156-315.81.20 Identity Awareness Practice Question
An administrator is troubleshooting an Identity Awareness deployment where users authenticated through a Captive Portal are shown as unidentified on a different Security Gateway in the same distributed environment. The portal gateway correctly identifies the users, but the second gateway does not. Which action should the administrator take to allow the identity information to reach the second gateway?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is trying to make the second gateway acquire identities independently, when the real need is to propagate identities already learned elsewhere.
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
✓
Configure Identity Sharing on the portal gateway to share identities with the second gateway
Identity Sharing is the feature that lets one gateway publish the identities it has learned so that peer gateways can use them for policy enforcement. When users are identified at the portal gateway but unknown at another gateway, enabling and correctly scoping Identity Sharing from the acquiring gateway to the peer is the direct fix.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable AD Query on the second gateway and point it at the same domain controllers
Why it's wrong here
AD Query is an alternative acquisition method and is not appropriate when users authenticate through Captive Portal. It would not learn portal-based identities, and deploying it on the second gateway does not address the missing propagation of identities already known to the portal gateway.
- ✗
Add the second gateway's internal interface to the Captive Portal configuration
Why it's wrong here
Captive Portal configuration is local to the gateway that redirects users to the portal. Adding an interface on the second gateway does not transfer already-learned identities to it and could cause users to be prompted again, which is not the goal of sharing existing identity data.
- ✗
Configure the second gateway as a Secondary Security Management Server
Why it's wrong here
A Secondary Security Management Server provides management high availability and policy redundancy, not identity propagation. It has no role in sharing learned identities between gateways, so it would not resolve the issue of the second gateway lacking user-to-IP mappings.
- ✓
Configure Identity Sharing on the portal gateway to share identities with the second gateway
Why this is correct
Identity Sharing is the mechanism that propagates learned identities from the gateway that acquired them to other gateways. Enabling it on the portal gateway so it shares with the second gateway lets the second gateway enforce identity-based rules for the same users without needing its own acquisition method.
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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 156-315.81.20 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 156-315.81.20 exam.