https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092154#M133374 <P>Community,</P> <P></P> <P>Does the Cisco ASA X series process all traffic by using a process based switching/routing mechanism or does it invoke ASICs and hardware to forward the traffic? For instance a switch will use ASICs and TCAMs as well as CEF to forward frames/packets in hardware without having to interrupt the CPU everytime, even for things like L4 inspection of ACLs. Does the ASA have the same functionality? I cannot find any CEF related commands or TCAM related commands the ASA. Thanks.</P> Tue, 12 Mar 2019 09:48:37 GMT Craddockc 2019-03-12T09:48:37Z https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092154#M133374 <P>Community,</P> <P></P> <P>Does the Cisco ASA X series process all traffic by using a process based switching/routing mechanism or does it invoke ASICs and hardware to forward the traffic? For instance a switch will use ASICs and TCAMs as well as CEF to forward frames/packets in hardware without having to interrupt the CPU everytime, even for things like L4 inspection of ACLs. Does the ASA have the same functionality? I cannot find any CEF related commands or TCAM related commands the ASA. Thanks.</P> Tue, 12 Mar 2019 09:48:37 GMT https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092154#M133374 Craddockc 2019-03-12T09:48:37Z https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092155#M133378 <P>Yo,</P> <P></P> <P>Transformers the dark side of the moon.&nbsp;</P> <P></P> <P>The ASA has two forwarding planes:</P> <P>slow path: &nbsp;used for initial packets in connections, such as syn packets. and so on. used to build the fast path entry.</P> <P>fast path : used to forward the rest of packets that belong to a connection.</P> <P></P> <P>I can't say anything other than this being done in software.&nbsp;</P> <P></P> <P>https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/asa/asa-command-reference/show_asp_drop/show_asp_drop.html</P> <P></P> Mon, 14 Aug 2017 10:26:56 GMT https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092155#M133378 Mohammad Alhyari 2017-08-14T10:26:56Z https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092156#M133383 <P>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_PIX</P> Mon, 14 Aug 2017 10:38:55 GMT https://community.cisco.com/t5/network-security/how-does-the-asa-process-traffic/m-p/3092156#M133383 Mohammad Alhyari 2017-08-14T10:38:55Z