PAN-SEC-055LowPAN-OS

IKE gateway has dead peer detection disabled

Base severity

Low

Area

IPSec VPN

Platform

PAN-OS

Evidence level

Fact0.90

Benchmark reference

Reads the export, not the device

ConfigProof reads a configuration export. This control is evaluated against the objects in that file, and it reports what the file says. It does not connect to the device and sees no traffic, so a finding here describes the configuration, not what the firewall is doing right now.

Why it matters

Dead peer detection is how the device learns that a peer has gone away without tearing the session down cleanly. With it off, stale security associations persist until they time out, and a re-established peer can be refused because the old association still holds the slot.

How to fix it

Web interface

The steps below are written for the web interface. A finding raised on your own export carries the same steps with your object names filled in.

Enable dead peer detection on the gateway.
Set an interval and retry count the peer also supports.

PAN-OS CLI

set network ike gateway <object-name> protocol ikev2 dpd enable yes

An example. Values in angle brackets are yours to supply; a finding on your own export fills in the names it read. Nothing here commits. Review the candidate configuration, then commit it yourself.

Read it back

show network ike gateway <object-name>

Values to fill in1

<object-name>: The object's name, as it appears on your firewall

How to confirm the fix

Confirm the gateway reports the peer as reachable after the change.

Limits

A gateway that does not state a setting is not reported, because the platform default differs across PAN-OS releases.
This reads the configured tunnel only.

Compliance references

No benchmark recommendation is mapped to this control in this version.

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