: Enable Programmatic Access
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Enable Programmatic Access

Table of Contents

Enable Programmatic Access

Create and manage NGFWs and rulestacks using REST APIs.
Cloud NGFW programmatic access allows you to create and manage NGFWs and rulestacks using REST APIs. Using these APIs, you can invoke actions on Cloud NGFW resources (NGFW and rulestacks) through an application or third-party tool. These APIs also enable you to use infrastructure as code (IAC) tools such as CloudFormation templates (CFT) and Terraform templates. You can install and run these IaC tools in workloads inside or outside the AWS environment.
Since Programmatic access is powerful, Cloud NGFW does not provide another access key or secret key to sign requests for authorization. Instead, you can use the IAM role in your AWS account to access the Cloud NGFW APIs, then configure which IAM resources can assume this role. This approach improves the general security posture by using temporary credentials and rotating them automatically.
Cloud NGFW Programmatic access is disabled by default.
For information about the API reference materials, see Cloud NGFW API documentation.
  1. Enable programmatic access.
    • Select
      Tenant
      in the
      Cloud NGFW Tenant
      console.
    • Under
      General
      , click the
      Programmatic Access
      slider.
    • Click
      Enable
      to confirm.
  2. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and create an IAM Role.
    Following is the permission policy needed to enable full access to the API gateway.
    { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "execute-api:Invoke", "Resource": "arn:aws:execute-api:*:*:*" } ] }
  3. Assume roles under the conditions mentioned in Trust relationships.
  4. Add the following tags (consisting of a key and value) to the IAM role to provide permission policies as needed.
    Usage
    TagKey
    TagValue
    Create and manage firewalls
    CloudNGFWFirewallAdmin
    Yes
    Create and manage local rulestacks
    CloudNGFWRulestackAdmin
    Yes
    Create and manage global rulestacks
    CloudNGFWGlobalRulestackAdmin
    Yes
    You can assign multiple tags to the same role. These tags can be used to access different Cloud NGFW programmatic access role tokens.
  5. (Skip steps 7-9 if you choose to use the Cloud NGFW programmatic access examples)
    Use the examples in the
    API
    and
    CFT
    folders under the Git repository to access programmatic access tool and CFTs respectively.
    Download the entire
    programmatic_access
    directory to run examples provided by Palo Alto Networks.
    The tool internally assumes the role and generates access key and secret key for your role, and generates a SigV4 header. It also calls the specific endpoint role to get programmatic access token for Cloud NGFW.
  6. Assume roles with the tag key-pair values mentioned in step 5 as needed using the AWS CLI.
    $ aws sts assume-role --role-arn arn:aws:iam::<AWS-ACCOUNT-ID>:role/<ROLE-NAME> --profile <AWS-PROFILE-TO-ASSUME> --role-session-name <SESSION-NAME> { "Credentials": { "AccessKeyId": "<ACCESS-KEY>", "SecretAccessKey": "<SECRET-ACCESS-KEY>", "SessionToken": "<SESSION-TOKEN>", "Expiration": "<CREDENTIALS-EXPIRATION>" }, "AssumedRoleUser": { "AssumedRoleId": "<ROLE-ID>:<SESSION-NAME>", "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::<AWS-ACCOUNT-ID>:role/<ROLE-NAME>/<SESSION-NAME>" } }
    When you assume the role, a temporary access key and secret key are generated for your account. For more information, see assume roles that have a specific tag.
  7. Generate the SigV4 (signature version 4) header using the temporary credentials obtained in step 7. For more information, see signing AWS requests with SigV4.
    The following is an example of an AWS SigV4 signed header.
    AWS4-HMAC-SHA256 Credential=<ACCESS-KEY>/20220421/<REGION>/execute-api/aws4_request, SignedHeaders=host;x-amz-date;x-amz-security-token, Signature=<SIGNATURE>
  8. Generate
    SubcriptionKey
    and
    TokenID
    .
    To access Cloud NGFW using REST APIs, use this path before the API call—
    api.<region-name>.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.com
    . For more information, see API documentation.
    • For cloud firewall admin role—
      GET https://api.<region-name>.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/mgmt/tokens/cloudfirewalladmin
    • For cloud rulestack admin role—
      GET https://api.<region-name>.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/mgmt/tokens/cloudrulestackadmin
    • For cloud global rulestack admin role—
      GET https://api.<region-name>.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/mgmt/tokens/cloudglobalrulestackadmin
    Get a Token
    Following is an example of the cURL command to get token.
    $ curl --location --request GET 'https://api.us-east-1.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/mgmt/tokens/cloudfirewalladmin' \ > --header 'X-Amz-Security-Token: <SESSION-TOKEN>' \ > --header 'X-Amz-Date: <CREDENTIALS-EXPIRATION-AMZ-DATE-FORMAT>' \ > --header 'Authorization: <AWS-V4-SIGNED-HEADER>'
    Response
    {"Response": {"TokenId": "<CLOUD-NGFW-PROGRAMMATIC-ACCESS-TOKEN>", "SubscriptionKey": "<SUBSCRIPTION-KEY>", "ExpiryTime": 30, "Enabled": true}, "ResponseStatus": {"ErrorCode": 0}}
  9. Add the response data to the
    Header
    section in the Cloud NGFW console.
    Header
    Value
    Authorization
    <TokenID>
    x-api-key
    <SubscriptionKey>
    The following is a sample Cloud NGFW API call.
    curl --location --request GET 'https://api.us-east-1.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/config/rulestacks/rs-1' \ > --header 'Authorization: <CLOUD-NGFW-PROGRAMMATIC-ACCESS-TOKEN>' \ > --data-raw ''
    Response
    {"Response": {"RuleStackName": "rs-1", "RuleStackCandidate": {"Scope": "Local", "MinAppIdVersion": "8433-6838", "Profiles": {"AntiSpywareProfile": "BestPractice", "AntiVirusProfile": "BestPractice", "VulnerabilityProfile": "BestPractice", "URLFilteringProfile": "None", "FileBlockingProfile": "BestPractice"}, "UpdateToken": "1"}, "RuleStackState": "Uncommitted"}, "ResponseStatus": {"ErrorCode": 0}}
  10. To revoke programmatic access, use the Access Key, Secret Key, and Subscription Key to call the Token API—
    DELETE https://:<region-name>.aws.cloudngfw.paloaltonetworks.comv1/mgmt/tokens/{TokenID}
    .
    Access Key and Secret Key are temporary. Generate new Access Key and Secret Key if they expire.

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