Time to move Rancid to a newer VM again, this time it’s Ubuntu 20. Hit a snag when I tried a test clogin run:
$ clogin myrouter
Unable to negotiate with 1.2.3.4 port 22: no matching key exchange method found. Their offer: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
OpenSSH removed SHA-1 from the defaults a while back, which makes sense since the migration to SHA-2 began several years ago. So looks like SSH is trying to use SHA-2 but the Cisco Router is defaulting to SHA-1, and something has to give in order for negotiation to succeed.
My first thought was to tell the Cisco router to use SHA-2, and this is possible for the MAC setting:
Router(config)#ip ssh server algorithm mac ?
hmac-sha1 HMAC-SHA1 (digest length = key length = 160 bits)
hmac-sha1-96 HMAC-SHA1-96 (digest length = 96 bits, key length = 160 bits)
hmac-sha2-256 HMAC-SHA2-256 (digest length = 256 bits, key length = 256 bits)
hmac-sha2-512 HMAC-SHA2-512 (digest length = 512 bits, key length = 512 bits
Router(config)#ip ssh server algorithm mac hmac-sha2-256 hmac-sha2-512
Router(config)#do sh ip ssh | inc MAC
MAC Algorithms:hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512
But not for key exchange, which apparently only supports SHA-1:
Thus, the only option is to change the setting on the client. SSH has CLI options for Cipher and Mac:
-c : sets cipher (encryption) list.
-m: sets mac (authentication) list
One quick solution is tell the SSH client to support the Kex Exchange by adding this line to the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file:
KexAlgorithms +diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
But, I wanted to change the setting only for Rancid and not SSH in general, hoping that Cisco adds SHA-2 key exchange soon. I found out it is possible to set SSH options in the .cloginrc file. The solution is this:
By the way, I stayed away from diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1 as it’s considered insecure, whereas diffie-hellman-group14-sha1 was considered deprecated but still widely deployed and still “strong enough”, probably thanks to its 2048-bit key length.
Sidenote: this only affects Cisco IOS-XE devices. The Cisco ASA ships with this in the default configuration:
New feature (finally!) in R80.30 is the ability to enabled Management data plane Separation, in order to have a separate route table for the management interface and all management related functions (Policy installation, SSH, SNMP, syslog, GAIA portal, etc).
Let’s assume the interface “Mgmt” has already been set as the management interface with IP address 192.168.1.100 and wants default gateway 192.168.1.1, and “eth5” has been setup as the dedicated sync interface:
set mdps mgmt plane on
set mdps mgmt resource on
set mdps interface Mgmt management on
set mdps interface eth5 sync on
add mdps route 0.0.0.0/0 nexthop 192.168.1.1
save config
reboot
After the box comes up you can verify the management route has been set by going in to expert mode and the the “mplane” command to enter management space:
> expert
[Expert@MyCheckPoint:0]# mplane
Context set to Management Plane
[Expert@MyCheckPoint:1]# netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.252 U 0 0 0 eth5
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 Mgmt
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UGD 0 0 0 Mgmt
Routes from the main route table relating to management can then be deleted, which makes the data plane route table much cleaner:
[Expert@MyCheckpoint:1]# dplane
Context set to Data Plane
[Expert@MyCheckPoint:0]# netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
203.0.113.32 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.224 U 0 0 0 bond1.11
192.168.222.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 bond1.22
0.0.0.0 203.0.113.33 0.0.0.0 UGD 0 0 0 bond1.11
192.168.0.0 192.168.222.1 255.255.0.0 UGD 0 0 0 bond1.22
Unfortunately it is not possible to simply upgrade an existing CheckPoint management server in AWS. A new one must be built, with the database manually exported from the old instance and imported to the new one.
There is a CheckPoint Knowledge base article, but I found it to have several errors and also be confusing on which version of tools should be used.
Below is the process I used to go from R80.20 to R80.30
Login to the old R80.20 server. Download and extract theR80.30 tools:
cd /home/admin
tar -zxvf Check_Point_R80.30_Gaia_SecurePlatform_above_R75.40_Migration_tools.tgz
Run the export job to create an archive of the database:
Copy this .tgz file to the new R80.30 management server in /tmp
On the new management server, run the import job:
cd $FWDIR/bin/upgrade_tools
./migrate import /tmp/R8020Backup.tgz
The import operation will eventually stop all Check Point services (cpstop)
Do you want to continue? (y/n) [n]? y
After a few minutes, the operation will complete and you’ll be prompted to start services again.
Finish by upgrading SmartConsole to R80.30 and connect to the new R80.30 server. I’ve noticed it to be very slow, but it will eventually connect and all the old gateways and policies will be there.
I’ve been wanting to try out SCP to copy IOS images to routers for a while, as I figured it would be faster and cleaner than FTP/TFTP. There’s essentially three tricks to getting it working..
Having the correct AAA permissions
Understanding the SCP syntax and file systems
Making the scp command from the router VRF aware, if required
16.6.7 or 16.9.4 or newer code. Performance on older IOS-XE versions is terrible
First, SSH has to be enabled and of course the SCP server must be activated
ip ssh version 2
ip scp server enable
After doing so, verify the router is accessible via SSH. If not, try generating a fresh key:
Now on to the AAA configuration. The important step is have accounts automatically go to their privilege level 15 without manually entering enable mode. This is done with the “aaa authorization exec” command:
aaa new-model
!
username admin privilege 15 password 7 XXXXXXX
!
aaa group server radius MyRadiusServer
server-private 10.1.1.100 auth-port 1812 acct-port 1813 key 7 XXXXXXXX
ip vrf forwarding MyVRF
!
aaa authentication login default local group MyRadiusServer
aaa authentication enable default none
aaa authorization config-commands
aaa authorization exec default local group MyRadiusServer if-authenticated
The RADIUS server will also need this vendor-specific attribute in the policy:
While working through my CSR1000v stability woes, I had the need to automatically generate a “show tech” and then reboot a router after an IP SLA failure was detected. It seemed fairly easy but I could never get the show tech fully completed before the EMM script would stop running, and the reboot command never worked either.
Posting on Reddit paid off as user caught the problem: EEM scripts by default can only run for 20 seconds. Since a “show tech” can take longer than this, the subsequent steps may never be processed. The solution is increase the runtime to say 60 seconds to guarantee the show tech completes:
! Create and run IP SLA monitor to ping default gateway every 5 seconds
ip sla 1
icmp-echo 10.0.0.1 source-interface GigabitEthernet1
threshold 50
timeout 250
frequency 5
!
ip sla schedule 1 life forever start-time now
!
! Create track object that will mark down after 3 failures
track 1 ip sla 1
delay down 15 up 30
!
! Create EMM script to take action when track state is down
event manager session cli username "ec2-user"
event manager applet GatewayDown authorization bypass
event track 1 state down maxrun 60
action 100 cli command "en"
action 101 cli command "term len 0"
action 110 syslog priority notifications msg "Interface Gi1 stopped passing traffic. Generating diag info"
action 300 cli command "delete /force bootflash:sh_tech.txt"
action 350 cli command "show tech-support | redirect bootflash:sh_tech.txt"
action 400 syslog priority alerts msg "Show tech completed. Rebooting now!"
action 450 wait 5
action 500 reload
One of the root problems of administrative access to the ASA platform is there’s no easy way to bypass a broken AAA server
Cisco IOS has this:
aaa authentication enable default group radius none
But the ASA equivalent has no “none” option, so most people will configure this:
aaa authentication enable console RADIUS LOCAL
Now the problem here is if the user authenticates locally and the Radius server is still marked “up”, they’ll be forced to authenticate through it. This creates two problematic scenarios
The Radius server is reachable, but the username does not exist
The Radius server is marked up but is actually unreachable, misconfigured, or horked in some way
The latter case occurred during our last two ASA outages. It was especially frustrating because I had configured serial consoles to both ASAs, only to be unable to get to enable mode to force a reboot/failover and recover from the outage without having to drive to the data center.
A reddit user pointed me to this command:
aaa authorization exec LOCAL auto-enable
Which should in theory force accounts using local authentication to bypass the enable prompt assuming they’re set to priv 15. But after having no luck with it and escalating through Cisco I discovered this command does not work with serial console logins. So, I was back to square one.
The solution I settled on was to simply force local for both serial console authentication and enable mode:
aaa authentication serial console LOCAL
aaa authentication enable console LOCAL
Unfortunately the catch 22 revealed itself again, as this broke enable mode for Radius users, since they did not have local accounts. So I added this line to try and bypass enable for Radius users:
After this, now everything is happy. SSH users get auto-enabled via RADIUS and can still fallback to local (in theory) if the server is down. But if that’s broken, I can console in with a local username/password and enter enable mode.
Layer 77 