IronSkillet Day One Configuration Template

The purpose of the IronSkillet project is to provide day-one best practice configuration templates that can be loaded into a Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall or Panorama management platform.

Once loaded, the configuration can be augmented with use case specific security policies and other deployment requirements including interfaces, zones, and NAT.

Detailed information can be found in the IronSkillet Documentation

The docs include a IronSkillet Visual Guide for a view of IronSkillet from a GUI perspective.

Quick Start

The templates are provided with a variety of usage options based on the user operational environment.

PanHandler Skillet Player

A quick and easy way to play IronSkillet and other skillets is with the panHandler application.

The panHandler quick start guide in the Skillet District Live community walks you through installation and usage including how to import the IronSkillet skillets.

SLI

The Skillet Line Interfacing tool is a CLI interface that can also be used to load and work with skillets. Please refer to the README document found within the following SLI repository. This will walk you through the installation and basic usage of SLI in the context of skillets.

SLI Commands to Load Skillet

> sli load
# Above line loads and views all skillets found in the working directory
> sli load -sd {Directory Containing Skillets}
# Above line loads and views all skillets found in the given directory

Getting templates from the repo

Users can either grab content file-by-file from the github repo or download all content to a local drive.

TIP: when copying or getting text files from the repo, users should select the Raw format. This is found as a GUI option when viewing the file.

Downloading the files is done using a git clone command or a direct download of the repo as a zip file.

git clone https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/iron-skillet.git

Loading configurations using IronSkillet defaults

The loadable_configs directory contains a variety of ready-to-go NGFW and Panorama configurations based on iron-skillet template defaults. These can be loaded 'as-is' and later updated using the GUI or CLI.

The two options to load are:

• ...full.xml: complete xml configuration to import and load
• ...full.conf: complete list of CLI-based set commands

Full XML configuration file

Loading the full XML file as a candidate configuration:

* Log into the GUI
* Go to `Device` > `Setup` > `Operations`
* Choose `Import named configuration snapshot`
* Select the file from a local directory to import
* Choose `Load named configuration snapshot`
* Review the loaded configuration and `commit` to apply changes

WARNING: this configuration replaces the existing configuration and is not a merge of configurations. Merging configurations requires the use of load config partial referencing select xpaths to be loaded and merged.

SET commands

Using set commands to load in a configuration:

• Log into the CLI
• Enter configure to enter configuration mode
• Copy a cluster of set commands, 30-40 lines recommended as maximum
• Paste into the command line and hit Enter to ensure the last line is entered
• Add all set commands in the conf file
• Enter commit

TIP: Before entering configure mode, you can use set cli scripting-mode on to paste in a higher volume of lines. This will however remove the option to use '?' as a command-line helper. If scripting mode is enabled and you wish to disable, simply return to CLI operation mode with exit and enter 'set cli scripting-mode off'.

Editing Loaded Configurations

The detailed documentation provides a list of variables that can be edited and instructions for GUI and CLI edits to these values.

IronSkillet variables

Using the SET Command Spreadsheet to Edit Values

Found in templates/panorama/set_commands and templates/panos/set_commands are formula-based Excel files.

The cells in the values worksheet can be edited to create a localized configuration without the iron-skillet defaults. This updates the values in the set commands worksheet. Using the set command steps above, the configuration can then be loaded using the CLI.

WARNING: only update the values worksheet. Using caution if editing the worksheets to ensure cell references and formulas are not incorrect.

SLI Tooling Directory

As an alternative, the Tools directory within the IronSkillet repository contains a README.md file going over how to use various SLI commands to help manage and create loadable configurations among other useful functions. Following the detailed steps in the README and Using SLI to accomplish these tasks is quick, efficient and easy.

Recommended Reading for Additional Best Practice Configuration Steps

Prior to utilizing these configuration templates, it is important to familiarize yourself with the best practice recommendations for Internet Gateway, Datacenter, Wildfire, L4-L7 evasions and other use cases.

Best Practice Recommendations

While useful as suggestions and recommendations, the user is still required to manually use the GUI or CLI to configure each recommendation.

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on how you can help contribute to this project.

Support

This is a Palo Alto Networks contributed project.

Authors

• Scott Shoaf (@scotchoaf)
• Bora Mutluoglu - (@BoraMutluoglu)

See also the list of contributors who have participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details