Checkpoint Updated 156-315.81 Exam Questions and Answers by damien

Nothing needs to be done to get SIC to work if there is a Geo-Protection policy blocking Australia and a network requires a Check Point Firewall to be installed in Sydney, Australia. SIC stands for Secure Internal Communication, and it is a mechanism that ensures secure and authenticated communication between Check Point components by using certificates issued by an internal Certificate Authority (ICA). SIC is not affected by Geo-Protection policy, which is a feature that allows administrators to block or allow traffic based on the geographic location of the source or destination IP address. Geo-Protection policy only applies to data traffic, not control traffic, and SIC uses control traffic to establish trust between Check Point components. 

The kind of information that you would expect to see using the sim affinity command is network interfaces and core distribution used for CoreXL. Sim affinity is a command that allows administrators to view and modify the CPU core affinity of network interfaces and SecureXL instances. CoreXL is a technology that improves the performance of the Security Gateway by using multiple cores to handle concurrent connections. The sim affinity command can show which network interfaces and SecureXL instances are bound to which CPU cores, and allow administrators to change the affinity settings.

After trust has been established between the Check Point components, the Security Gateway IP address cannot be changed without re-establishing the trust. This is because the trust is based on the Secure Internal Communication (SIC) mechanism, which uses certificates to authenticate and encrypt the communication. The certificates are issued by the Internal Certificate Authority (ICA) of the Security Management Server / Domain Management Server, and contain the name and IP address of the component. Therefore, if the IP address of a component is changed, the certificate will become invalid and the trust will be lost. To restore the trust, the certificate must be renewed or reissued by the ICA12.

However, there are some exceptions to this rule. The Security Gateway name can be changed in command line without re-establishing trust, as long as the IP address remains the same. This is because the SIC mechanism does not rely on the hostname, but on the IP address and the SIC name (which is usually derived from the hostname, but can be manually changed). The Security Management Server name can be changed in SmartConsole without re-establishing trust, as long as the IP address remains the same. This is because SmartConsole uses a different mechanism to connect to the Security Management Server, which does not depend on the SIC certificate. The Security Management Server IP address can be changed without re-establishing trust, as long as some steps are followed to update the Check Point Registry file on the managed Security Gateways / Cluster Members / VSX Virtual Devices. This is because the Registry file contains the IP address of the ICA, which is used for certificate renewal. If the Registry file is not updated, then the certificate renewal will fail and the trust will be lost3.

References: 1: Check Point R81 Security Administration Guide - Check Point Software, page 162 2: Check Point R81 Security Engineering Guide - Check Point Software, page 162 3: How to renew SIC after changing IP Address of Security Management Server - Check Point Software, Solution ID: sk103356

 What can cause Vanessa unnecessary problems, if she didn’t check all requirements for migration to R81, is missing an installed R77.20 Add-on on Security Management Server. R77.20 Add-on is a package that adds new features and enhancements to R77 Security Management Server, such as support for new appliances, Gaia OS features, VPN features, etc. One of the requirements for migrating to R81 from R77 Security Management Server is to have R77.20 Add-on installed on the server. If Vanessa did not check this requirement and tried to migrate without R77.20 Add-on, she would encounter errors and failures during the migration process. The other options are either not relevant or not problematic for migration to R81.