Getting Started

In This Section:

Before you begin deploying a Check Point security solution, familiarize yourself with:

Check Point SmartConsole
Basic setup of a Check Point Security Management Server
Basic setup of Check Point Security Gateways
Administrative task delegation
Security management in a non-GUI environment

Understanding SmartConsole

Check Point SmartConsole makes it easy to manage security for complex networks. Before you start to configure your cyber security environment and policies, become familiar with Check Point SmartConsole.

SmartConsole

Item	Description	Item	Description
1	Global Toolbar	5	Objects Bar (F11)
2	Session Management Toolbar	6	Validations pane
3	Navigation Toolbar	7	Command line interface button
4	System Information Area

Keyboard Shortcuts for SmartConsole

From R80.20, there are additional keyboard shortcuts that you can use to navigate between the different SmartConsole fields:

Keyboard shortcut	Description
Ctrl+S	Publish session
Ctrl+Alt+S	Discard session
Shift+Alt+Enter	Install policy
F10	Show/hide task details
F11	Show/hide Object Explorer
Ctrl+O	Manage policies and layers
Ctrl+E	Open Object Explorer
Ctrl+F3	Switch to high-contrast theme
Alt+Space	System menu
F1	Open the relevant online help
Alt+F4	Close SmartConsole

Shortcuts for the specific views that support them:

Keyboard shortcut	Description
Ctrl+T	Open new tab
Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4	Close current tab
Ctrl+Tab	Move to the next tab
Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Move to the previous tab
Delete	Delete the currently selected item
Ctrl+A	Select all elements
Esc	Cancel operation to close window
Enter or mouse double-click	Edit item

Shortcuts for views that contain a Rule Base:

Keyboard shortcut	Description
Ctrl+G	Go to rule (in the Access Control Rule Base)
Ctrl+X	Cut rule
Ctrl+C	Copy rule
Ctrl+V	Paste rule below the selected rule
Delete	Remove a used item from a rule cell
Ctrl+F	Open Rule Base search
F3	Navigate to the next Rule Base search result
Ctrl+arrow up	Go to the first rule in the Rule Base
Ctrl+arrow down	Go to the last rule in the Rule Base
Space or +	Open drop-down menu for the current cell in the Rule Base
Shift+arrow up/down	Move between objects in the Rule Base

Shortcuts for the Logs & Monitor view:

Keyboard shortcut	Description
Ctrl+G	Switch to grid view (in the Logs and Audit Logs views)
Ctrl+L	Switch to table view (in the Logs and Audit Logs views)
Ctrl+R	Resolve objects
F5	Refresh query
F6	Enable auto-refresh
Ctrl+D	Add to favorites
Ctrl+S	Organize favorites

Search Engine

In each view you can search the Security Management Server database for information relevant to the view. For example:

Gateway, by name or IP address
Access Control rule
NAT rule
Threat Prevention profile
Specific threat or a threat category
Object tags

IP Search

You can run an advanced search for an IP address, network, or port. It returns direct and indirect matches for your search criteria.

IP address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Network: xxx.xxx.0.0/16 or xxx.xxx
Port: svc:<xxx>

These are the different IP search modes:

General – (Default). Returns direct matched results and indirect results in IP ranges, networks, groups, groups with exclusion, and rules that contain these objects.
Packet – Matches rules as if a packet with your IP address arrives at the gateway.

General IP Search

This is the default search mode. Use it to search in Rule Bases and in objects. If you enter a string that is not a valid IP or network, the search engine treats it as text.

When you enter a valid IP address or network, an advanced search is done and on these objects and rules:

Objects that have the IP address as a text value for example, in a comment
Objects that have an IP address property (direct results)
Groups, networks, and address ranges that contain objects with the text value or address value
Rules that contain those objects

Packet Search

A Packet Search matches rules as if a packet with your IP address arrives at the gateway. It matches rules that have:

The IP address in a column of the rule
"Any"
A Group-with-exclusion or negated field with the IP address in its declaration

To run a Packet Search:

Click the search box.
The search window opens.
Click Packet or enter: "mode:Packet"
To search a specific rule column, enter: ColumnName:Criteria

Rule Base Results

When you enter search criteria and view the matched results, the value that matched the criteria in a rule is highlighted.

If there is...	This is highlighted
A direct match on an object name or on textual columns	Only the specific matched characters
A direct match on object properties	The entire object name
A negated column	The negated label
A match on "Any"	"Any"

Known Limitation:

Packet search does not support IPv6.

Access and Threat Tools

The Access Tools section in the Security Policies Access Control view and the Threat Tools section in the Security Policies Threat Prevention view give you more management and data collection tools.

Access Tools in the Security Policies Access Control view:

Tool	Description
VPN Communities	Create, edit, or delete VPN Communities.
Updates	Update the Application & URL Filtering database, schedule updates, and configure updates.
UserCheck	Configure UserCheck interaction objects for Access Control policy actions.
Client Certificates	Create and distribute client certificates that allow users to authenticate to the Gateway from handheld devices.
Application Wiki	Browse to the Check Point AppWiki. Search and filter the Web 2.0 Applications Database, to use Check Point security research in your policy rules for actions on applications, apps, and widgets.
Installation History	See the Policy installation history for each Gateway, and who made the changes. See the revisions that were made during each installation, and who made them. Install a specific version of the Policy.

Threat Tools in the Security Policies Threat Prevention view:

Tool	Description
Profiles	Create, edit, or delete profiles.
IPS Protections	Edit IPS protections per profile.
Protections	See statistics on different protections
Whitelist Files	Configure Whitelist Files list
Indicators	Configure indicators of malicious activity and how to handle it
Updates	Configure updates to the Malware database, Threat Emulation engine and images, and the IPS database.
UserCheck	Configure UserCheck interaction objects for Threat Prevention policy actions.
Threat Wiki	Browse to the Check Point ThreatWiki. Search and filter Check Point's Malware Database, to use Check Point security research to block malware before it enters your environment, and to best respond if it does get in.
Installation History	See the Policy installation history for each Gateway, and who made the changes. See the revisions that were made during each installation, and who made them. Install a specific version of the Policy.

Shared Policies

The Shared Policies section in the Security Policies shows the policies that are not in a Policy package. They are shared between all Policy packages.

Shared policies are installed with the Access Control Policy.

Software Blade	Description
Mobile Access	Launch Mobile Access policy in a SmartConsole. Configure how your remote users access internal resources, such as their email accounts, when they are mobile.
DLP	Launch Data Loss Prevention policy in a SmartConsole. Configure advanced tools to automatically identify data that must not go outside the network, to block the leak, and to educate users.
Geo Policy	Create a policy for traffic to or from specific geographical or political locations.
HTTPS Inspection	The HTTPS Policy allows the Security Gateway to inspect HTTPS traffic to prevent security risks related to the SSL protocol. The HTTPS Policy shows if HTTPS Inspection is enabled on one or more Gateways.
Inspection Settings	You can configure Inspection Settings for the Firewall: Deep packet inspection settings Protocol parsing inspection settings VoIP packet inspection settings

API Command Line Interface

You can also configure objects and rules through the API command line interface, which you can access from SmartConsole.

Click to open the command line interface.

Click to open the API reference (in the command line interface).

Use the Command Line Reference to learn about Session management commands, Host commands, Network commands, and Rule commands.

In addition to the command line interface, you can create and run API scripts to manage configuration and operations on the Security Management Server.