Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Steven Alsop

Charles Bransi

A virtual firewall configured with two interfaces assigned different security zones switches between Layer 3 routing and bump-in-the-wire (BITW) modes between sessions. After receiving a packet from a one-arm load balancer, an inner header is determined based on decapsulation which removes an outer header. A route lookup is performed based on the inner header to determine whether to communicate packets of the session with Layer 3 routing or according to the BITW model. The result of the route lookup indicates an egress interface. If the ingress and egress interfaces are the same, the firewall operates according to the BITW model for the session. If the egress and ingress interfaces are different, the firewall routes packets of the session with Layer 3 routing. Upon detection of subsequent packets, the firewall operates according to the determined mode for the session without performing additional inner header route lookups for operation mode determination.

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Meriden, United Kingdom

Steven Alsop