Configuration Deployment

This chapter describes how to download configuration changes to one or more managed devices.

About Configuration Deployment

All device configuration is managed by the management center and then deployed to the managed devices.

Configuration Changes that Require Deployment

The system marks out-of-date policies with red status text that indicates how many of its targeted devices need a policy update. To clear this status, you must re-deploy the policy to the devices.

Deployment Required

Configuration changes that require a deployment include:

  • Modifying an access control policy: any changes to access control rules, the default action, policy targets, Security Intelligence filtering, advanced options including preprocessing, and so on.

  • Modifying any of the policies that the access control policy invokes: the SSL policy, network analysis policies, intrusion policies, file policies, identity policies, or DNS policies.

  • Changing any reusable object or configuration used in an access control policy or policies it invokes:

    • network, port, VLAN tag, URL, and geolocation objects

    • Security Intelligence lists and feeds

    • application filters or detectors

    • intrusion policy variable sets

    • file lists

    • decryption-related objects and security zones

  • Updating the system software, intrusion rules, or the vulnerability database (VDB).

Keep in mind that you can change some of these configurations from multiple places in the web interface. For example, you can modify security zones using the object manager (Objects > Object Management), but modifying an interface type in a device’s configuration (Devices > Device Management) can also change a zone and require a deployment.

Deployment Not Required

Note that the following updates do not require a deployment:

  • automatic updates to Security Intelligence feeds and additions to the Security Intelligence global Block or Do Not Block list using the context menu

  • automatic updates to URL filtering data

  • scheduled geolocation database (GeoDB) updates

Deployment Preview

Preview provides a snapshot of all the policy and object changes to be deployed on the device. The policy changes include the new policies, changes in the existing policies, and the deleted policies. The object changes include the added and modified objects which are used in policies. The unused object changes are not displayed because they are not deployed on the device.

Click the Preview icon next to a deployment job to view the configuration change log for that are pending to be deployed on the device. The change log includes:

  • Comparison View: Displays a side-by-side comparison of all the device configuration changes made since your last deployment.

  • Advanced View: Displays the pending CLI commands to be applied to the device.

For more information about viewing the deployment preview, see Deploy Configuration Changes.

The preview shows all the default values, even when they are not altered, along with the other configured settings when an interface or a platform settings policy is added for the first time. Similarly, the high availability-related policies and default values for settings are shown, even when they are not altered, in the first preview after a high availability pair is configured or disrupted.

To view changes due to an auto rollback, see Edit Deployment Settings.

Unsupported Features

  • Object additions and attribute changes are displayed in the preview only if the objects are associated with any device or interface. Object deletions are not displayed.

  • Preview is not supported for the following policies:

    • High availability

    • Network discovery

    • Network analysis

    • Device settings

  • User information at the rule level is not available for intrusion policies.

  • The preview does not show the reordering of rules across policies.

    For DNS policies, reordered rules appear in the preview list as rule additions and deletions. For example, moving a rule from position 1 to position 3 in the rule order is displayed as if the rule was deleted from position 1 and added as a new rule in position 3. Similarly, when a rule is deleted, the rules under it are listed as edited rules as they have changed their positions. The changes are displayed in the final order in which they appear in the policy.

  • Preview is not supported in the following HA scenarios:

    • If a device was in standalone mode and if a chain is made, then an auto-deployment is triggered. For that particular job, preview is not supported. On hover over the Preview (preview icon), a message is displayed that it is a HA bootstrap deployment, and no preview is supported.

    • Configuration groups - Consider a flow in which a device was initially standalone. Subsequently, three deployments took place. In the fourth deployment, the device was a HA bootstrap deployment. After these, the user deploys devices 5, 6, and 7. The deployment 7 is an HA break deployment, and the user deploys devices 8, 9, and 10.

      In this flow, the preview between 3 and 5 is not supported because 4 was a HA deployment. Similarly, the preview between 8 and 3 is also not supported. Preview is supported only from 3 to 1, 7,6, 5, 4, and 10, 9, and 8.

    • If a device is broken (HA is broken) then the new device is considered as a fresh device.

Selective Policy Deployment

The management center allows you to select a specific policy within the list of all the changes on the device that are due for deployment and deploy only the selected policy. Selective deployment is available only for the following policies:

  • Access control policies

  • Intrusion policies

  • Malware and file policies

  • DNS policies

  • Identity policies

  • SSL policies

  • QoS policies

  • Prefilter policies

  • Network discovery

  • NAT policies

  • Routing policies

  • VPN policies

There are certain limitations to selectively deploying policies. Follow the contents in the table below to understand when selective policy deployment can be used.

Table 1. Limitations for Selective Deployment

Type

Description

Scenarios

Full deployment

Full deployment is necessary for specific deploy scenarios, and the management center does not support selective deployment in such scenarios. If you encounter an error in such scenarios, you may choose to proceed by selecting all the changes for deployment on the device.

Scenarios wherein a full deployment is required are:

  • The first deployment after you have upgraded the threat defense or the management center.

  • The first deployment after you have restored the threat defense.

  • The first deployment after modifications in the threat defense interface settings.

  • The first deployment after modifications in the virtual router settings.

  • When the threat defense device is moved to a new domain (global to sub-domain or sub-domain to global).

Associated policy deployment

The management center identifies interdependent policies which are interlinked. When one of the interlinked policies is selected, the remaining interlinked policies are automatically selected.

Scenarios wherein an associated policy is automatically selected:

  • When a new object is associated with an existing policy.

  • When an existing policy's object is modified.

Scenarios wherein multiple policies are automatically selected:

  • When a new object is associated with an existing policy, and the same object is already associated with other policies, all the associated policies are automatically selected.

  • When a shared object is modified, all the associated policies are automatically selected.

Interdependent policy changes (shown using color-coded tags)

The management center dynamically detects dependencies in-between policies, and between the shared objects and the policies. The interdependency of the objects or policies is shown using color-coded tags.

Scenarios wherein color-coded interdependent policies or objects are automatically selected:

  • When all the out-of-date policies have interdependent changes.

    For example, when an access control policy, an intrusion policy, and a NAT policy are out-of-date. Since access control policy and NAT policy share an object, all policies are selected together for deployment.

  • When all out-of-date policies share an object, and the object is modified.

Access Policy Group specifications

Access Policy Group policies are listed together in the preview window under Access Policy Group when you click Show or Hide Policy (Show or Hide Policy icon).

The scenarios and the expected behavior for Access Policy Group policies are:

  • If the access control policy is out-of-date, all other out-of-date policies under this group, except file policy and intrusion policy, are selected when the access control policy is selected for deployment.

    However, if the access control policy is out-of-date, intrusion and file policies can be individually selected or deselected irrespective of whether the access control policy is selected or not, unless there are any dependent changes. For example, if a new intrusion policy is assigned to an access control rule, it indicates that there are dependent changes, then both the access control policy and the intrusion policy will be automatically selected when either of them is selected.

  • If no access control policy is out-of-date, other out-of-date policies in this group can be selected and deployed individually.

System Username

The management center displays the username as system for the following operations:

  • Rollback

  • Upgrade

  • Threat Defense backup and restore

  • SRU update

  • LSP update

  • VDB update

Auto-Enabling of Application Detectors

If you are performing application control but disable required detectors, the system automatically enables the appropriate system-provided detectors upon policy deploy. If none exist, the system enables the most recently modified user-defined detector for the application.

Asset Rediscovery with Network Discovery Policy Changes

When you deploy changes to a network discovery policy, the system deletes and then rediscovers MAC address, TTL, and hops information from the network map for the hosts in your monitored networks. Also, the affected managed devices discard any discovery data that has not yet been sent to the management center.

Snort Restart Scenarios

When the traffic inspection engine referred to as the Snort process on a managed device restarts, inspection is interrupted until the process resumes. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort Restart Traffic Behavior for more information. Additionally, resource demands may result in a small number of packets dropping without inspection when you deploy, regardless of whether the Snort process restarts.

Any of the scenarios in the following table cause the Snort process to restart.

Table 2. Snort Restart Scenarios

Restart Scenario

More Information

Deploying a specific configuration that requires the Snort process to restart.

Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated

Modifying a configuration that immediately restarts the Snort process.

Changes that Immediately Restart the Snort Process

Traffic-activation of the currently deployed Automatic Application Bypass (AAB) configuration.

Configure Automatic Application Bypass

Enabling or disabling "Logging connection events to RAM disk" feature.

See the section Log to Ramdisk in Troubleshoot Drain of FMC Unprocessed Events.

Restart Warnings for Devices

When you deploy, the Inspect Interruption column in the deploy page specifies whether a deployed configuration restarts the Snort process on the threat defense device. When the traffic inspection engine referred to as the Snort process restarts, inspection is interrupted until the process resumes. Whether traffic is interrupted or passes without inspection during the interruption depends on how the device handles traffic. Note that you can proceed with the deployment, cancel the deployment and modify the configuration, or delay the deployment until a time when deploying would have the least impact on your network.

When the Inspect Interruption column indicates Yes and you expand the device configuration listing, the system indicates any specific configuration type that would restart the Snort process with an Inspect Interruption (inspect interruption icon). When you hover your mouse over the icon, a message informs you that deploying the configuration may interrupt traffic.

The following table summarizes how the deploy page displays inspection interruption warnings.

Table 3. Inspection Interruption Indicators

Type

Inspect Interruption

Description

Threat Defense

Inspect Interruption (inspect interruption icon)Yes

At least one configuration would interrupt inspection on the device if deployed, and might interrupt traffic depending on how the device handles traffic. You can expand the device configuration listing for more information.

--

Deployed configurations will not interrupt traffic on the device.

Undetermined

The system cannot determine if a deployed configuration may interrupt traffic on the device.

Undetermined status is displayed before the first deployment after a software upgrade, or in some cases during a Support call.

Errors (error icon)

The system cannot determine the status due to an internal error.

Cancel the operation and click Deploy again to allow the system to redetermine the Inspect Interruption status. If the problem persists, contact Support.

sensor

--

The device identified as sensor is not the threat defense device; the system does not determine if a deployed configuration may interrupt traffic on this device.

For information on all configurations that restart the Snort process for all device types, see Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated.

Inspect Traffic During Policy Apply

Inspect traffic during policy apply is an advanced access control policy general setting that allows managed devices to inspect traffic while deploying configuration changes; this is the case unless a configuration that you deploy requires the Snort process to restart. You can configure this option as follows:

  • Enabled — Traffic is inspected during the deployment unless certain configurations require the Snort process to restart.

    When the configurations you deploy do not require a Snort restart, the system initially uses the currently deployed access control policy to inspect traffic, and switches during deployment to the access control policy you are deploying.

  • Disabled — Traffic is not inspected during the deployment. The Snort process always restarts when you deploy.

The following graphic illustrates how Snort restarts can occur when you enable or disable Inspect traffic during policy apply.


Caution

When you deploy, resource demands may result in a small number of packets dropping without inspection. Additionally, deploying some configurations restarts the Snort process, which interrupts traffic inspection. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort Restart Traffic Behavior and Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated.

Snort Restart Traffic Behavior

The following tables explain how different devices handle traffic when the Snort process restarts.

Table 4. The Threat Defense and the Threat Defense Virtual Restart Traffic Effects

Interface Configuration

Restart Traffic Behavior

inline: Snort Fail Open: Down: disabled

dropped

inline: Snort Fail Open: Down: enabled

passed without inspection

Some packets can be delayed in buffer for several seconds before the system recognizes that Snort is down. This delay can vary depending upon the load distribution. However, the buffered packets are eventually passed.

routed, transparent (including EtherChannel, redundant, subinterface): preserve-connection enabled (configure snort preserve-connection enable ; default)

For more information, see Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Command Reference.

existing TCP/UDP flows: passed without inspection so long as at least one packet arrives while Snort is down

new TCP/UDP flows and all non-TCP/UDP flows: dropped

Note that the following traffic drops even when preserve-connection is enabled:

  • plaintext, passthrough prefilter tunnel traffic that matches an Analyze rule action or an Analyze all tunnel traffic default policy action

  • connections that do not match an access control rule and are instead handled by the default action.

  • decrypted TLS/SSL traffic

  • a safe search flow

  • a captive portal flow

routed, transparent (including EtherChannel, redundant, subinterface): preserve-connection disabled (configure snort preserve-connection disable )

dropped

inline: tap mode

egress packet immediately, copy bypasses Snort

passive

uninterrupted, not inspected


Note
In addition to traffic handling when the Snort process is down while it restarts, traffic can also pass without inspection or drop when the Snort process is busy, depending on the configuration of the Snort Fail Open Busy option (see Configure an Inline Set). A device supports either the Failsafe option or the Snort Fail Open option, but not both.

Note
When the Snort process is busy but not down during configuration deployment, some packets may drop on routed, switched, or transparent interfaces if the total CPU load exceeds 60 percent.

Warning
Do not reboot the system while the Snort Rule Update is in progress.

Snort-busy drops happen when snort is not able to process the packets fast enough. Lina does not know whether Snort is busy due to processing delay, or if is stuck or due to call blocking. When transmission queue is full, snort-busy drops occur. Based on Transmission queue utilization, Lina will try to access if the queue is being serviced smoothly.

Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated

Deploying any of the following configurations except AAB restarts the Snort process as described. Deploying AAB does not cause a restart, but excessive packet latency activates the currently deployed AAB configuration, causing a partial restart of the Snort process.

Access Control Policy Advanced Settings

  • Deploy when Inspect Traffic During Policy Apply is disabled.

  • Add or remove an SSL policy.

File Policy

Deploy the first or last of any one of the following configurations; note that while otherwise deploying these file policy configurations does not cause a restart, deploying non-file-policy configurations can cause restarts.

  • Take either of the following actions:

    • Enable or disable Inspect Archives when the deployed access control policy includes at least one file policy.

    • Add the first or remove the last file policy rule when Inspect Archives is enabled (note that at least one rule is required for Inspect Archives to be meaningful).

  • Enable or disable Store files in a Detect Files or Block Files rule.

  • Add the first or remove the last active file rule that combines the Malware Cloud Lookup or Block Malware rule action with an analysis option (Spero Analysis or MSEXE, Dynamic Analysis, or Local Malware Analysis) or a store files option (Malware, Unknown, Clean, or Custom).

Note that access control rules that deploy these file policy configurations to security zones or tunnel zones cause a restart only when your configuration meets the following conditions:

  • Source or destination security zones in your access control rule must match the security zones associated with interfaces on the target devices.

  • Unless the destination zone in you access control rule is any, a source tunnel zone in the rule must match a tunnel zone assigned to a tunnel rule in the prefilter policy.

Identity Policy

  • When SSL decryption is disabled (that is, when the access control policy does not include an SSL policy), add the first or remove the last active authentication rule.

    An active authentication rule has either an Active Authentication rule action, or a Passive Authentication rule action with Use active authentication if passive or VPN identity cannot be established selected.

Network Discovery

  • Enable or disable non-authoritative, traffic-based user detection over the HTTP, FTP, or MDNS protocols, using the network discovery policy.

Device Management

  • MTU: Change the highest MTU value among all non-management interfaces on a device.

  • Automatic Application Bypass (AAB): The currently deployed AAB configuration activates when a malfunction of the Snort process or a device misconfiguration causes a single packet to use an excessive amount of processing time. The result is a partial restart of the Snort process to alleviate extremely high latency or prevent a complete traffic stall. This partial restart causes a few packets to pass without inspection, or drop, depending on how the device handles traffic.

Updates

  • System update: Deploy configurations the first time after a software update that includes a new version of the Snort binary or data acquisition library (DAQ).

  • VDB: For managed devices running Snort 2, deploying configurations the first time after installing a vulnerability database (VDB) update that includes changes applicable to managed devices will require a detection engine restart and may result in a temporary traffic interruption. For these, a message warns you when you select the management center to begin installing. The deploy dialog provides additional warnings for the threat defense devices when VDB changes are pending. VDB updates that apply only to the management center do not cause detection engine restarts, and you cannot deploy them.

    For managed devices running Snort 3, deploying configurations the first time after installing a vulnerability database (VDB) update may temporarily interrupt application detection, but there will be no traffic interruptions.

Changes that Immediately Restart the Snort Process

The following changes immediately restart the Snort process without going through the deploy process. How the restart affects traffic depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort Restart Traffic Behavior for more information.

  • Take any of the following actions involving applications or application detectors:

    • Activate or deactivate a system or custom application detector.

    • Delete an activated custom detector.

    • Save and Reactivate an activated custom detector.

    • Create a user-defined application.

    A message warns you that continuing restarts the Snort process, and allows you to cancel; the restart occurs on any managed device in the current domain or in any of its child domains.

  • Create or break a threat defense high availability pair.

    A message warns you that continuing to create a high availability pair restarts the Snort process on the primary and secondary devices and allows you to cancel.

Requirements and Prerequisites for Policy Management

Model Support

Any.

Supported Domains

Any

User Roles

  • Admin

  • Network Admin

  • Security Approver

Best Practices for Deploying Configuration Changes

The following are guidelines for deploying configuration changes.

Reliable Management Connection

The management connection between the management center and the device is a secure, TLS-1.3-encrypted communication channel between itself and the device.

You do not need to run this traffic over an additional encrypted tunnel such as Site-to-Site VPN for security purposes. If the VPN goes down, for example, you will lose your management connection, so we recommend a simple management path.


Caution

We recommend against a device's management connection going through a VPN tunnel that terminates on the device itself. If you deploy a configuration change that causes the VPN to go down, the management connection will be disconnected and you will not have any way to recover the configuration without connecting directly to the device.

If management traffic exits a VPN-terminating interface, be sure to exclude the management traffic from the VPN tunnel.

Maximum Concurrent Deployments

You should not deploy to more than 25% of the maximum devices allowed for a management center in the same job. For example, for the FMCv300, the maximum job size should be 75 devices (25% of 300). Concurrent deployment to more devices can cause performance issues.

Deployment of Shared Policies

For best performance, deploy to devices that use the same policies. Create separate deployment jobs for each group of devices that share policies.

Time to Deploy and Memory Limitations

The time it takes to deploy depends on multiple factors, including (but not limited to):

  • The configurations you send to the device. For example, if you dramatically increase the number of Security Intelligence entries you block, deployment can take longer.

  • Device model and memory. On lower-memory devices, deploying can take longer.

Do not exceed the capability of your devices. If you exceed the maximum number of rules or policies supported by a target device, the system displays a warning. The maximum depends on a number of factors—not only memory and the number of processors on the device, but also on policy and rule complexity. For information on optimizing policies and rules, see Best Practices for Access Control Rules.

Use a Maintenance Window to Lessen the Impact of Traffic Interruptions

We strongly recommend you deploy in a maintenance window or at a time when interruptions will have the least impact.

When you deploy, resource demands may result in a small number of packets dropping without inspection. Additionally, deploying some configurations restarts the Snort process, which interrupts traffic inspection. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort Restart Traffic Behavior and Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated.

For the threat defense devices, the Inspect Interruption column in the Deploy dialog warns you when deploying might interrupt traffic flow or inspection. You can either proceed with, cancel, or delay deployment; see Restart Warnings for Devices for more information.

Deploy the Configuration

After you configure your deployment, and any time you change that configuration, you must deploy the changes to affected devices. You can view deployment status in the Message Center.

Deploying updates the following components:

  • Device and interface configurations

  • Device-related policies: NAT, VPN, QoS, platform settings

  • Access control and related policies: DNS, file, identity, intrusion, network analysis, prefilter, SSL

  • Network discovery policy

  • Intrusion rule updates

  • Configurations and objects associated with any of these elements

You can configure the system to deploy automatically by scheduling a deploy task or by setting the system to deploy when importing intrusion rule updates. Automating policy deployment is especially useful if you allow intrusion rule updates to modify system-provided base policies for intrusion and network analysis. Intrusion rule updates can also modify default values for the advanced preprocessing and performance options in your access control policies.

Deploy Configuration Changes

After you change configurations, deploy them to the affected devices. We strongly recommend that you deploy in a maintenance window or at a time when any interruptions to traffic flow and inspection will have the least impact.


Caution
When you deploy, resource demands may result in a small number of packets dropping without inspection. Additionally, deploying some configurations restarts the Snort process, which interrupts traffic inspection. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort Restart Traffic Behavior and Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated.

Before you begin

  • Be sure all managed devices use the same revision of the Security Zones object. If you have edited security zone objects: Do not deploy configuration changes to any device until you edit the zone setting for interfaces on all devices you want to sync. You must deploy to all managed devices at the same time.

  • To preview the deployment changes, enable REST API access. To enable the REST API access, follow the steps in Enabling REST API Access in the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Administration Guide.


Note

The deployment process fails if the device configuration is being read at the device CLI during deployment. Do not execute commands such as show running-config during the deployment.

Procedure

Step 1

On the management center menu bar, click Deploy.

Step 2

For a quick deployment, check specific devices and then click Deploy, or click Deploy All to deploy to all devices. Otherwise, for additional deployment options, click Advanced Deploy.

The rest of this procedure applies to the Advanced Deploy screen.

Figure 1. Quick Deploy
Deploy
Figure 2. Advanced Deploy
Advanced Deploy

Step 3

Click Expand Arrow (expand arrow icon) to view device-specific configuration changes to be deployed.

Figure 3. Expand
Advanced Deploy

  • The Modified By column lists the users who have modified the policies or objects. On expanding the device listing, you can view the users who have modified the policies against each policy listing. For information about when the System user is shown (instead of the logged-in user), see System Username.

    Note

     

    Usernames are not provided for deleted policies and objects.

  • The Inspect Interruption column indicates if traffic inspection interruption may be caused in the device during deployment.

    When the status indicates (Yes) that deploying will interrupt inspection, and perhaps traffic, on the threat defense device, the expanded list indicates the specific configurations causing the interruption with the Inspect Interruption (inspect interruption icon).

    If the entry is blank in this column for a device, then it indicates that there will be no traffic inspection interruptions on that device during deployment.

    See Restart Warnings for Devices for information to help you identify configurations that interrupt traffic inspection and might interrupt traffic when deployed to the threat defense devices.

  • The Last Modified Time column specifies when you last made the configuration changes.

  • The Preview column allows you to preview the changes for the next deployment.

  • The Status column provides the status for each deployment. For more information, see View Deployment Status.

Step 4

In the Preview column, click Preview (preview icon) to see the configuration changes that you can deploy.

Figure 4. Preview
Preview

Note

 

If you change the management center name in System (system gear icon) > Configuration > Information, the deployment preview does not specify this change, yet it requires a deployment.

For unsupported features for Preview, see Deployment Preview.

The Comparison View tab lists all the policy and object changes. The left pane lists all the different policy types that have changed on the device, organized in a tree structure.

Figure 5. Comparison View
Comparison View

The Filter icon () lets you filter the policies at the user level and policy level.

The right pane lists all the additions, changes, or deletions in the policy, or the object selected in the left pane. The two columns on the right pane provide the last deployed configuration settings (in the Deployed Version column) versus the changes that are due for deployment (in the Version on Firewall Management Center column). The last-deployed configuration settings are derived from a snapshot of the last saved deployment in the management center and not from the device. The background colors of the settings are color-coded as per the legend available on the top-right of the page.

The Modified By column lists the users who have modified, or added the configuration settings. At the policy level, the management center displays all the users who have modified the policy, and at the rule level, the management center displays only the last user who has modified the rule.

You can download a copy of the change log by clicking the Download Report button.

The Advanced View tab shows the CLI commands that will be applied. This view is useful if you are familiar with ASA CLI, which is used on the back end of the threat defense.

Figure 6. Advanced View
Advanced View

Step 5

Use Show or Hide Policy (Show or Hide Policy icon) to selectively view or hide the associated unmodified policies.

Figure 7. Show or Hide Policy
Show or Hide Policy

Step 6

Check the box next to the device name to deploy all configuration changes, or click Policy selection (policy selection icon) to select individual policies or configurations to deploy while withholding the remaining changes without deploying them.

You can also view the interdependent changes for a certain policy or configuration using this option. The management center dynamically detects dependencies between policies (for example, between an access control policy and an intrusion policy), and between the shared objects and the policies. Interdependent changes are indicated using color-coded tags to identify a set of interdependent deployment changes. When one of the deployment changes is selected, the interdependent changes are automatically selected.

For more details, see Selective Policy Deployment.

Note

 

  • When the changes in shared objects are deployed, the impacted policies should also be deployed along with them. When you select a shared object during deployment, the impacted policies are automatically selected.

  • Selective deployment is not supported for scheduled deployments and deployments using REST APIs. You can only opt for complete deployment of all the changes in these cases.

  • The pre-deployment checks for warnings and errors are performed not only on the selected policies, but on all the policies that are out-of-date. Therefore, the warnings or errors list shows the deselected policies as well.

  • Similarly, the Inspect Interruption column indication on the Deployment page considers all out-of-date policies and not just the selected policies. For information on the Inspect Interruption column, see Restart Warnings for Devices.

Step 7

After you select the devices or policies to deploy, click Estimate to get a rough estimate of the deployment duration.

Figure 8. Estimate
Estimate
Figure 9. Deploy Time
Deploy Time

The time duration is a rough estimate (having around 70% accuracy), and the actual time taken for deployment may vary for a few scenarios. The estimate is dependable for deployments of up to 20 devices.

When an estimate is not available, it indicates that the data is not available, since the first successful deployment on the selected device is pending. This situation could occur after the management center reimage, version upgrade, or after a high availability failover.

Note

 

The estimate is incorrect and unreliable for bulk policy changes (in case of bulk policy migrations), and selective deployments because the estimate is based on the heuristic technique.

Step 8

Click Deploy.

Step 9

If the system identifies errors or warnings in the changes to be deployed, it displays them in the Validation Messages window. To view complete details, click the arrow icon before the warnings or errors.

You have the following choices:

  • Deploy—Continue deploying without resolving warning conditions. Check the Ignore warnings checkbox, to ignore warnings and deploy the changes. You cannot proceed if the system identifies errors.
  • Close—Exit without deploying. Resolve the error and warning conditions, and attempt to deploy the configuration again.

What to do next

  • (Optional) Monitor deployment status; see Viewing Deployment Messages in the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Administration Guide.

  • If the deployment fails, see Best Practices for Deploying Configuration Changes.

  • During deployment, if there are specific configuration changes in the deployment, the deployment failure may lead to traffic being interrupted. For example, in a cluster environment, an erroneous configuration of an IP address that is not in the same subnet as the Site IPs is configured on the interface. Due to this error, deployment fails and the device attempts to clear the configuration while the rollback operation is being processed. These events collectively lead to a deployment failure that interrupts the traffic.

    See the following table to know what configuration changes may cause traffic interruption when deployment fails.

    Configuration Changes

    Exists?

    Traffic Impacted?

    Threat Defense Service changes in an access control policy

    Yes

    Yes

    VRF

    Yes

    Yes

    Interface

    Yes

    Yes

    QoS

    Yes

    Yes

    Note

    The configuration changes interrupting traffic during deployment is valid only if both the management center and the threat defense are of version 6.2.3 or higher.

Redeploy Existing Configurations to a Device

You can force-deploy existing (unchanged) configurations to a single managed device. We strongly recommend you deploy in a maintenance window or at a time when any interruptions to traffic flow and inspection will have the least impact.


Caution
When you deploy, resource demands may result in a small number of packets dropping without inspection. Additionally, deploying some configurations restarts the Snort process, which interrupts traffic inspection. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort Restart Traffic Behavior and Configurations that Restart the Snort Process When Deployed or Activated.

Before you begin

Review the guidelines described in Best Practices for Deploying Configuration Changes.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Devices > Device Management.

Step 2

Click Edit (edit icon) next to the device where you want to force deployment.

Step 3

Click Device.

Step 4

Click Edit (edit icon) next to the General section heading.

Step 5

Click Force Deploy (force deploy icon).

Note

 

Force-deploy takes more time than the regular deployment because it involves the complete generation of the policy rules to be deployed on the threat defense.

Step 6

Click Deploy.

The system identifies any errors or warnings with the configurations you are deploying. You can click Proceed to continue without resolving warning conditions. However, you cannot proceed if the system identifies an error.

What to do next

Manage Deployments

View Deployment Status

On the Deployment page, the Status column provides the deployment status for each device. If a deployment is in progress, then the live status of the deployment progress is displayed, else one of the following statuses is displayed:

  • Pending—Indicates that there are changes in the device that are to be deployed.

  • Warnings or errors—Indicates that the pre-deployment checks have identified warnings or errors for the deployment, and you have not proceeded with the deployment. You can continue with the deployment if there are any warnings, but not if there are any errors.


    Note

    The status column provides the warning or error status only for a single user session on the deployment page. If you navigate away from the page or refresh the page, the status changes to pending.

  • Failed—Indicates that the previous deployment attempt failed. Click on the status to view the details.

  • In queue—Indicates that deployment is initiated, and the system is yet to start the deployment process.

  • Completed—Indicates that deployment has completed successfully.

View Deployment History

In the deployment history, the last 10 successful deployments, the last 5 failed deployments, and last 5 rollback deployments are captured.

Procedure

Step 1

On the management center menu bar, click Deploy and then click Deployment History (deployment history icon).

Figure 10. Deployment History Icon
Deployment History

A list of all the previous deployment and rollback jobs is displayed in reverse chronological order.

Figure 11. Deployment History Page
Deployment History

Step 2

Click Expand Arrow (expand arrow icon) next to the required deployment job to view the devices included in the job and their deployment statuses.

Figure 12. Expand
Expand

  • View notes in the Deployment Notes column.

    Deployment notes are custom notes that a user can add as part of the deployment, and these notes are optional.

Step 3

(Optional) Click Transcript Details (transcript details icon) to view the commands sent to the device, and the responses received.

Figure 13. Transcript Details Icon
Transcript Details Icon
Figure 14. Transcript Details
Transcript Details

The transcript includes the following sections:

  • Snort Apply—If there are any failures or responses from Snort-related policies, then the messages are displayed in this section. Normally, the section is empty.

  • CLI Apply—This section covers features that are configured using commands that are sent to the device.

    Note

     

    The transcript for the rollback operation does not provide the CLI commands information. To view the rollback commands, see View the Deployment Rollback Transcript.

  • Infrastructure Messages—This section shows the status of different deployment modules.

In the CLI Apply section, the deployment transcript includes commands that are sent to the device, and any responses returned from the device. These responses can be informative messages or error messages. For failed deployments, look for messages that indicate errors with the commands. Examining these errors can be particularly helpful if you are using FlexConfig policies to configure customized features. These errors can help you correct the script in the FlexConfig object that is trying to configure the commands.

Note

 
There is no distinction that is made in the transcript between commands that are sent for managed features and those generated from FlexConfig policies.

For example, the following sequence shows that management center sent commands to configure GigabitEthernet0/0 with the logical name outside. The device responded that it automatically set the security level to 0. Threat Defense does not use the security level for anything. 


========= CLI APPLY =========

FMC >> interface GigabitEthernet0/0
FMC >>  nameif outside
FTDv 192.168.0.152 >> [info] : INFO: Security level for "outside" set to 0 by default.

Step 4

(Optional) Click Preview (preview icon) to view the policy and object changes deployed on the device versus the previously deployed version.

Figure 15. Preview Icon
Preview Icon

  1. To compare any two versions and view the change log, choose the required versions in the drop-down boxes and click the Show button. The drop-down boxes show the deployment job name and the end time of the deployment.

    Figure 16. Compare Versions
    Compare Versions

    Note

     

    The drop-down boxes also show failed deployments.

  2. The Modified By column lists the users who have modified the policies or objects.

    1. At the policy level, management center displays all the user names who have modified the policy.

    2. At the rule level, management center displays the last user who has modified the rule.

  3. You can also download a copy of the change log by clicking Download Report.

Note

 

  • Deployment history preview is not supported for certificate enrollments, HA operations, and failed deployments.

  • When a device is registered, preview is not supported for the job history record that is created.

Step 5

(Optional) Against each deployment job, click the More (more icon) icon and execute other actions:

  • Bookmark—To bookmark the deployment job.

  • Edit Deployment Notes—To edit your custom deployment notes that you added for a deployment job.

  • Generate Report—To generate a deployment report, which can be used for auditing. This report includes job properties with preview and transcript information, and the report can be downloaded as a PDF file.

    1. Click Generate Report to generate a deployment report.

      Figure 17. Generate Report

    2. In the Generate Report popup window, check the Email checkbox.

    3. The report can also be sent through email if mail relay host is configured. If the mail relay host in not configured, use the Edit (edit icon) icon to configure or modify the mail relay host. For more information, see Configuring a Mail Relay Host and Notification Address in the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Administration Guide.

    4. In the Recipient List, you can enter multiple email adddresses, separated by semicolons.

    5. Click Generate to generate the report, and this report is emailed to the recipients.

    6. In the Notifications task tab, you can track the progress. After the report generation is complete, click the link in the notification task tab to download the PDF report.

Set the Number of Configuration Versions

The management center stores device configuration history files on the disk as configuration versions. You can specify the number of configuration versions that you want to retain for a device. This setting allows you to estimate the size of the device configuration files on the disk and keep it within the allowed limit. Reducing the number of configuration versions can reduce the backup size and improve the high-availability synchronization speed of the management center.

In a management center high-availability deployment, configuration version setting is available only on the active management center.

Before you begin

This feature is not supported in Version 7.4.0.

Procedure

Step 1

On the management center menu bar, choose Deploy > Deployment History (deployment history icon).

Step 2

Click Deployment Setting.

Step 3

Choose the number of configuration versions that you want to retain for a device from the Number of Versions to Retain drop-down list.

Note

 

Reducing the number of versions removes the oldest configuration versions to match the version size you have selected. You cannot roll back or preview the removed versions.

  • Maximum Permitted Disk Size: The maximum size for storing configuration versions is 20 GB. The management center calculates the size of configuration versions periodically and sends a health alert if the size of the configuration versions exceeds 20 GB. To resolve the health alert, choose a Number of Versions to Retain for which the estimated configuration version size is less than 20 GB.

  • Current Configuration Version Size: The size of the configuration files on the management center for the previous deployment.

  • Estimated Configuration Version Size: The approximate size of the configuration files on the management center. It is calculated based on the number of configuration versions you chose to retain.

Step 4

Click Save.

Roll Back a Deployment

You can roll back a device to a previously deployed configuration. After a policy deployment, if the traffic through the device is affected in an unintended way, rollback provides an option to revert the device to the earlier state, which existed before the faulty deployment.

Rollback is a disruptive operation: all the existing connections and routes are dropped, and the traffic is disrupted.

Identifying the Disruptive Configuration

When a deployment has gone awry and caused traffic interruption in an unintended way, you should identify the change in the deployment that caused the condition and fix it so your next deployment will be successful.

See the following ways to compare configurations.

Before a Rollback

  1. Choose Deploy > Deployment History, expand the last deployed job (that caused the traffic disruption), and click the preview icon (preview icon).

    The preview page provides an option to compare deployments, which can be useful to identify specific changes for a deployment compared to a previous deployment.

  2. After identifying the change causing the problem, rectify the configuration, and redeploy it on the device.

After a Rollback

  1. After a successful rollback operation, choose Deploy > Deployment, and click the Preview icon next to the rolled back device.

  2. View the changes between the rolled back configuration and the current changes in the management center that are pending deployment.

  3. After identifying the change causing the problem, rectify the configuration, and redeploy it on the device.

Rollback Guidelines and Limitations

  • You can roll back to any one of the last 10 versions before the currently deployed version. Rollback to versions prior to these are not supported. The rollback icon is greyed out for unsupported versions.

  • You have to perform a deployment before you can roll back again.

  • After you perform a rollback, the rolled back devices are marked as out-of-date on the management center. The changes you made to the configuration are still pending for the next deployment. To see the pending changes, choose Deploy > Deployment, and click the Preview icon next to the rolled back device.

  • For devices with very large access lists, if the Object Group Search setting is disabled, then the rollback operation may take a longer duration to complete. To verify the Object Group Search setting, choose Devices > Device Management, and then select the device and click Edit Advanced Settings.

  • For the Firepower 4100/9300, make sure your current chassis manager interface configuration is the same for any rollback versions. Otherwise, the rollback interface configuration may not match your actual interfaces.

  • Rollback is not supported if the manager access interface (Manager or data interface) is different between the rollback version and the current version.

  • Independent certificate enrollments are also listed as deployment jobs in the Deployment History page. However, you cannot roll back to these versions. A rollback from a deployment version created after certificate enrollments reverts the certificate associations as well. In the next deployment after a rollback, manually associate the certificates before proceeding with the deployment.

  • If you upgrade the management center, all rollback versions from the previous software release will no longer be available for devices, even if you did not upgrade the devices.

  • If you upgrade the device, you can only roll back to versions on the current software release.

  • If a deployment for a device with a FlexConfig object configured with a deployment frequency set to Once is rolled back, then you will not be able to redeploy the object even though it is displayed as out-of-date on the Preview page. After a rollback, you will have to manually unassign and then reassign the FlexConfig object to the device before the next deployment.

  • For High Availability, rollback is not supported in the following scenarios:

    • When the version you want to roll back to contains the high-availability bootstrap configuration. In other words, the deployment when you first formed high availability for the standalone devices.

    • When a device that is currently in standalone mode was part of a high availability pair in the previous deployment version.

  • For clustering, see the following guidelines:

    • Rollback is not supported when a device that is currently in standalone mode was part of a cluster in the previous deployment version.

    • (Secure Firewall 3100/4200 and threat defense virtual in a private cloud) If you change the clustering bootstrap configuration or add or delete nodes, you cannot roll back to a version prior to those changes.

Configurations Not Reverted After a Rollback

Rollback reverts all the configurations on the device except a few. See the table below for details.

Configurations that are reverted during a rollback

Configurations that are not reverted during a rollback

  • All policy configurations

  • Interface configurations

  • SRU configurations

  • VDB configurations

  • LSP configurations

  • VPN configurations

  • FXOS configurations

  • Snort binaries

    Note

     

    Rollback from Snort 3 to Snort 2 version policies and vice versa are supported.

  • Geo DB

Perform a Rollback

You can roll back a device to a previously deployed configuration. After a policy deployment, if the traffic through the device is affected in an unintended way, rollback provides an option to revert the device to the earlier state, which existed before the faulty deployment.

Rollback reverts the configuration only on the selected devices.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Deploy >Deployment History (deployment history icon).

A list of all the previous deployment jobs is displayed in reverse chronological order.

Step 2

Click Rollback.

Step 3

Filter the list of devices displayed by either clicking Job and choosing a job from the Selected Job drop-down list, or by clicking Device List.

Step 4

(Optional) Enter the device name in the Search Device search box to filter the device list.

Step 5

Check the box next to the devices you want to roll back and choose the version for each device from the Rollback Version drop-down list.

Figure 18. Selected Job List
Selected Job List
Figure 19. Device List
Device List

The job names and associated deployment notes are also listed for a particular rollback version.

Step 6

(Optional) Click the preview icon (preview icon) to view the changes deployed in the selected version.

Step 7

Click Rollback.

What to do next

To know the status of the rollback, choose Deploy > Deployment. You can view the rollback status next to the device name.

View the Deployment Rollback Transcript

Rollback transcript is a written version of the commands that are sent to the device, along with the responses returned from the device. If a rollback operation has failed, the transcript in the Deploy > Deployment History page provides the reason for the failure. However, to know the CLI commands executed for a successful rollback operation, follow the steps given below after a rollback operation has completed. Note that this information is available only until the next deployment.


Note

The CLI command information is available after a rollback is complete and is available only until the next deployment. The first deployment after a rollback operation erases all the rollback-related information.


Note

For any rollback deployment, the Deployment Notes are updated automatically as Rollback Job. In the Deployment History page, the user can filter the Rollback Jobs easily using the Search option.

Procedure

Step 1

On the Secure Firewall Management Center menu bar, choose System > Health > Monitor.

Step 2

Select the device, which was rolled back, from the left pane.

Step 3

Click View System & Troubleshooting Details link.

Step 4

Click Advanced Troubleshooting.

Step 5

Click Threat Defense CLI.

Step 6

Select show from the Command drop-down box.

Step 7

Enter running in the Parameter field.

Step 8

Click Execute.

Download Policy Changes Report for Multiple Devices

Download reports on the policy and object changes made since your last deployment for multiple threat defense devices. You can download the reports in the form of a zip file that contains the following reports:

  • A pending changes report for each device, that previews the additions, updates, or deletions in the policy, or the objects that are to be deployed on the device. For more information, see Deploy Configuration Changes and Deployment Preview.

  • A consolidated report that categorizes each device based on the report status.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Deploy > Advanced Deploy.

Step 2

Check the check box next to the devices for which you want to generate a pending policy changes report, and then click Pending Changes Reports.

Step 3

Click Pending Changes Reports. Reports are generated in the background.

Step 4

On the management center menu bar, choose Notifications > Tasks to view the report generation task.

When the report request task is complete, the download link appears within the task notification.

Step 5

Click the Download Report(s) link to download the reports.

Compare Policies

To review policy changes for compliance with your organization's standards or to optimize system performance, you can examine the differences between two policies or between a saved policy and the running configuration.

You can compare the following policy types:

  • DNS

  • File

  • Health

  • Identity

  • Intrusion (Only Snort 2 policies)

  • Network Analysis

  • SSL

The comparison view displays both policies in a side-by-side format. Differences between the two policies are highlighted:

  • Blue indicates that the highlighted setting is different in the two policies, and the difference is noted in red text.

  • Green indicates that the highlighted setting appears in one policy but not the other.

Before you begin

You can compare policies only if you have access rights and any required licenses for the specific policy, and you are in the correct domain for configuring the policy.

Procedure

Step 1

Access the management page for the policy you want to compare:

  • DNS—Policies > Access Control > DNS
  • File—Policies > Access Control > Malware & File
  • Health—System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy
  • Identity—Policies > Access Control > Identity
  • Intrusion—Policies > Access Control > Intrusion

    Note

     

    You can compare only Snort 2 policies.
  • Network Analysis—Policies > Access Control, then click Network Analysis Policy or Policies > Access Control > Intrusion, then click Network Analysis Policies

    Note

     

    If your custom user role limits access to the first path listed here, use the second path to access the policy.

  • SSL—Policies > Access Control > Decryption

Step 2

Click Compare Policies.

Step 3

From the Compare Against drop-down list, choose the type of comparison you want to make:

  • To compare two different policies, choose Other Policy.
  • To compare two revisions of the same policy, choose Other Revision.
  • To compare another policy to the currently active policy, choose Running Configuration.

Step 4

Depending on the comparison type you choose, you have the following choices:

  • If you are comparing two different policies, choose the policies you want to compare from the Policy A and Policy B drop-down lists.
  • If you are comparing the running configuration to another policy, choose the second policy from the Policy B drop-down list.

Step 5

Click OK.

Step 6

Review the comparison results:

  • Comparison Viewer—To use the comparison viewer to navigate individually through policy differences, click Previous or Next above the title bar.

  • Comparison Report—To generate a PDF report that lists the differences between the two policies, click Comparison Report.

Generate Current Policy Reports

For most policies, you can generate two kinds of reports. A report on a single policy provides details on the policy's current saved configuration, while a comparison report lists only the differences between two policies. You can generate a single-policy report for all policy types except health.


Note

Intrusion policy reports combine the settings in the base policy with the settings of the policy layers, and make no distinction between which settings originated in the base policy or policy layer.

Before you begin

You can generate policy reports only if you have access rights and any required licenses for the specific policy, and you are in the correct domain for configuring the policy.

Procedure

Step 1

Access the management page for the policy for which you want to generate a report:

  • Access Control—Policies > Access Control
  • DNS—Policies > Access Control > DNS
  • File—Policies > Access Control > Malware & File
  • Health—System (system gear icon) > Health > Policy
  • Identity—Policies > Access Control > Identity
  • Intrusion—Policies > Access Control > Intrusion
  • NAT—Devices > NAT
  • Network Analysis—Policies > Access Control, then click Network Analysis Policy or Policies > Access Control > Intrusion, then click Network Analysis Policies

    Note

     

    If your custom user role limits access to the first path listed here, use the second path to access the policy.

  • SSL—Policies > Access Control > Decryption

Step 2

Click Report (Report icon) next to the policy for which you want to generate a report.

History for Configuration Deployment

Feature

Minimum Management Center

Minimum Threat Defense

Details

Set the number of deployment history files to retain for device rollback.

Any

 Any

You can now set the number of deployment history files to retain for device rollback, up to ten (the default). This can help you save disk space on the management center.

New/modified screens: Deploy > Deployment History (deployment history icon) > Deployment Setting > Configuration Version Setting

Other version restrictions: Not supported with management center Version 7.3.x or 7.4.0.

View and generate reports on configuration changes since your last deployment.

Any

Any

You can generate, view, and download (as a zip file) the following reports on configuration changes since your last deployment:

  • A policy changes report for each device that previews the additions, changes, or deletions in the policy, or the objects that are to be deployed on the device.

  • A consolidated report that categorizes each device based on the status of policy changes report generation.

This is especially useful after you upgrade either the management center or threat defense devices, so that you can see the changes made by the upgrade before you deploy.

New/modified screens: Deploy > Advanced Deploy.

Other version restrictions: Not supported with management center Version 7.3.x or 7.4.0.

Generate and email a report when you deploy configuration changes.

7.2

Any

You can now generate a report for any deployment.

New/modified screens: Deploy > Deployment History (deployment history icon) icon > More (more icon)Generate Report

Deployment preview and user information in preview.

7.0

Any

The Deployment page has the following newly added features:

  • On the Deployment page, the Modified By column lists the users who have modified the policies against each policy listing.

  • Filter support for deployment – The Filter icon provided on the Deployment page provides an option to filter the device listings that are pending deployment. The Filter icon provides options to filter the listings based on selected devices and user names.

  • Deployment History Preview – Click Preview to view the policy and object changes deployed on the device versus the previously deployed version. In the deployment history, the last 10 successful deployments, the last five failed deployments, and last five rollback deployments are captured.

  • Deployment Notes – The Deployment Notes are custom and optional notes that a user can add as part of deployment. You can view the Deployment Notes column in the Deployment History page.

  • Deployment rollback is available for Snort 3 policies as well.

Roll back deployment on threat defense devices.

6.7

6.7

Rollback is a deployment functionality provided to remove the existing deployment on threat defense devices and to reconfigure the device with the previously deployed configuration.

New/modified pages: The Deploy > Deployment History page provides a new Rollback column with the rollback icons. Similar rollback icons can also be found when the jobs are expanded, to initiate rollback at the device level.

New deployment web interface.

6.6

Any

The Deploy button on the management center menu bar is changed to Deploy menu. There are two new sub-menu options under it. These are Deployment and Deployment History. The Deployment page has undergone an improvement along with newly added features, and the new Deployment History page provides a legend of all the previous deployments.

The Deployment page has the following newly added features:

  • Deployment status - On the Deployment page, the Status column provides the deployment status for each device.

  • Deployment estimate - The Estimate link is available on the Deployment page after you select a device, a policy, or a configuration. The Estimate link provides an estimate of the deployment duration once clicked.

  • Deployment preview - Preview provides a snapshot of all the policy and object changes to be deployed on the device. The policy changes include the new policies, changes in the existing policies, and the deleted policies. The object changes include the added and modified objects which are used in policies.

  • Selective policy deployment - management center allows you to select a specific policy within the list of all the changes on the device that are due for deployment and deploy only the selected policy.