R80.x Performance Tuning and Debug Tips – fw monitor

[HeikoAnkenbrand]

R80.20 - fw monitor

Tip 1

SecureXL has been significantly revised in R80.20. It now works in user space. This has also led to some changes in "fw monitor".

Since R80.20  "fw monitor" is able to show the traffic accelerated with SecureXL. Thus it is possible to see SecureXL (provide more performance) modules in fw monitor chain. For more informations revert to "SecureXL offloading chain modules" in this article. Now you can see that SecureXL is used, which increases the performance of the firewall.

SecureXL "fwaccel off" does not have to be disabled on R80.20 to run "fw monitor". This is good for performance, so "fw monitor" does not affect performance any more.

# fwaccel off                                      > no longer necessary in R80.20 and above

# fw monitor -e "accept(...);"

R77.30 and R80.10 - fw monitor

On R77.30 and R80.10 only disabling SecureXL allows to see the complete connection in fw monitor, which may be required for troubleshooting purposes or revert to "How to disable SecureXL for specific IP addresses".

# fwaccel off                            

# fw monitor -e "accept(...);"

Chapter

More interesting articles:

- R80.x Architecture and Performance Tuning - Link Collection
- Article list (Heiko Ankenbrand)

New fw monitor inspection points in R80.20

Tip 2

Furthermore there are new fw monitor inspection points available:

Inspection point	Name of fw monitor inspection point	Relation to firewall VM	Available since version
i	Pre-Inbound	Before the inbound FireWall VM                            (for example, eth1:i)	always
I	Post-Inbound	After the inbound FireWall VM                               (for example, eth1:I)	always
id	Pre-Inbound VPN	Inbound before decrypt                                          (for example, eth1:id)	R80.20
iD	Post-Inbound VPN	Inbound after decrypt                                             (for example, eth1:ID)	R80.20
iq	Pre-Inbound QoS	Inbound before QoS                                               (for example, eth1:iq)	R80.20
iQ	Post-Inbound QoS	Inbound after QoS                                                  (for example, eth1:IQ)	R80.20
o	Pre-Outbound	Before the outbound FireWall VM                           (for example, eth1:o)	always
O	Post-Outbound	After the outbound FireWall VM                              (for example, eth1:O)	always
e oe	Pre-Outbound VPN*	Outbound before encrypt                                        (for example, eth1:e)    in R80.10                                                                                 (for example, eth1:oe)  in R80.20	R80.10 R80.20
E OE	Post-Outbound VPN*	Outbound after encrypt                                           (for example, eth1:E)    in R80.10                                                                                 (for example, eth1:OE)  in R80.20	R80.10 R80.20
oq	Pre-Outbound QoS	Outbound before QoS                                             (for example, eth1:oq)	R80.20
oQ	Post-Outbound QoS	Outbound after QoS                                                (for example, eth1:OQ)	R80.20

* The fw monitor inspection point is different in R80.10 ("e" or "E") and R80.20 ("oe" and "OE")

For more information, see sk30583, fw monitor or How to use FW Monitor.

SecureXL offloading chain modules

Tip 3

Like I said SecureXL has been significantly revised in R80.20. It now works in user space. This has also led to some changes in "fw monitor"

There are new fw monitor chain (SecureXL) objects that do not run in the virtual machine.

# fw ctl chain  
The new fw monitor chain modules (SecureXL) do not run in the virtual machine (vm).
SecureXL inbound (sxl_in)                 > Packet received in SecureXL from network
SecureXL inbound CT (sxl_ct)           > Accelerated packets moved from inbound to outbound processing (post routing)
SecureXL outbound (sxl_out)            > Accelerated packet starts outbound processing
SecureXL deliver (sxl_deliver)          > SecureXL transmits accelerated packet

New VM chain modules in R80.20

Tip 4

There are more new chain modules in R80.20

vpn before offload (vpn_in)                  > FW inbound preparing the tunnel for offloading the packet (along with the connection)
fw offload inbound (offload_in)            > FW inbound that perform the offload
fw post VM inbound  (post_vm)            > Packet was not offloaded (slow path) - continue processing in FW inbound

# fw ctl chain 

New fw monitor chain key (00000000)

Tip 5

In Firewall kernel (now also SecureXL), each kernel is associated with a key (red) witch specifies the type of traffic applicable to the chain modul.

 # fw ctl chain 

Key	Function
ffffffff	IP Option Stip/Restore
00000001	new processed flows
00000002	wire mode
00000003	will applied to all ciphered traffic (VPN)
00000000	SecureXL offloading (new in R80.20+)

References

R&D meeting Israel