NGFW-Engineer Paloalto Networks Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall Engineer Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

In a Layer 2 configuration, interfaces are typically grouped into the same Layer 2 zone. When the interfaces are assigned to the same VLAN, the firewall will treat them as part of the same broadcast domain.

In a Layer 2 setup, interfaces must be in the same Layer 2 zone to allow the traffic within the same VLAN to pass. Additionally, a security policy must be configured to allow traffic within this VLAN or zone. This will resolve the issue by ensuring that traffic is permitted between clients behind different interfaces assigned to the same VLAN.

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) use SSL/TLS profiles to secure connections for services such as GlobalProtect Gateways and GlobalProtect Portals. These profiles are used to manage the SSL/TLS encryption and decryption for secure communication between the firewall and clients (such as VPN clients for GlobalProtect). This helps ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the data during transmission.

When integrating Kubernetes with Palo Alto Networks NGFWs, the CN-Series firewalls are specifically designed to secure traffic between microservices in containerized environments. These firewalls provide advanced security features like Application Identification (App-ID), URL filtering, and Threat Prevention to secure communication between containers and microservices within a Kubernetes environment.

Assigning an Admin Role Profile to a user in a Palo Alto Networks NGFW is used to define granular permissions for management tasks. This allows administrators to control what actions a user can perform on the firewall, such as configuration changes, monitoring, and logging. By assigning different admin roles, you can ensure that users have access only to the areas and tasks they need, enforcing the principle of least privilege.

When configuring a new security zone on a Palo Alto Networks firewall, the two valid zone types are:

Tunnel: A Tunnel zone is used for traffic that is associated with a VPN tunnel, such as IPSec tunnels. Traffic passing through a tunnel interface is classified into this zone.

Virtual Wire: A Virtual Wire zone is used when a firewall operates in transparent mode (also known as Layer 2 mode). In this configuration, the firewall can inspect traffic without modifying the IP address structure of the network.

Before a firewall administrator can define policy rules based on users and groups, the Group Mapping settings must be configured. These settings enable the firewall to map users to their respective Active Directory (AD) groups. This mapping allows the firewall to use user and group information to create policy rules based on group membership.

When split tunneling is enabled with the "Both Network Traffic and DNS" option in the GlobalProtect portal configuration, it allows the firewall to control which traffic is sent over the VPN tunnel and which is not. Specifically, it determines which domains are resolved by the VPN-assigned DNS servers (for domains requiring VPN access) and which are resolved by local DNS servers (for domains that can be accessed without the VPN tunnel).

Use of dynamic routing protocols: An IP address is needed on the tunnel interface to participate in dynamic routing protocols (like OSPF, BGP, etc.) over the tunnel. This allows the firewall to advertise routes and receive updates over the tunnel.

Tunnel monitoring: The IP address on the tunnel interface can also be used for monitoring the tunnel's status. Tunnel monitoring (such as IPSec tunnel monitoring) requires an IP address on the tunnel interface to check the health and availability of the tunnel.

Terraform is an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tool that automates the provisioning and management of infrastructure resources, including Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs). By using Terraform configuration files, administrators can define and deploy NGFW instances across cloud environments (such as AWS, Azure, and GCP) efficiently and consistently.

Terraform enables:

Automated firewall deployment in cloud environments.

Configuration of security policies and networking settings in a declarative manner.

Scalability and repeatability, reducing manual intervention in firewall provisioning.

The phases of the Palo Alto Networks AI Runtime Security: Network Intercept solution are designed to help identify and protect against potential threats in real time by using AI to detect and prevent malicious activities within the network.

Discovery: Identifying applications, services, and behaviors within the network to understand baseline activity.

Deployment: Implementing the solution into the network and integrating with existing security measures.

Detection: Monitoring traffic and activities to identify abnormal or malicious behavior.

Prevention: Taking action to stop threats once detected, such as blocking malicious traffic or stopping exploit attempts.

The maximum number of Log Collectors that can be added to a Log Collector Group is 18 plus 2 hot spares, ensuring redundancy and availability in case of failure. This allows for a total of up to 20 Log Collectors in a group, providing sufficient scalability and reliability for log collection.

The Transient zone type is used to allow traffic between zones in different virtual systems (VSYS) on a Palo Alto Networks firewall without the traffic leaving the firewall. It provides a way for virtual systems to communicate with each other by acting as a temporary or intermediary zone. Traffic can pass through the firewall between the virtual systems without requiring physical interfaces or leaving the device.

By default, the Autonomous Digital Experience Manager (ADEM) traffic is configured to use the management interface in a Palo Alto Networks firewall. The management interface is typically used for management-related traffic, such as monitoring and logging, and it is configured to handle ADEM-related traffic for the optimal performance of digital experience monitoring features.

This default configuration helps ensure that ADEM traffic does not interfere with regular traffic that may traverse other interfaces, such as traffic from security zones or IPSec tunnels.

When configuring a new firewall virtual system (VSYS) on a Palo Alto Networks firewall, one of the resources that can be assigned is the sessions limit. This setting allows the administrator to control the number of active sessions that can be handled by the VSYS, ensuring that each virtual system has an appropriate allocation of resources based on its needs.