Applying Inheritance Settings

Administrators often work to define and test policies at the appliance level, and then painstakingly attempt to replicate those policies on other appliances. Using this simple process for inheritance, you can capitalize on the valuable time spent building a unit’s well-configured firewall policies, by then seamlessly replicating those policies through the hierarchy.

1	To inherit some or all of an appliance’s settings, go to the Firewall > System > Tools screen within the GMS management interface.

 

2	In the left pane, click the appliance with the settings you wish to inherit.

 

3	Under the screen section heading, “Inherit Settings at Unit,” select either forward or reverse inheritance by clicking the respective radio button.

 

4	From the “Filter” drop down menu, select the inheritance filter to apply. If a desired filter is not listed and must be created, refer to Configuring Inheritance Filters

 

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After the desired inheritance filter is selected, click Preview. A Preview panel opens to allow you to review the settings to be inherited. You might continue with all of the default screens selected for inheritance or select only specific screens for inheritance by checking boxes next to the desired settings.

 

NOTE: The Preview panel footer states, “All referring objects should also be selected as part of the settings picked, to avoid any dependency errors while inheriting.” If you deselect dependent screen data, the settings will not inherit properly.

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If you are attempting forward inheritance, you might click “Update” to proceed. If you are attempting to reverse inherit settings, an additional selection must be made at the bottom of the Preview panel. You must select either to update the chosen settings to only the target parent node, or to update the target parent node along with all unit nodes under it. After you make this selection, you can click “Update” to proceed, or “Reset” to edit previous selections.

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If you select to update the target parent node and all unit nodes, a “Modify Task Description and Schedule” panel opens in place of the Preview panel. (This panel does not appear if you select “Update only target parent node”). If the “Modify Task Description and Schedule” panel opens, you can edit the task description in the “Description” field. You can also adjust the schedule for inheritance, or continue with the default scheduling. If you choose to edit the timing by clicking the arrow next to “Schedule,” a calendar expands allowing you to click a radio button for “Immediate” execution, or to select an alternate day and time for inheritance to occur. After completing any edits, select either “Accept” or “Cancel” to execute or cancel the scheduled inheritance, respectively.

 

After the inheritance operation begins, a progress bar appears, along with text stating the operation might take a few minutes, depending on the volume of data to be inherited, as shown in the following figure:

 

After the inheritance operation is complete, the desired settings from the unit or group node should now be updated and reflected in the parent node’s settings, as well as in the settings of all other units, if selected.