156-215.81.20 Identity Awareness Practice Question
Which command is used to clear the user sessions in the Identity Awareness database on a Security Gateway?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often guess general firewall policy commands or database restart scripts instead of the specific 'pdp' utility designed for Identity Awareness sessions.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
pdp session revoke all
The 'pdp' (Policy Decision Point) command is the primary CLI utility for managing Identity Awareness. Specifically, 'pdp session revoke' allows administrators to manually terminate individual user sessions or clear the entire database. This is a vital task when testing identity policies or when a user's session appears stuck, preventing them from accessing resources correctly due to an outdated identity mapping in the gateway's active cache.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
fw tab -t user_auth -x
Why it's wrong here
The 'fw tab' command is used to manipulate internal kernel tables. While user sessions reside in kernel tables, manually clearing these tables with the '-x' flag is dangerous and unsupported, as it can lead to gateway instability or corruption of the stateful inspection process within the firewall kernel.
- ✓
pdp session revoke all
Why this is correct
The 'pdp session revoke all' command is the correct and supported method to clear all active user sessions from the Identity Awareness database. This clears the mapping cache, forcing the gateway to re-authenticate users, which is essential for troubleshooting or resetting the environment after significant policy changes.
- ✗
cpstop && cpstart
Why it's wrong here
Restarting the firewall processes using 'cpstop' and 'cpstart' will clear the sessions, but it is an extremely disruptive action. It interrupts all network traffic and stateful connections, making it an inappropriate solution for simply clearing the Identity Awareness database when a more granular, non-disruptive command exists for that purpose.
- ✗
identity_clear
Why it's wrong here
There is no command called 'identity_clear' in the Check Point Gaia operating system. This is a common misconception, but administrators must use the specific 'pdp' or 'pep' commands provided in the CLI to interact with the Identity Awareness daemon and its associated session database effectively and safely.
About these practice questions
This 156-215.81.20 question is part of Courseiva's 210-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Check Point exam blueprint
This 156-215.81.20 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Check Point certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 156-215.81.20 exam.