Configuring Scheduled Reports on OPNsense

Zenarmor® facilitates the automated delivery of scheduled reports by security teams. This functionality is useful for generating and distributing reports to multiple recipients at the required frequency. For instance, one method to utilize this feature is to transmit management and business decision-makers monthly reports with a concentration on business-level information. Alternatively, you may choose to submit your cyber security team's daily technical reports. Zenarmor ensures that your reports are delivered on time, in PDF format, and without difficulty to their intended recipients, regardless of your reporting requirements.

This service is enhanced by the fact that you do not need to configure your own email service and settings in order to send reports; Zenconsole includes an email delivery service.

Figure 1. Scheduled Reports Page

To access the Scheduled Reports page you can follow the steps listed below:

1. Click Zenarmor on your OPNsense web UI.
2. Click Settings menu on the left-hand sidebar.
3. Click Scheduled Reports menu.

Enabling Scheduled Reports

You can easily start sending scheduled reports by following the next steps:

1. Click Disabled button at the upper right corner of the Scheduled Reports page to enable the scheduled reports feature.

2. Select the e-mail server provider from the Provider drop-down menu. There are two options available:

   • SMTP Server: You may select this option if you want to use your own e-mail server to send the scheduled reports. Then, you must enter your server configuration details for the related settings.
   • Zenconsole: You may select this option if you want to use Zenconsole Cloud Management portal as an e-mail server to send the scheduled reports. Then, you do not need to enter any server configuration.

Figure 2. Selecting email provider for scheduled reports

You may skip steps 3-8 and go to step 9 if you select Zenconsole as a Provider.

3. You may fill in the Mail Server Hostname field. When you select SMTP Server as a Provider, you must enter the IP address or the hostname of your mail server, such as 192.168.2.10.

4. You may enter the port number of the mail server into the Mail Server Port field if you select SMTP Server as a Provider. When you select Connection Security type in the next step, the port will be filled automatically, like 25, 465, or 587.

5. You must select the Connection Security type when you select SMTP Server as a Provider. There are three security options for connections.

   • No Security: You may select this option if your mail server does not support encryption.
   • SMTPS (SMTP SSL) (Preferred): SMTPS (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Secure) is a method for securing the SMTP using transport layer security. It is intended to provide authentication of the communication partners, as well as data integrity and confidentiality.
   • STARTTLS: It is an extension of plain text communication protocols, which offers a way to upgrade a plain text connection to an encrypted TLS or SSL connection instead of using a separate port for encrypted communication.

Generally, SSL/TLS is only used between end clients and servers. STARTTLS is more commonly used between MTAs to secure inter-server transport.

Figure 3. Selecting Connection Security for SMTP server

6. Enter the Username of your email account if you select SMTP Server as a Provider.

7. Enter the Password of the user if you select SMTP Server as a Provider.

warning

Authentication fields, username and password, should not be left empty.

8. Enter sender’s email address as the “from” address into the Sender Email Address field if you select SMTP Server as a Provider.

Figure 4. Setting Username/Password & Sender for SMTP server

9. Scroll down to the Recipients pane.

Figure 5. Recipients Configuration Pane for Scheduled Reports

10. Click Add recipient button at the top right corner of the Recipients pane to add recipient’s email address.

11. Fill in the Name and Email Address fields.

12. Click Add button to add the recipient. You may add multiple email addresses.

Figure 6. Adding Recipient for Scheduled Reports

13. You may choose Reporting Criteria. There are 3 different types of reports available:
    • Packet
    • Session
    • Volume

Figure 7. Selecting Reporting Criteria for Scheduled Reports

14. Set the Schedule. Scheduling may be set for a single day of the week or for all days of the week.

15. You may disable Do not require TLS server certificate verification option when you select your own SMTP server as a provider. If your email server has a self-signed certificate, you must enable this feature. This will bypass the certificate verification step. Enabling TLS server certificate verification is advised to guarantee proper security of the traffic sent between the sender and the receiver based on a valid certificate.

16. You may disable Send reports as PDF attachments option. The scheduled reports are generated as PDF files by default.

PDF files are generated by APIs hosted in the Zenarmor datacenter. Zenarmor does not store any data processed by this API.

note

The PDF report feature is available only for the Premium Editions. To gain the benefit of the PDF report feature, you must have one of the paid Zenarmor Subscriptions. For more information, see the plans & pricing.

14. You may customize your scheduled reports by clicking on the Charts icon and selecting the charts that you wish to view on the report. You may sort charts by dragging and dropping items for scheduled reports.

Figure 8. Adding & Sorting Charts in Scheduled Reports

15. When you configure your own SMTP server as a Provider for scheduled reports, you may perform a server connection test by clicking on the Test Connection button.

16. To apply the configuration changes you made in the Scheduled Reports pane, click Save at the end of the page.

Figure 9. Scheduled Reports Configuration with Zenconsole Provider

Disabling Scheduled Reports

You can easily stop sending scheduled reports by clicking on the Enabled button at the upper right corner of the Scheduled Reports page.