Analyzing session flows
We’ve all been there; you’ve reviewed the logs, collected packet captures, and looked at the global counters, but you still can’t find out what exactly is happening with a session. The last resort is to look at a session one packet at a time as it goes through the firewall and see what is happening to each packet at every stage and process.
Inspecting the flow is a very labor-intensive task for the data plane processor to do because it now needs to write a log for each stage or process a packet goes through, for each and every packet in a flow, for all sessions that match the filter. It is paramount that a very strict filter is set, which will help prevent clutter, as well as ensure that the data plane is not unnecessarily deprived of resources.
Use the following command while collecting the information to keep an eye on the data plane, and make sure you’re not creating more issues by overloading it:
reaper@PA-VM>...
