BIG-IQ^® Network Security is a platform designed for the central management of security firewalls for multiple BIG-IP^® systems, where firewall administrators have installed and provisioned the Advanced Firewall Manager™ (AFM™) module.

The BIG-IQ Network Security system provides:

• Device discovery with import of firewalls referenced by discovered devices
• Management of shared objects (address lists, port lists, rule lists, policies, and schedules)
• L3/L4 firewall policy support, including staged and enforced policies
• Firewall audit log used to record every firewall policy change and event
• Role-based access control
• Deployment of configurations from snapshots, and the ability to preview differences between snapshots
• Multi-user editing through a locking mechanism
• Monitoring of rules
• Reports on security

Managing a firewall configuration includes discovering, importing, editing, and deploying changes to the firewall configuration, as well as consolidation of shared firewall objects (policies, rule lists, rules, address lists, port lists, and schedules). BIG-IQ Network Security provides a centralized management platform so you can perform all these tasks from a single location. Rather than log in to each device to manage the security policy locally, it is more expedient to use one interface to manage many devices. Not only does this simplify logistics, but you can maintain a common set of firewall configuration objects and deploy a common set of policies, rule lists, and other shared objects to multiple, similar devices from a central interface.

Bringing a device under central management means that its configuration is stored in the BIG-IQ Network Security database, which is the authoritative source for all firewall configuration entities. This database is also known as the working configuration or working-configuration set.

Once a device is under central management, do not make changes locally (on the BIG-IP device) unless there is an exceptional need. If changes are made locally for any reason, reimport the device to reconcile those changes with the BIG-IQ Network Security working configuration set. Unless local changes are reconciled, the deployment process overwrites any local changes.

In addition, BIG-IQ Network Security is aware of functionality that exists in one BIG-IP system version but not in another. This means, for example, that it prohibits using policies on BIG-IP devices that do not have the software version required to support them.

BIG-IQ^® Security contains several groups of capabilities. The Shared Security group contains objects that can be used with Network Security objects and with Web Application Security objects.

BIG-IQ^® Web Application Security enables enterprise-wide management and configuration of multiple BIG-IP^® devices from a central management platform. You can centrally manage BIG-IP devices and security policies, and import policies from files on those devices.

For each device that it discovers, the BIG-IQ system creates a logical container to hold all security policies that are not related to any virtual server on the device. This logical container is called the inactive virtual server, and is only used to track policies that are not directly attached to other virtual servers on that device. Policies attached to the inactive virtual server that are distributed are not enforced.

In order for you to deploy a policy to a BIG-IP device, the policy must be attached to one of the device's virtual servers, or to the inactive virtual server. You can deploy policies to a device that already has the policy by overwriting it. If the policy does not yet exist on the device, you can either deploy it as a new policy attached to an available virtual server, or deploy it as a policy attached to the inactive virtual server (which will deploy the policy to the BIG-IP device without attaching it to a virtual server).

From this central management platform, you can perform the following actions:

• Import Application Security Manager™ (ASM) policies from files.
• Import ASM™ policies from discovered devices.
• Distribute policies to BIG-IP devices.
• Export policies, including an option to export policy files in XML format.
• Manage configuration snapshots.
• Edit policy settings. Refer to the table in About security policies in BIG-IQ Web Application Security for the supported settings.
• Manage and distribute custom signature sets.
• Manage and distribute custom signatures.
• Distribute signature files to BIG-IP devices.

The BIG-IQ^® Security system interface provides many features to assist you in completing tasks.

Within the BIG-IQ^® Security system, one or more users may edit firewall security or web application security objects simultaneously. A locking mechanism is used to avoid problems with conflicting changes to objects.

Initially, the user interface displays all objects as read-only. When a user initiates an editing session, the object is locked. Once locked, no one can modify or delete that object except the holder of the lock, or a user with privileges sufficient to break the lock:

• To unlock a locked firewall security object requires the Administrator, Network_Security_Manager, or Security_Manager role.
• To unlock a locked Web application security object requires the Administrator, Web_App_Security_Manager, or Security_Manager role.
• To unlock a locked shared security object, requires the Administrator, Network_Security_Manager, Web_App_Security_Manager, or Security_Manager role.

BIG-IQ Security uses a single repository to hold policy objects and saves each editorial change. With this single-copy design, multiple editors can share the editing task through a locking mechanism.

Each editor has her own copy of a policy (a point-in-time snapshot of the policy managed by BIG-IQ across all devices) and can make changes. When done, an editor can push the changes to the preferred state as one, complete set of changes. Then, an administrator can review a policy change as a single entity before committing it.

For example:

1. If a firewall editor needs to edit Portlist_1, AddressList_2, and Rulelist_5, the editor locks those objects.
2. When the edit pass is complete, the editor saves the object, which clears the lock.

If an editor wants to edit an object that is already locked, the system informs the editor that the object is locked and provides a way to clear the lock if the editor has sufficient privileges. When the lock is cleared, the next firewall editor receives the latest version of the object and any referenced shared objects. Thus, merges and conflicts are avoided. Deleting an object automatically clears all locks associated with it.

BIG-IQ Security supports:

• Multiple, independent locks.
• Locking or unlocking on an object-by-object basis.
• Locks in screens, in the firewall security Policy Editor, and in the Web application security Policy Editor.
• Lock management of firewall security objects using the Locked Objects screen of the firewall security Policy Editor. This screen displays firewall and shared security objects that are locked, the user who locked each object, and when the lock was created. User privileges (assigned by user roles) determine what locks are visible to the user. If you have sufficient privileges, you can use the Locked Objects screen to view and remove multiple firewall and shared security object locks.

As a security system manager, you need to differentiate between types of users, and to limit user privileges based on user responsibilities. To assist you, the BIG-IQ^® system provides a default set of roles. You can associate multiple roles with a given user; for example, you can grant a user the edit (Network_Security_Edit) and the deploy (Network_Security_Deploy) roles for network security functions. Roles persist and are available after a BIG-IQ system failover.

To view the defined roles, both default and locally-defined, log in to BIG-IQ System as administrator, and navigate to the Roles screen.

Select System Management from the BIG-IQ menu and then click USER MANAGEMENT > Roles .

The Roles screen lists each defined role and a description of that role. Refer to the Roles online help or to the BIG-IQ^® Centralized Management: Licensing and Initial Setup guide for more information on roles and their use.

BIG-IQ^® system security uses the following terminology to refer to configuration sets for a centrally-managed BIG-IP^® device:

Current configuration set

The configuration of the BIG-IP^® device as discovered by BIG-IQ. The current configuration is updated during a reimport or rediscovery and before calculating differences during the deployment process.

Working configuration set

The configuration as maintained by the BIG-IQ system. The working configuration is the configuration that is edited on the BIG-IQ system and deployed back to BIG-IP devices. The working configuration for the device is the same as the current configuration when the device is initially managed and when the device is reimported or rediscovered.

The working configuration is created when the administrator first manages the BIG-IP device from the BIG-IQ system. The working configuration is updated when a device is reimported or rediscovered.

If conflicts are observed during reimport or rediscovery, the object in conflict is only updated in the working configuration when the Use BIG-IP resolution conflict option is used.