PCNSE Practice Test 4 — 10 Questions

Question 1

Which TWO factors can cause a firewall to not show any User-ID mapping for a user who is actively logged in?

Accepted Answer

The User-ID agent is not configured with the firewall's IP as a client. The User-ID agent must be configured with the firewall's IP address as a client to forward user-to-IP mappings. Without this configuration, the firewall will not receive the mapping data from the agent, even if the user is actively logged in and the agent is collecting security events from the domain controller.

Answer

The user is using a VPN connection from a remote location

Answer

The firewall's User-ID agent is in collector mode

Answer

The user's traffic is being decrypted by SSL decryption

Question 2

The security policy rule shown in the exhibit has log-start and log-end both set to 'no', but a log-forwarding profile is configured. Which statement best describes the logging behavior for sessions matching this rule?

Accepted Answer

Sessions are not logged because logging is disabled.. When both log-start and log-end are set to 'no' in a security policy rule, session logging is disabled regardless of any log-forwarding profile attached. The log-forwarding profile only specifies where logs are sent if logging is enabled; it does not override the explicit logging disable. Therefore, no session logs are generated for this rule.

Answer

Sessions are logged only if the session duration exceeds a threshold.

Answer

Sessions are logged to Panorama immediately when the session starts.

Answer

Sessions are logged to Panorama only when the session ends.

Question 3

A security team is implementing SSL Decryption. They want to ensure that traffic to health-related websites is not decrypted due to privacy concerns. Which method should they use to exclude this traffic?

Accepted Answer

Add the domain names to a custom URL category and create a no-decryption rule matching that category.. Palo Alto Networks firewalls allow you to create custom URL categories containing specific domain names (e.g., health-related sites) and then reference that category in a decryption policy rule set to 'no-decrypt'. This ensures traffic matching those domains is excluded from SSL decryption, addressing privacy concerns without affecting other traffic.

Answer

Use a source IP address exclusion list in the decryption policy.

Answer

Disable decryption for all sites that use certificate pinning.

Answer

Configure a decryption profile to exclude traffic based on App-ID.

Question 4

A company uses a Palo Alto Networks firewall with App-ID enabled. They have a custom application that communicates over TCP port 5001. The administrator has created a custom App-ID signature and a security rule that allows this application from the internal zone (trust) to the external zone (untrust). Users report that the custom application traffic is being blocked. The administrator checks the traffic logs and sees that the sessions are being matched to a different security rule that denies any traffic from trust to untrust. The deny rule appears before the custom allow rule in the policy list. The custom App-ID signature is properly defined and tested. What should the administrator do to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Reorder the security rules so the custom allow rule is above the deny rule.. Security rules in Palo Alto Networks firewalls are evaluated in top-down order, and the first matching rule is applied. Since the deny rule appears before the custom allow rule, all traffic matching the deny rule's criteria (including the custom application) is blocked before reaching the allow rule. Reordering the rules so the custom allow rule is above the deny rule ensures the custom application traffic is permitted as intended.

Answer

Modify the custom App-ID signature to match more precisely.

Answer

Create an application override for the custom application.

Answer

Add a virtual wire interface to ensure traffic reaches the firewall.

Question 5

Arrange the steps to configure a new administrator account with role-based access.

Accepted Answer

Step 1: Navigate to Device > Administrators and click Add. Step 2: Enter username and password. Step 3: Select the role. Step 4: Commit.. To configure a new administrator with role-based access on a Palo Alto firewall, you must first create the administrator account by navigating to Device > Administrators and clicking Add. Then enter the username and password. Next, assign a role (e.g., Superuser, Read‑Only, or a custom role) to define the access level. Finally, commit the changes to apply the configuration. This sequence ensures the account is fully defined before committing.

Answer

Step 1: Enter username and password. Step 2: Navigate to Device > Administrators and click Add. Step 3: Select the role. Step 4: Commit.

Answer

Step 1: Navigate to Device > Administrators and click Add. Step 2: Select the role. Step 3: Enter username and password. Step 4: Commit.

Answer

Step 1: Navigate to Device > Administrators and click Add. Step 2: Enter username and password. Step 3: Commit. Step 4: Select the role.

Question 6

A network engineer notices that traffic from an internal user to a web application is being incorrectly identified as 'web-browsing' instead of the custom application 'my-app'. The engineer has already created a custom application 'my-app' with the correct signature. What is the most likely reason for the misidentification?

Accepted Answer

The application override is not configured.. When a custom application is created with a signature, the firewall uses App-ID to identify the traffic based on the signature. However, if the traffic is still being misidentified as 'web-browsing', it means the firewall is matching the default HTTP/HTTPS application before the custom signature can be evaluated. An application override is required to explicitly tell the firewall to skip App-ID processing for that traffic and instead use the custom application 'my-app'. Without the override, the firewall's default App-ID logic continues to classify the traffic based on its standard signatures.

Answer

The custom application is not activated in the security policy rule.

Answer

The vulnerability protection profile is dropping the traffic.

Answer

The decryption policy is blocking the traffic.

Question 7

A firewall administrator is troubleshooting a scenario where users cannot reach an internal web server. The security policy allows the traffic, and the server is reachable from other networks. What should the administrator check first?

Accepted Answer

The source and destination zones in the security policy. The most common reason for traffic failing despite a security policy allowing it is a zone mismatch. In Palo Alto Networks firewalls, security policies are zone-based, meaning the source and destination zones in the policy must exactly match the ingress and egress zones of the traffic. If the administrator configured the policy with the wrong zones (e.g., using 'trust' for the source when the client is in 'dmz'), the traffic will be denied even if all other parameters (IP, port, application) are correct. This is the first thing to verify because it directly controls whether the policy is evaluated for the session.

Answer

The firewall's DNS settings

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The server's SSL certificate

Answer

The interface management profile

Question 8

Refer to the exhibit. The firewall's disk usage is at 85% overall, and the /opt/panlogs partition is at 92%. The administrator wants to free up space without losing important log data. Which action should be taken first?

Accepted Answer

Configure log auto-deletion in the Log Settings to purge logs older than a specified period. Configuring log auto-deletion in the Log Settings allows the administrator to automatically purge older logs based on a specified retention period, freeing up disk space on the /opt/panlogs partition without manually deleting important log data. This is the safest and most controlled method, as it respects the firewall's log management policies and ensures compliance with data retention requirements.

Answer

Add an external storage device to the firewall

Answer

Delete configuration files from /opt/pancfg

Answer

Delete the /opt/panlogs directory and recreate it

Question 9

A company uses Panorama to manage multiple firewalls. An administrator pushes a template that includes a new Security Profiles group, but the firewalls do not receive the profile group. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The firewalls are not assigned to the template that contains the profile group.. Panorama pushes templates to firewalls based on template assignment. If a firewall is not assigned to the template that contains the Security Profiles group, the firewall will never receive that configuration, regardless of the push operation. Template assignment is a prerequisite for any template-based configuration to be applied to a managed firewall.

Answer

The profile group references a profile that does not exist in the template.

Answer

The push was performed to device groups instead of templates.

Answer

The commit was not selected to include the new profiles.

Question 10

A network engineer is troubleshooting high latency on the firewall. Which THREE commands from the CLI should be used to identify potential bottlenecks? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

show running resource-monitor. 'show running resource-monitor' displays real-time CPU and memory utilization per dataplane or control plane process, which directly helps identify resource exhaustion causing latency. This command provides granular per-process metrics, unlike the aggregated 'show system resources', making it essential for pinpointing bottlenecks in high-latency scenarios.

Answer

show session info

Answer

show log traffic