Firewall Logging

Introduction

Firewall Log is a live tool that allows you to view the verdict of real-time traffic flows after being processed by the Layer 3 and Layer 7 firewalls. This tool can be used to help surface issues during troubleshooting and can help verify that configured rules are working as expected. This feature is available on MX firmware release 18.2 and newer.

Quick Start Guide

To use Firewall Logging:

Navigate to Security & SD-WAN > Appliance Status.
Click on the “Tools” tab.
Find “Firewall Log”
Enter any filters required and then click the “Start” button.

Verdict	Definition
✅	The flow has been allowed
❌	The flow has been denied

Filtering

For the best results with the Firewall Log tool, it is important to filter for a specific traffic flow you are targeting. The following filters can be configured:

Filter	Accepted Parameters
Client	Client Name (as shown in Network-wide > Clients Dashboard page) MAC address
IP	Applies to Source or Destination IP: IPv4 IPv6
Port	Port number (e.g., 80)
Verdict	Allowed Blocked Both

Logging Expectations

Flows are uniquely defined by five elements; Source IP, Destination IP, Source Port, Destination Port, and Protocol. Each flow is expected to be logged once for each policy it passes through (in most cases this is Layer 7 and Layer 3 FW rule policies). As an example, if you are sending continuous pings to 8.8.8.8, you should only see the flow logged once for the L3 policy and once for the L7 policy. The same applies to TCP and UDP flows.

Definitions

Column	Definition
Verdict	Firewall decision (allowed or denied) based on configured Layer 3 and Layer 7 policy
Timestamp	Time of the event using the network configured time in the following format: Month Day HH:MM:SS
Source IP	IP address of the sender
Source Port	Port used by the sender
Destination IP	IP address of the receiver
Protocol	IP protocol used
Client	Identifier of the client as shown in Dashboard (Network-wide > Clients)