When the application is shown as ‘incomplete’ in the traffic log, it typically means the firewall could not fully identify the application, often because the SSL handshake failed. This prevents App-ID from classifying the traffic and subsequent threat inspection. The first step should be to check the SSL decryption policy and the validity of the server’s certificate, as this is a common root cause for such symptoms.

Layer 3 interfaces are required to leverage the full capabilities of the PA-7000 series’ separate data planes (e.g., the FPCs for L2/L3/L4 processing and the MPCs for content/security processing). Virtual Wire and Tap modes do not utilize the specialized hardware for advanced security processing in the same integrated way. The management interface is solely for out-of-band management.

For User-ID to work correctly, the firewall must be configured to accept mappings from the User-ID agent (or other sources) for the specific subnets where users reside. If a user moves to a new subnet not listed in the agent’s configuration or blocked by source IP filters on the firewall, their new IP address won’t be mapped, leading to stale entries. Checking these subnet-specific configurations is the primary troubleshooting step.

Tunnel Monitoring (also known as Dead Peer Detection) allows the GlobalProtect client and gateway to detect when the VPN tunnel has failed. When configured, it can trigger an automatic reconnect attempt without user intervention, which is essential for maintaining seamless connectivity on unreliable networks like cellular connections.

A ‘data filtering’ log subtype indicates that a Data Filtering profile (part of the file blocking and data filtering features) was invoked. The action ‘alert’ means the profile was configured to match on specific data patterns (like credit card numbers or custom regex) and to only log the event, not drop the session. This is a common configuration for monitoring and compliance before implementing an active blocking policy.

The standard recommended procedure is to upgrade the passive firewall first. After it reboots and rejoins the HA pair, you manually initiate a failover (making the upgraded unit active). Then, upgrade the original active firewall (now passive). This method ensures one firewall is always operational, maintains state synchronization after the first reboot, and minimizes service interruption to a single, brief failover event.

Using ‘application-default’ as the service tells the firewall to use the standard ports defined by the application’s App-ID signature. Defining the rule by the App-ID itself (e.g., ‘salesforce’, ‘office365’) is the most effective method because it allows the firewall to identify the traffic dynamically, regardless of the underlying TCP/UDP port. This future-proofs the policy against vendor changes and ensures all related sub-applications are covered.

Enabling threat prevention (or other content inspection features like Antivirus, URL Filtering) changes the firewall’s processing from simple header inspection (L3/L4) to deep packet inspection. This requires the firewall to buffer packet streams, reassemble them, and scan content, which inherently consumes more system resources (session memory, CPU) per connection than a policy allowing traffic without security profiles.

The security policy rule action determines whether the session is permitted (‘allow’) or denied (‘deny’) at the network layer. If ‘allowed’, the traffic is then passed to the security profiles (Virus, Spyware, Vulnerability, URL Filtering, etc.) attached to that rule. These profiles perform deep inspection and can take actions (e.g., ‘block’, ‘alert’, ‘continue’) on specific content or threats within the otherwise permitted session flow.

When the application is shown as ‘incomplete’ in the traffic log, it typically means the firewall could not fully identify the application, often because the SSL handshake failed. This prevents App-ID from classifying the traffic and subsequent threat inspection. The first step should be to check the SSL decryption policy and the validity of the server’s certificate, as this is a common root cause for such symptoms.0