Platform Features

ASA for the Firepower 1010

We introduced the ASA for the Firepower 1010. This desktop model includes a built-in hardware switch and Power-Over-Ethernet+ (PoE+) support.

New/Modified commands: boot system , clock timezone , connect fxos admin , forward interface , interface vlan , power inline , show counters , show environment , show interface , show inventory , show power inline , show switch mac-address-table , show switch vlan , switchport , switchport access vlan , switchport mode , switchport trunk allowed vlan

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Edit > Switch Port

• Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Edit > Power Over Ethernet

• Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Add VLAN Interface

• Configuration > Device Management > System Image/Configuration > Boot Image/Configuration

• Configuration > Device Setup > System Time > Clock

• Monitoring > Interfaces > L2 Switching

• Monitoring > Interfaces > Power Over Ethernet

ASA for the Firepower 1120, 1140, and 1150

We introduced the ASA for the Firepower 1120, 1140, and 1150.

New/Modified commands: boot system , clock timezone , connect fxos admin , show counters , show environment , show interface , show inventory

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Management > System Image/Configuration > Boot Image/Configuration

• Configuration > Device Setup > System Time > Clock

Firepower 2100 Appliance mode

The Firepower 2100 runs an underlying operating system called the Firepower eXtensible Operating System (FXOS). You can run the Firepower 2100 in the following modes:

• Appliance mode (now the default)—Appliance mode lets you configure all settings in the ASA. Only advanced troubleshooting commands are available from the FXOS CLI.

• Platform mode—When in Platform mode, you must configure basic operating parameters and hardware interface settings in FXOS. These settings include enabling interfaces, establishing EtherChannels, NTP, image management, and more. You can use the chassis manager web interface or FXOS CLI. You can then configure your security policy in the ASA operating system using ASDM or the ASA CLI.

  If you are upgrading to 9.13(1), the mode will remain in Platform mode.

New/Modified commands: boot system , clock timezone , connect fxos admin , fxos mode appliance , show counters , show environment , show fxos mode , show interface , show inventory

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Management > System Image/Configuration > Boot Image/Configuration

• Configuration > Device Setup > System Time > Clock

DHCP reservation

The ASA DHCP server now supports DHCP reservation. You can assign a static IP address from the defined address pool to a DHCP client based on the client's MAC address.

New/Modified commands: dhcpd reserve-address

No modified screens.

ASA Virtual minimum memory requirement

The minimum memory requirement for the ASA virtual is now 2GB. If your current ASA virtual runs with less than 2GB of memory, you cannot upgrade to 9.13(1) from an earlier version without increasing the memory of your ASA virtual VM. You can also redeploy a new ASA virtual VM with version 9.13(1).

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

ASA Virtual MSLA Support

The ASA virtual supports Cisco's Managed Service License Agreement (MSLA) program, which is a software licensing and consumption framework designed for Cisco customers and partners who offer managed software services to third parties.

MSLA is a new form of Smart Licensing where the licensing Smart Agent keeps track of the usage of licensing entitlements in units of time.

New/Modified commands: license smart , mode , utility , custom-id , custom-info , privacy , transport type , transport url , transport proxy

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > Licensing > Smart Licensing.

ASA Virtual Flexible Licensing

Flexible Licensing is a new form of Smart Licensing where any ASA virtual license now can be used on any supported ASA virtual vCPU/memory configuration. Session limits for Secure Client and TLS proxy will be determined by the ASA virtual platform entitlement installed rather than a platform limit tied to a model type.

New/Modified commands: show version , show vm , show cpu , show license features

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > Licensing > Smart Licensing.

ASA Virtual for AWS support for the C5 instance; expanded support for C4, C3, and M4 instances

The ASA virtual on the AWS Public Cloud now supports the C5 instance (c5.large, c5.xlarge, and c5.2xlarge).

In addition, support has been expanded for the C4 instance (c4.2xlarge and c4.4xlarge); C3 instance (c3.2xlarge, c3.4xlarge, and c3.8xlarge); and M4 instance (m4.2xlarge and m4.4xlarge).

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

ASA Virtual for Microsoft Azure support for more Azure virtual machine sizes

The ASA virtual on the Microsoft Azure Public Cloud now supports more Linux virtual machine sizes:

• Standard_D4, Standard_D4_v2

• Standard_D8_v3

• Standard_DS3, Standard_DS3_v2

• Standard_DS4, Standard_DS4_v2

• Standard_F4, Standard_F4s

• Standard_F8, Standard_F8s

Earlier releases only supported the Standard_D3 and Standard_D3_v2 sizes.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

ASA Virtual enhanced support for DPDK

The ASA virtual supports enhancements to the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) to enable support for multiple NIC queues, which allow multi-core CPUs to concurrently and efficiently service network interfaces.

This applies to all ASA virtual hypervisors except Microsoft Azure and Hyper-V.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

ASA Virtual support for VMware ESXi 6.7

The ASA virtual virtual platform supports hosts running on VMware ESXi 6.7. New VMware hardware versions have been added to the vi.ovf and esxi.ovf files to enable optimal performance and usability of the ASA virtual on ESXi 6.7.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Increased VLANs for the ISA 3000

The maximum VLANs for the ISA 3000 with the Security Plus license increased from 25 to 100.

Firewall Features

Location logging for mobile stations (GTP inspection).

You can configure GTP inspection to log the initial location of a mobile station and subsequent changes to the location. Tracking location changes can help you identify possibly fraudulent roaming charges.

New/Modified commands: location-logging .

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspect Maps > GTP.

GTPv2 and GTPv1 release 15 support.

The system now supports GTPv2 3GPP 29.274 V15.5.0. For GTPv1, support is up to 3GPP 29.060 V15.2.0. The new support includes recognition of 2 additional messages and 53 information elements.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Mapping Address and Port-Translation (MAP-T)

Mapping Address and Port (MAP) is primarily a feature for use in service provider (SP) networks. The service provider can operate an IPv6-only network, the MAP domain, while supporting IPv4-only subscribers and their need to communicate with IPv4-only sites on the public Internet. MAP is defined in RFC7597, RFC7598, and RFC7599.

New/Modified commands: basic-mapping-rule , default-mapping-rule , ipv4-prefix , ipv6-prefix , map-domain , share-ratio , show map-domain , start-port .

New/Modified commands: Configuration > Device Setup > CGNAT Map, Monitoring > Properties > MAP Domains.

Increased limits for AAA server groups and servers per group.

You can configure more AAA server groups. In single context mode, you can configure 200 AAA server groups (the former limit was 100). In multiple context mode, you can configure 8 (the former limit was 4).

In addition, in multiple context mode, you can configure 8 servers per group (the former limit was 4 servers per group). The single context mode per-group limit of 16 remains unchanged.

We modified the following commands to accept these new limits: aaa-server , aaa-server host .

We modified the AAA screens to accept these new limits.

TLS proxy deprecated for SCCP (Skinny) inspection.

The tls-proxy keyword, and support for SCCP/Skinny encrypted inspection, was deprecated. The keyword will be removed from the inspect skinny command in a future release.

VPN Features

HSTS Support for WebVPN as Client

A new CLI mode under WebVPN mode called http-headers was added so that WebVPN could transform HTTP references to HTTPS references for hosts that are HSTS. Configures whether the user agent should allow the embedding of resources when sending this header for WebVPN connections from the ASA to browsers.

You can choose to configure the http-headers as: x-content-type-options , x-xss-protection , hsts-client (HSTS support for WebVPN as client), hsts-server, or content-security-policy .

New/Modified commands: webvpn , show webvpn hsts host (name <hostname&s{253}> | all) and clear webvpn hsts host (name <hostname&s{253}> | all) .

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Advanced > Proxies.

Diffie-Hellman groups 15 and 16 added for key exchange

To add support for Diffie-Hellman groups 15 and 16, we modified few crypto commands to accept these new limits.

crypto ikev2 policy <index> group <number> and crypto map <map-name> <map-index> set pfs <group>.

show asp table vpn-context enhancement to output

To enhance debug capability, these vpn context counters were added to the output: Lock Err, No SA, IP Ver Err, and Tun Down.

New/Modified commands: show asp table vpn-context (output only).

Immediate session establishment when the maximum remote access VPN session limit is reached.

When a user reaches the maximum session (login) limit, the system deletes the user's oldest session and waits for the deletion to complete before establishing the new session. This can prevent the user from successfully connecting on the first attempt. You can remove this delay and have the system establish the new connection without waiting for the deletion to complete.

New/Modified commands: vpn-simultaneous-login-delete-no-delay .

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Group Policies Add/Edit dialog box, General tab.

High Availability and Scalability Features

Initiator and responder information for Dead Connection Detection (DCD), and DCD support in a cluster.

If you enable Dead Connection Detection (DCD), you can use the show conn detail command to get information about the initiator and responder. Dead Connection Detection allows you to maintain an inactive connection, and the show conn output tells you how often the endpoints have been probed. In addition, DCD is now supported in a cluster.

New/Modified commands: show conn (output only).

No modified screens.

Monitor the traffic load for a cluster

You can now monitor the traffic load for cluster members, including total connection count, CPU and memory usage, and buffer drops. If the load is too high, you can choose to manually disable clustering on the unit if the remaining units can handle the load, or adjust the load balancing on the external switch. This feature is enabled by default.

New/Modified commands: debug cluster load-monitor , load-monitor , show cluster info load-monitor

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster > Cluster Configuration > Enable Cluster Load Monitor check box

• Monitoring > ASA Cluster > Cluster Load-Monitoring

Accelerated cluster joining

When a data unit has the same configuration as the control unit, it will skip syncing the configuration and will join faster. This feature is enabled by default. This feature is configured on each unit, and is not replicated from the control unit to the data unit.

New/Modified commands: unit join-acceleration , show cluster info unit-join-acceleration incompatible-config

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster > Cluster Configuration > Enable config sync accelleration check box

Routing Features

SMTP configuration enhancement

You can optionally configure the SMTP server with primary and backup interface names to enable ASA for identifying the routing table to be used for logging—management routing table or data routing table. If no interface is provided, ASA would refer to management routing table lookup, and if no proper route entry is present, it would look at the data routing table.

New/Modified commands: smtp-server [primary-interface][backup-interface]

Support to set NSF wait timer

OSPF routers are expected to set the RS-bit in the EO-TLV attached to a Hello packet when it is not known whether all neighbors are listed in the packet, and the restarting router require to preserve their adjacencies. However, the RS-bit value must not be longer than the RouterDeadInterval seconds. The timers nsf wait command is introduced to set the the RS-bit in Hello packets lesser than RouterDeadInterval seconds.

New/Modified commands: timers nsf wait

Support to set tftp blocksize

The typical blocksize fixed for tftp file transfer is 512-octets. A new command, tftp blocksize , is introduced to configure a larger blocksize and thereby enhance the tftp file transfer speed. You can set a blocksize varying from 513 to 8192 octets. The new default blocksize is 1456 octets. The no form of this command will reset the blocksize to the older default value—512 octets. The timers nsf wait command is introduced to set the the RS-bit in Hello packets lesser than RouterDeadInterval seconds.

New/Modified commands: tftp blocksize

Certificate Features

Support to view FIPS status

The show running-configuration fips command displayed the FIPS status only when fips was enabled. In order to know the operational state, the show fips command was introduced where, it displays the fips status when an user enables or disables fips that is in disabled or enabled state. This command also displays the status for rebooting the device after an enable or disable action.

New/Modified commands: show fips

CRL cache size increased

To prevent failure of large CRL downloads, the cache size was increased, and the limit on the number of entries in an individual CRL was removed.

• Increased the total CRL cache size to 16 MB per context for multi-context mode.

• Increased the total CRL cache size to 128 MB for single-context mode.

Modifications to the CRL Distribution Point commands

The static CDP URL configuration commands are removed and moved to the match certificate command.

New/Modified commands: crypto-ca-trustpoint crl and crl url were removed with other related logic. match-certificate override-cdp was introduced.

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > Certificate Management > CA Certificates

Administrative and Troubleshooting Features

Management access when the Firepower 1000, Firepower 2100 Appliance mode is in licensing evaluation mode

The ASA includes 3DES capability by default for management access only, so you can connect to the Smart Software Manager and also use ASDM immediately. You can also use SSH and SCP if you later configure SSH access on the ASA. Other features that require strong encryption (such as VPN) must have Strong Encryption enabled, which requires you to first register to the Smart Software Manager.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Additional NTP authentication algorithms

Formerly, only MD5 was supported for NTP authentication. The ASA now supports the following algorithms:

• MD5

• SHA-1

• SHA-256

• SHA-512

• AES-CMAC

New/Modified commands: ntp authentication-key

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Device Setup > System Time > NTP > Add button > Add NTP Server Configuration dialog box > Key Algorithm drop-down list

ASA Security Service Exchange (SSE) Telemetry Support for the Firepower 4100/9300

With Cisco Success Network enabled in your network, device usage information and statistics are provided to Cisco which is used to optimize technical support. The telemetry data that is collected on your ASA devices includes CPU, memory, disk, or bandwidth usage, license usage, configured feature list, cluster/failover information and the like.

New/Modified commands: service telemetry and show telemetry

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Management > Telemetry

• Monitoring > Properties > Telemetry

SSH encryption ciphers are now listed in order from highest to lowest security for pre-defined lists

SSH encryption ciphers are now listed in order from highest security to lowest security for pre-defined lists (such as medium or high). In earlier releases, they were listed from lowest to highest, which meant that a low security cipher would be proposed before a high security cipher.

New/Modified commands: ssh cipher encryption

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Device Management > Advanced > SSH Ciphers

show tech-support includes additional output

The output of show tech-support is enhanced to display the output of the following:

show flow-offload info detail

show flow-offload statistics

show asp table socket

New/Modified commands: show tech-support (output only).

Enhancement to show-capture asp_drop output to include drop location information

While troubleshooting using ASP drop counters, the exact location of the drop is unknown, especially when the same ASP drop reason is used in many different places. This information is critical in finding root cause of the drop. With this enhancement, the ASP drop details such as the build target, ASA release number, hardware model, and ASLR memory text region (to facilitate the decode of drop location) are shown.

New/Modified commands: show-capture asp_drop

Modifications to debug crypto ca

The debug crypto ca transactions and debug crypto ca messages options are consolidated to provide all applicable content into the debug crypto ca command itself. Also, the number of available debugging levels are reduced to 14.

New/Modified commands: debug crypto ca

FXOS Features for the Firepower 1000 and 2100

Secure Erase

The secure erase feature erases all data on the SSDs so that data cannot be recovered even by using special tools on the SSD itself. You should perform a secure erase in FXOS when decomissioning the device.

New/Modified FXOS commands: erase secure (local-mgmt)

Supported models: Firepower 1000 and 2100

Configurable HTTPS protocol

You can set the SSL/TLS versions for FXOS HTTPS acccess.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set https access-protocols

Supported models: Firepower 2100 in Platform Mode

FQDN enforcement for IPSec and Keyrings

For FXOS, you can configure FQDN enforcement so that the FDQN of the peer needs to match the DNS Name in the X.509 Certificate presented by the peer. For IPSec, enforcement is enabled by default, except for connections created prior to 9.13(1); you must manually enable enforcement for those old connections. For keyrings, all hostnames must be FQDNs, and cannot use wild cards.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set dns, set e-mail, set fqdn-enforce , set ip , set ipv6 , set remote-address , set remote-ike-id

Removed commands: fi-a-ip , fi-a-ipv6 , fi-b-ip , fi-b-ipv6

Supported models: Firepower 2100 in Platform Mode

New IPSec ciphers and algorithms

We added the following IKE and ESP ciphers and algorithms to configure an IPSec tunnel to encrypt FXOS management traffic:

• Ciphers—aes192. Existing ciphers include: aes128, aes256, aes128gcm16.

• Pseudo-Random Function (PRF) (IKE only)—prfsha384, prfsha512, prfsha256. Existing PRFs include: prfsha1.

• Integrity Algorithms—sha256, sha384, sha512, sha1_160. Existing algorithms incldue: sha1.

• Diffie-Hellman Groups—curve25519, ecp256, ecp384, ecp521,modp3072, modp4096. Existing groups include: modp2048.

No modified FXOS commands.

Supported models: Firepower 2100 in Platform Mode

SSH authentication enhancements

We added the following SSH server encryption algoritghms for FXOS:

• aes128-gcm@openssh.com

• aes256-gcm@openssh.com

• chacha20-poly@openssh.com

We added the following SSH server key exchange methods for FXOS:

• diffie-hellman-group14-sha256

• curve25519-sha256

• curve25519-sha256@libssh.org

• ecdh-sha2-nistp256

• ecdh-sha2-nistp384

• ecdh-sha2-nistp521

New/Modified FXOS commands: set ssh-server encrypt-algorithm , set ssh-server kex-algorithm

Supported models: Firepower 2100 in Platform Mode

EDCS keys for X.509 Certificates

You can now use EDCS keys for FXOS certificates. Formerly, only RSA keys were supported.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set elliptic-curve , set keypair-type

Supported models: Firepower 2100 in Platform Mode

User password improvements

We added FXOS password security improvements, including the following:

• User passwords can be up to 127 characters. The old limit was 80 characters.

• Strong password check is enabled by default.

• Prompt to set admin password.

• Password expiration.

• Limit password reuse.

• Removed the set change-during-interval command, and added a disabled option for the set change-interval , set no-change-interval , and set history-count commands.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set change-during-interval , set expiration-grace-period , set expiration-warning-period , set history-count , set no-change-interval , set password , set password-expiration , set password-reuse-interval

New/Modified Firepower Chassis Manager screens:

• System > User Management > Local Users

• System > User Management > Settings

Supported models: Firepower 2100 in Platform Mode

Routing Features

Multicast IGMP interface state limit raised from 500 to 5000

The multicast IGMP state limit per interface was raised from 500 to 5000.

New/Modified commands: igmp limit

No ASDM support.

Troubleshooting Features

show tech-support command enhanced

The show ssl objects and show ssl errors command was added to the output of the show tech-support command.

New/Modified commands: show tech-support

No modified screens.

VPN Features

You can now configure the maximum in-negotiation SAs as an absolute value up to 15000 or a maximum value derived from the maximum device capacity; formerly, only a percentage was allowed.

New/Modified commands: crypto ikev2 limit max-in-negotiation-sa value

No ASDM support.

Platform Features

Firepower 9300 SM-56 support

We introduced the following security modules: SM-56.

Requires FXOS 2.6.1.157

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Administration Features

Setting the SSH key exchange mode is restricted to the Admin context

You must set the SSH key exchange in the Admin context; this setting is inherited by all other contexts.

New/Modified commands: ssh key-exchange

New/Modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > ASDM/HTTPS/Telnet/SSH > SSH Settings > DH Key Exchange

ASDM Features

OpenJRE version of ASDM

You can install a version of ASDM that uses OpenJRE 1.8.x instead of Oracle JRE. The filename of the OpenJRE version is asdm-openjre-version.bin.

Tools > Preferences option to specify the ASA FirePOWER module local management file folder

You can now specify the location to install ASA FirePOWER module local management files. You must have read/write privileges to the configured location.

New/Modified screen:

Tools > Preferences > SFR Location Wizard area

Platform Features

ASA for the Firepower 4115, 4125, and 4145

We introduced the Firepower 4115, 4125, and 4145.

Requires FXOS 2.6.1.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Support for ASA and threat defense on separate modules of the same Firepower 9300

You can now deploy ASA and threat defense logical devices on the same Firepower 9300.

Requires FXOS 2.6.1.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Firepower 9300 SM-40 and SM-48 support

We introduced the following two security modules: SM-40 and SM-48.

Requires FXOS 2.6.1.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Firewall Features

GTPv1 release 10.12 support.

The system now supports GTPv1 release 10.12. Previously, the system supported release 6.1. The new support includes recognition of 25 additional GTPv1 messages and 66 information elements.

In addition, there is a behavior change. Now, any unknown message IDs are allowed. Previously, unknown messages were dropped and logged.

No modified commands.

No modified screens.

Cisco Umbrella Enhancements.

You can now identify local domain names that should bypass Cisco Umbrella. DNS requests for these domains go directly to the DNS servers without Umbrella processing. You can also identify which Umbrella servers to use for resolving DNS requests. Finally, you can define the Umbrella inspection policy to fail open, so that DNS requests are not blocked if the Umbrella server is unavailable.

New/Modified commands: local-domain-bypass , resolver , umbrella fail-open .

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Umbrella, Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspect Maps > DNS.

The object group search threshold is now disabled by default.

If you enabled object group search, the feature was subject to a threshold to help prevent performance degradation. That threshold is now disabled by default. You can enable it by using the object-group-search threshold command.

New/Modified command: object-group-search threshold .

We changed the following screen: Configuration > Access Rules > Advanced.

Interim logging for NAT port block allocation.

When you enable port block allocation for NAT, the system generates syslog messages during port block creation and deletion. If you enable interim logging, the system generates message 305017 at the interval you specify. The messages report all active port blocks allocated at that time, including the protocol (ICMP, TCP, UDP) and source and destination interface and IP address, and the port block.

New/Modified command: xlate block-allocation pba-interim-logging seconds .

New/Modified screen: Configuration > Firewall > Advanced > PAT Port Block Allocation.

VPN Features

New condition option for debug aaa .

The condition option was added to the debug aaa command. You can use this option to filter VPN debugging based on group name, user name, or peer IP address.

New/Modified commands: debug aaa condition

No modified screens.

Support for RSA SHA-1 in IKEv2

You can now generate a signature using the RSA SHA-1 hashing algorithm for IKEv2.

New/Modified commands: rsa-sig-sha1

New/Modified screens:

View the default SSL configuration for both DES and 3DES encryption licenses as well as available ciphers

You can now view the default SSL configuration with and without the 3DES encryption license. In addition, you can view all the ciphers supported on the device.

New/Modified commands: show ssl information

No modified screens.

Add subdomains to webVPN HSTS

Allows domain owners to submit what domains should be included in the HSTS preload list for web browsers.

New/Modified commands: hostname(config-webvpn) includesubdomains

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Advanced > Proxies > Enable HSTS Subdomainsfield

High Availability and Scalability Features

Per-site gratuitous ARP for clustering

The ASA now generates gratuitous ARP (GARP) packets to keep the switching infrastructure up to date: the highest priority member at each site periodically generates GARP traffic for the global MAC/IP addresses. When using per-site MAC and IP addresses, packets sourced from the cluster use a site-specific MAC address and IP address, while packets received by the cluster use a global MAC address and IP address. If traffic is not generated from the global MAC address periodically, you could experience a MAC address timeout on your switches for the global MAC address. After a timeout, traffic destined for the global MAC address will be flooded across the entire switching infrastructure, which can cause performance and security concerns. GARP is enabled by default when you set the site ID for each unit and the site MAC address for each Spanned EtherChannel.

New/Modified commands: site-periodic-garp interval

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster > Cluster Configuration > Site Periodic GARP field

Routing Features

OSPF Keychain support for authentication

OSPF authenticates the neighbor and route updates using MD5 keys. In ASA, the keys that are used to generate the MD5 digest had no lifetime associated with it. Thus, user intervention was required to change the keys periodically. To overcome this limitation, OSPFv2 supports MD5 authentication with rotating keys.

Based on the accept and send lifetimes of Keys in KeyChain, OSPF authenticates, accepts or rejects keys and forms adjacency.

New/Modified commands: accept-lifetime , area virtual-link authentication , cryptographic-algorithm , key , key chain , key-string , ospf authentication , send-lifetime

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Setup > Key Chain

• Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > OSPF > Setup > Authentication

• Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > OSPF > Setup > Virtual Link

Certificate Features

Local CA configurable FQDN for enrollment URL

To make the FQDN of the enrollment URL configurable instead of using the ASA's configured FQDN, a new CLI option is introduced. This new option is added to the smpt mode of crypto ca server .

New/Modified commands: fqdn

Administrative, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting Features

enable password change now required on a login

The default enable password is blank. When you try to access privileged EXEC mode on the ASA, you are now required to change the password to a value of 3 characters or longer. You cannot keep it blank. The no enable password command is no longer supported.

At the CLI, you can access privileged EXEC mode using the enable command, the login command (with a user at privilege level 2+), or an SSH or Telnet session when you enable aaa authorization exec auto-enable . All of these methods require you to set the enable password.

This password change requirement is not enforced for ASDM logins. In ASDM, by default you can log in without a username and with the enable password.

New/Modified commands: enable password

No modified screens.

Configurable limitation of admin sessions

You can configure the maximum number of aggregate, per user, and per-protocol administrative sessions. Formerly, you could configure only the aggregate number of sessions. This feature does not affect console sessions. Note that in multiple context mode, you cannot configure the number of HTTPS sessions, where the maximum is fixed at 5 sessions. The quota management-session command is also no longer accepted in the system configuration, and is instead available in the context configuration. The maximum aggregate sessions is now 15; if you configured 0 (unlimited) or 16+, then when you upgrade, the value is changed to 15.

New/Modified commands: quota management-session , show quota management-session

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > Management Session Quota

Notifications for administrative privilege level changes

When you authenticate for enable access (aaa authentication enable console) or allow privileged EXEC access directly (aaa authorization exec auto-enable ), then the ASA now notifies users if their assigned access level has changed since their last login.

New/Modified commands: show aaa login-history

New/Modified screens:

Status bar > Login History icon

NTP support on IPv6

You can now specify an IPv6 address for the NTP server.

New/Modified commands: ntp server

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Device Setup > System Time > NTP > Add button > Add NTP Server Configuration dialog box

SSH stronger security

See the following SSH security improvements:

• Diffie-Hellman Group 14 SHA256 key exchange support. This setting is now the default. The former default was Group 1 SHA1.

• HMAC-SHA256 integrity cipher support. The default is now the high security set of ciphers (hmac-sha2-256 only). The former default was the medium set.

New/Modified commands: ssh cipher integrity , ssh key-exchange group dh-group14-sha256

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > ASDM/HTTPS/Telnet/SSH

• Configuration > Device Management > Advanced > SSH Ciphers

Allow non-browser-based HTTPS clients to access the ASA

You can allow non-browser-based HTTPS clients to access HTTPS services on the ASA. By default, ASDM, CSM, and REST API are allowed.

New/Modified commands: http server basic-auth-client

New/Modified screens.

Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > HTTP Non-Browser Client Support

Capture control plane packets only on the cluster control link

You can now capture control plane packets only on the cluster control link (and no data plane packets). This option is useful in the system in multiple context mode where you cannot match traffic using an ACL.

New/Modified commands: capture interface cluster cp-cluster

New/Modified screens:

Wizards > Packet Capture Wizard > Cluster Option

debug conn command

The debug conn command was added to provide two history mechanisms that record connection processing. The first history list is a per-thread list that records the operations of the thread. The second history list is a list that records the operations into the conn-group. When a connection is enabled, processing events such as a connection lock, unlock, and delete are recorded into the two history lists. When a problem occurs, these two lists can be used to look back at the processing to determine the incorrect logic.

New/Modified commands: debug conn

show tech-support includes additional output

The output of the show tech-support is enhanced to display the output of the following:

• show ipv6 interface

• show aaa-server

• show fragment

New/Modified commands: show tech-support

ASDM support to enable and disable the results for free memory and used memory statistics during SNMP walk operations

To avoid overutilization of CPU resources, you can enable and disable the query of free memory and used memory statistics collected through SNMP walk operations.

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > SNMP

Configurable graph update interval for the ASDM Home pane for the System in multiple-context mode

For the System in multiple context mode, you can now set the amount of time between updates for the graphs on the Home pane.

New/Modified screens:

Tools > Preferences > Graph User time interval in System Context

Platform Features

ASA Virtual VHD custom images for Azure

You can now create your own custom ASA virtual images on Azure using a compressed VHD image available from Cisco. To deploy using a VHD image, you upload the VHD image to your Azure storage account. Then, you can create a managed image using the uploaded disk image and an Azure Resource Manager template. Azure templates are JSON files that contain resource descriptions and parameter definitions.

ASA Virtual for Azure

The ASA virtual is available in the Azure China Marketplace.

ASA Virtual support for DPDK

DPDK (Dataplane Development Kit) is integrated into the dataplane of the ASA virtual using poll-mode drivers.

ISA 3000 support for FirePOWER module Version 6.3

The previous supported version was FirePOWER 5.4.

Firewall Features

Cisco Umbrella support

You can configure the device to redirect DNS requests to Cisco Umbrella, so that your Enterprise Security policy defined in Cisco Umbrella can be applied to user connections. You can allow or block connections based on FQDN, or for suspicious FQDNs, you can redirect the user to the Cisco Umbrella intelligent proxy, which can perform URL filtering. The Umbrella configuration is part of the DNS inspection policy.

New/Modified commands: umbrella , umbrella-global , token , public-key , timeout edns , dnscrypt , show service-policy inspect dns detail

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Umbrella, Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspect Maps > DNS

GTP inspection enhancements for MSISDN and Selection Mode filtering, anti-replay, and user spoofing protection

You can now configure GTP inspection to drop Create PDP Context messages based on Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN) or Selection Mode. You can also implement anti-replay and user spoofing protection.

New/Modified commands: anti-replay , gtp-u-header-check , match msisdn , match selection-mode

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspection Maps > GTP > Add/Edit dialog box

Default idle timeout for TCP state bypass

The default idle timeout for TCP state bypass connections is now 2 minutes instead of 1 hour.

Support for removing the logout button from the cut-through proxy login page

If you configure the cut-through proxy to obtain user identity information (the AAA authentication listener), you can now remove the logout button from the page. This is useful in case where users connect from behind a NAT device and cannot be distinguished by IP address. When one user logs out, it logs out all users of the IP address.

New/Modified commands: aaa authentication listener no-logout-button

No ASDM support.

Also in 9.8(3).

Trustsec SXP connection configurable delete hold down timer

The default SXP connection hold down timer is 120 seconds. You can now configure this timer, between 120 to 64000 seconds.

New/Modified commands: cts sxp delete-hold-down period , show cts sxp connection brief , show cts sxp connections

No ASDM support.

Also in 9.8(3).

Support for offloading NAT'ed flows in transparent mode.

If you are using flow offload (the flow-offload enable and set connection advanced-options flow-offload commands), offloaded flows can now include flows that require NAT in transparent mode.

Support for transparent mode deployment for a Firepower Firepower 4100/9300 ASA logical device

You can now specify transparent or routed mode when you deploy the ASA on a Firepower 4100/9300.

New/Modified FXOS commands: enter bootstrap-key FIREWALL_MODE , set value routed , set value transparent

New/Modified Firepower Chassis Manager screens:

Logical Devices > Add Device > Settings

New/Modified options: Firewall Mode drop-down list

VPN Features

Support for legacy SAML authentication

If you deploy an ASA with the fix for CSCvg65072, then the default SAML behavior is to use the embedded browser, which is not supported on AnyConnect 4.4 or 4.5. Therefore, to continue to use AnyConnect 4.4 or 4.5, you must enable the legacy external browser SAML authentication method. Because of security limitations, use this option only as part of a temporary plan to migrate to AnyConnect 4.6 (or later). This option will be deprecated in the near future.

New/Modified commands: saml external-browser

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access> Secure Client Connection Profiles page > Connection Profiles area > Add button > Add Secure Client Connection Profile dialog box

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Connection Profiles > page > Connection Profiles area > Add button > Add Clientless SSL VPN Connection Profile dialog box

New/Modified options: SAML External Browser check box

Also in 9.8(3).

DTLS 1.2 support for Secure Client VPN remote access connections.

DTLS 1.2, as defined in RFC- 6347, is now supported for AnyConnect VPN module of Cisco Secure Client in addition to the currently supported DTLS 1.0 (1.1 version number is not used for DTLS.) This applies to all ASA models except the 5506-X, 5508-X, and 5516-X; and applies when the ASA is acting as a server only, not a client. DTLS 1.2 supports additional ciphers, as well as all current TLS/DTLS cyphers, and a larger cookie size.

New/Modified commands: show run ssl, show vpn-sessiondb detail anyconnectssl cipher, ssl server-version

New/Modified screens: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Advanced > SSL Settings

High Availability and Scalability Features

Cluster control link customizable IP Address for the Firepower 4100/9300

By default, the cluster control link uses the 127.2.0.0/16 network. You can now set the network when you deploy the cluster in FXOS. The chassis auto-generates the cluster control link interface IP address for each unit based on the chassis ID and slot ID: 127.2.chassis_id.slot_id. However, some networking deployments do not allow 127.2.0.0/16 traffic to pass. Therefore, you can now set a custom /16 subnet for the cluster control link in FXOS except for loopback (127.0.0.0/8) and multicast (224.0.0.0/4) addresses.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set cluster-control-link network

New/Modified Firepower Chassis Manager screens:

Logical Devices > Add Device > Cluster Information

New/Modified options: CCL Subnet IP field

Parallel joining of cluster units per Firepower 9300 chassis

For the Firepower 9300, this feature ensures that the security modules in a chassis join the cluster simultaneously, so that traffic is evenly distributed between the modules. If a module joins very much in advance of other modules, it can receive more traffic than desired, because the other modules cannot yet share the load.

New/Modified commands: unit parallel-join

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster

New/Modified options: Parallel Join of Units Per Chassis area

Cluster interface debounce time now applies to interfaces changing from a down state to an up state

When an interface status update occurs, the ASA waits the number of milliseconds specified in the health-check monitor-interface debounce-time command or the ASDM Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster screen before marking the interface as failed and the unit is removed from the cluster. This feature now applies to interfaces changing from a down state to an up state. For example, in the case of an EtherChannel that transitions from a down state to an up state (for example, the switch reloaded, or the switch enabled an EtherChannel), a longer debounce time can prevent the interface from appearing to be failed on a cluster unit just because another cluster unit was faster at bundling the ports.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Active/Backup High Availability for ASA virtual on Microsoft Azure Government Cloud

The stateless Active/Backup solution that allows for a failure of the active ASA virtual to trigger an automatic failover of the system to the backup ASA virtual in the Microsoft Azure public cloud is now available in the Azure Government Cloud.

New or modified command: failover cloud

New or modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > Failover

Monitoring > Properties > Failover > Status

Monitoring > Properties > Failover > History

Interface Features

show interface ip brief and show ipv6 interface output enhancement to show the supervisor association for the Firepower 2100/4100/9300

For the Firepower 2100/4100/9300, the output of the command is enhanced to indicate the supervisor association status of the interfaces.

New/Modified commands: show interface ip brief, show ipv6 interface

The set lacp-mode command was changed to set port-channel-mode on the Firepower 2100

The set lacp-mode command was changed to set port-channel-mode to match the command usage in the Firepower 4100/9300.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set port-channel-mode

Administrative, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting Features

Support for NTP Authentication on the Firepower 2100

You can now configure SHA1 NTP server authentication in FXOS.

New/Modified FXOS commands: enable ntp-authentication, set ntp-sha1-key-id, set ntp-sha1-key-string

New/Modified Firepower Chassis Manager screens:

Platform Settings > NTP

New/Modified options: NTP Server Authentication: Enable check box, Authentication Key field, Authentication Value field

Packet capture support for matching IPv6 traffic without using an ACL

If you use the match keyword for the capture command, the any keyword only matches IPv4 traffic. You can now specify any4 and any6 keywords to capture either IPv4 or IPv6 traffic. The any keyword continues to match only IPv4 traffic.

New/Modified commands: capture match

No ASDM support.

Support for public key authentication for SSH to FXOS on the Firepower 2100

You can set the SSH key so you can use public key authentication instead of/as well as password authentication.

New/Modified FXOS commands: set sshkey

No Firepower Chassis Manager support.

Support for GRE and IPinIP encapsulation

When you do a packet capture on interface inside, the output of the command is enhanced to display the GRE and IPinIP encapsulation on ICMP, UDP, TCP, and others.

New/Modified commands: show capture

Support to enable memory threshold that restricts application cache allocations

You can restrict application cache allocations on reaching certain memory threshold so that there is a reservation of memory to maintain stability and manageability of the device.

New/Modified commands: memory threshold enable, show run memory threshold,clear conf memory threshold

Support for RFC 5424 logging timestamp

You can enable the logging timestamp as per RFC 5424 format.

New/Modified command: logging timestamp

Support to display memory usage of TCB-IPS

Shows application level memory cache for TCB-IPS

New/Modified command: show memory app-cache

Support to enable and disable the results for free memory and used memory statistics during SNMP walk operations

To avoid overutilization of CPU resources, you can enable and disable the query of free memory and used memory statistics collected through SNMP walk operations.

New/Modified command: snmp-server enable oid

No ASDM support.

VPN Features

Support for legacy SAML authentication

If you deploy an ASA with the fix for CSCvg65072, then the default SAML behavior is to use the embedded browser, which is not supported on AnyConnect 4.4 or 4.5. Therefore, to continue to use AnyConnect 4.4 or 4.5, you must enable the legacy external browser SAML authentication method. Because of security limitations, use this option only as part of a temporary plan to migrate to AnyConnect 4.6. This option will be deprecated in the near future.

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) AccessSecure Client Connection Profiles page > Connection Profiles area > Add button > Add Secure Client Connection Profile dialog box

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Connection Profiles > page > Connection Profiles area > Add button > Add Clientless SSL VPN Connection Profile dialog box

New/Modified options: SAML External Browser check box

Platform Features

ASA virtual support for VMware ESXi 6.5

The ASA virtual platform supports hosts running on VMware ESXi 6.5. New VMware hardware versions have been added to the vi.ovf and esxi.ovf files to enable optimal performance and usability of the ASA virtual on ESXi 6.5.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

ASA virtual support for VMXNET3 interfaces

The ASA virtual platform supports VMXNET3 interfaces on VMware hypervisors.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

ASA virtual support for virtual serial console on first boot

You can now configure the ASA virtual to use the virtual serial console on first boot, instead of the virtual VGA console, to access and configure the ASA virtual.

New or Modified commands: console serial

ASA Virtual support to update user-defined routes in more than one Azure subscription for High Availability on Microsoft Azure

You can now configure the ASA virtual in an Azure High Availability configuration to update user-defined routes in more than one Azure subscription.

New or Modified commands: failover cloud route-table

New or modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > Failover > Route-Table

VPN Features

Remote Access VPN multi-context support extended to IKEv2 protocol

Support for configuring ASA to allow Secure Client and third party Standards-based IPSec IKEv2 VPN clients to establish Remote Access VPN sessions to ASA operating in multi-context mode.

IPv6 connectivity to Radius Servers

ASA 9.9.2 now supports IPv6 connectivity to external AAA Radius Servers.

Easy VPN Enhancements for BVI Support

Easy VPN has been enhanced to support a Bridged Virtual Interface (BVI) as its internal secure interface, and you can now directly configure which interface to use as the internal secure interface. Otherwise, the ASA chooses its internal secure interface using security levels.

Also, management services, such as telnet, http, and ssh, can now be configured on a BVI if VPN management-access has been enabled on that BVI. For non-VPN management access, you should continue to configure these services on the bridge group member interfaces.

New or Modified commands: vpnclient secure interface [interface-name], https, telnet, ssh, management-access

Distributed VPN Session Improvements

• The Active Session Redistribution logic, which balances Distributed S2S VPN active and backup sessions, has been improved. Also, the balancing process may be repeated up to eight times in the background for a single cluster redistribute vpn-sessiondb command entered by the administrator.

• The handling of dynamic Reverse Route Injections (RRI) across the cluster has been improved.

High Availability and Scalability Features

Automatically rejoin the cluster after an internal failure

Formerly, many error conditions caused a cluster unit to be removed from the cluster, and you were required to manually rejoin the cluster after resolving the issue. Now, a unit will attempt to rejoin the cluster automatically at the following intervals by default: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and then 20 minutes. These values are configurable. Internal failures include: application sync timeout; inconsistent application statuses; and so on.

New or Modified commands: health-check system auto-rejoin, show cluster info auto-join

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster > Auto Rejoin

Configurable debounce time to mark an interface as failed for the ASA 5000-X series

You can now configure the debounce time before the ASA considers an interface to be failed and the unit is removed from the cluster on the ASA 5500-X series. This feature allows for faster detection of interface failures. Note that configuring a lower debounce time increases the chances of false-positives. When an interface status update occurs, the ASA waits the number of milliseconds specified before marking the interface as failed and the unit is removed from the cluster. The default debounce time is 500 ms, with a range of 300 ms to 9 seconds. This feature was previously available for the Firepower 4100/9300.

New or modified command: health-check monitor-interface debounce-time

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster

Show transport related statistics for cluster reliable transport protocol messages

You can now view per-unit cluster reliable transport buffer usage so you can identify packet drop issues when the buffer is full in the control plane.

New or modified command: show cluster info transport cp detail

Show failover history from peer unit

You can now view failover history from the peer unit, using the details keyword . This includes failover state changes and reason for the state change.

New or modified command: show failover

Interface Features

Unique MAC address generation for single context mode

You can now enable unique MAC address generation for VLAN subinterfaces in single context mode. Normally, subinterfaces share the same MAC address with the main interface. Because IPv6 link-local addresses are generated based on the MAC address, this feature allows for unique IPv6 link-local addresses.

New or modified command: mac-address auto

No ASDM support.

Also in 9.8(3) and 9.8(4).

Administrative Features

RSA key pair supports 3072-bit keys

You can now set the modulus size to 3072.

New or modified command: crypto key generate rsa modulus

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > Certificate Management > Identity Certificates

The FXOS bootstrap configuration now sets the enable password

When you deploy the ASA on the Firepower 4100/9300, the password setting in the bootstrap configuration now sets the enable password as well as the admin user password. Requires FXOS Version 2.3.1.

Monitoring and Troubleshooting Features

SNMP IPv6 support

The ASA now supports SNMP over IPv6, including communicating with SNMP servers over IPv6, allowing the execution of queries and traps over IPv6, and supporting IPv6 addresses for existing MIBs. We added the following new SNMP IPv6 MIB objects as described in RFC 8096.

• ipv6InterfaceTable (OID: 1.3.6.1.2.1.4.30)—Contains per-interface IPv6-specific information.

• ipAddressPrefixTable (OID:1.3.6.1.2.1.4.32)—Includes all the prefixes learned by this entity.

• ipAddressTable (OID: 1.3.6.1.2.1.4.34)—Contains addressing information relevant to the entity's interfaces.

• ipNetToPhysicalTable (OID: 1.3.6.1.2.1.4.35)—Contains the mapping from IP addresses to physical addresses.

New or modified command: snmp-server host

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > SNMP

Conditional Debugging to troubleshoot a single user session

Conditional debugging feature now assists you to verify the logs of specific ASA VPN sessions based on the filter conditions that are set. Support for "any, any" for IPv4 and IPv6 subnets is provided.

Firewall Features

Ethertype access control list changes

EtherType access control lists now support Ethernet II IPX (EII IPX). In addition, new keywords are added to the DSAP keyword to support common DSAP values: BPDU (0x42), IPX (0xE0), Raw IPX (0xFF), and ISIS (0xFE). Consequently, existing EtherType access contol entries that use the BPDU or ISIS keywords will be converted automatically to use the DSAP specification, and rules for IPX will be converted to 3 rules (DSAP IPX, DSAP Raw IPX, and EII IPX). In addition, packet capture that uses IPX as an EtherType value has been deprecated, because IPX corresponds to 3 separate EtherTypes.

New or modified command: access-list ethertype added the new keywords eii-ipx and dsap {bpdu | ipx | isis | raw-ipx} ; capture ethernet-type no longer supports the ipx keyword.

New or modified screen: Configuration > Firewall > Ethertype Rules.

VPN Features

Distributed Site-to-Site VPN with clustering on the Firepower 9300

An ASA cluster on the Firepower 9300 supports Site-to-Site VPN in distributed mode. Distributed mode provides the ability to have many Site-to-Site IPsec IKEv2 VPN connections distributed across members of an ASA cluster, not just on the control unit (as in centralized mode). This significantly scales VPN support beyond Centralized VPN capabilities and provides high availability. Distributed S2S VPN runs on a cluster of up to two chassis, each containing up to three modules (six total cluster members), each module supporting up to 6K active sessions (12K total), for a maximum of approximately 36K active sessions (72K total).

New or modified commands: cluster redistribute vpn-sessiondb, show cluster vpn-sessiondb, vpn mode , show cluster resource usage, show vpn-sessiondb , show connection detail, show crypto ikev2

New or modified screens:

Monitoring > ASA Cluster > ASA Cluster > VPN Cluster Summary

Monitoring > VPN > VPN Statistics > Sessions

Configuration > Device Management > High Availablility and Scalability > ASA Cluster

Wizards > Site-to-Site

Monitoring > VPN > VPN Statistics > Sessions

Monitoring > ASA Cluster > ASA Cluster > VPN Cluster Summary

Monitoring > ASA Cluster > ASA Cluster > System Resource Graphs > CPU/Memory

Monitoring > Logging > Real-Time Log Viewer

High Availability and Scalability Features

Active/Backup High Availability for ASA virtual on Microsoft Azure

A stateless Active/Backup solution that allows for a failure of the active ASA virtual to trigger an automatic failover of the system to the backup ASA virtual in the Microsoft Azure public cloud.

New or modified command: failover cloud

New or modified screens: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > Failover

Monitoring > Properties > Failover > Status

Monitoring > Properties > Failover > History

Also in 9.8(1.200).

Improved chassis health check failure detection for the Firepower chassis

You can now configure a lower holdtime for the chassis health check: 100 ms. The previous minimum was 300 ms.

New or modified command: app-agent heartbeat interval

No ASDM support.

Inter-site redundancy for clustering

Inter-site redundancy ensures that a backup owner for a traffic flow will always be at the other site from the owner. This feature guards against site failure.

New or modified commands: site-redundancy, show asp cluster counter change, show asp table cluster chash-table, show conn flag

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster

cluster remove unit command behavior matches no enable behavior

The cluster remove unit command now removes a unit from the cluster until you manually reenable clustering or reload, similar to the no enable command. Previously, if you redeployed the bootstrap configuration from FXOS, clustering would be reenabled. Now, the disabled status persists even in the case of a bootstrap configuration redeployment. Reloading the ASA, however, will reenable clustering.

New/Modified command: cluster remove unit

New/Modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster

Administrative, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting Features

SSH version 1 has been deprecated

SSH version 1 has been deprecated, and will be removed in a future release. The default setting has changed from both SSH v1 and v2 to just SSH v2.

New/Modified commands: ssh version

New/Modified screens:

• Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > ASDM/HTTPS/Telnet/SSH

Enhanced packet tracer and packet capture capabilities

The packet tracer has been enhanced with the following features:

• Trace a packet when it passes between cluster units.

• Allow simulated packets to egress the ASA.

• Bypass security checks for a similated packet.

• Treat a simulated packet as an IPsec/SSL decrypted packet.

The packet capture has been enhanced with the following features:

• Capture packets after they are decrypted.

• Capture traces and retain them in the persistent list.

New or modified commands: cluster exec capture test trace include-decrypted, cluster exec capture test trace persist, cluster exec clear packet-tracer, cluster exec show packet-tracer id, cluster exec show packet-tracer origin, packet-tracer persist, packet-tracer transmit, packet-tracer decrypted, packet-tracer bypass-checks

New or modified screens:

Tools > Packet Tracer

We added Cluster Capture field to support these options: decrypted, persist, bypass-checks, transmit

We added two new options in the Filter By view under the All Sessions drop-down list: Origin and Origin-ID

Monitoring > VPN > VPN Statistics > Packet Tracer and Capture

We added ICMP Capture field in the Packet Capture Wizard screen:Wizards > Packet Capture Wizard

We added two options include-decrypted and persist to support ICMP Capture.

VPN Features

Add subdomains to webVPN HSTS

Allows domain owners to submit what domains should be included in the HSTS preload list for web browsers.

New/Modified commands: hostname(config-webvpn) includesubdomains

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Advanced > Proxies > Enable HSTS Subdomainsfield

Also in 9.12(1).

Administrative Features

Allow non-browser-based HTTPS clients to access the ASA

You can allow non-browser-based HTTPS clients to access HTTPS services on the ASA. By default, ASDM, CSM, and REST API are allowed. Many specialty clients (for example, python libraries, curl, and wget) do not support Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) token-based authentication, so you need to specifically allow these clients to use the ASA basic authentication method. For security purposes, you should only allow required clients.

New/Modified commands: http server basic-auth-client

New/Modified screens.

Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > HTTP Non-Browser Client Support

Also in 9.12(1).

show tech-support includes additional output

The output of the show tech-support is enhanced to display the output of the following:

• show ipv6 interface

• show aaa-server

• show fragment

New/Modified commands: show tech-support

Also in 9.12(1).

Support to enable and disable the results for free memory and used memory statistics during SNMP walk operations

To avoid overutilization of CPU resources, you can enable and disable the query of free memory and used memory statistics collected through SNMP walk operations.

New/Modified command: snmp-server enable oid

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > SNMP

Also in 9.10(1).

Platform Features

Firepower 2100 Active LED now lights amber when in standby mode

Formerly, the Active LED was unlit in standby mode.

Firewall Features

Support for removing the logout button from the cut-through proxy login page.

If you configure the cut-through proxy to obtain user identity information (the AAA authentication listener), you can now remove the logout button from the page. This is useful in case where users connect from behind a NAT device and cannot be distinguished by IP address. When one user logs out, it logs out all users of the IP address.

New/Modified commands: aaa authentication listener no-logout-button .

No ASDM support.

Trustsec SXP connection configurable delete hold down timer

The default SXP connection hold down timer is 120 seconds. You can now configure this timer, between 120 to 64000 seconds.

New/Modified commands: cts sxp delete-hold-down period , show cts sxp connection brief , show cts sxp connections

No ASDM support.

VPN Features

Support for legacy SAML authentication

If you deploy an ASA with the fix for CSCvg65072, then the default SAML behavior is to use the embedded browser, which is not supported on AnyConnect 4.4 or 4.5. Therefore, to continue to use AnyConnect 4.4 or 4.5, you must enable the legacy external browser SAML authentication method. Because of security limitations, use this option only as part of a temporary plan to migrate to AnyConnect 4.6. This option will be deprecated in the near future.

New/Modified commands: saml external-browser

New/Modified screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) AccessSecure Client Connection Profiles page > Connection Profiles area > Add button > Add Secure Client Connection Profile dialog box

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Connection Profiles > page > Connection Profiles area > Add button > Add Clientless SSL VPN Connection Profile dialog box

New/Modified options: SAML External Browser check box

Interface Features

Unique MAC address generation for single context mode

You can now enable unique MAC address generation for VLAN subinterfaces in single context mode. Normally, subinterfaces share the same MAC address with the main interface. Because IPv6 link-local addresses are generated based on the MAC address, this feature allows for unique IPv6 link-local addresses.

New or modified command: mac-address auto

No ASDM support.

Also in 9.9(2) and later.

Firewall Features

Ethertype access control list changes

EtherType access control lists now support Ethernet II IPX (EII IPX). In addition, new keywords are added to the DSAP keyword to support common DSAP values: BPDU (0x42), IPX (0xE0), Raw IPX (0xFF), and ISIS (0xFE). Consequently, existing EtherType access contol entries that use the BPDU or ISIS keywords will be converted automatically to use the DSAP specification, and rules for IPX will be converted to 3 rules (DSAP IPX, DSAP Raw IPX, and EII IPX). In addition, packet capture that uses IPX as an EtherType value has been deprecated, because IPX corresponds to 3 separate EtherTypes.

This feature is supported in 9.8(2.9) and other interim releases. For more information, see CSCvf57908.

We modified the following commands: access-list ethertype added the new keywords eii-ipx and dsap {bpdu | ipx | isis | raw-ipx} ; capture ethernet-type no longer supports the ipx keyword.

We modified the following screens: Configuration > Firewall > Ethertype Rules.

Platform Features

ASA for the Firepower 2100 series

We introduced the ASA for the Firepower 2110, 2120, 2130, and 2140. Similar to the Firepower 4100 and 9300, the Firepower 2100 runs the base FXOS operating system and then the ASA operating system as an application. The Firepower 2100 implementation couples FXOS more closely with the ASA than the Firepower 4100 and 9300 do (pared down FXOS functions, single device image bundle, easy management access for both ASA and FXOS).

FXOS owns configuring hardware settings for interfaces, including creating EtherChannels, as well as NTP services, hardware monitoring, and other basic functions. You can use the Firepower Chassis Manager or the FXOS CLI for this configuration. The ASA owns all other functionality, including Smart Licensing (unlike the Firepower 4100 and 9300). The ASA and FXOS each have their own IP address on the Management 1/1 interface, and you can configure management of both the ASA and FXOS instances from any data interface.

We introduced the following commands: connect fxos, fxos https, fxos snmp, fxos ssh, ip-client

We introduced the following screens:

Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > FXOS Remote Management

Department of Defense Unified Capabilities Approved Products List

The ASA was updated to comply with the Unified Capabilities Approved Products List (UC APL) requirements. In this release, when you enter the fips enable command, the ASA will reload. Both failover peers must be in the same FIPS mode before you enable failover.

We modified the following command: fips enable

ASA virtual for Amazon Web Services M4 instance support

You can now deploy the ASA virtual as an M4 instance.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

ASAv5 1.5 GB RAM capability

Starting in Version 9.7(1), the ASAv5 may experience memory exhaustion where certain functions such as enabling Secure Client or downloading files to the ASA virtual fail. You can now assign 1.5 GB (up from 1 GB) of RAM to the ASAv5.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

VPN Features

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) header support

HSTS protects websites against protocol downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking on clientless SSL VPN. It lets web servers declare that web browsers (or other complying user agents) should only interact with it using secure HTTPS connections, and never via the insecure HTTP protocol. HSTS is an IETF standards track protocol and is specified in RFC 6797.

We introduced the following commands: hsts enable, hsts max-age age_in_seconds

We modified the following screens: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Advanced > Proxies

Interface Features

VLAN support for the ASAv50

The ASAv50 now supports VLANs on the ixgbe-vf vNIC for SR-IOV interfaces.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

High Availability and Scalability Features

Active/Backup High Availability for ASA virtual on Microsoft Azure

A stateless Active/Backup solution that allows for a failure of the active ASA virtual to trigger an automatic failover of the system to the backup ASA virtual in the Microsoft Azure public cloud.

We introduced the following commands: failover cloud

No ASDM support.

Platform Features

ASAv50 platform

The ASA virtual platform has added a high-end performance ASAv50 platform that provides 10 Gbps Firewall throughput levels. The ASAv50 requires ixgbe-vf vNICs, which are supported on VMware and KVM only.

SR-IOV on the ASA virtual platform

The ASA virtual platform supports Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) interfaces, which allows multiple VMs to share a single PCIe network adapter inside a host. ASA virtual SR-IOV support is available on VMware, KVM, and AWS only.

Automatic ASP load balancing now supported for the ASA virtual

Formerly, you could only manually enable and disable ASP load balancing.

We modified the following command: asp load-balance per-packet auto

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Advanced > ASP Load Balancing

Firewall Features

Support for setting the TLS proxy server SSL cipher suite

You can now set the SSL cipher suite when the ASA acts as a TLS proxy server. Formerly, you could only set global settings for the ASA using the ssl cipher command on the Configuration > Device Management > Advanced > SSL Settings > Encryption page.

We introduced the following command: server cipher-suite

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Firewall > Unified Communications > TLS Proxy, Add/Edit dialog boxes, Server Configuration page.

Global timeout for ICMP errors

You can now set the idle time before the ASA removes an ICMP connection after receiving an ICMP echo-reply packet. When this timeout is disabled (the default), and you enable ICMP inspection, then the ASA removes the ICMP connection as soon as an echo-reply is received; thus any ICMP errors that are generated for the (now closed) connection are dropped. This timeout delays the removal of ICMP connections so you can receive important ICMP errors.

We added the following command: timeout icmp-error

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Firewall > Advanced > Global Timeouts.

High Availability and Scalability Features

Improved cluster unit health-check failure detection

You can now configure a lower holdtime for the unit health check: .3 seconds minimum. The previous minimum was .8 seconds. This feature changes the unit health check messaging scheme to heartbeats in the data plane from keepalives in the control plane. Using heartbeats improves the reliability and the responsiveness of clustering by not being susceptible to control plane CPU hogging and scheduling delays. Note that configuring a lower holdtime increases cluster control link messaging activity. We suggest that you analyze your network before you configure a low holdtime; for example, make sure a ping from one unit to another over the cluster control link returns within the holdtime/3, because there will be three heartbeat messages during one holdtime interval. If you downgrade your ASA software after setting the hold time to .3 - .7, this setting will revert to the default of 3 seconds because the new setting is unsupported.

We modified the following commands: health-check holdtime, show asp drop cluster counter, show cluster info health details

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster

Configurable debounce time to mark an interface as failed for the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

You can now configure the debounce time before the ASA considers an interface to be failed, and the unit is removed from the cluster. This feature allows for faster detection of interface failures. Note that configuring a lower debounce time increases the chances of false-positives. When an interface status update occurs, the ASA waits the number of milliseconds specified before marking the interface as failed and the unit is removed from the cluster. The default debounce time is 500 ms, with a range of 300 ms to 9 seconds.

New or modified command: health-check monitor-interface debounce-time

New or modified screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster

VPN Features

Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI) now supports BGP (static VTI). You can now use IKEv2 in standalone and high availability modes. You can use certificate based authentication by setting up a trustpoint in the IPsec profile. You can also apply access lists on VTI using access-group commands to filter ingress traffic.

We introduced the following command in the IPsec profile configuration mode: set trustpoint.

We introduced options to select the trustpoint for certificate based authentication in the following screen:

Configuration > Site-to-Site VPN > Advanced > IPsec Proposals (Transform Sets) > IPsec Profile > Add

Mobile IKEv2 (MobIKE) is enabled by default

Mobile devices operating as remote access clients require transparent IP address changes while moving. Supporting MobIKE on ASA allows a current IKE security association (SA) to be updated without deleting the current SA. MobIKE is “always on.”

We introduced the following command: ikev2 mobike-rrc. Used to enable/disable return routability checking.

SAML 2.0 SSO Updates

The default signing method for a signature in a SAML request changed from SHA1 to SHA2, and you can configure which signing method you prefer: rsa-sha1, rsa-sha256, rsa-sha384, or rsa-sha512.

We changed the following command in webvpn mode: saml idp signature can be configured with a value. Disabled is still the default.

We introduced changes to the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Advanced > Single Sign On Servers > Add.

We changed the pre-fill-username and secondary-pre-fill-username value from ssl-client to client .

We changed the following commands in webvpn mode: pre-fill-username and secondary-pre-fill-username can be configured with a client value.

AAA Features

Login history

By default, the login history is saved for 90 days. You can disable this feature or change the duration, up to 365 days. This feature only applies to usernames in the local database when you enable local AAA authentication for one or more of the management methods (SSH, ASDM, Telnet, and so on).

We introduced the following commands: aaa authentication login-history, show aaa login-history

We introduced the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Users/AAA > Login History

Password policy enforcement to prohibit the reuse of passwords, and prohibit use of a password matching a username

You can now prohibit the reuse of previous passwords for up to 7 generations, and you can also prohibit the use of a password that matches a username.

We introduced the following commands: password-history, password-policy reuse-interval, password-policy username-check

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Users/AAA > Password Policy

Separate authentication for users with SSH public key authentication and users with passwords

In releases prior to 9.6(2), you could enable SSH public key authentication (ssh authentication ) without also explicitly enabling AAA SSH authentication with the Local user database (aaa authentication ssh console LOCAL ). In 9.6(2), the ASA required you to explicitly enable AAA SSH authentication. In this release, you no longer have to explicitly enable AAA SSH authentication; when you configure the ssh authentication command for a user, local authentication is enabled by default for users with this type of authentication. Moreover, when you explicitly configure AAA SSH authentication, this configuration only applies for usernames with passwords, and you can use any AAA server type (aaa authentication ssh console radius_1 , for example). For example, some users can use public key authentication using the local database, and other users can use passwords with RADIUS.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Also in Version 9.6(3).

Monitoring and Troubleshooting Features

Saving currently-running packet captures when the ASA crashes

Formerly, active packet captures were lost if the ASA crashed. Now, packet captures are saved to disk 0 at the time of the crash with the filename [context_name.]capture_name.pcap.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Admin Features

New background service for the ASDM upgrade tool

ASDM uses a new background service for Tools > Check for ASA/ASDM Upgrades. The older service used by earlier versions of ASDM will be discontinued by Cisco in the future.

Platform Features

New default configuration for the ASA 5506-X series using Integrated Routing and Bridging

A new default configuration will be used for the ASA 5506-X series. The Integrated Bridging and Routing feature provides an alternative to using an external Layer 2 switch. For users replacing the ASA 5505, which includes a hardware switch, this feature lets you replace the ASA 5505 with an ASA 5506-X or other ASA model without using additional hardware.

The new default configuration includes:

• outside interface on GigabitEthernet 1/1, IP address from DHCP

• inside bridge group BVI 1 with GigabitEthernet ½ (inside1) through 1/8 (inside7), IP address 192.168.1.1

• inside --> outside traffic flow

• inside ---> inside traffic flow for member interfaces

• (ASA 5506W-X) wifi interface on GigabitEthernet 1/9, IP address 192.168.10.1

• (ASA 5506W-X) wifi <--> inside, wifi --> outside traffic flow

• DHCP for clients on inside and wifi. The access point itself and all its clients use the ASA as the DHCP server.

• Management 1/1 interface is Up, but otherwise unconfigured. The ASA FirePOWER module can then use this interface to access the ASA inside network and use the inside interface as the gateway to the Internet.

• ASDM access—inside and wifi hosts allowed.

• NAT—Interface PAT for all traffic from inside, wifi, and management to outside.

If you are upgrading, you can either erase your configuration and apply the default using the configure factory-default command, or you can manually configure a BVI and bridge group members to suit your needs. Note that to easily allow intra-bridge group communication, you need to enable the same-security-traffic permit inter-interface command (this command is already present for the ASA 5506W-X default configuration).

Alarm ports support on the ISA 3000

The ISA 3000 supports two alarm input interfaces and one alarm out interface. External sensors such as door sensors can be connected to the alarm inputs. External devices like buzzers can be connected to the alarm out interface. Alarms triggered are conveyed through two LEDs, syslogs, SNMP traps, and through devices connected to the alarm out interface.You can configure descriptions of external alarms. You can also specify the severity and trigger, for external and internal alarms. All alarms can be configured for relay, monitoring and logging.

We introduced the following commands: alarm contact description, alarm contact severity, alarm contact trigger, alarm facility input-alarm, alarm facility power-supply rps, alarm facility temperature, alarm facility temperature high, alarm facility temperature low, clear configure alarm, clear facility-alarm output, show alarm settings, show environment alarm-contact.

We introduced the following screens:

Configuration > Device Management > Alarm Port > Alarm Contact

Configuration > Device Management > Alarm Port > Redundant Power Supply

Configuration > Device Management > Alarm Port > Temperature

Monitoring > Properties > Alarm > Alarm Settings

Monitoring > Properties > Alarm > Alarm Contact

Monitoring > Properties > Alarm > Facility Alarm Status

Microsoft Azure Security Center support on the ASAv10

Microsoft Azure is a public cloud environment that uses a private Microsoft Hyper V Hypervisor. Microsoft Azure Security Center is a Microsoft orchestration and management layer on top of Azure that simplifies the deployment of a highly secure public cloud infrastructure. Integration of the ASA virtual into Azure Security Center allows the ASA virtual to be offered as a firewall option to protect Azure environments.

Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for the ISA 3000

The ISA 3000 supports PTP, a time synchronization protocol for nodes distributed across a network. It provides greater accuracy than other time synchronization protocols, such as NTP, due to its hardware timestamp feature. The ISA 3000 supports PTP forward mode, as well as the one-step, end-to-end transparent clock. We added the following commands to the default configuration to ensure that PTP traffic is not sent to the ASA FirePOWER module for inspection. If you have an existing deployment, you need to manually add these commands:

object-group service bypass_sfr_inspect
  service-object udp destination range 319 320
access-list sfrAccessList extended deny object-group bypass_sfr_inspect any any

We introduced the following commands: debug ptp, ptp domain, ptp mode e2etransparent, ptp enable, show ptp clock, show ptp internal-info, show ptp port

We introduced the following screens:

Configuration > Device Management > PTP

Monitoring > Properties > PTP

Automatic Backup and Restore for the ISA 3000

You can enable auto-backup and/or auto-restore functionality using pre-set parameters in the backup and restore commands. The use cases for these features include initial configuration from external media; device replacement; roll back to an operable state.

We introduced the following commands: backup-package location, backup-package auto, show backup-package status, show backup-package summary

We introduced the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Auto Backup & Restore Configuration

Firewall Features

Support for SCTP multi-streaming reordering and reassembly and fragmentation. Support for SCTP multi-homing, where the SCTP endpoints have more than one IP address.

The system now fully supports SCTP multi-streaming reordering, reassembly, and fragmentation, which improves Diameter and M3UA inspection effectiveness for SCTP traffic. The system also supports SCTP multi-homing, where the endpoints have more than one IP address each. For multi-homing, the system opens pinholes for the secondary addresses so that you do not need to write access rules to allow them. SCTP endpoints must be limited to 3 IP addresses each.

We modified the output of the following command: show sctp detail .

We did not modify any screens.

M3UA inspection improvements.

M3UA inspection now supports stateful failover, semi-distributed clustering, and multihoming. You can also configure strict application server process (ASP) state validation and validation for various messages. Strict ASP state validation is required for stateful failover and clustering.

We added or modified the following commands: clear service-policy inspect m3ua session [assocID id] , match port sctp , message-tag-validation , show service-policy inspect m3ua drop , show service-policy inspect m3ua endpoint , show service-policy inspect m3ua session , show service-policy inspect m3ua table , strict-asp-state , timeout session .

We modified the following screens: Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspection Maps > M3UA Add/Edit dialog boxes.

Support for TLSv1.2 in TLS proxy and Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.5.2.

You can now use TLSv1.2 with TLS proxy for encrypted SIP or SCCP inspection with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.5.2. The TLS proxy supports the additional TLSv1.2 cipher suites added as part of the client cipher-suite command.

We modified the following commands: client cipher-suite

We did not modify any screens.

Integrated Routing and Bridging

Integrated Routing and Bridging provides the ability to route between a bridge group and a routed interface. A bridge group is a group of interfaces that the ASA bridges instead of routes. The ASA is not a true bridge in that the ASA continues to act as a firewall: access control between interfaces is controlled, and all of the usual firewall checks are in place. Previously, you could only configure bridge groups in transparent firewall mode, where you cannot route between bridge groups. This feature lets you configure bridge groups in routed firewall mode, and to route between bridge groups and between a bridge group and a routed interface. The bridge group participates in routing by using a Bridge Virtual Interface (BVI) to act as a gateway for the bridge group. Integrated Routing and Bridging provides an alternative to using an external Layer 2 switch if you have extra interfaces on the ASA to assign to the bridge group. In routed mode, the BVI can be a named interface and can participate separately from member interfaces in some features, such as access rules and DHCP server.

The following features that are supported in transparent mode are not supported in routed mode: multiple context mode, ASA clustering. The following features are also not supported on BVIs: dynamic routing and multicast routing.

We modified the following commands: access-group, access-list ethertype, arp-inspection, dhcpd, mac-address-table static, mac-address-table aging-time, mac-learn, route, show arp-inspection, show bridge-group, show mac-address-table, show mac-learn

We modified the following screens:

Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces

Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > Static Routes

Configuration > Device Management > DHCP > DHCP Server

Configuration > Firewall > Access Rules

Configuration > Firewall > EtherType Rules

VM Attributes

You can define network objects to filter traffic according to attributes associated with one or more Virtual Machines (VMs) in an VMware ESXi environment managed by VMware vCenter. You can define access control lists (ACLs) to assign policies to traffic from groups of VMs sharing one or more attributes.

We added the following command: show attribute .

We added the following screen:

Configuration > Firewall > VM Atttribute Agent

Stale route timeout for interior gateway protocols

You can now configure the timeout for removing stale routes for interior gateway protocols such as OSPF.

We added the following command: timeout igp stale-route .

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Firewall > Advanced > Global Timeouts.

Network object limitations for object group search.

You can reduce the memory required to search access rules by enabling object group search with the the object-group-search access-control command. When enabled, object group search does not expand network or service objects, but instead searches access rules for matches based on those group definitions.

Starting with this release, the following limitation is applied: For each connection, both the source and destination IP addresses are matched against network objects. If the number of objects matched by the source address times the number matched by the destination address exceeds 10,000, the connection is dropped.

This check is to prevent performance degradation. Configure your rules to prevent an excessive number of matches.

Routing Features

31-bit Subnet Mask

For routed interfaces, you can configure an IP address on a 31-bit subnet for point-to-point connections. The 31-bit subnet includes only 2 addresses; normally, the first and last address in the subnet is reserved for the network and broadcast, so a 2-address subnet is not usable. However, if you have a point-to-point connection and do not need network or broadcast addresses, a 31-bit subnet is a useful way to preserve addresses in IPv4. For example, the failover link between 2 ASAs only requires 2 addresses; any packet that is transmitted by one end of the link is always received by the other, and broadcasting is unnecessary. You can also have a directly-connected management station running SNMP or Syslog. This feature is not supported for BVIs for bridge groups or with multicast routing.

We modified the following commands: ip address, http, logging host, snmp-server host, ssh

We modified the following screens:

Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Add Interface > General

High Availability and Scalability Features

Inter-site clustering improvement for the ASA on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

You can now configure the site ID for each Firepower 4100/9300 chassis when you deploy the ASA cluster. Previously, you had to configure the site ID within the ASA application; this new feature eases initial deployment. Note that you can no longer set the site ID within the ASA configuration. Also, for best compatibility with inter-site clustering, we recommend that you upgrade to ASA 9.7(1) and FXOS 2.1.1, which includes several improvements to stability and performance.

We modified the following command: site-id

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster > Cluster Configuration

Director localization: inter-site clustering improvement for data centers

To improve performance and keep traffic within a site for inter-site clustering for data centers, you can enable director localization. New connections are typically load-balanced and owned by cluster members within a given site. However, the ASA assigns the director role to a member at any site. Director localization enables additional director roles: a local director at the same site as the owner, and a global director that can be at any site. Keeping the owner and director at the same site improves performance. Also, if the original owner fails, the local director chooses a new connection owner at the same site. The global director is used if a cluster member receives packets for a connection that is owned on a different site.

We introduced or modified the following commands: director-localization, show asp table cluster chash, show conn, show conn detail

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > ASA Cluster > Cluster Configuration

Interface link state monitoring polling for failover now configurable for faster detection

By default, each ASA in a failover pair checks the link state of its interfaces every 500 msec. You can now configure the polling interval, between 300 msec and 799 msec; for example, if you set the polltime to 300 msec, the ASA can detect an interface failure and trigger failover faster.

We introduced the following command: failover polltime link-state

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > Failover > Criteria

Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) support for Active/Standby failover health monitoring on the Firepower 9300 and 4100

You can enable Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) for the failover health check between two units of an Active/Standby pair on the Firepower 9300 and 4100. Using BFD for the health check is more reliable than the default health check method and uses less CPU.

We introduced the following command: failover health-check bfd

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > High Availability and Scalability > Failover > Setup

VPN Features

Dynamic RRI for IKEv2 static crypto maps

Dynamic Reverse Route Injection occurs upon the successful establishment of IPsec Security Associations (SA's) when dynamic is specified for a crypto map . Routes are added based on the negotiated selector information. The routes will be deleted after the IPsec SA's are deleted. Dynamic RRI is supported on IKEv2 based static crypto maps only.

We modified the following command: crypto map set reverse-route.

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Advanced > IPsec > Crypto Maps > Add/Edit > Tunnel Policy (Crypto Maps) - Advanced

Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI) support for ASA VPN module

The ASA VPN module is enhanced with a new logical interface called Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI), used to represent a VPN tunnel to a peer. This supports route based VPN with IPsec profiles attached to each end of the tunnel. Using VTI does away with the need to configure static crypto map access lists and map them to interfaces.

We introduced the following commands: crypto ipsec profile, interface tunnel, responder-only, set ikev1 transform-set, set pfs, set security-association lifetime, tunnel destination, tunnel mode ipsec, tunnel protection ipsec profile, tunnel source interface.

We introduced the following screens:

Configuration > Site-to-Site VPN > Advanced > IPsec Proposals (Transform Sets) > IPsec Profile

Configuration > Site-to-Site VPN > Advanced > IPsec Proposals (Transform Sets) > IPsec Profile > Add > Add IPsec Profile

Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Add > VTI Interface

Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Add > VTI Interface > General

Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Add > VTI Interface > Advanced

SAML 2.0 based SSO for Secure Client

SAML 2.0-based service provider IdP is supported in a private network. With the ASA as a gateway between the user and services, authentication on IdP is handled with a restricted anonymous webvpn session, and all traffic between IdP and the user is translated.

We added the following command: saml idp

We modified the following commands: debug webvpn saml, show saml metadata

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Clientless SSL VPN Access > Advanced > Single Sign On Servers > Add SSO Server.

CMPv2

To be positioned as a security gateway device in wireless LTE networks, the ASA now supports certain management functions using the Certificate Management Protocol (CMPv2).

We modified the following commands: enrollment url, keypair, auto-update, crypto-ca-trustpoint, show crypto ca server certificates, show crypto key, show tech-support

We modified the following screens: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Certificate Management > Identity Certificates > Add an Identity Certificate

Multiple certificate authentication

You can now validate multiple certificates per session with Secure Client SSL and IKEv2 client protocols. The Aggregate Authentication protocol has been extended to define the protocol exchange for multiple-certificate authentication and utilize this for both session types.

We modified the following command: authentication {[aaa] [certificate | multiple-certificate] | saml}

We modified the following screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Dynamic Access Policies > Edit Secure Client Connection Profile

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network Client Access > Secure Client Connection Profiles > Edit Secure Client Connection Profiles

Increase split-tunneling routing limit

The limit for split-tunneling routes for AC-SSL and AC-IKEv2 was increased from 200 to 1200. The IKEv1 limit was left at 200.

Smart Tunnel Support on Chrome

A new method for smart-tunnel support in the Chrome browser on Mac and Windows devices was created. A Chrome Smart Tunnel Extension has replaced Netscape Plugin Application Program Interfaces (NPAPIs) that are no longer supported on Chrome. If you click on the smart tunnel enabled bookmark in Chrome without the extension already being installed, you are redirected to the Chrome Web Store to obtain the extension. New Chrome installations will direct the user to the Chrome Web Store to download the extension. The extension downloads the binaries from ASA that are required to run smart tunnel. Your usual bookmark and application configuration while using smart tunnel is unchanged other than the process of installing the new extension.

Clientless SSL VPN: Session information for all web interfaces

All web interfaces will now display details of the current session, including the user name used to login, and user privileges which are currently assigned. This will help the user be aware of the current user session and will improve user security.

Clientless SSL VPN: Validation of all cookies for web applications' sessions

All web applications will now grant access only after validating all security-related cookies. In each request, each cookie with an authentication token or a session ID will be verified before granting access to the user session. Multiple session cookies in the same request will result in the connection being dropped. Cookies with failed validations will be treated as invalid and the event will be added to the audit log.

Secure Client: Maximum Connect Time Alert Interval is now supported in the Group Policy for AnyConnect VPN module of Cisco Secure Client connections.

The alert interval is the interval of time before max connection time is reached that a message will be displayed to the user warning them of termination. Valid time interval is 1-30 minutes. Default is 30 minutes. Previously supported for clientless and site-to-site VPN connections.

The following command can now be used for Secure Client connections: vpn-session-timeout alert-interval

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Group Policies > Add/Edit > General > More Options, adding a Maximum Connect Time Alert Interval field

AAA Features

IPv6 address support for LDAP and TACACS+ Servers for AAA

You can now use either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses for LDAP and TACACS+ servers used for AAA.

We modified the following command: aaa-server host, test aaa-server

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Users/AAA > AAA Server Groups > Add AAA Server Group

Administrative Features

PBKDF2 hashing for all local username and enable passwords

Local username and enable passwords of all lengths are stored in the configuration using a PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2) hash. Previously, passwords 32 characters and shorter used the MD5-based hashing method. Already existing passwords continue to use the MD5-based hash unless you enter a new password. See the "Software and Configurations" chapter in the General Operations Configuration Guide for downgrading guidelines.

We modified the following commands: enable password, username

We modified the following screens:

Configuration > Device Setup > Device Name/Password > Enable Password

Configuration > Device Management > Users/AAA > User Accounts > Add/Edit User Account > Identity

Licensing Features

Licensing changes for failover pairs on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

Only the active unit requests the license entitlements. Previously, both units requested license entitlements. Supported with FXOS 2.1.1.

Monitoring and Troubleshooting Features

IPv6 address support for traceroute

The traceroute command was modified to accept an IPv6 address.

We modified the following command: traceroute

We modified the following screen: Tools > Traceroute

Support for the packet tracer for bridge group member interfaces

You can now use the packet tracer for bridge group member interfaces.

We added two new options to the packet-tracer command; vlan-id and dmac

We added VLAN ID and Destination MAC Address fields in the packet-tracer screen:Tools > Packet Tracer

IPv6 address support for syslog servers

You can now configure syslog servers with IPv6 addresses to record and send syslogs over TCP and UDP.

We modified the following commands: logging host, show running config, show logging

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Logging > Syslog Servers > Add Syslog Server

SNMP OIDs and MIBs

The ASA now supports SNMP MIB objects corresponding to the end-to-end transparent clock mode as part of the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for the ISA 3000. The following SNMP MIB objects are supported:

• ciscoPtpMIBSystemInfo

• cPtpClockDefaultDSTable

• cPtpClockTransDefaultDSTable

• cPtpClockPortTransDSTable

Manually stop and start packet captures

You can now manually stop and start the capture.

Added/Modified commands: capture stop

Added/Modified screens: Wizards > Packet Capture Wizard > Run Captures

Added/Modified options: Start button, Stop button

AAA Features

Separate authentication for users with SSH public key authentication and users with passwords

In releases prior to 9.6(2), you could enable SSH public key authentication (ssh authentication ) without also explicitly enabling AAA SSH authentication with the Local user database (aaa authentication ssh console LOCAL ). In 9.6(2), the ASA required you to explicitly enable AAA SSH authentication. In this release, you no longer have to explicitly enable AAA SSH authentication; when you configure the ssh authentication command for a user, local authentication is enabled by default for users with this type of authentication. Moreover, when you explicitly configure AAA SSH authentication, this configuration only applies for for usernames with passwords, and you can use any AAA server type (aaa authentication ssh console radius_1 , for example). For example, some users can use public key authentication using the local database, and other users can use passwords with RADIUS.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Also in Version 9.8(1).

Platform Features

ASA for the Firepower 4150

We introduced the ASA for the Firepower 4150.

Requires FXOS 2.0.1.

We did not add or modify any commands.

We did not add or modify any screens.

Hot Plug Interfaces on the ASA virtual

You can add and remove Virtio virtual interfaces on the ASA virtual while the system is active. When you add a new interface to the ASA virtual, the virtual machine detects and provisions the interface. When you remove an existing interface, the virtual machine releases any resource associated with the interface. Hot plug interfaces are limited to Virtio virtual interfaces on the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor.

Microsoft Azure support on the ASAv10

Microsoft Azure is a public cloud environment that uses a private Microsoft Hyper V Hypervisor. The ASA virtual runs as a guest in the Microsoft Azure environment of the Hyper V Hypervisor. The ASA virtual on Microsoft Azure supports one instance type, the Standard D3, which supports four vCPUs, 14 GB, and four interfaces.

Also in 9.5(2.200).

Through traffic support on the Management 0/0 interface for the ASA virtual

You can now allow through traffic on the Management 0/0 interface on the ASA virtual. Previously, only the ASA virtual on Microsoft Azure supported through traffic; now all ASA virtuals support through traffic. You can optionally configure this interface to be management-only, but it is not configured by default.

We modified the following command: management-only

Common Criteria Certification

The ASA was updated to comply with the Common Criteria requirements. See the rows in this table for the following features that were added for this certification:

• ASA SSL Server mode matching for ASDM

• SSL client RFC 6125 support:

  • Reference Identities for Secure Syslog Server connections and Smart Licensing connections

  • ASA client checks Extended Key Usage in server certificates

  • Mutual authentication when ASA acts as a TLS client for TLS1.1 and 1.2

• PKI debug messages

• Crypto Key Zeroization verification

• IPsec/ESP Transport Mode Support for IKEv2

• New syslog messages

Firewall Features

DNS over TCP inspection

You can now inspect DNS over TCP traffic (TCP/53).

We added the following command: tcp-inspection

We modified the following page: Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspection Maps > DNS Add/Edit dialog box

MTP3 User Adaptation (M3UA) inspection

You can now inspect M3UA traffic and also apply actions based on point code, service indicator, and message class and type.

We added or modified the following commands: clear service-policy inspect m3ua {drops | endpoint [IP_address]} , inspect m3ua , match dpc , match opc , match service-indicator , policy-map type inspect m3ua , show asp table classify domain inspect-m3ua , show conn detail , show service-policy inspect m3ua {drops | endpoint IP_address} , ss7 variant , timeout endpoint

We added or modified the following pages: Configuration > Firewall > Objects > Inspection Maps > M3UA; the Rule Action > Protocol Inspection tab for service policy rules

Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) inspection

You can now inspect STUN traffic for WebRTC applications including Cisco Spark. Inspection opens pinholes required for return traffic.

We added or modified the following commands: inspect stun , show conn detail , show service-policy inspect stun

We added an option to the Rule Actions > Protocol Inspection tab of the Add/Edit Service Policy dialog box

Application layer health checking for Cisco Cloud Web Security

You can now configure Cisco Cloud Web Security to check the health of the Cloud Web Security application when determining if the server is healthy. By checking application health, the system can fail over to the backup server when the primary server responds to the TCP three-way handshake but cannot process requests. This ensures a more reliable system.

We added the following commands: health-check application url , health-check application timeout

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Cloud Web Security

Connection holddown timeout for route convergence.

You can now configure how long the system should maintain a connection when the route used by the connection no longer exists or is inactive. If the route does not become active within this holddown period, the connection is freed. You can reduce the holddown timer to make route convergence happen more quickly. However, the 15 second default is appropriate for most networks to prevent route flapping.

We added the following command: timeout conn-holddown

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Firewall > Advanced > Global Timeouts

Also in 9.4(3).

Changes in TCP option handling

You can now specify actions for the TCP MSS and MD5 options in a packet’s TCP header when configuring a TCP map. In addition, the default handling of the MSS, timestamp, window-size, and selective-ack options has changed. Previously, these options were allowed, even if there were more than one option of a given type in the header. Now, packets are dropped by default if they contain more than one option of a given type. For example, previously a packet with 2 timestamp options would be allowed, now it will be dropped.

You can configure a TCP map to allow multiple options of the same type for MD5, MSS, selective-ack, timestamp, and window-size. For the MD5 option, the previous default was to clear the option, whereas the default now is to allow it. You can also drop packets that contain the MD5 option. For the MSS option, you can set the maximum segment size in the TCP map (per traffic class). The default for all other TCP options remains the same: they are cleared.

We modified the following command: tcp-options

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Firewall > Objects > TCP Maps Add/Edit dialog box

Transparent mode maximum interfaces per bridge group increased to 64

The maximum interfaces per bridge group was increased from 4 to 64.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Flow offload support for multicast connections in transparent mode.

You can now offload multicast connections to be switched directly in the NIC on transparent mode Firepower 4100 and 9300 series devices. Multicast offload is available for bridge groups that contain two and only two interfaces.

There are no new commands or ASDM screens for this feature.

Customizable ARP rate limiting

You can set the maximum number of ARP packets allowed per second. The default value depends on your ASA model. You can customize this value to prevent an ARP storm attack.

We added the following commands: arp rate-limit, show arp rate-limit

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Advanced > ARP > ARP Static Table

Ethertype rule support for the IEEE 802.2 Logical Link Control packet's Destination Service Access Point address.

You can now write Ethertype access control rules for the IEEE 802.2 Logical Link Control packet's Destination Service Access Point address. Because of this addition, the bpdu keyword no longer matches the intended traffic. Rewrite bpdu rules for dsap 0x42 .

We modified the following commands: access-list ethertype

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Firewall > EtherType Rules.

Remote Access Features

Pre-fill/Username-from-cert feature for multiple context mode

Secure Client SSL support is extended, allowing pre-fill/username-from-certificate feature CLIs, previously available only in single mode, to be enabled in multiple context mode as well.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Flash Virtualization for Remote Access VPN

Remote access VPN in multiple context mode now supports flash virtualization. Each context can have a private storage space and a shared storage place based on the total flash that is available:

• Private storage—Store files associated only with that user and specific to the content that you want for that user.

• Shared storage—Upload files to this space and have it accessible to any user context for read/write access once you enable it.

We introduced the following commands: limit-resource storage, storage-url

We modified the following screens: Configuration > Context Management > Resource Class > Add Resource Class

Configuration > Context Management > Security Contexts

Secure Client profiles supported in multiple context mode

Secure Client profiles are supported in multiple context mode. To add a new profile using ASDM, you must have the Secure Client release 4.2.00748 or 4.3.03013 and later.

Stateful failover for Secure Client connections in multiple context mode

Stateful failover is now supported for Secure Client connections in multiple context mode.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Remote Access VPN Dynamic Access Policy (DAP) is supported in multiple context mode

You can now configure DAP per context in multiple context mode.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Remote Access VPN CoA (Change of Authorization) is supported in multiple context mode

You can now configure CoA per context in multiple context mode.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Remote Access VPN localization is supported in multiple context mode

Localization is supported globally. There is only one set of localization files that are shared across different contexts.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Umbrella Roaming Security module support

You can choose to configure the Secure Client's Umbrella Roaming Security module for additional DNS-layer security when no VPN is active.

We did not modify any commands.

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Secure Client Profile.

IPsec/ESP Transport Mode Support for IKEv2

Transport mode is now supported for ASA IKEv2 negotiation. It can be used in place of tunnel (default) mode. Tunnel mode encapsulates the entire IP packet. Transport mode encapsulates only the upper-layer protocols of an IP packet. Transport mode requires that both the source and destination hosts support IPSec, and can only be used when the destination peer of the tunnel is the final destination of the IP packet.

We modified the following command: crypto map set ikev2 mode

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Advanced > IPsec > IPsec Proposals (Transform Sets) > IKEv2 proposals > Add/Edit

Per-packet routing lookups for IPsec inner packets

By default, per-packet adjacency lookups are done for outer ESP packets; lookups are not done for packets sent through the IPsec tunnel. In some network topologies, when a routing update has altered the inner packet’s path, but the local IPsec tunnel is still up, packets through the tunnel may not be routed correctly and fail to reach their destination. To prevent this, use the new option to enable per-packet routing lookups for the IPsec inner packets.

We added the following command: crypto ipsec inner-routing-lookup

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > Advanced > IPsec > Crypto Maps adding the Enable IPsec Inner Routing Lookup checkbox.

Certificate and Secure Connection Features

ASA client checks Extended Key Usage in server certificates

Syslog and Smart licensing Server Certificates must contain “ServerAuth” in the Extended Key Usage field. If not, the connection fails.

Mutual authentication when ASA acts as a TLS client for TLS1.1 and 1.2

PKI debug messages

The ASA PKI module makes connections to CA servers such as SCEP enrollment, revocation checking using HTTP, etc. All of these ASA PKI exchanges will be logged as debug traces under debug crypto ca message 5.

ASA SSL Server mode matching for ASDM

For an ASDM user who authenticates with a certificate, you can now require the certificate to match a certificate map.

We modified the following command: http authentication-certificate match

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > ASDM/HTTPS/Telnet/SSH

Reference Identities for Secure Syslog Server connections and Smart Licensing connections

TLS client processing now supports rules for verification of a server identity defined in RFC 6125, Section 6. Identity verification will be done during PKI validation for TLS connections to the Syslog Server and the Smart Licensing server only. If the presented identity cannot be matched against the configured reference identity, the connection is not established.

We added or modified the following commands: crypto ca reference-identity, logging host, call home profile destination address

We modifed the following screens:

Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Advanced

Configuration > Device Management > Logging > Syslog Servers > Add/Edit

Configuration > Device Management > Smart Call Home

Crypto Key Zeroization verification

The ASA crypto system has been updated to comply with new key zeroization requirements. Keys must be overwritten with all zeros and then the data must be read to verify that the write was successful.

SSH public key authentication improvements

In earlier releases, you could enable SSH public key authentication (ssh authentication ) without also enabling AAA SSH authentication with the Local user database (aaa authentication ssh console LOCAL ). The configuration is now fixed so that you must explicitly enable AAA SSH authentication. To disallow users from using a password instead of the private key, you can now create a username without any password defined.

We modified the following commands: ssh authentication, username

We modifed the following screens:

Configuration > Device Management > Management Access > ASDM/HTTPS/Telnet/SSH

Configuration > Device Management > Users/AAA > User Accounts > Add/Edit User Account

Interface Features

Increased MTU size for the ASA on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

You can set the maximum MTU to 9188 bytes on the Firepower 4100 and 9300; formerly, the maximum was 9000 bytes. This MTU is supported with FXOS 2.0.1.68 and later.

We modified the following command: mtu

We modified the following screen: Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Advanced

Routing Features

Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) Support

The ASA now supports the BFD routing protocol. Support was added for configuring BFD templates, interfaces, and maps. Support for BGP routing protocol to use BFD was also added.

We added or modified the following commands: authentication, bfd echo, bfd interval, bfd map, bfd slow-timers, bfd template, bfd-template, clear bfd counters, echo, debug bfd, neighbor fall-over bfd, show bfd drops, show bfd map, show bfd neighbors, show bfd summary

We added or modified the following screens:

Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > BFD > Template

Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > BFD > Interface

Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > BFD > Map

Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > BGP > IPv6 Family > Neighbors

IPv6 DHCP

The ASA now supports the following features for IPv6 addressing:

• DHCPv6 Address client—The ASA obtains an IPv6 global address and optional default route from the DHCPv6 server.

• DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation client—The ASA obtains delegated prefix(es) from a DHCPv6 server. The ASA can then use these prefixes to configure other ASA interface addresess so that StateLess Address Auto Configuration (SLAAC) clients can autoconfigure IPv6 addresses on the same network.

• BGP router advertisement for delegated prefixes

• DHCPv6 stateless server—The ASA provides other information such as the domain name to SLAAC clients when they send Information Request (IR) packets to the ASA. The ASA only accepts IR packets, and does not assign addresses to the clients.

We added or modified the following commands: clear ipv6 dhcp statistics, domain-name, dns-server, import, ipv6 address autoconfig, ipv6 address dhcp, ipv6 dhcp client pd, ipv6 dhcp client pd hint, ipv6 dhcp pool, ipv6 dhcp server, network, nis address, nis domain-name, nisp address, nisp domain-name, show bgp ipv6 unicast, show ipv6 dhcp, show ipv6 general-prefix, sip address, sip domain-name, sntp address

We added or modified the following screens:

Configuration > Device Setup > Interface Settings > Interfaces > Add Interface > IPv6

Configuration > Device Management > DHCP > DHCP Pool

Configuration > Device Setup > Routing > BGP > IPv6 Family > Networks

Monitoring > interfaces > DHCP

High Availability and Scalability Features

Improved sync time for dynamic ACLs from Secure Client when using Active/Standby failover

When you use Secure Client on a failover pair, then the sync time for the associated dynamic ACLs (dACLs) to the standby unit is now improved. Previously, with large dACLs, the sync time could take hours during which time the standby unit is busy syncing instead of providing high availability backup.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Licensing Features

Permanent License Reservation for the ASA virtual

For highly secure environments where communication with the Cisco Smart Software Manager is not allowed, you can request a permanent license for the ASA virtual. In 9.6(2), we also added support for this feature for the ASA virtual on Amazon Web Services. This feature is not supported for Microsoft Azure.

We introduced the following commands: license smart reservation, license smart reservation cancel, license smart reservation install, license smart reservation request universal, license smart reservation return

No ASDM support.

Also in 9.5(2.200).

Satellite Server support for the ASA virtual

If your devices cannot access the internet for security reasons, you can optionally install a local Smart Software Manager satellite server as a virtual machine (VM).

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Permanent License Reservation for the ASA virtual Short String enhancement

Due to an update to the Smart Agent (to 1.6.4), the request and authorization codes now use shorter strings.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

Permanent License Reservation for the ASA on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

For highly secure environments where communication with the Cisco Smart Software Manager is not allowed, you can request a permanent license for the ASA on the Firepower 9300 and Firepower 4100. All available license entitlements are included in the permanent license, including the Standard Tier, Strong Encryption (if qualified), Security Contexts, and Carrier licenses. Requires FXOS 2.0.1.

All configuration is performed on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis; no configuration is required on the ASA.

Smart Agent Upgrade for ASA virtual to v1.6

The smart agent was upgraded from Version 1.1 to Version 1.6. This upgrade supports permanent license reservation and also supports setting the Strong Encryption (3DES/AES) license entitlement according to the permission set in your license account.

We introduced the following commands: show license status, show license summary, show license udi, show license usage

We modified the following commands: show license all, show tech-support license

We deprecated the following commands: show license cert, show license entitlement, show license pool, show license registration

We did not change any screens.

Also in 9.5(2.200).

Monitoring Features

Packet capture of type asp-drop supports ACL and match filtering

When you create a packet capture of type asp-drop, you can now also specify an ACL or match option to limit the scope of the capture.

We modified the following command: capture type asp-drop

We did not modify any screens.

Forensic Analysis enhancements

You can create a core dump of any process running on the ASA. The ASA also extracts the text section of the main ASA process that you can copy from the ASA for examination.

We modified the following commands: copy system:text, verify system:text, crashinfo force dump process

We did not modify any screens.

Tracking Packet Count on a Per-Connection Basis through NetFlow

Two counters were added that allow Netflow users to see the number of Layer 4 packets being sent in both directions on a connection. You can use these counters to determine average packet rates and sizes and to better predict traffic types, anomalies, and events.

We did not modify any commands.

We did not modify any screens.

SNMP engineID sync for Failover

In a failover pair, the SNMP engineIDs of the paired ASAs are synced on both units. Three sets of engineIDs are maintained per ASA—synced engineID, native engineID and remote engineID.

An SNMPv3 user can also specify the engineID of the ASA when creating a profile to preserve localized snmp-server user authentication and privacy options. If a user does not specify the native engineID, the show running config output will show two engineIDs per user.

We modified the following command: snmp-server user

No ASDM support.