Interview for Firewall Engineer Position

Hi,

I've got this interview scheduled for next week.
It's a junior firewall engineer position.

There will be a written test.
I'd like to read as much as I can to prepare for the interview but I'm kind of lost, and I don't know which topics I should study..
I just know they want some switching and netscreen firewall knowledge, maybe checkpoint, but still it's a junior position.

Any advice on topics to prepare for the junior firewall engineer?
What basic topics I must study?

And second question:
How do you usually approach troubleshooting questions(related to firewalls)?

thank you

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Comments

Turgon

routepoison wrote: »

Hi,

I've got this interview scheduled for next week.
It's a junior firewall engineer position.

There will be a written test.
I'd like to read as much as I can to prepare for the interview but I'm kind of lost, and I don't know which topics I should study..
I just know they want some switching and netscreen firewall knowledge, maybe checkpoint, but still it's a junior position.

Any advice on topics to prepare for the junior firewall engineer?
What basic topics I must study?

And second question:
How do you usually approach troubleshooting questions(related to firewalls)?

thank you

Try and get a checkpoint firewall evaluation built at home quickly. Get familar with the interface Smart Dashboard and Smartview Tracker. Grab some PDFs as well. If you can get the Sybex PDF for CCSA that would be helpful. Netscreen do some research. You need to know what to look for in firewall logs so I would brush up on your ports numbers and three way TCP handshake at least. Some basic 'why you need a firewall' reading wouldn't hurt either. Wiki is a good start as are many other places on the web. Remember its a junior role so dont overload yourself too much. Basics.

routepoison

Turgon wrote: »

Try and get a checkpoint firewall evaluation built at home quickly. Get familar with the interface Smart Dashboard and Smartview Tracker. Grab some PDFs as well. If you can get the Sybex PDF for CCSA that would be helpful. Netscreen do some research. You need to know what to look for in firewall logs so I would brush up on your ports numbers and three way TCP handshake at least. Some basic 'why you need a firewall' reading wouldn't hurt either. Wiki is a good start as are many other places on the web. Remember its a junior role so dont overload yourself too much. Basics.

thanks Turgon for all suggestions. I'll try to refresh basic things first.

dynamik

Be familiar with the different types: Firewall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, "Look Inside This Book" and page through the table of contents and see if anything jumps out at you: Amazon.com: Firewalls for Dummies, Second Edition (9780764540486): Brian Komar, Ronald Beekelaar, Joern Wettern: Books

malcybood

Yep agree with Turgon's comments, especially using the Smartview Tracker/Dashboard eval in Checkpoint and filtering for specific IPs on specific ports.

I think that would be a good start.

Be prepared for a question such as "What is a stateful firewall and how does it work?"

or

"What is the difference between an application layer gateway and stateful firewall and what are their functions?"

Micht also be an idea to do some light reading up on Bluecoat proxy's, but I'd concentrate more on Checkpoint, Cisco ASA/FWSM and Juniper. Awareness of what the firewall products are from each vendor would be good if it's a junior position.

Google is your friend

Turgon

malcybood wrote: »

Yep agree with Turgon's comments, especially using the Smartview Tracker/Dashboard eval in Checkpoint and filtering for specific IPs on specific ports.

I think that would be a good start.

Be prepared for a question such as "What is a stateful firewall and how does it work?"

or

"What is the difference between an application layer gateway and stateful firewall and what are their functions?"

Micht also be an idea to do some light reading up on Bluecoat proxy's, but I'd concentrate more on Checkpoint, Cisco ASA/FWSM and Juniper. Awareness of what the firewall products are from each vendor would be good if it's a junior position.

Google is your friend

Agree with Bluecoat proxy. Lots of shops using those now.

Pash

Turgon wrote: »

Agree with Bluecoat proxy. Lots of shops using those now.

Yeh too many in my opinion, trying to get new versions of yahoo messenger working on them after office hours is great fun, go Bluecoat....!

routepoison

Thanks for all great suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes...

chrisone

First of all done feel pressure, this is just an assesment exam to see where you are at. They dont expect you to be an expert but however expect you to know the basics of firewall theory.

I would suggest to learn the theory behind how firewalls work and not so much how to configure an ASA, Checkpoint, or sonic firewall. Just know the theory and how they work. You willl learn the latter with on the job experience and of course "your own self study."

routepoison

Hi,

I'm done with the 1st interview.
Basically it was general chat with recruiter about job experiences etc.
Interesting part was at the end of it.
She just handed me test with ~10 questions. All of them were high level Netscreen questions. So I think I got few good answers...

I don't think I'll get second interview... We'll see

Once again thanks for your help guys.

Bye

chrisone

Well stay positive. At least it was a good experience, you got to see how the process works and you got to see what kind of things they are looking for in such a job role. Even a job interview that doesnt land you the job is a learning experience. Stay positive and keep up the good work!

dynamik

Yep, you got some interview experience and some direction of where to go if you're interested in that type of thing. It sounds like you still came out ahead.