Configure the Windows User-ID Agent as a Syslog Listener
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Configure the Windows User-ID Agent as a Syslog Listener

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Configure the Windows User-ID Agent as a Syslog Listener

To configure the Windows-based User-ID agent to create new user mappings and remove outdated mappings through syslog monitoring, start by defining Syslog Parse profiles. The User-ID agent uses the profiles to find login and logout events in syslog messages. In environments where syslog senders (the network services that authenticate users) deliver syslog messages in different formats, configure a profile for each syslog format. Syslog messages must meet certain criteria for a User-ID agent to parse them (see Syslog). This procedure uses examples with the following formats:
  • Login events—
    [Tue Jul 5 13:15:04 2016 CDT] Administrator authentication success User:johndoe1 Source:192.168.3.212
  • Logout events—
    [Tue Jul 5 13:18:05 2016 CDT] User logout successful User:johndoe1 Source:192.168.3.212
After configuring the Syslog Parse profiles, you specify the syslog senders that the User-ID agent monitors.
The Windows User-ID agent accepts syslogs over TCP and UDP only. However, you must use caution when using UDP to receive syslog messages because it is an unreliable protocol and as such there is no way to verify that a message was sent from a trusted syslog sender. Although you can restrict syslog messages to specific source IP addresses, an attacker can still spoof the IP address, potentially allowing the injection of unauthorized syslog messages into the firewall. As a best practice, use TCP instead of UDP. In either case, make sure that the syslog sender and client are both on a dedicated, secure VLAN to prevent untrusted hosts from sending syslogs to the User-ID agent.
  1. Deploy the Windows-based User-ID agents if you haven’t already.
  2. Define custom Syslog Parse profiles to create and delete user mappings.
    Each profile filters syslog messages to identify either login events (to create user mappings) or logout events (to delete mappings), but no single profile can do both.
    1. Review the syslog messages that the syslog sender generates to identify the syntax for login and logout events. This enables you to define the matching patterns when creating Syslog Parse profiles.
      While reviewing syslog messages, also determine whether they include the domain name. If they don’t, and your user mappings require domain names, enter the
      Default Domain Name
      when defining the syslog senders that the User-ID agent monitors (later in this procedure).
    2. Open the Windows
      Start
      menu and select
      User-ID Agent
      .
    3. Select
      User Identification
      Setup
      and
      Edit
      the Setup.
    4. Select
      Syslog
      ,
      Enable Syslog Service
      , and
      Add
      a Syslog Parse profile.
    5. Enter a
      Profile Name
      and
      Description
      .
    6. Select the
      Type
      of parsing to find login and logout events in syslog messages:
      • Regex
        —Regular expressions.
      • Field
        —Text strings.
      The following steps describe how to configure these parsing types.
  3. (
    Regex parsing only
    ) Define the regex matching patterns.
    If the syslog message contains a standalone space or tab as a delimiter, use
    \s
    for a space and
    \t
    for a tab.
    1. Enter the
      Event Regex
      for the type of events you want to find:
      • Login events
        —For the example message, the regex
        (authentication\ success){1}
        extracts the first
        {1}
        instance of the string
        authentication success
        .
      • Logout events
        —For the example message, the regex
        (logout\ successful){1}
        extracts the first
        {1}
        instance of the string
        logout successful
        .
      The backslash before the space is a standard regex escape character that instructs the regex engine not to treat the space as a special character.
    2. Enter the
      Username Regex
      to identify the start of the username.
      In the example message, the regex
      User:([a-zA-Z0-9\\\._]+)
      matches the string
      User:johndoe1
      and identifies
      johndoe1
      as the username.
    3. Enter the
      Address Regex
      to identify the IP address portion of syslog messages.
      In the example message, the regular expression
      Source:([0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3})
      matches the IPv4 address
      Source:192.168.3.212
      .
      The following is an example of a completed Syslog Parse profile that uses regex to identify login events:
    4. Click
      OK
      twice to save the profile.
  4. (
    Field Identifier parsing only
    ) Define string matching patterns.
    1. Enter an
      Event String
      to identify the type of events you want to find.
      • Login events
        —For the example message, the string
        authentication success
        identifies login events.
      • Logout events
        —For the example message, the string
        logout successful
        identifies logout events.
    2. Enter a
      Username Prefix
      to identify the start of the username field in syslog messages. The field does not support regex expressions such as \s (for a space) or \t (for a tab).
      In the example messages,
      User:
      identifies the start of the username field.
    3. Enter the
      Username Delimiter
      that indicates the end of the username field in syslog messages. Use
      \s
      to indicate a standalone space (as in the sample message) and
      \t
      to indicate a tab.
    4. Enter an
      Address Prefix
      to identify the start of the IP address field in syslog messages. The field does not support regex expressions such as \s (for a space) or \t (for a tab).
      In the example messages,
      Source:
      identifies the start of the address field.
    5. Enter the
      Address Delimiter
      that indicates the end of the IP address field in syslog messages.
      For example, enter
      \n
      to indicate the delimiter is a line break.
      The following is an example of a completed Syslog Parse profile that uses string matching to identify login events:
    6. Click
      OK
      twice to save the profile.
  5. Specify the syslog senders that the User-ID agent monitors.
    Within the total maximum of 100 servers of all types that the User-ID agent can monitor, up to 50 can be syslog senders.
    The User-ID agent discards any syslog messages received from senders that are not on this list.
    1. Select
      User Identification
      Discovery
      and
      Add
      an entry to the Servers list.
    2. Enter a
      Name
      to identify the sender.
    3. Enter the
      Server Address
      of the syslog sender (IP address or FQDN).
    4. Set the
      Server Type
      to
      Syslog Sender
      .
    5. (
      Optional
      ) If you want to override the current domain in the username of your syslog message or prepend the domain to the username if your syslog message doesn’t contain a domain, enter a
      Default Domain Name
      .
    6. For each syslog format that the sender supports,
      Add
      a Syslog Parse profile to the Filter list. Select the
      Event Type
      that you configured each profile to identify—
      login
      (default) or
      logout
      —and then click
      OK
      .
    7. Click
      OK
      to save the settings.
    8. Commit
      your changes to the User-ID agent configuration.
  6. Verify that the User-ID agent adds and deletes user mappings when users log in and out.
    You can use CLI commands to see additional information about syslog senders, syslog messages, and user mappings.
    1. Log in to a client system for which a monitored syslog sender generates login and logout event messages.
    2. Verify that the User-ID agent mapped the login username to the client IP address:
      1. In the User-ID agent, select
        Monitoring
        .
      2. Enter the username or IP address in the filter field,
        Search
        , and verify that the list displays the mapping.
    3. Verify that the firewall received the user mapping from the User-ID agent:
      1. Run the following command:
        >
        show user ip-user-mapping ip <ip-address>
        If the firewall received the user mapping, the output resembles the following:
        IP address:    192.0.2.1 (vsys1) User:          localdomain\username From:          SYSLOG
    4. Log out of the client system.
    5. Verify that the User-ID agent removed the user mapping:
      1. In the User-ID agent, select
        Monitoring
        .
      2. Enter the username or IP address in the filter field,
        Search
        , and verify that the list does not display the mapping.
    6. Verify that the firewall deleted the user mapping:
      1. Access the firewall CLI.
      2. Run the following command:
        >
        show user ip-user-mapping ip <ip-address>
        If the firewall deleted the user mapping, the output displays:
        No matched record

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