PCNSE Manage, Monitor and Operate Practice Question
An administrator needs to configure a firewall to send email alerts when a specific security policy rule is triggered. Which two configuration elements are required? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often think enabling 'Log at Session End' alone is sufficient to trigger email alerts, but they miss that a Log Forwarding profile with email notification and an Email Server profile are the actual required components to send the email.
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
✓
An 'Email Server' profile configured with SMTP server details.
To send email alerts when a specific security policy rule is triggered, you need an Email Server profile configured with SMTP server details (Option B) to define the mail server, and a Log Forwarding profile that includes email notification (Option C) to specify which log events trigger the email. The Log Forwarding profile is attached to the Security Policy rule, and when the rule matches traffic, the firewall sends the log data to the configured email server.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A 'Security Policy' rule with 'Log at Session End' enabled.
Why it's wrong here
While necessary for log generation, it is not specific to email alert configuration.
- ✓
An 'Email Server' profile configured with SMTP server details.
Why this is correct
This profile is referenced by the log forwarding profile to send the email.
- ✓
A 'Log Forwarding' profile that includes email notification.
Why this is correct
This profile specifies that logs matching the rule should trigger an email.
- ✗
A 'Panorama' template to push the configuration.
Why it's wrong here
Panorama templates are for centralized management, not required for local email alerts.
- ✗
A 'User-ID' agent to identify users.
Why it's wrong here
User-ID is not required for email alerts.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCNSE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Palo Alto Networks 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 PCNSE exam.