Welcome to "This Week in CheckMates," your weekly highlight reel for all things CheckMates!

Past and future posts will be available here: About CheckMates

To have these updates show up in your preferred RSS reader add the following URL: About CheckMates RSS Feed 

See also our social media accounts:

• Twitter: @CPCheckMates
• Facebook: Check Point CheckMates
• LinkedIn: Check Point CheckMates

CheckMates Live in Denver (x2) and Omaha

This past week, I was at CheckMates Live events in the Denver area (Centennial and Westminster) that were well attended!

Also, the local team in Nebraska put on an event in Omaha!

Community Highlights

Here are the top threads from the past week:

Bash script to show IP ranges for Countries from GeoProtection (ip2country.csv) 

Perhaps this could be extended to automatically create objects based on this?

Fortigate Firewall ICAP and Sandblast (TEX) 

Did you know that you can even leverage the power of Check Point SandBlast if your perimeter gateway is Fortinet? Yes you can, if you integrate using ICAP.

MTA on R80.10 VSX 

Pointers to the documentation on how to do it as well as a member explaining how to do it.

Can I do R80.10 downgrade to R77.30?  

The only way to downgrade is by restoring a backup.

Best way to handle locked session (locked but not available on session panel) 

This shouldn't happen, but if it does...

Delete Rules with a Zero Hit Count 

Very useful R80.x script.

R80.10 Tip Of The Day: Separate the Install Policy Permission 

Customers with strict change control might appreciate this tip.

Natting to an IP range not directly connected 

Had to dig into the phoneboy.com archives for the answer to this one

Log Exporter guide 

Some nice FAQs from one of the developers who worked on our new Log Exporter tool. 

Upcoming Events

Here's what's coming up in the next few weeks:

• 17^th April 2018: CheckMates Live Toronto: Migrating to R80.10, Live! 
• 19^th April 2018: CheckMates Live Calgary: Migrating to R80.10, Live!
• 26^th April 2018: Atlanta: Check Point R80 API and Bring Your Own Malware 

There are a few CheckMates Live events happening this week in different parts of the US:

• 27th March in Centennial, CO (Denver area): CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver South 
• 29th March in Omaha, NE: CheckMates Nebraska 
• 29th March in Westminster, CO (Denver area): CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver North 

If you're in the area, please join your fellow Check Point users for some information sharing, food, drinks, and fun!

Welcome to "This Week in CheckMates," your weekly highlight reel for all things CheckMates!

Past and future posts will be available here: About CheckMates

To have these updates show up in your preferred RSS reader add the following URL: About CheckMates RSS Feed 

See also our social media accounts:

• Twitter: @CPCheckMates
• Facebook: Check Point CheckMates
• LinkedIn: Check Point CheckMates

CheckMates in Denver and DC

This past week, I was in Denver and DC doing CheckMates Live events.

In Denver, we were in the Fan Cave at Mile High Stadium:

In Washington DC, we were at The Board Room!

Community Highlights

Here are the top threads from the past week:

Share your custom SmartView views & reports at CheckMates 

Following our Security Visibility Best Practices with SmartEvent‌ TechTalk, people started asking for SmartEvent Reports and Views from the community. Here's a place where you can share yours!

R80.10 Syslog Exporter 

We finally released what had been referred to as LogOut, an enhanced ability to export Check Point logs via syslog.

Migrate R77.30 standalone system to R80.10 Distributed system 

Some good advice here if you're looking to upgrade and expand your Check Point environment.

Restricting Remote Access by IPv4 Address 

If you want to only allow remote access from specific IPv4 addresses, here's how to do it.

High latency after Check Point firewall from R77.30 to R80.10 

Every situation is different. Some good troubleshooting tips here.

Upcoming Events

Here's what's coming up in the next few weeks:

• 27^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver South
• 29^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver North
• 17^th April 2018: CheckMates Live Toronto: Migrating to R80.10, Live!‌
• 19^th April 2018: CheckMates Live Calgary: Migrating to R80.10, Live!‌

We are also looking at doing at events in the following locations in the next several weeks:

• Atlanta
• Switzerland

Welcome to "This Week in CheckMates," your weekly highlight reel for all things CheckMates!

Past and future posts will be available here: About CheckMates

To have these updates show up in your preferred RSS reader add the following URL: About CheckMates RSS Feed 

See also our social media accounts:

• Twitter: @CPCheckMates
• Facebook: Check Point CheckMates
• LinkedIn: Check Point CheckMates

Community Highlights

Here are the top threads from the past week:

Security Visibility Best Practices with SmartEvent TechTalk 

In case you missed it, we did a TechTalk on SmartEvent discussing best practices. There was also a lot of questions we could not get to during the session that we are still going through, so check back! 

https://community.checkpoint.com/community/about-checkmates/blog/2018/03/12/checkmates-member-of-the... 

Missed doing one of these in February 

Ports Used for Communication by Various Check Point Modules 

This is continuing to be updated by the community and now includes the various ports used by R80.10, which add a few additional ports compared to R77.30 and earlier.

Check Point Inspection points-iIoO 

If you've ever used fw monitor before and wondered what the iIoO refers to, this thread will help!

How to release lock from objects in R80.10 

In case your objects or rules by a lock you can't find in SmartConsole, here's how to solve that.

Multiple Policy installation 

Currently not supported directly, but you can workaround it with some scripting and the API.

Campfire Stories 

Another thread for those of us who have been using, deploying, supporting, or working with/for Check Point for a long time to share some stories about how we used to push our firewalls to school uphill both ways (and we liked it!)

IPCALC on CLI 

Didn't know this tool was included in Gaia. Useful tool to help you figure out IP/netmask related information!

Upcoming Events

Here's what's coming up in the next few weeks:

• 20^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver Downtown
• 22^nd March 2018: CheckMates DC: Migrate to Check Point R80.10
• 27^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver South
• 29^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver North

We are also looking at doing at events in the following locations in April!

• Toronto
• Alberta (Calgary)
• Tennessee (Memphis and Nashville)
• Atlanta‌

Guenther, tell us a little about yourself & what you do

Born in Vienna, Austria, I have started my business life in Tech Support at a Software and Hardware Distribution company for the DTP revolution. The other part of my brain is the musician and composer, and I have created CD-ROM and DVD productions. I am working in Check Point Support for Check Point Certified Service Partner Arrow ECS Internet Security AG since 2009.

Tell us a little about your experience with Check Point

I see Check Point more from the bird's eye view, as I am not at a customer site or have to deploy and configure an installation. This gives me time to read manuals, release notes and SKs as well as perform tests for specific problems 😉

Do you have a unique deployment of a Check Point product?

I have a Vmware Lab zoo and a couple of SMB units on my desk.

What do you use the CheckMates platform for?

Giving and getting information.

What do you like to do for fun?

When not reading dusty books, listening to strange music or looking art videos, I at least try to sort my vast collection of media.

If you could create any new technology right now, what would it be?

A thinking trainer for the human brain that really works - it seems that less and less people are able to do that well

Anything else you'd like to let other CheckMates members know about?

My homepage - soundhome.mur.at - but just for the hard.boiled 😉

Welcome to "This Week in CheckMates," your weekly highlight reel for all things CheckMates!

Past and future posts will be available here: About CheckMates

To have these updates show up in your preferred RSS reader add the following URL: About CheckMates RSS Feed 

If you can't wait for the weekly update, we also post relevant threads to our social media accounts:

• Twitter: @CPCheckMates
• Facebook: Check Point CheckMates
• LinkedIn: Check Point CheckMates

Unfortunately, with the CPX events, I haven't been consistently producing these "weekly" posts.

Now that CPX is over, and all the content is posted, I should be able to get back to a regular cadence.

Community Highlights

Here are the top threads from the past week or two:

TechTalk Wednesday Schedule 

We've updated our monthly TechTalk schedule with some additional talks that we're planning over the next several months.

Which one are you looking forward to?

Best way to Upgrade MDM & VSX Cluster from R77.30 to R80.10 

Summary of some best practices for doing this here.

PBRs and ISP redundancy on SMB appliances 

Yes, unlike on non-SMB appliances, this is supported.

Python tool for exporting/importing a policy package or parts of it 

Robert Decker‌ has done a great job improving this tool based on your feedback. Keep it coming!

Overview of ISOmorphic and Blink 

To tide you over until we do our TechTalk on CDT and Blink, Bob Bent‌ has created a video on ISOmorphic and Blink.

SMB devices SK´s 

A nice list of SecureKnowledge articles about SMB Appliances.

IPS packet capture, where are they? 

This is an older thread that someone posted the correct answer to recently. It's never too late for a correct answer

Basic Ports and Module Communication 

While this is covered in an SK, it's the first time I've seen it portrayed graphically.

SMB units SMS files for VPN fine-tuning 

If you need to make manual changes to certain VPN configurations and you're using a self-managed SMB appliance, here's where to find the necessary files to modify and how to make them take effect.

Upcoming Events

And yes, now that all the CPX events are over with, I can get back to doing local user groups again!

Here's what's coming up in the next few weeks:

• 20^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver Downtown‌
• 22^nd March 2018: CheckMates DC: Migrate to Check Point R80.10‌
• 27^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver South
• 29^th March 2018: CheckMates User Group Meeting - Denver North‌

We are also looking at doing at events in the following locations in April!

• Seattle‌
• Toronto
• https://community.checkpoint.com/groups/alerta?sr=search&searchId=c685c69a-4a11-4b07-aa70-6f333c26b3...‌ (Calgary)
• https://community.checkpoint.com/groups/nashville?sr=search&searchId=104e1410-ee3f-4eea-afc4-14aadc9...‌ (Memphis and Nashville)