Platform Features

New default configuration for the ASA 5506-X series using Integrated Routing and Bridging

A new default configuration will be used for the ASA 5506-X series. The Integrated Bridging and Routing feature provides an alternative to using an external Layer 2 switch. For users replacing the ASA 5505, which includes a hardware switch, this feature lets you replace the ASA 5505 with an ASA 5506-X or other ASA model without using additional hardware.

The new default configuration includes:

• outside interface on GigabitEthernet 1/1, IP address from DHCP

• inside bridge group BVI 1 with GigabitEthernet ½ (inside1) through 1/8 (inside7), IP address 192.168.1.1

• inside --> outside traffic flow

• inside ---> inside traffic flow for member interfaces

• (ASA 5506W-X) wifi interface on GigabitEthernet 1/9, IP address 192.168.10.1

• (ASA 5506W-X) wifi <--> inside, wifi --> outside traffic flow

• DHCP for clients on inside and wifi. The access point itself and all its clients use the ASA as the DHCP server.

• Management 1/1 interface is Up, but otherwise unconfigured. The ASA FirePOWER module can then use this interface to access the ASA inside network and use the inside interface as the gateway to the Internet.

• ASDM access—inside and wifi hosts allowed.

• NAT—Interface PAT for all traffic from inside, wifi, and management to outside.

If you are upgrading, you can either erase your configuration and apply the default using the configure factory-default command, or you can manually configure a BVI and bridge group members to suit your needs. Note that to easily allow intra-bridge group communication, you need to enable the same-security-traffic permit inter-interface command (this command is already present for the ASA 5506W-X default configuration).

Alarm ports support on the ISA 3000

The ISA 3000 supports two alarm input interfaces and one alarm out interface. External sensors such as door sensors can be connected to the alarm inputs. External devices like buzzers can be connected to the alarm out interface. Alarms triggered are conveyed through two LEDs, syslogs, SNMP traps, and through devices connected to the alarm out interface.You can configure descriptions of external alarms. You can also specify the severity and trigger, for external and internal alarms. All alarms can be configured for relay, monitoring and logging.

We introduced the following commands: alarm contact description, alarm contact severity, alarm contact trigger, alarm facility input-alarm, alarm facility power-supply rps, alarm facility temperature, alarm facility temperature high, alarm facility temperature low, clear configure alarm, clear facility-alarm output, show alarm settings, show environment alarm-contact.

Microsoft Azure Security Center support on the ASAv10

Microsoft Azure is a public cloud environment that uses a private Microsoft Hyper V Hypervisor. Microsoft Azure Security Center is a Microsoft orchestration and management layer on top of Azure that simplifies the deployment of a highly secure public cloud infrastructure. Integration of the ASAv into Azure Security Center allows the ASAv to be offered as a firewall option to protect Azure environments.

Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for the ISA 3000

The ISA 3000 supports PTP, a time synchronization protocol for nodes distributed across a network. It provides greater accuracy than other time synchronization protocols, such as NTP, due to its hardware timestamp feature. The ISA 3000 supports PTP forward mode, as well as the one-step, end-to-end transparent clock. We added the following commands to the default configuration to ensure that PTP traffic is not sent to the ASA FirePOWER module for inspection. If you have an existing deployment, you need to manually add these commands:

object-group service bypass_sfr_inspect
  service-object udp destination range 319 320
access-list sfrAccessList extended deny object-group bypass_sfr_inspect any any

We introduced the following commands: debug ptp, ptp domain, ptp mode e2etransparent, ptp enable, show ptp clock, show ptp internal-info, show ptp port

Automatic Backup and Restore for the ISA 3000

You can enable auto-backup and/or auto-restore functionality using pre-set parameters in the backup and restore commands. The use cases for these features include initial configuration from external media; device replacement; roll back to an operable state.

We introduced the following commands: backup-package location, backup-package auto, show backup-package status, show backup-package summary

Firewall Features

Support for SCTP multi-streaming reordering and reassembly and fragmentation. Support for SCTP multi-homing, where the SCTP endpoints have more than one IP address.

The system now fully supports SCTP multi-streaming reordering, reassembly, and fragmentation, which improves Diameter and M3UA inspection effectiveness for SCTP traffic. The system also supports SCTP multi-homing, where the endpoints have more than one IP address each. For multi-homing, the system opens pinholes for the secondary addresses so that you do not need to write access rules to allow them. SCTP endpoints must be limited to 3 IP addresses each.

We modified the output of the following command: show sctp detail .

M3UA inspection improvements.

M3UA inspection now supports stateful failover, semi-distributed clustering, and multihoming. You can also configure strict application server process (ASP) state validation and validation for various messages. Strict ASP state validation is required for stateful failover and clustering.

We added or modified the following commands: clear service-policy inspect m3ua session [assocID id] , match port sctp , message-tag-validation , show service-policy inspect m3ua drop , show service-policy inspect m3ua endpoint , show service-policy inspect m3ua session , show service-policy inspect m3ua table , strict-asp-state , timeout session .

Support for TLSv1.2 in TLS proxy and Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.5.2.

You can now use TLSv1.2 with TLS proxy for encrypted SIP or SCCP inspection with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.5.2. The TLS proxy supports the additional TLSv1.2 cipher suites added as part of the client cipher-suite command.

We modified the following commands: client cipher-suite

Integrated Routing and Bridging

Integrated Routing and Bridging provides the ability to route between a bridge group and a routed interface. A bridge group is a group of interfaces that the ASA bridges instead of routes. The ASA is not a true bridge in that the ASA continues to act as a firewall: access control between interfaces is controlled, and all of the usual firewall checks are in place. Previously, you could only configure bridge groups in transparent firewall mode, where you cannot route between bridge groups. This feature lets you configure bridge groups in routed firewall mode, and to route between bridge groups and between a bridge group and a routed interface. The bridge group participates in routing by using a Bridge Virtual Interface (BVI) to act as a gateway for the bridge group. Integrated Routing and Bridging provides an alternative to using an external Layer 2 switch if you have extra interfaces on the ASA to assign to the bridge group. In routed mode, the BVI can be a named interface and can participate separately from member interfaces in some features, such as access rules and DHCP server.

The following features that are supported in transparent mode are not supported in routed mode: multiple context mode, ASA clustering. The following features are also not supported on BVIs: dynamic routing and multicast routing.

We modified the following commands: access-group, access-list ethertype, arp-inspection, dhcpd, mac-address-table static, mac-address-table aging-time, mac-learn, route, show arp-inspection, show bridge-group, show mac-address-table, show mac-learn

VM Attributes

You can define network objects to filter traffic according to attributes associated with one or more Virtual Machines (VMs) in an VMware ESXi environment managed by VMware vCenter. You can define access control lists (ACLs) to assign policies to traffic from groups of VMs sharing one or more attributes.

We added the following command: show attribute .

Stale route timeout for interior gateway protocols

You can now configure the timeout for removing stale routes for interior gateway protocols such as OSPF.

We added the following command: timeout igp stale-route .

Network object limitations for object group search.

You can reduce the memory required to search access rules by enabling object group search with the the object-group-search access-control command. When enabled, object group search does not expand network or service objects, but instead searches access rules for matches based on those group definitions.

Starting with this release, the following limitation is applied: For each connection, both the source and destination IP addresses are matched against network objects. If the number of objects matched by the source address times the number matched by the destination address exceeds 10,000, the connection is dropped.

This check is to prevent performance degradation. Configure your rules to prevent an excessive number of matches.

Routing Features

31-bit Subnet Mask

For routed interfaces, you can configure an IP address on a 31-bit subnet for point-to-point connections. The 31-bit subnet includes only 2 addresses; normally, the first and last address in the subnet is reserved for the network and broadcast, so a 2-address subnet is not usable. However, if you have a point-to-point connection and do not need network or broadcast addresses, a 31-bit subnet is a useful way to preserve addresses in IPv4. For example, the failover link between 2 ASAs only requires 2 addresses; any packet that is transmitted by one end of the link is always received by the other, and broadcasting is unnecessary. You can also have a directly-connected management station running SNMP or Syslog. This feature is not supported for BVIs for bridge groups or with multicast routing.

We modified the following commands: ip address, http, logging host, snmp-server host, ssh

High Availability and Scalability Features

Inter-site clustering improvement for the ASA on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

You can now configure the site ID for each Firepower 4100/9300 chassis when you deploy the ASA cluster. Previously, you had to configure the site ID within the ASA application; this new feature eases initial deployment. Note that you can no longer set the site ID within the ASA configuration. Also, for best compatibility with inter-site clustering, we recommend that you upgrade to ASA 9.7(1) and FXOS 2.1.1, which includes several improvements to stability and performance.

We modified the following command: site-id

Director localization: inter-site clustering improvement for data centers

To improve performance and keep traffic within a site for inter-site clustering for data centers, you can enable director localization. New connections are typically load-balanced and owned by cluster members within a given site. However, the ASA assigns the director role to a member at any site. Director localization enables additional director roles: a local director at the same site as the owner, and a global director that can be at any site. Keeping the owner and director at the same site improves performance. Also, if the original owner fails, the local director chooses a new connection owner at the same site. The global director is used if a cluster member receives packets for a connection that is owned on a different site.

We introduced or modified the following commands: director-localization, show asp table cluster chash, show conn, show conn detail

Interface link state monitoring polling for failover now configurable for faster detection

By default, each ASA in a failover pair checks the link state of its interfaces every 500 msec. You can now configure the polling interval, between 300 msec and 799 msec; for example, if you set the polltime to 300 msec, the ASA can detect an interface failure and trigger failover faster.

We introduced the following command: failover polltime link-state

Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) support for Active/Standby failover health monitoring on the Firepower 9300 and 4100

You can enable Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) for the failover health check between two units of an Active/Standby pair on the Firepower 9300 and 4100. Using BFD for the health check is more reliable than the default health check method and uses less CPU.

We introduced the following command: failover health-check bfd

VPN Features

Dynamic RRI for IKEv2 static crypto maps

Dynamic Reverse Route Injection occurs upon the successful establishment of IPsec Security Associations (SA's) when dynamic is specified for a crypto map . Routes are added based on the negotiated selector information. The routes will be deleted after the IPsec SA's are deleted. Dynamic RRI is supported on IKEv2 based static crypto maps only.

We modified the following command: crypto map set reverse-route.

Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI) support for ASA VPN module

The ASA VPN module is enhanced with a new logical interface called Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI), used to represent a VPN tunnel to a peer. This supports route based VPN with IPsec profiles attached to each end of the tunnel. Using VTI does away with the need to configure static crypto map access lists and map them to interfaces.

We introduced the following commands: crypto ipsec profile, interface tunnel, responder-only, set ikev1 transform-set, set pfs, set security-association lifetime, tunnel destination, tunnel mode ipsec, tunnel protection ipsec profile, tunnel source interface.

SAML 2.0 based SSO for AnyConnect

SAML 2.0-based service provider IdP is supported in a private network. With the ASA as a gateway between the user and services, authentication on IdP is handled with a restricted anonymous webvpn session, and all traffic between IdP and the user is translated.

We added the following command: saml idp

We modified the following commands: debug webvpn saml, show saml metadata

CMPv2

To be positioned as a security gateway device in wireless LTE networks, the ASA now supports certain management functions using the Certificate Management Protocol (CMPv2).

We modified the following commands: enrollment url, keypair, auto-update, crypto-ca-trustpoint, show crypto ca server certificates, show crypto key, show tech-support

Multiple certificate authentication

You can now validate multiple certificates per session with AnyConnect SSL and IKEv2 client protocols. The Aggregate Authentication protocol has been extended to define the protocol exchange for multiple-certificate authentication and utilize this for both session types.

We modified the following command: authentication {[aaa] [certificate | multiple-certificate] | saml}

Increase split-tunneling routing limit

The limit for split-tunneling routes for AC-SSL and AC-IKEv2 was increased from 200 to 1200. The IKEv1 limit was left at 200.

Smart Tunnel Support on Chrome

A new method for smart-tunnel support in the Chrome browser on Mac and Windows devices was created. A Chrome Smart Tunnel Extension has replaced Netscape Plugin Application Program Interfaces (NPAPIs) that are no longer supported on Chrome. If you click on the smart tunnel enabled bookmark in Chrome without the extension already being installed, you are redirected to the Chrome Web Store to obtain the extension. New Chrome installations will direct the user to the Chrome Web Store to download the extension. The extension downloads the binaries from ASA that are required to run smart tunnel. Your usual bookmark and application configuration while using smart tunnel is unchanged other than the process of installing the new extension.

Clientless SSL VPN: Session information for all web interfaces

All web interfaces will now display details of the current session, including the user name used to login, and user privileges which are currently assigned. This will help the user be aware of the current user session and will improve user security.

Clientless SSL VPN: Validation of all cookies for web applications' sessions

All web applications will now grant access only after validating all security-related cookies. In each request, each cookie with an authentication token or a session ID will be verified before granting access to the user session. Multiple session cookies in the same request will result in the connection being dropped. Cookies with failed validations will be treated as invalid and the event will be added to the audit log.

AnyConnect: Maximum Connect Time Alert Interval is now supported in the Group Policy for AnyConnect VPN Client connections.

The alert interval is the interval of time before max connection time is reached that a message will be displayed to the user warning them of termination. Valid time interval is 1-30 minutes. Default is 30 minutes. Previously supported for clientless and site-to-site VPN connections.

The following command can now be used for AnyConnect connections: vpn-session-timeout alert-interval

AAA Features

IPv6 address support for LDAP and TACACS+ Servers for AAA

You can now use either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses for LDAP and TACACS+ servers used for AAA.

We modified the following command: aaa-server host, test aaa-server

Administrative Features

PBKDF2 hashing for all local username and enable passwords

Local username and enable passwords of all lengths are stored in the configuration using a PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2) hash. Previously, passwords 32 characters and shorter used the MD5-based hashing method. Already existing passwords continue to use the MD5-based hash unless you enter a new password. See the "Software and Configurations" chapter in the General Operations Configuration Guide for downgrading guidelines.

We modified the following commands: enable password, username

Licensing Features

Licensing changes for failover pairs on the Firepower 4100/9300 chassis

Only the active unit requests the license entitlements. Previously, both units requested license entitlements. Supported with FXOS 2.1.1.

Monitoring and Troubleshooting Features

IPv6 address support for traceroute

The traceroute command was modified to accept an IPv6 address.

We modified the following command: traceroute

Support for the packet tracer for bridge group member interfaces

You can now use the packet tracer for bridge group member interfaces.

We added two new options to the packet-tracer command; vlan-id and dmac

IPv6 address support for syslog servers

You can now configure syslog servers with IPv6 addresses to record and send syslogs over TCP and UDP.

We modified the following commands: logging host, show running config, show logging

SNMP OIDs and MIBs

The ASA now supports SNMP MIB objects corresponding to the end-to-end transparent clock mode as part of the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for the ISA 3000. The following SNMP MIB objects are supported:

• ciscoPtpMIBSystemInfo

• cPtpClockDefaultDSTable

• cPtpClockTransDefaultDSTable

• cPtpClockPortTransDSTable

Manually stop and start packet captures

You can now manually stop and start the capture.

Added/Modified commands: capture stop