Platform Discussions

Date: 10/14/2025Time: 6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Pacific (9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Eastern)Duration: Approximately 30 minutesForward Quest will undergo scheduled maintenance this evening to improve platform performance. During this time, the site may be temporarily unavailable.Please note: Avoid starting a new Quest challenge during the maintenance window. Any active sessions may be interrupted. Thanks for competing and leveling up in Forward Quest!

As part of my onboarding with Forward Networks, I’ve been exploring its native dashboarding capabilities. While the built-in dashboards offer useful insights, I’m not fully convinced they’ll meet the specific reporting needs of our leadership team.To address this, I’m evaluating two integration options:SharePoint: Using the Forward API to retrieve and transform data, then render dashboards tailored to our requirements directly within SharePoint. Grafana Cloud: If SharePoint proves limiting, I’ll explore leveraging our existing Grafana Cloud instance for more flexible visualization.Has anyone integrated Forward with either platform? I’d really appreciate any experiences, suggestions, or recommendations.Below is the format I think supports the SLT teams requirements.Thanks for any feedback. 

Just posting up a simple Python script that allows you to make API calls from behind a proxy that also requires authentication.I have capitalised things that you need to customise.  Of course it isn’t good practice to have usernames and passwords in your script so this is just for illustrative purposes.import requestsimport base64api_user = "YourApiUser"api_pass = "YourApiPassword"api_creds = api_user + ":" + api_passapi_bytes = api_creds.encode("ascii")api_encoded = base64.b64encode(api_bytes)print(api_encoded)api_string = api_encoded.decode("ascii")proxies = { "http": "http://YourProxyUser:YourProxyPassword@ProxyServerIp:ProxyPort", "https": http://YourProxyUser:YourProxyPassword@ProxyServerIp:ProxyPort",}try: response = requests.get("https://fwd.app/api/networks", proxies=proxies, headers={"Authorization" : "Basic " + api_string}) print(response.json())except requests.exceptions.ProxyError as e: print("Proxy error:", e) 

CISA just issued Emergency Directive 25‑03 mandating actions to identify and mitigate a campaign exploiting zero‑day vulnerabilities in Cisco ASA / Firepower devices. While the directive is written for federal agencies, the threat is relevant to any organization using those platforms. Below is a summary, risk assessment, and recommended mitigations — along with what Forward Networks is doing to support customers. What’s Going OnCampaign targets Cisco ASA and Firepower / FTD appliances Exploits include unauthenticated RCE and privilege escalation Persistence observed via ROM manipulation Linked to 'ArcaneDoor' activity CVEs: CVE‑2025‑20333 (RCE) and CVE‑2025‑20362 (privilege escalation) Directive mandates inventory, forensic dumps, patching, and reporting Why This Matters to Forward CustomersIf you rely on Cisco ASA, ASAv, or Firepower/FTD appliances in your network perimeter or DMZ, your infrastructure may be at risk of compromise, persistent code injections, or deeper intrusion. Becau

Flagging an important warning from the FBI / IC3, and sharing resources to help you assess and reduce risk. Alert Number: I-082025-PSA - Russian Government Cyber Actors Targeting Networking Devices, Critical Infrastructure The High-LevelThe FBI is alerting that Russian FSB cyber actors (aka Center 16 / “Berserk Bear” / “Dragonfly”) are actively exploiting a known vulnerability in Cisco Smart Install (SMI) — CVE-2018-0171 — to target networking devices globally. These actors are using SNMP (especially older/insecure versions v1 and v2) and unpatched / end-of-life devices to:Collect configuration files. Modify configs to insert or enable unauthorized access. Do reconnaissance inside victim networks, with particular interest in protocols & applications used in critical infrastructure / industrial control systems.The vulnerability and use of legacy/unsecured protocols make aging equipment especially risky. Even if a device is not directly breached, weak practices may allow attackers in

We’re excited to announce the launch of the newly reinvented Forward Quest — a monthly interactive challenge designed to put your Forward Networks skills to the test. Play Forward Quest What is Forward Quest?Forward Quest is an online game experience built around real-world network engineering scenarios. Each challenge is timed, and your results are added to a community leaderboard where you can see how you stack up against other Forward users. Why play?Forward Quest is more than just a game — it’s a fun way to: Sharpen your skills by solving challenges that mirror real engineering tasks. Learn by doing and discover new ways to use Forward Enterprise in real-world situations. Earn bragging rights (and prizes!) by climbing the leaderboard. Unlock badges that showcase your achievements in the community.  How to play Head to Forward Quest Log in with your Forward Community account Start the first challenge and race the clock to see how fast you can solve it! The first monthly ch

If you’ve ever waded into the world of cybersecurity, you’ve probably run across the acronyms CWE, CVE, and KEV. They sound similar, and they’re all related to security flaws — but each serves a different purpose. Here’s a clear breakdown: CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration)Think of CWE as a blueprint of mistakes. Maintained by MITRE, CWE is a catalog of weakness types — ways that software or hardware can go wrong. A CWE is not tied to a single product; instead, it describes a class of design or coding errors. CWEs can be abstract (like “improper input validation”) or very specific (like “integer overflow in arithmetic operations”). Example: CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management), which outlines the general problem of failing to correctly enforce privilege levels.  CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures)CVE zooms in from the abstract to the concrete and specific. A CVE is an actual, identified vulnerability in a particular product or version. Every CVE entry includes metadata

Curious about AWS but not sure where to start? In this step-by-step walkthrough, I’ll show how to set up your own AWS Free Tier account, configure billing safeguards, and follow best practices for security and user management. Whether you’re preparing for certifications or just experimenting with cloud services, this guide will help you get started with confidence.   Cloud infrastructure has become essential in today’s IT landscape, and gaining hands-on experience with AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a valuable step for any engineer. The AWS Free Tier allows you to experiment with building, using, and tearing down AWS services at little to no cost—an excellent way to learn without breaking the budget.In this article, I’ll walk you through: Why you might want to create an AWS Free Tier account How to set one up safely Best practices for billing, security, and user management How to clean up or close your account when you’re done  Why Use AWS Free Tier?Creating your own AWS Free Tier

I have created the Forwords Network account .Why I can not login this vis this link.Forward Enterprise | Forward Networks Docs

Could you help simulate the staging of new BGP peers, route-maps, and new routes to understand how they might impact route path behavior?  I am planning to stage a change that involves adding a new link and BGP peer, with the expectation that routes will prefer the new path after the change. Can this scenario be simulated in the forward network to validate the expected behavior?  So far, I’ve attempted to simulate the changes, and I can see the new/modified interfaces and the transit IPs. However, I don’t see the BGP peer.  Am I missing something in the simulation process? Any guidance would be appreciated.  Are there any limitation with the simulation feature.  

we are using below format to collect the data from Fortinet firewall for custom command. endconfig globalshow system dnsshow system ntp can anyone check and confirm ,these will not impact anything ,if i remove config gloabl , than command will not run. 

This is for On-Prem environments, to securely retrieve the CVE database file through automation. Create a secure env file (path of your choosing) for your Forward SAAS credentials This keeps secrets out of code and scriptsexport FWD_USERNAME='your_username'   # <-- Replace with your Forward SAAS UNexport FWD_PASSWORD='your_password'   # <-- Replace with your Forward SAAS PW Add the Python script (path of your choosing) to download the CVE index This is the meat and potatoes of retrieving the file for SAAS#!/usr/bin/env python3import requests, osfrom requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuthusername = os.environ.get("FWD_USERNAME")password = os.environ.get("FWD_PASSWORD")if not username or not password:    raise ValueError("Missing credentials.")url = "https://fwd.app/api/cve-index"output_file = "/tmp/cve-index.bin.gz"r = requests.get(url, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(username, password), verify=False)r.raise_for_status()with open(output_file, "wb") as f: f.write(r.content)print(f"Saved to {output

Hello Forward Networks!I have a question regarding if it's possible to add support to resolve FQDNs in the Path Search API? Or would we have to rely on our own DNS servers to make the resolutions first to then add the discovered IP Address to the source or destination. Can it be possible for Forward Networks to model FQDNs as independent objects? Apologies if this seems like a silly ask!Thank you

Forward Enterprise can integrate with ServiceNow in the following ways: Incident Management - Opening or updating a ServiceNow ticket based on an intent verification failure or change:Forward Docs - Create ServiceNow Incidents CMDB Integration - Pushing updates to the CMBD database with data from Forward Enterprise:Forward Docs - CMDB Integration As a Data Connector with NQE - Extracting data from ServiceNow using an NQE query for use in the NQE Library, Inventory+, or a Decorator by configuring ServiceNow as a Data Connector:Forward Docs - Data Connectors From ServiceNow - By using Flow Designer or Business Rules to access the Forward API. Consult ServiceNow documentation and access one of Forward Enterprise’s API endpoints listed here:Forward Docs - API----The first two integration types above are enabled under Settings > Integrations:  The following article shows how to use the Forward API to automate workspace network creation, collection, and diff comparison for Change Control

need to get api nodes url

we are using below NQE Query to get the NTP Server details , i need to remove some static value in  server coloum, ciscontppattern=``` ntp server {server:string}```;getServers(device) =  foreach match in blockMatches(device.files.config, ciscontppattern)   select { serverIP: match.data.server}; foreach device in network.deviceslet platform = device.platformwhere device.platform.vendor == Vendor.CISCO  select {  device: device.name,   vendor: device.platform.vendor,    tags: device.tagNames,    os: device.platform.os,    OSVersion :platform.osVersion,  servers: (foreach server in getServers(device)            select server.serverIP)}  Example : i dont want to show entry those have server value - “Inte”

Hi allHas anyone onboarded Arista WIFI yet, the models we have are managed centrally via CV-CUE the Wifi version of cloudvision, although you can extract some commands via SSH.Had a quick look around and couldn’t find anything, I will in the meantime dig around about custom devices 😀Thanks

We currently use Ansible playbooks to add or delete network devices to our various NMS tools. I want to add Forward Networks to this job so newly added devices or old devices being removed are part of this automation. When FN discovers a device it appears to use sysName for the “Name” of the device. The API however requires me to provide the name value. Is there anyway to just use the management IP to add it to FN and have FN set the name like it does during its own discovery?

In the early days of my Air Force career, the tech control facility was filled with the aroma of coffee and the buzz of technology. Each morning, my role was clear: brew the perfect cup for my boss and run countless validation checks through the CLI, ensuring each day started on the right note. Does this sound familiar? Maybe not the coffee but certainly hunched over the keyboard staring at a CRT screen using the CLI to search across hundreds of devices. These were monotonous tasks, logging in to each device one after the next, looking for significant events and up/down statuses, then documenting that information to provide an update to the division chief. It made me wonder if there was a way to automate this drudgery.  It has been 20 years since then and I am now an intern with Forward. It has been a fantastic opportunity to advance my skills in Linux, Python, and deepen my understanding of the role of DevOps in technology organizations.  Key takeaways I have observed at Forward: Coll

can Forward Network application (itself) integrate with Grafana, or Sysdig for monitoring the system health (i.e. cpu, memory, logfile, processes, filesystem) attributes. would like to send to dashboard tier team monitoring

 🌟 Revolutionize Your Multicast Network Management with Forward Enterprise 🌟Managing multicast networks can be a daunting task, but Forward Enterprise makes it seamless with its advanced visibility, analysis, and troubleshooting. This demo showcases how the platform simplifies complex operations, offering unparalleled control and insights into your multicast network infrastructure.  Forward Enterprise - Multicast BenefitsSimplified Multicast Management: With an intuitive interface and dynamic topology maps, Forward Enterprise makes it easy for both novices and experts to manage and analyze complex multicast networks efficiently. Comprehensive and Actionable Insights: The platform provides a unified view of network configurations, paths, and device states, empowering administrators with the knowledge to optimize operations and prevent issues. Proactive Troubleshooting and Time-Saving Tools: Advanced search and validation features enable quick diagnosis and resolution of network proble

 Recently, two critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-0012 and CVE-2024-9474) were discovered in Palo Alto Networks' PanOS operating system. CVE-2024-0012 lets an attacker gain admin access and exploit other vulnerabilities like 2024-9474. These vulnerabilities allow attackers to gain admin privileges and plant malicious code, potentially giving them deeper access to company networks. The highlights are available below. Watch the video for the full story.Here’s how you can address these threats: Understand the Threat: The vulnerabilities enable unauthorized access, risking the security of your firewalls and networks. CISA has issued directive BOD 23-02. This directive outlines how organizations can reduce their attack surface from misconfigured management interfaces. Leverage Forward for Validation: Identify devices exposed to these vulnerabilities. Filter and prioritize affected devices, especially those connected to the internet The Forward platform provides a nightly update of CVE d

Keeping your network source of truth accurate is critical in cloud environments that evolve rapidly. Forward Networks’ cloud modeling capabilities make it easier to understand your network state, but manual snapshot collections for every change can be time-consuming. To solve this, I recently built an automated workflow using AWS EventBridge to trigger Forward Networks’ cloud snapshot collections for relevant AWS network changes. In this post, I’ll share how to set up this integration, including tips to limit the number of collections and keep costs within the AWS Free Tier. The Challenge AWS environments experience frequent changes, such as:• Creating or deleting VPCs.• Modifying route tables or DirectConnect links.• Updating Elastic Load Balancers. Manually capturing snapshots for every change isn’t practical, and triggering collections for every event might overwhelm your workspace. I wanted a solution that:1. Automates snapshot collection for specific, relevant changes.2. Limits un

How can i add AVI LB on FWN , TO use port https ,443 .?

I have created a synthetic node inside a workspace to run down the various connections for a complex multibranch setup with multiple MPLS vpns and Internet VPNs. Is there a way to move or download the synthetic nodes so I can recreate them inside the parent network now that I have confirmed the accuracy inside the workspace? Note that I am trying to move it from a workspace back to the parent network - otherwise I would just recreate the workspace from the parent and include the synthetic.