Getting Started with the Cisco PIX Firewall Chapter Review

This chapter looked at the basic commands and techniques for configuring a PIX Firewall device. These commands make up the six basic commands for initial PIX Firewall configuration.

• The nameif command

• The interface command

• The ip address command

• The nat command

• The global command

Network Time Protocol (NTP) is an Internet standard protocol to synchronize network devices and computers, which is accurate to a millisecond. You learned about the Cisco NTP implementation that allows PIX Firewalls to synchronize with an established NTP time server, so events and processes can be coordinated and correlated when system logs are created and other time-specific events occur.

The PIX Firewall syslog message facility is a useful means to view and store troubleshooting messages and to watch for network events, such as attacks and service denials. The logging commands specify how system messaging will be handled and how to work with a Syslog server to provide reliable logging of PIX activities and processes.

You also learned how having the option to configure a firewall to act as a DHCP client can be useful in working with cable and DSL connections in small offices and SOHO implementations. The capability to act as a DHCP server providing critical network configuration information to host devices is another strong feature of the line, particularly the smaller platforms.