Platform Discussions

Happy Thursday All!  I hope you’re having a great week. I know it’s been a busy one so I’ve highlighted this week’s most popular articles and discussions in the community. Did I miss one of your favorites? Add it in the comments below! Here’s the list... @AricaFN ‘s article on extracting data from custom commands is a great discussion for anyone that has to go beyond the data model to tailor the Forward platform to their organization’s specific needs. @Christopher is on fire (hehe) with this new NQE query that uses the Forward Enterprise aclEntry object to provide consistent output from any Firewall vendor.

Some customers have asked, “How do I run a custom command on just a few devices, to test if it gives me what I need for an NQE query?” You can do this with a workspace network!First, click the Network drop down and choose Add Workspace network  Add a name for your Workspace and click Next.  Add the device or devices you want to test the custom command(s) on and click Add X devices. Then Next.  Check the custom command

We have started to do some testing with FN. In our AWS network, we are using Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) devices managed by Firepower Management Console (FMC). FN is able to connect to an FTD and retrieve device details but does not support retrieval from FMC.In our network, for complicated routing reasons, we can’t easily enable FN to connect to our FTD instances. I can, however, provide a URL that will retrieve all the information from FMC. I would like to configure an “HTTP(S) external source” to provide that info. What I cannot figure out, however, is the required format for the data to that is returned by the URL GET. The document just states that FN will “infer” the schema. In my case, there’s no inference needed. I am writing the code that will return the info. I can format the data however FN needs it.For those who care about the details, the implementation is an AWS Lambda function that connects to the FMC REST API and returns the info. An AWS API gat

Hi all, We are getting “No processed Snapshot found. Please take a Snapshot and try again.” when trying to hook Forward Network with SNOW CMDB, anyone has any idea why this happen ? ( We do have snapshots already taken and processed) Thank you 

Incident Management: A Proactive Approach to Minimize Disruption Experiencing an incident can be chaotic, with alarms sounding off and urgent communications flooding in, often at the least opportune moments. The key to effective incident management is not just to respond with urgency but to anticipate and mitigate issues before they escalate. The TL;DRTo effectively manage incidents, you must first establish visibility across and baselines of your network. Know what’s normal and what’s not. Ensure robust logs are being collected in a centralized manner, and contain all relevant details to facilitate troubleshooting. Develop your response team. Know their strengths and weaknesses, and ensure everyone on the team has skin in the game. publish playbooks, runbooks, and other procedural documents so everyone knows what is expected of them during an incident. Foster relationships with your peers and other teams long before an incident eve

Launch Podcast Join Craig Johnson (@captainpacket) and William Collins as they discuss the power of community, and then dig into the growth and adoption of Digital Twins and where they fit in today’s tech stack. Topics covered include:The Concept of Digital Twins in Networking: Drawing parallels to other industries like manufacturing. Craig explains that a digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world network, allowing for easier troubleshooting, visualization, and understanding of network components and configurations.  Evolution of Digital Twin with Cloud and Automation: Craig discusses the e

For those interested in security certifications, I wanted to pass along this hidden gem of certification training.Ben Malisow is an excellent technical editor and trainer, and is the guy behind the wannabea.. certification training programs. I would highly recommend his trainings for CISM, CISSP, CCSP, and SSCP for anyone interested in these certifications. - https://www.wannabeacism.com/

Sometimes a path search may not present the results you expect. When engaging with support regarding a path search issue, you may be asked to provide a snapshot with the relevant path search data. To capture a snapshot of a path search, first perform the path search in question. In this example, we are performing a simple path search from atl-ce01 to atl-core-pe01: Now, press and hold the Alt or Cmd key, and the icon on the far right of the query bar will change from ‘Copy Query’ to ‘Export Query’. Click on the ‘Export Query’ icon: The Export Snapshot wizard will now display all devices relevant to that path, and allow you to add any additional devices you wish

Hey Folks!I’m looking to find out if anyone has modeled their corporate VPN access - maybe using Synthetic Devices - in such a way that allows you to search for user workflows to determine if they are allowed, and have them properly modeled as coming in through the VPN Firewall instead of at the switch VLAN. We are looking to create intent checks for access through our VPN. Happy NQEing!

I am working on automated resolution of failed connections.   Two questions: (1) On this page in the documentation: /docs/nqe/data-model/type_devicecollectionerror/  there is a list of errors but no descriptions.  Can someone provide? (2) I am studying a failure report and the Connect Test Status notes each of these in PHASEs which seems to imply that each is determined in a sequence.  Is there a list of PHASE order for these? AUTHENTICATION_FAILED-AUTHENTICATION PHASEAUTHORIZATION_FAILED-AUTHORIZATION PHASECONNECTION_FAILED-CONNECTION PHASEDEVICE_IS_CHILD_CONTEXT-SETUP PHASEDEVICE_TYPE_MISMATCH-TYPE_DISCOVERY PHASEDEVICE_TYPE_UNDETECTED-TYPE_DISCOVERY PHASEGUEST_MISSING_HOST_RESULTS-SETUP PHASEJUMP_SERVER_AUTHENTICATION_FAILED-CONNECTION PHASEJUMP_SERVER_CONNECTION_FAILED-CONNECTION PHASEOTHER-AUTHORIZATION PHASEPING_FAILED-CONNECTION PHASEPORT_REACHABILITY_FAILED-CONNECTION PHASEPRIV_PASSWORD_ERROR-SETU

Background on the Jump Server for FWD Enterprise Forward Enterprise obtains data for path analysis primarily using industry-standard command-line interface (CLI) access. This is typically done with secure shell (SSH) read-only credentials provided to the platform so that configuration and state can be retrieved. In certain customer instances, it is required to limit SSH access to a specific host or hosts, which will more effectively audit and maintain the security of network devices. This is commonly known as the bastion or jump server. A jump server, jump host, or jump box is a computer on a network used to access and manage devices in a separate security zone. The most common example is managing a host in a DMZ from trusted networks or computers. A jump server is a hardened and monitored device that spans two dissimilar security zones and provides a controlled means of access between them. User access should

This is both incredibly amazing and absolutely frightening. The cat is extremely out of the bag now.Boston Dynamics put a generative AI into the robot dog Spot. And there are different personalities.  

If you are in/near the Atlanta area on Nov 14, please join me at this Optm event where I will presenting with other executives from Optm, Infoblox, BigPanda, and LogicMonitor.  I’d love to connect in person, and happy to have additional conversations. Event Registration

We had a fun costume contest for Forward employees and their fur babies. Here are the winners!Our co-founder, Peyman, won Best Costume!Our infra engineer, Manuel, won Most Original Costume!Our apps engineering manager, Gayathri, won Scariest Costume!Gayathri’s dog, Nash, won Best Pet Costume!What do you t

You can now attach EC2 interfaces to multiple different VPCs in AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/10/multi-vpc-eni-attachments/ The implications of this are pretty huge - previously to control access (with a firewall, etc) between VPCs you needed to use a Transit Gateway, generally associated with a centralized applicance via a Gateway load balancer.  This solution is great and scales very well, but its probably overkill for smaller environments. What if you only have 2-4 VPCs?  This solution would work great - simple attach your NVA interfaces to different VPCs and modify your route tables accordingly.  This eliminates the cost and complexity of TGWs, keeping all the performance benefits. What use cases can you see for this new functionality?  Off the top of my he

Is it possible to use a SSH jump server to log into a Telnet server, and then from there log into each of the devices?

I’d like to use FN APIs to integrate with Splunk and SIEM / Security systems. Has anyone else done this?

Are there any character restrictions for tags? I would like to use ’ : ‘ in a tag as a namespace but want to be sure there won't be any caveats. I don't see anything in the docs.

How do you create a custom SSL certificate for the fwd web interface?

Is there a way to connect external sources to a postgres database or consume a postgres DB backup? We cannot collect directly from type 1 encryptors but we can get a backup of the encryptor manager DB

For Path Search Ranking, will devices that have a more specific subnet always rank higher than devices with a less specific subnet as the ingress device for a path?

We want to run two clusters in HA Active/Standby. We deployed one cluster yesterday and licensed it. We deployed the second cluster today. I am unclear on how we would license the second cluster. I assume we need a second deployment, but can I apply the same license to that new deployment, or would it require a new license as well?

Snapshots stopped working several days ago. Is there a way to check logs to determine the root cause?

Can you confirm where Forward would need access to upgrades so we can add those policies to our Firewall? (Ex AWS, S3, Gitlab etc). Also, if there’s any other reason Forward Networks would need to reach externally.Thanks

 Watch the recordingJoin Nikhil to learn how SecOps teams are using Forward.Why is network data your most valuable asset to ensure compliance? Join Nikhil Handigol, Co-founder of Forward Networks, to explore our integrations with Tenable and Rapid7. The demo will highlight how our solutions deliver complete attack surface visibility that empowers SecOps teams to proactively identify impacted hosts with critical vulnerabilities accessible from the Internet or other critical exposure points in seconds.