ABOUT NETWORKING

PACKET FLOW IN THE FIREWALL: There are some common patterns that the Firewall vendors follow and this whitepaper helps to understand how the packet flow in the firewall. The Firewall Maintains the two paths, one is SLOW Path and the Other is Fast Path. Once the Firewall unit external interface receives a packet it first checks is the packet relate to the existing session, if the packet belongs to the existing session then it enters into the fast path or else it first sends the packet to the slow path to identify some parameters and to allocate the new session from the free pool. Below are the Steps the Firewall will follow to allocate the new session in the SLOW Path and to Enter into the Fast Path: Once the Firewall unit external interface receives a packet, the packet proceeds through a number of steps on its way to the internal interface, traversing each of the inspection types, depending on the security policy and security profile configuration. The diagram below i...