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    Components of a Security Policy Rule
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    Components of a Security Policy Rule

    Table of Contents

    Components of a Security Policy Rule

    The Security policy rule construct permits a combination of the required and optional fields as detailed in the following table:
    Required/Optional
    Field
    Description
    Required
    Name
    A label (up to 63 characters) that identifies the rule.
    UUID
    The Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) is a distinct 32-character string that permanently identifies rules so that you can track a rule regardless of any changes to it, such as the name.
    Rule Type
    Specifies whether the rule applies to traffic within a zone, between zones, or both:
    • universal (default)—Applies the rule to all matching interzone and intrazone traffic in the specified source and destination zones. For example, if you create a universal rule with source zones A and B and destination zones A and B, the rule would apply to all traffic within zone A, all traffic within zone B, and all traffic from zone A to zone B and all traffic from zone B to zone A.
    • intrazone—Applies the rule to all matching traffic within the specified source zones (you cannot specify a destination zone for intrazone rules). For example, if you set the source zone to A and B, the rule would apply to all traffic within zone A and all traffic within zone B, but not to traffic between zones A and B.
    • interzone—Applies the rule to all matching traffic between the specified source and destination zones. For example, if you set the source zone to A, B, and C and the destination zone to A and B, the rule would apply to traffic from zone A to zone B, from zone B to zone A, from zone C to zone A, and from zone C to zone B, but not traffic within zones A, B, or C.
    Source Zone
    The zone from which the traffic originates.
    Destination Zone
    The zone at which the traffic terminates. If you use NAT, make sure to always reference the post-NAT zone.
    Application
    The application that you wish to control. The firewall uses App-ID, the traffic classification technology, to identify traffic on your network. App-ID provides application control and visibility in creating security policies that block unknown applications, while enabling, inspecting, and shaping those that are allowed.
    Action
    Specifies an Allow or Deny action for the traffic based on the criteria you define in the rule. When you configure the firewall to deny traffic, it either resets the connection or silently drops packets. To provide a better user experience, you can configure granular options to deny traffic instead of silently dropping packets, which can cause some applications to break and appear unresponsive to the user. For more details, see Security Policy Actions.
    Optional
    Tag
    A keyword or phrase that allows you to filter security rules. This is handy when you have defined many rules and wish to then review those that are tagged with a keyword such as IT-sanctioned applications or High-risk applications.
    Description
    A text field, up to 1024 characters, used to describe the rule.
    Source Address
    Define host IP addresses, subnets, address objects (of type IP netmask, IP range, FQDN, or IP wildcard mask), address groups, or country-based enforcement. If you use NAT, make sure to always refer to the original IP addresses in the packet (i.e. the pre-NAT IP address).
    Destination Address
    The location or destination for the packet. Define IP addresses, subnets, address objects (of type IP netmask, IP range, FQDN, or IP wildcard mask), address groups, or country-based enforcement. If you use NAT, make sure to always refer to the original IP addresses in the packet (i.e. the pre-NAT IP address).
    User
    The user or group of users for whom the policy applies. You must have User-ID enabled on the zone. To enable User-ID, see User-ID Overview.
    URL Category
    Using the URL Category as match criteria allows you to customize security profiles (Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, Vulnerability, File-Blocking, Data Filtering, and DoS) on a per-URL-category basis. For example, you can prevent.exe file download/upload for URL categories that represent higher risk while allowing them for other categories. This functionality also allows you to attach schedules to specific URL categories (allow social-media websites during lunch & after-hours), mark certain URL categories with QoS (financial, medical, and business), and select different log forwarding profiles on a per-URL-category-basis.
    Although you can manually configure URL categories on your firewall, to take advantage of the dynamic URL categorization updates available on Palo Alto Networks firewalls, you must purchase a URL filtering license.
    To block or allow traffic based on URL category, you must apply a URL Filtering profile to the security policy rules. Define the URL Category as Any and attach a URL Filtering profile to the security policy. See Set Up a Basic Security Policy for information on using the default profiles in your security policy.
    Service
    Allows you to select a Layer 4 (TCP or UDP) port for the application. You can choose any, specify a port, or use application-default to permit use of the standards-based port for the application. For example, for applications with well-known port numbers such as DNS, the application-default option will match against DNS traffic only on TCP port 53. You can also add a custom application and define the ports that the application can use.
    For inbound allow rules (for example, from untrust to trust), using application-default prevents applications from running on unusual ports and protocols. Application-default is the default option; while the firewall still checks for all applications on all ports, with this configuration, applications are only allowed on their standard ports/protocols.
    Security Profiles
    Provide additional protection from threats, vulnerabilities, and data leaks. Security profiles are evaluated only for rules that have an allow action.
    HIP Profile (for GlobalProtect)
    Allows you to identify clients with Host Information Profile (HIP) and then enforce access privileges.
    Options
    Allow you to define logging for the session, log forwarding settings, change Quality of Service (QoS) markings for packets that match the rule, and schedule when (day and time) the security rule should be in effect.

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