VM-Series Deployment Guide

Version 10.0

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Last Revised
March 24, 2021

2 VM-SERIES DEPLOYMENT GUIDE |

Table of Contents
About the VM-Series Firewall....................................................................... 11
VM-Series Deployments......................................................................................................................... 13
VM-Series in High Availability...............................................................................................................15
Upgrade the VM-Series Firewall...........................................................................................................17
Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (Standalone Version).........................................17
Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (HA Pair).............................................................. 19
Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version Using Panorama.................................................22
Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (VM-Series for NSX)......................................... 24
Upgrade the VM-Series Model.................................................................................................28
Upgrade the VM-Series Model in an HA Pair.......................................................................30
Downgrade a VM-Series Firewall to a Previous Release................................................... 31
VM-Series Plugin.......................................................................................................................................32
Configure the VM-Series Plugin on the Firewall..................................................................32
Upgrade the VM-Series Plugin................................................................................................. 33
Enable Jumbo Frames on the VM-Series Firewall............................................................................35
Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses................................................................................................. 37
Custom PAN-OS Metrics Published for Monitoring........................................................................ 39
Interface Used for Accessing External Services on the VM-Series Firewall............................... 41
PacketMMAP and DPDK Driver Support...........................................................................................42

License the VM-Series Firewall.....................................................................45

VM-Series Firewall Licensing................................................................................................................. 47
Create a Support Account...................................................................................................................... 51
Serial Number and CPU ID Format for the VM-Series Firewall....................................................52
Software NGFW Credits......................................................................................................................... 53
Activate Credits............................................................................................................................ 55
Transfer Credits............................................................................................................................ 55
Create a Deployment Profile (VM-Series)..............................................................................56
Create a Deployment Profile (CN-Series).............................................................................. 57
Edit a Deployment Profile..........................................................................................................58
Clone a Deployment Profile...................................................................................................... 58
Provision Panorama..................................................................................................................... 58
Deactivate a Firewall...................................................................................................................58
Delete a Deployment Profile.....................................................................................................59
VM-Series Models.................................................................................................................................... 60
VM-Series System Requirements.............................................................................................61
CPU Oversubscription.................................................................................................................62
VM-50 Lite Mode........................................................................................................................ 62
VM-Series Model License Types..............................................................................................63
Activate VM-Series Model Licenses........................................................................................72
Switch Between the BYOL and the PAYG Licenses............................................................77
Switch Between VM-Series Model Licenses.........................................................................78
Renew VM-Series Firewall License Bundles..........................................................................80
Register the VM-Series Firewall............................................................................................................82
Register the VM-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits).............................................. 82
Register the CN-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)...............................................83
Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code)............................................................... 83
Register the Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth
code)................................................................................................................................................ 83

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

 Use Panorama-Based Software Firewall License Management.................................................... 86
Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall....................................................................90
Deactivate the License(s)........................................................................................................................ 93
Install a License Deactivation API Key................................................................................... 93
Deactivate a Feature License or Subscription Using the CLI............................................ 94
Deactivate VM.............................................................................................................................. 95
Licensing API.............................................................................................................................................. 99
Manage the Licensing API Key.................................................................................................99
Use the Licensing API...............................................................................................................100
Licensing API Error Codes.......................................................................................................102
Licenses for Cloud Security Service Providers (CSSPs).................................................................103
Get the Auth Codes for CSSP License Packages...............................................................103
Register the VM-Series Firewall with a CSSP Auth Code............................................... 104
Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series Firewall.......................... 105

Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server..................................... 109

Supported Deployments on VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)..............................................111
VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements and Limitations..........................................................112
VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements...........................................................................112
VM-Series on ESXi System Limitations................................................................................ 113
Install a VM-Series firewall on VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)..........................................114
Plan the Interfaces for the VM-Series for ESXi................................................................. 114
Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server........................................................115
Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series on ESXi.................................................117
Add Additional Disk Space to the VM-Series Firewall..................................................... 119
Use VMware Tools on the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi and vCloud Air...................... 120
Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts..................................... 121
VM Monitoring on vCenter................................................................................................................. 123
About VM Monitoring on VMware vCenter.......................................................................123
Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware vCenter.............................................................124
Configure the Panorama Plugin for VMware vCenter......................................................124
Troubleshoot ESXi Deployments........................................................................................................127
Basic Troubleshooting.............................................................................................................. 127
Installation Issues....................................................................................................................... 127
Licensing Issues.......................................................................................................................... 129
Connectivity Issues....................................................................................................................129
Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for ESXi.............................................................................131
Install the NIC Driver on ESXi................................................................................................131
Enable DPDK on ESXi.............................................................................................................. 132
Enable SR-IOV on ESXi............................................................................................................ 133
Enable ESXi VLAN Access Mode with SR-IOV.................................................................. 133
Enable Multi-Queue Support for NICs on ESXi................................................................. 134
VNF Tuning for Performance................................................................................................. 135

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air.........................................147

About the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air..................................................................................149
Deployments Supported on vCloud Air............................................................................................150
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air................................................................................151

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX................................... 157

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-V...................................................................... 159
VM-Series for Firewall NSX-V Overview............................................................................ 159

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
 VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V Deployment Checklist......................................................166
Install the VMware NSX Plugin..............................................................................................169
Register the VM-Series Firewall as a Service on the NSX-V Manager......................... 169
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall.............................................................................................. 177
Create Security Groups and Steering Rules........................................................................ 185
Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall............................................................ 190
Steer Traffic from Guests that are not Running VMware Tools.................................... 194
What is Multi-NSX Manager Support on the VM-Series for NSX-V?........................... 195
Dynamically Quarantine Infected Guests............................................................................ 198
Migrate Operations-Centric Configuration to Security-Centric Configuration...........202
Add a New Host to Your NSX-V Deployment...................................................................205
Use Case: Shared Compute Infrastructure and Shared Security Policies..................... 206
Use Case: Shared Security Policies on Dedicated Compute Infrastructure................. 210
Dynamic Address Groups—Information Relay from NSX-V Manager to
Panorama..................................................................................................................................... 215
Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-South)............................................ 220
Supported Deployments of the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-
South)............................................................................................................................................ 220
Components of the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South).................................220
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)................................................ 221
Extend Security Policy from NSX-V to NSX-T................................................................... 232
Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)................................................................. 234
Components of the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)..................................... 234
VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West) Integration.................................................... 235
Supported Deployments of the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (East-
West)............................................................................................................................................. 237
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West).................................................... 238
Extend Security Policy from NSX-V to NSX-T................................................................... 251
Use In-Place Migration to Move Your VM-Series from NSX-V to NSX-T................... 252

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on AWS...................................................259

About the VM-Series Firewall on AWS............................................................................................261
AWS EC2 Instance Types........................................................................................................261
VM-Series Firewall on AWS GovCloud................................................................................261
VM-Series Firewall on AWS China....................................................................................... 261
VM-Series Firewall on AWS Outposts................................................................................. 262
AWS Terminology......................................................................................................................262
Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB...........................................264
Performance Tuning for the VM-Series on AWS.............................................................. 266
Deployments Supported on AWS...................................................................................................... 267
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.......................................................................................... 270
Obtain the AMI.......................................................................................................................... 270
Planning Worksheet for the VM-Series in the AWS VPC............................................... 275
Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS............................................................................. 276
Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS Outpost............................................................. 282
Create a Custom Amazon Machine Image (AMI)...............................................................288
Encrypt EBS Volume for the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.............................................. 290
Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management Interface...........................292
Enable CloudWatch Monitoring on the VM-Series Firewall........................................... 292
VM-Series Integration with an AWS Gateway Load Balancer.................................................... 297
Manual Integration of the VM-Series with a Gateway Load Balancer..........................298
VM-Series Auto Scaling Group with AWS Gateway Load Balancer..............................309
High Availability for VM-Series Firewall on AWS..........................................................................319
Overview of HA on AWS........................................................................................................ 319

TABLE OF CONTENTS v
 IAM Roles for HA...................................................................................................................... 320
HA Links....................................................................................................................................... 323
Heartbeat Polling and Hello Messages................................................................................ 323
Device Priority and Preemption.............................................................................................323
HA Timers....................................................................................................................................324
Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS Using a Secondary IP........................................ 324
Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS Using Interface Move....................................... 328
Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS.................................................................................... 331
Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the AWS Cloud.............................................................. 336
Use Case: Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure New EC2 Instances within the VPC.....346
Use Case: VM-Series Firewalls as GlobalProtect Gateways on AWS........................................350
Components of the GlobalProtect Infrastructure..............................................................350
Deploy GlobalProtect Gateways on AWS...........................................................................351
VM Monitoring on AWS.......................................................................................................................353
VM Monitoring with the AWS Plugin on Panorama.........................................................354
Set Up the AWS Plugin for VM Monitoring on Panorama.............................................. 354
Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls with the Amazon ELB Service...............................................365
VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.0............................................... 366
VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.1............................................... 395
List of Attributes Monitored on the AWS VPC..............................................................................418
IAM Permissions Required for Monitoring the AWS VPC...............................................419

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on KVM...................................................421

VM-Series on KVM—Requirements and Prerequisites................................................................. 423
Options for Attaching the VM-Series on the Network.................................................... 424
Prerequisites for VM-Series on KVM................................................................................... 424
Supported Deployments on KVM...................................................................................................... 429
Secure Traffic on a Single Host............................................................................................. 429
Secure Traffic Across Linux hosts......................................................................................... 429
Install the VM-Series Firewall on KVM............................................................................................ 431
Install the VM-Series Firewall Using Virt-Manager........................................................... 431
Install the VM-Series Firewall Using an ISO....................................................................... 437
Enable the Use of a SCSI Controller................................................................................................. 440
Verify PCI-ID for Ordering of Network Interfaces on the VM-Series Firewall........................441
Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for KVM............................................................................443
Install KVM and Open vSwitch on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS..................................................443
Enable Open vSwitch on KVM...............................................................................................443
Integrate Open vSwitch with DPDK.....................................................................................444
Enable SR-IOV on KVM........................................................................................................... 448
Enable VLAN Access Mode with SR-IOV............................................................................449
Enable Multi-Queue Support for NICs on KVM................................................................ 450
Isolate CPU Resources in a NUMA Node on KVM...........................................................450

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V............................................ 453

Supported Deployments on Hyper-V................................................................................................455
Secure Traffic on a Single Hyper-V Host............................................................................ 455
Secure Traffic Across Multiple Hyper-V Hosts.................................................................. 455
System Requirements on Hyper-V.................................................................................................... 457
Linux Integration Services.................................................................................................................... 458
Install the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V...................................................................................... 459
Before You Begin.......................................................................................................................459
Performance Tuning of the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V..........................................460
Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with Hyper-V Manager............460

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with PowerShell........................ 461
Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series Firewall.................................................462

Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure.................................................. 465

About the VM-Series Firewall on Azure...........................................................................................467
Azure Networking and VM-Series Firewall.........................................................................467
Azure Security Center Integration.........................................................................................468
VM-Series Firewall Templates on Azure..............................................................................469
Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series on Azure........................................470
Support for High Availability on VM-Series on Azure......................................................471
VM-Series on Azure Service Principal Permissions...........................................................471
Deployments Supported on Azure.....................................................................................................474
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure Marketplace (Solution Template).................475
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure China Marketplace (Solution Template)..... 483
Panorama Orchestrated Deployments in Azure............................................................................. 488
Prepare for an Orchestrated Deployment...........................................................................490
Orchestrate a VM-Series Firewall Deployment in Azure.................................................493
Create a Custom VM-Series Image for Azure.................................................................................499
Use Azure Security Center Recommendations to Secure Your Workloads............................. 501
Deploy a VM-Series Firewall Based on an Azure Security Center
Recommendation....................................................................................................................... 501
Connect an Existing VM-Series Firewall From Azure Security Center......................... 502
Use Panorama to Forward Logs to Azure Security Center..............................................504
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Azure Stack............................................................................. 507
Enable Azure Application Insights on the VM-Series Firewall.................................................... 511
Monitoring on Azure............................................................................................................................. 513
About Monitoring on Azure....................................................................................................513
Set Up the Azure Plugin for Monitoring on Panorama.................................................... 513
Attributes Monitored Using the Panorama Plugin on Azure...........................................518
Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure..................................................................................................521
Set Up Active/Passive HA on Azure (North-South & East-West Traffic).....................522
Set Up Active/Passive HA on Azure (East-West Traffic Only).......................................531
Use the ARM Template to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall......................................................... 540
Deploy the VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template............................................ 543
VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template..................................................... 543
Start Using the VM-Series & Azure Application Gateway Template.............................545
Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure.............................................................................................. 552
How Does the Panorama Plugin for Azure Secure Kubernetes Services?................... 552
Secure an AKS Cluster............................................................................................................. 556

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on OpenStack........................................ 567

VM-Series Deployments in OpenStack.............................................................................................569
Basic Gateway............................................................................................................................ 569
Service Chaining and Service Scaling................................................................................... 569
Components of the VM-Series for OpenStack Solution...............................................................571
Heat Template for a Basic Gateway Deployment..........................................................................573
Heat Templates for Service Chaining and Service Scaling........................................................... 575
Virtual Network..........................................................................................................................576
Virtual Machine.......................................................................................................................... 576
Service Template........................................................................................................................577
Service Instance......................................................................................................................... 577
IPAM..............................................................................................................................................578
Service Policy..............................................................................................................................578

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

 Alarm............................................................................................................................................. 579
Install the VM-Series Firewall in a Basic Gateway Deployment................................................. 581
Install the VM-Series Firewall with Service Chaining or Scaling.................................................584

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform.................. 587

About the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform........................................................... 589
Google Cloud Platform and the VM-Series Firewall......................................................... 589
Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall.......................................... 589
Supported Deployments on Google Cloud Platform.....................................................................591
Internet Gateway....................................................................................................................... 591
Segmentation Gateway............................................................................................................ 591
Hybrid IPSec VPN......................................................................................................................592
Prepare to Set Up VM-Series Firewalls on Google Public Cloud............................................... 593
General Requirements.............................................................................................................. 593
Install the VM-Series Plugin on Panorama.......................................................................... 594
Install the Panorama Plugin for GCP.................................................................................... 594
Prepare to Deploy from the GCP Marketplace..................................................................595
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform......................................................... 601
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.................601
Management Interface Swap for Google Cloud Platform Load Balancing...................604
Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management Interface...........................606
Enable Google Stackdriver Monitoring on the VM Series Firewall................................607
Enable VM Monitoring to Track VM Changes on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)....... 609
Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure Instances Within the VPC............................ 610
Use Custom Templates or the gcloud CLI to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall.............612
VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP......................................................................614
Configure VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP...................................... 614
Auto Scaling the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform............................................... 620
Auto Scaling Components for Google Cloud Platform.....................................................620
Deploy GCP Auto Scaling Templates................................................................................... 629

Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on a Cisco ENCS Network...................... 655

Plan Your Cisco ENCS Deployment.................................................................................................. 657
Prepare the VM-Series Firewall Image for Cisco ENCS................................................................659
Convert a qcow2 File from the Graphical User Interface................................................659
Convert a qcow2 File from the Command Line Interface............................................... 661
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco ENCS..............................................................................665

Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure........... 669

OCI Shape Types.................................................................................................................................... 671
Deployments Supported on OCI........................................................................................................ 672
Prepare to Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on OCI........................................................................ 673
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall From the Oracle Cloud Marketplace....................................... 676
Configure Active/Passive HA on OCI............................................................................................... 680

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud...................................687

VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud................................................................................................689
Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud...................... 690
VM-Series Firewall Software Requirements....................................................................... 690
Alibaba Cloud Instance Type Recommendations for the VM-Series Firewall............. 690
Alibaba Cloud CLI...................................................................................................................... 690

viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Prepare to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud..................................................... 691
Choose Licenses and Plan Networks....................................................................................691
Prepare to Use the Aliyun Command Line Interface........................................................ 691
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud..........................................................................693
Create a VPC and Configure Networks............................................................................... 693
Create and Configure the VM-Series Firewall....................................................................696
Secure North-South Traffic on Alibaba Cloud....................................................................699
Configure Load Balancing on Alibaba Cloud.......................................................................703

Set Up a Firewall in Cisco ACI....................................................................705

Palo Alto Networks Firewall Integration with Cisco ACI..............................................................707
Service Graph Templates......................................................................................................... 708
Multi-Context Deployments................................................................................................... 708
Prepare Your ACI Environment for Integration.............................................................................. 709
Integrate the Firewall with Cisco ACI in Network Policy Mode................................................. 710
Deploy the Firewall to Secure East-West Traffic in Network Policy Mode.................710
Deploy the Firewall to Secure North-South Traffic in Network Policy Mode.............723
Endpoint Monitoring in Cisco ACI..................................................................................................... 736
Install the Panorama Plugin for Cisco ACI.......................................................................... 737
Configure the Cisco ACI Plugin..............................................................................................737
Panorama Plugin for Cisco ACI Dashboard.........................................................................740

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP......................................... 743

VM-Series on Cisco CSP System Requirements.............................................................................745
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP.................................................................................746

Endpoint Monitoring for Cisco TrustSec.................................................. 749

Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec................................................................................................. 751
Bulk Sync..................................................................................................................................... 751
PubSub..........................................................................................................................................752
Install the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec..............................................................................753
Configure the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec.......................................................................754
Troubleshoot the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec................................................................ 760
Plugin Status Commands......................................................................................................... 760
Debug Commands..................................................................................................................... 760
Debug Logs..................................................................................................................................761

Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Nutanix AHV....................................763

VM Monitoring on Nutanix................................................................................................................. 765
About VM Monitoring on Nutanix........................................................................................ 765
Install the Panorama Plugin for Nutanix.............................................................................. 766
Configure the Panorama Plugin for Nutanix.......................................................................766

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall..............................................................771

Choose a Bootstrap Method............................................................................................................... 773
Basic Configuration................................................................................................................... 774
Complete Configuration........................................................................................................... 777
VM-Series Firewall Bootstrap Workflow......................................................................................... 778
Bootstrap Package..................................................................................................................................780
Bootstrap Package Structure.................................................................................................. 780

TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
 Bootstrap Package Delivery....................................................................................................780
Bootstrap Configuration Files............................................................................................................. 782
init-cfg.txt.....................................................................................................................................782
bootstrap.xml.............................................................................................................................. 782
Generate the VM Auth Key on Panorama.......................................................................................783
Create the init-cfg.txt File.................................................................................................................... 785
init-cfg.txt File Components....................................................................................................786
Sample init-cfg.txt File..............................................................................................................788
Create the bootstrap.xml File..............................................................................................................790
Prepare the Licenses for Bootstrapping........................................................................................... 791
Prepare the Bootstrap Package.......................................................................................................... 792
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS..................................................................................... 794
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Azure....................................................................................798
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi...................................................................................... 801
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi with an ISO...................................................801
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi with a Block Storage Device.....................801
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform.................................................... 803
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V...............................................................................805
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V with an ISO........................................... 805
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V with a Block Storage Device..............805
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM..................................................................................... 807
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM with an ISO..................................................807
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM With a Block Storage Device...................807
Verify Bootstrap Completion...............................................................................................................809
Bootstrap Errors......................................................................................................................................810

x TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the VM-Series Firewall
The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series firewall is the virtualized form of the Palo Alto Networks
next-generation firewall. It is positioned for use in a virtualized or cloud environment where it
can protect and secure east-west and north-south traffic.

> VM-Series Deployments

> VM-Series in High Availability
> Upgrade the VM-Series Firewall
> VM-Series Plugin
> Enable Jumbo Frames on the VM-Series Firewall
> Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses
> Custom PAN-OS Metrics Published for Monitoring
> Interface Used for Accessing External Services on the VM-Series Firewall
> PacketMMAP and DPDK Driver Support

11
12 VM-SERIES DEPLOYMENT GUIDE | About the VM-Series Firewall
© 2021 Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
VM-Series Deployments
The VM-Series firewall can be deployed on the following platforms:
VM-Series for VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) and vCloud Air
You can deploy any VM-Series model as a guest virtual machine on VMware ESXi; ideal for cloud or
networks where virtual form factor is required.

For details, see Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server and Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
vCloud Air.
VM-Series on VMware NSX-V
The VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, VM-500, or VM-1000-HV is deployed as a network introspection
service with VMware NSX, and Panorama. This deployment is ideal for east-west traffic inspection, and
it also can secure north-south traffic.

For details, see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-V.

VM-Series on VMware NSX-T
You can deploy the VM-100, VM-300, VM-500, or VM-700 in your NSX-T environment.
For details, see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-South).
VM-Series for Amazon Web Services (AWS)
You can deploy any VM-Series model, except the VM-50, on EC2 instances on the AWS Cloud.
For details, see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.
VM-Series for Google Cloud Platform
You can deploy any VM-Series model, except the VM-50 and the VM-50 Lite on Google Compute
Engine instances. For details, see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform.
VM-Series for Kernel Virtualization Module (KVM)

VM-SERIES DEPLOYMENT GUIDE | About the VM-Series Firewall 13

© 2021 Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
 You can deploy any VM-Series model on a Linux server that is running the KVM hypervisor. For details,
see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on KVM.
VM-Series for Microsoft Hyper-V
You can deploy any VM-Series model on a Windows Server 2012 R2 server with the Hyper-V role add-
on enabled or a standalone Hyper-V 2012 R2 server. For details, see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
Hyper-V.
VM-Series for Microsoft Azure
You can deploy any VM-Series model, except the VM-50, on the Azure VNet.
For details, see Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure.

14 VM-SERIES DEPLOYMENT GUIDE | About the VM-Series Firewall

© 2021 Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
VM-Series in High Availability
High availability (HA) is a configuration in which two firewalls are placed in a group and their configuration
is synchronized to prevent a single point of failure on your network. A heartbeat connection between
the firewall peers ensures seamless failover in the event that a peer goes down. Setting up the firewalls
in a two-device cluster provides redundancy and allows you to ensure business continuity. In an HA
configuration on the VM-Series firewalls, both peers must be deployed on the same type of hypervisor,
have identical hardware resources (such as CPU cores/network interfaces) assigned to them, and have the
set same of licenses/subscriptions. For general information about HA on Palo Alto Networks firewalls, see
High Availability.
The VM-Series firewalls support stateful active/passive or active/active high availability with session
and configuration synchronization. The active/active deployment is supported in virtual wire and Layer 3
deployments on some private cloud hypervisors, and is recommended only if each firewall needs its own
routing instances and you require full, real-time redundancy out of both firewalls all the time. To configure
the VM-Series firewall as an HA pair, see Configure Active/Passive HA and Configure Active/Active HA.
If you are deploying the VM-Series firewall in the public cloud, such as on the Amazon Web Services (AWS)
or Azure, you can use the traditional active/passive HA configuration; see High Availability for VM-Series
Firewall on AWS and Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure. Alternatively, because of the innate differences
in how resource or region redundancy is built into the cloud infrastructure as compared to a private data
center, to take advantage of native cloud services and build a resilient architecture that maximizes uptime,
see
• AWS— Auto Scale VM-Series Firewalls with the Amazon ELB to deploy multiple firewalls across two or
more Availability Zones within a VPC.
• Azure— VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template Parameters.

Features/ Links Supported ESX KVM AWS NSX- NSX- Hyper-V Azure GCP OCI
V T
(N/
S)

Active/Passive HA Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Active/Active HA Yes Yes No No No Yes No No No

HA 1 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

HA2—(session synchronization and Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
keepalive)

HA3 Yes Yes No No No Yes No No No

HA1 and HA2 support for the VM-Series on GCP requires PAN-OS 10.0x or later and VM-
Series plugin 2.0.5 or later.

High availability for the VM-Series firewall on NSX-T (E/W) is achieved through the NSX-T feature called
service health check. This NSX-T feature allows you to simulate high availability in the case of a service
instance failing. When configured with the VM-Series firewall, if a VM-Series service instance fails, any
traffic directed to that firewall is redirect to another firewall instance in the cluster (for service cluster

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 deployments) or a firewall instance on another host (for host-based deployments). See Configure the
Service Definition on Panorama for the VM-Series firewall on NSX-T (E/W) for more information.

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Upgrade the VM-Series Firewall
Upgrading the PAN-OS version or VM-Series model allows you to add the latest features and fixes that help
improve the security capabilities and performance of your firewalls.
The standard PAN-OS release is just that; the normal version of PAN-OS that can be installed on all Palo
Alto Networks firewalls. The PAN-OS XFR releases are for VM-Series firewalls only and can include
new features and bug fixes for VM-Series firewalls. If you install a PAN-OS XFR image on the VM-Series
firewalls, the features and fixes are not available in PAN-OS versions that are earlier than the software
version you have installed.
Because XFR images include features and fixes that are specific to VM-Series firewalls, if you upgrade to
an XFR release, you must stay on XFR releases to keep XFR specific features until the next major PAN-OS
release; all the fixes and capabilities available in XFR will be cumulatively rolled into the next major PAN-OS
release.
• Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (Standalone Version)
• Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (HA Pair)
• Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version Using Panorama
• Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (VM-Series for NSX)
• Upgrade the VM-Series Model
• Upgrade the VM-Series Model in an HA Pair
• Downgrade a VM-Series Firewall to a Previous Release
For instructions on installing your VM-Series firewall, see VM-Series Deployments.

Verify the VM-Series System Requirements for your firewall model before you upgrade. If
your firewall has less than 5.5GB memory, the system capacity (number of sessions, rules,
security zones, address objects, etc) on the firewall will be limited to that of the VM-50 Lite.

Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (Standalone Version)

Review the new features, addressed issues, and known issues and then use the following procedure to
upgrade a firewall that is not in an HA configuration.

To avoid impacting traffic, plan to upgrade within the outage window. Ensure the firewall
is connected to a reliable power source. A loss of power during an upgrade can make the
firewall unusable.

STEP 1 | Verify that enough hardware resources are available to the VM-Series firewall.
Refer to the VM-Series System Requirements to see the resource requirements for each VM-Series
model. Allocate additional hardware resources before continuing the upgrade process; the process for
assigning additional hardware resources differs on each hypervisor.
If the VM-Series firewall does not have the required resources for the model, it defaults to the capacity
associated with the VM-50.

STEP 2 | From the web interface, navigate to Device > Licenses and make sure you have the correct
VM-Series firewall license and that the license is activated.
On the VM-Series firewall standalone version, navigate to Device > Support and make sure that you
have activated the support license.

STEP 3 | Save a backup of the current configuration file.

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 Although the firewall automatically creates a configuration backup, it is a best practice to
create and externally store a backup before you upgrade.

1. Select Device > Setup > Operations and click Export named configuration snapshot.
2. Select the XML file that contains your running configuration (for example, running-config.xml) and
click OK to export the configuration file.
3. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the
configuration if you have problems with the upgrade.

STEP 4 | If you have enabled User-ID, after you upgrade, the firewall clears the current IP address-
to-username and group mappings so that they can be repopulated with the attributes from
the User-ID sources. To estimate the time required for your environment to repopulate the
mappings, run the following CLI commands on the firewall.
• For IP address-to-username mappings:
• show user user-id-agent state all
• show user server-monitor state all
• For group mappings: show user group-mapping statistics

STEP 5 | Ensure that the firewall is running the latest content release version.
1. Select Device > Dynamic Updates and see which Applications or Applications and Threats content
release version is Currently Installed.
2. If the firewall is not running the minimum required content release version or a later version required
for PAN-OS, Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.
3. Locate and Download the desired content release version.
After you successfully download a content update file, the link in the Action column changes from
Download to Install for that content release version.
4. Install the update.

STEP 6 | Upgrade the VM-Series plugin.

1. Before upgrading, check the latest Release Notes for details on whether a new VM-Series plugin
affects your environment.
For example, suppose a new VM-Series plugin version only includes AWS features. To take
advantage of the new features, you must update the plugin on your VM-Series firewall instances on
AWS.

Do not install an upgrade that does not apply to your environment.

2. Log in to the VM-Series firewall and check the dashboard to view the plugin version.
3. Select Device > Plugins to view the plugin version. Use Check Now to check for updates.
4. Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.

STEP 7 | Upgrade PAN-OS.

If your firewall does not have internet access from the management port, you can
download the software image from the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal and
then manually Upload it to your firewall.

1. Select Device > Software and click Check Now to display the latest PAN-OS updates.
2. Locate and Download the target PAN-OS version.

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 3. After you download the image (or, for a manual upgrade, after you upload the image), Install the
image.
4. After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
• If you are prompted to reboot, click Yes.
• If you are not prompted to reboot, select Device > Setup > Operations and click Reboot Device.

At this point, the firewall clears the User-ID mappings, then connects to the User-ID
sources to repopulate the mappings.
5. If you have enabled User-ID, use the following CLI commands to verify that the firewall has
repopulated the IP address-to-username and group mappings before allowing traffic.
• show user ip-user-mapping all
• show user group list
6. If you are upgrading to an XFR release for the first time, repeat this step to upgrade to the
corresponding XFR release.

STEP 8 | Verify that the firewall is passing traffic.

Select Monitor > Session Browser and verify that you are seeing new sessions.

Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (HA Pair)

Use the following procedure to upgrade a pair of firewalls in a high availability (HA) configuration. This
procedure applies to both active/passive and active/active configurations.
To avoid downtime when upgrading firewalls that are in a high availability (HA) configuration, update one
HA peer at a time: For active/active firewalls, it doesn’t matter which peer you upgrade first (though for
simplicity, this procedure shows you how to upgrade the active-secondary peer first). For active/passive
firewalls, you must upgrade the passive peer first, suspend the active peer (fail over), update the active peer,
and then return that peer to a functional state (fail back). To prevent failover during the upgrade of the HA
peers, you must make sure preemption is disabled before proceeding with the upgrade. You only need to
disable preemption on one peer in the pair.

To avoid impacting traffic, plan to upgrade within the outage window. Ensure the firewalls are
connected to a reliable power source. A loss of power during an upgrade can make firewalls
unusable.

STEP 1 | Verify that enough hardware resources are available to the VM-Series firewall.
Refer to the VM-Series System Requirements to see the resource requirements for each VM-Series
model. Allocate additional hardware resources before continuing the upgrade process; the process for
assigning additional hardware resources differs on each hypervisor.
If the VM-Series firewall does not have the required resources for the model, it defaults to the capacity
associated with the VM-50.

STEP 2 | From the web interface, navigate to Device > Licenses and make sure you have the correct
VM-Series firewall license and that the license is activated.
On the VM-Series firewall standalone version, navigate to Device > Support and make sure that you
have activated the support license.

STEP 3 | Save a backup of the current configuration file.

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 Although the firewall automatically creates a backup of the configuration, it is a best
practice to create and externally store a backup before you upgrade.

Perform these steps on each firewall in the pair:

1. Select Device > Setup > Operations and click Export named configuration snapshot.
2. Select the XML file that contains your running configuration (for example, running-config.xml) and
click OK to export the configuration file.
3. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the
configuration if you have problems with the upgrade.

STEP 4 | If you have enabled User-ID, after you upgrade, the firewall clears the current IP address-
to-username and group mappings so that they can be repopulated with the attributes from
the User-ID sources. To estimate the time required for your environment to repopulate the
mappings, run the following CLI commands on the firewall.
• For IP address-to-username mappings:
• show user user-id-agent state all
• show user server-monitor state all
• For group mappings: show user group-mapping statistics

STEP 5 | Ensure that each firewall in the HA pair is running the latest content release version.
Refer to the release notes for the minimum content release version you must install for a PAN-OS 9.1
release. Make sure to follow the Best Practices for Application and Threat Updates.
1. Select Device > Dynamic Updates and check which Applications or Applications and Threats to
determine which update is Currently Installed.
2. If the firewalls are not running the minimum required content release version or a later version
required for the software version you are installing, Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.
3. Locate and Download the desired content release version.
After you successfully download a content update file, the link in the Action column changes from
Download to Install for that content release version.
4. Install the update. You must install the update on both peers.

STEP 6 | Upgrade the VM-Series plugin.

1. Before upgrading, check the latest Release Notes for details on whether a new VM-Series plugin
affects your environment.
For example, suppose a new VM-Series plugin version only includes AWS features. To take
advantage of the new features, you must update the plugin on your VM-Series firewall instances on
AWS.

Do not install an upgrade that does not apply to your environment.

2. Log in to the VM-Series firewall and check the dashboard to view the plugin version.
3. Select Device > Plugins to view the plugin version. Use Check Now to check for updates.
4. Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
When installing the plugin on VM-Series firewalls in an HA pair, install the plugin on the passive
peer before the active peer. After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-
functional state. Installing the plugin on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

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STEP 7 | Disable preemption on the first peer in each pair. You only need to disable this setting on one
firewall in the HA pair but ensure that the commit is successful before you proceed with the
upgrade.
1. Select Device > High Availability and edit the Election Settings.
2. If enabled, disable (clear) the Preemptive setting and click OK.
3. Commit the change.

STEP 8 | Install the PAN-OS release on the first peer. If you are upgrading to an XFR release, install the
version that corresponds to the XFR release.
To minimize downtime in an active/passive configuration, upgrade the passive peer first. For an active/
active configuration, upgrade the secondary peer first. As a best practice, if you are using an active/
active configuration, we recommend upgrading both peers during the same maintenance window.

If you want to test that HA is functioning properly before the upgrade, consider upgrading
the active peer in an active/passive configuration first to ensure that failover occurs
without incident.

1. On the first peer, select Device > Software and click Check Now for the latest updates.
2. Locate and Download the target PAN-OS version.

If your firewall does not have internet access from the management port, you can
download the software image from the Palo Alto Networks Support Portal and then
manually Upload it to your firewall.
3. After you download the image (or, for a manual upgrade, after you upload the image), Install the
image.
4. After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
• If you are prompted to reboot, click Yes.
• If you are not prompted to reboot, select Device > Setup > Operations and Reboot Device.
5. After the device finishes rebooting, view the High Availability widget on the Dashboard and
verify that the device you just upgraded is still the passive or active-secondary peer in the HA
configuration.

STEP 9 | Install the PAN-OS release on the second peer. If you are upgrading to an XFR release, install
the version that corresponds to the XFR release.
1. (Active/passive configurations only) Suspend the active peer so that HA fails over to the peer you
just upgraded.
1. On the active peer, select Device > High Availability > Operational Commands and click Suspend
local device.
2. View the High Availability widget on the Dashboard and verify that the state changes to Passive.
3. On the other peer, verify that it is active and is passing traffic (Monitor > Session Browser).
2. On the second peer, select Device > Software and click Check Now for the latest updates.
3. Locate and Download the target PAN-OS version.
4. After you download the image, Install it.
5. After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
• If you are prompted to reboot, click Yes.
• If you are not prompted to reboot, select Device > Setup > Operations and Reboot Device.
6. (Active/passive configurations only) From the CLI of the peer you just upgraded, run the following
command to make the firewall functional again:
request high-availability state functional

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STEP 10 | (PAN-OS XFR upgrade only) Upgrade the first peer and second peer to PAN-OS XFR by
repeating Step 8 and Step 9.

STEP 11 | Verify that both peers are passing traffic as expected.

In an active/passive configuration, only the active peer should be passing traffic; both peers should be
passing traffic in an active/active configuration.
Run the following CLI commands to confirm that the upgrade succeeded:
• (Active peers only) To verify that active peers are passing traffic, run the show session all
command.
• To verify session synchronization, run the show high-availability interface ha2
command and make sure that the Hardware Interface counters on the CPU table are increasing as
follows:
• In an active/passive configuration, only the active peer shows packets transmitted; the passive
peer will show only packets received.

If you enabled HA2 keep-alive, the hardware interface counters on the passive
peer will show both transmit and receive packets. This occurs because HA2
keep-alive is bi-directional, which means that both peers transmit HA2 keep-alive
packets.
• In an active/active configuration, you will see packets received and packets transmitted on both
peers.

STEP 12 | If you disabled preemption prior to the upgrade, re-enable it now.

1. Select Device > High Availability and edit the Election Settings.
2. Select Preemptive and click OK.
3. Commit the change.

Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version Using Panorama

Use the following procedure to upgrade firewalls that you manage with Panorama. This procedure applies
to standalone firewalls and firewalls deployed in a high availability (HA) configuration.

If Panorama is unable to connect directly to the update server, follow the procedure for
deploying updates to firewalls when Panorama is not internet-connected so that you can
manually download images to Panorama and then distribute the images to firewalls.

Before you can upgrade firewalls from Panorama, you must:

Make sure Panorama is running the same or a later PAN-OS version than you are upgrading to. You must
upgrade Panorama and its Log Collectors to 9.1 before upgrading the managed firewalls to this version.
In addition, when upgrading Log Collectors to 9.1, you must upgrade all Log Collectors at the same time
due to changes in the logging infrastructure.
Plan for an extended maintenance window of up to six hours when upgrading Panorama to 9.1. This
release includes significant infrastructure changes, which means that the Panorama upgrade will take
longer than in previous releases.
Ensure that firewalls are connected to a reliable power source. A loss of power during an upgrade can
make a firewall unusable.

STEP 1 | After upgrading Panorama, commit and push the configuration to the firewalls you are planning
to upgrade.

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STEP 2 | Verify that enough hardware resources are available to the VM-Series firewall.
Refer to the VM-Series System Requirements to see the resource requirements for each VM-Series
model. Allocate additional hardware resources before continuing the upgrade process; the process for
assigning additional hardware resources differs on each hypervisor.
If the VM-Series firewall does not have the required resources for the model, it defaults to the capacity
associated with the VM-50.

STEP 3 | From the web interface, navigate to Device > Licenses and make sure you have the correct
VM-Series firewall license and that the license is activated.
On the VM-Series firewall standalone version, navigate to Device > Support and make sure that you
have activated the support license.

STEP 4 | Save a backup of the current configuration file on each managed firewall you plan to upgrade.

Although the firewall automatically creates a configuration backup, it is a best practice to

create and externally store a backup before you upgrade.

1. From the Panorama web interface, select Panorama > Setup > Operations and click Export
Panorama and devices config bundle to generate and export the latest configuration backup of
Panorama and of each managed appliance.
2. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the
configuration if you have problems with the upgrade.

STEP 5 | Update the content release version on the firewalls you plan to upgrade.
Refer to the Release Notes for the minimum content release version required for PAN-OS 9.1. Make
sure to follow the Best Practices for Application and Threat Updates when deploying content updates to
Panorama and managed firewalls.
1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Dynamic Updates and Check Now for the latest updates. If
an update is available, the Action column displays a Download link.
2. If not already installed, Download the latest content release version.
3. Click Install, select the firewalls on which you want to install the update, and click OK. If you are
upgrading HA firewalls, you must update content on both peers.

STEP 6 | (HA firewall upgrades only) If you will be upgrading firewalls that are part of an HA pair, disable
preemption. You need only disable this setting on one firewall in each HA pair.
1. Select Device > High Availability and edit the Election Settings.
2. If enabled, disable (clear) the Preemptive setting and click OK.
3. Commit your change. Make sure the commit is successful before you proceed with the upgrade.

STEP 7 | Download the target PAN-OS release image.

1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Software and Check Now for the latest release versions.
2. Download the firewall-specific file (or files) for the release version to which you are upgrading. You
must download a separate installation file for each firewall model (or firewall series) that you intend
to upgrade.

STEP 8 | Install the PAN-OS software update on the firewalls.

1. Click Install in the Action column that corresponds to the firewall models you want to upgrade.
2. In the Deploy Software file dialog, select all firewalls that you want to upgrade. To reduce downtime,
select only one peer in each HA pair. For active/passive pairs, select the passive peer; for active/
active pairs, select the active-secondary peer.

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 3. (HA firewall upgrades only) Make sure Group HA Peers is not selected.
4. Select Reboot device after install.
5. To begin the upgrade, click OK.
6. After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
• If you are prompted to reboot, click Yes.
• If you are not prompted to reboot, select Device > Setup > Operations and Reboot Device.
7. After the firewalls finish rebooting, select Panorama > Managed Devices and verify the Software
Version is 9.1.0 for the firewalls you upgraded. Also verify that the HA status of any passive firewalls
you upgraded is still passive.

STEP 9 | (HA firewall upgrades only) Upgrade the second HA peer in each HA pair.
1. (Active/passive upgrades only) Suspend the active device in each active/passive pair you are
upgrading.
1. Switch context to the active firewall.
2. In the High Availability widget on the Dashboard, verify that Local firewall state is Active and the
Peer is Passive).
3. Select Device > High Availability > Operational Commands > Suspend local device.
4. Go back to the High Availability widget on the Dashboard and verify that Local changed to
Passive and Peer changed to Active.
2. Go back to the Panorama context and select Panorama > Device Deployment > Software.
3. Click Install in the Action column that corresponds to the firewall models of the HA pairs you are
upgrading.
4. In the Deploy Software file dialog, select all firewalls that you want to upgrade. This time, select only
the peers of the HA firewalls you just upgraded.
5. Make sure Group HA Peers is not selected.
6. Select Reboot device after install.
7. To begin the upgrade, click OK.
8. After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
• If you are prompted to reboot, click Yes.
• If you are not prompted to reboot, select Device > Setup > Operations and Reboot Device.
9. (Active/passive upgrades only) From the CLI of the peer you just upgraded, run the following
command to make the firewall functional again:
request high-availability state functional

STEP 10 | (PAN-OS XFR upgrade only) Upgrade the first peer and second peer to PAN-OS XFR by
repeating Step 8 and Step 9.

STEP 11 | Verify the software and content release version running on each managed firewall.
1. On Panorama, select Panorama > Managed Devices.
2. Locate the firewalls and review the content and software versions in the table.
For HA firewalls, you can also verify that the HA Status of each peer is as expected.

STEP 12 | (HA firewall upgrades only) If you disabled preemption on one of your HA firewalls before
you upgraded, then edit the Election Settings (Device > High Availability) and re-enable the
Preemptive setting for that firewall and then Commit the change.

Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (VM-Series for NSX)

Choose the upgrade method that best suits your deployment.

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 • Upgrade the VM-Series for NSX During a Maintenance Window—use this option to upgrade the VM-
Series firewall during a maintenance window without changing the OVF URL in the service definition.
• Upgrade the VM-Series for NSX Without Disrupting Traffic—use this option to upgrade the VM-Series
firewall without disrupting service to the guest VMs or changing the OVF URL in the service definition.
The following graphics displays the currently supported combinations of Panorama and the Panorama
plugin for VMware NSX, as well as the upgrade paths you are required to follow to upgrade successfully.
• Each box below represents a supported combination.
• When upgrading the Panorama plugin for NSX or Panorama in an HA pair, upgrade the passive
Panorama peer first, followed by the active HA peer.
Before upgrading your VM-Series for VMware NSX deployment, review the upgrade paths shown below
to understand the upgrade steps to arrive at the plugin and PAN-OS combination that best suits your
environment.

Upgrade the VM-Series for NSX During a Maintenance Window

For the VM-Series Firewall NSX edition, use Panorama to upgrade the software version on the firewalls.

STEP 1 | Review the VM-Series for VMware NSX upgrade paths.

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STEP 2 | Allocate additional hardware resources to your VM-Series firewall.
Verify that enough hardware resources are available to the VM-Series firewall. Refer to the VM-Series
System Requirements to see the new resource requirements for each VM-Series model. Allocate
additional hardware resources before continuing the upgrade process. The process for assigning
additional hardware resources differs on each hypervisor.

STEP 3 | Save a backup of the current configuration file on each managed firewall that you plan to
upgrade.

Although the firewall will automatically create a backup of the configuration, it is a best
practice to create a backup prior to upgrade and store it externally.

1. Select Device > Setup > Operations and click Export Panorama and devices config bundle. This
option is used to manually generate and export the latest version of the configuration backup of
Panorama and of each managed device.
2. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the
configuration if you have problems with the upgrade.

STEP 4 | Check the Release Notes to verify the Content Release version required for the PAN-OS
version.
The firewalls you plan to upgrade must be running the Content Release version required for the PAN-OS
version.
1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Dynamic Updates.
2. Check for the latest updates. Click Check Now (located in the lower left-hand corner of the window)
to check for the latest updates. The link in the Action column indicates whether an update is
available. If a version is available, the Download link displays.
3. Click Download to download a selected version. After successful download, the link in the Action
column changes from Download to Install.
4. Click Install and select the devices on which you want to install the update. When the installation
completes, a check mark displays in the Currently Installed column.

STEP 5 | Deploy software updates to selected firewalls.

If your firewalls are configured in HA, make sure to clear the Group HA Peers check box
and upgrade one HA peer at a time.

1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Software.

2. Check for the latest updates. Click Check Now (located in the lower left-hand corner of the window)
to check for the latest updates. The link in the Action column indicates whether an update is
available.
3. Review the File Name and click Download. Verify that the software versions that you download
match the firewall models deployed on your network. After successful download, the link in the
Action column changes from Download to Install.
4. Click Install and select the devices on which you want to install the software version.
5. Select Reboot device after install, and click OK.
6. If you have devices configured in HA, clear the Group HA Peers check box and upgrade one HA peer
at a time.

STEP 6 | Verify the software and Content Release version running on each managed device.
1. Select Panorama > Managed Devices.
2. Locate the device(s) and review the content and software versions on the table.

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Upgrade the VM-Series for NSX Without Disrupting Traffic
Use the following procedure to upgrade the PAN-OS version of the VM-Series firewalls in your VMware
NSX environment. This procedure allows you to perform the PAN-OS upgrade without disrupting traffic by
migrating VMs to different ESXi hosts.

STEP 1 | Review the VM-Series for VMware NSX upgrade paths.

STEP 2 | Save a backup of the current configuration file on each managed firewall that you plan to
upgrade.

Although the firewall will automatically create a backup of the configuration, it is a best
practice to create a backup prior to upgrade and store it externally.

1. Select Device > Setup > Operations and click Export Panorama and devices config bundle. This
option is used to manually generate and export the latest version of the configuration backup of
Panorama and of each managed device.
2. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the
configuration if you have problems with the upgrade.

STEP 3 | Check the Release Notes to verify the Content Release version required for the PAN-OS
version.
The firewalls you plan to upgrade must be running the Content Release version required for the PAN-OS
version.
1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Dynamic Updates.
2. Check for the latest updates. Click Check Now (located in the lower left-hand corner of the window)
to check for the latest updates. The link in the Action column indicates whether an update is
available. If a version is available, the Download link displays.
3. Click Download to download a selected version. After successful download, the link in the Action
column changes from Download to Install.
4. Click Install and select the devices on which you want to install the update. When the installation
completes, a check mark displays in the Currently Installed column.

STEP 4 | Download the PAN-OS image to all VM-Series firewalls in the cluster.
1. Login to Panorama.
2. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Software.
3. Click Refresh to view the latest software release and also review the Release Notes to view a
description of the changes in a release and to view the migration path to install the software.
4. Click Download to retrieve the software then click Install.

Do not reboot the VM-Series firewalls after installing the new software image.

5. Select the managed devices to be upgraded.

6. Clear the Reboot device after install check box.

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 7. Click OK.

STEP 5 | Upgrade the VM-Series firewall on the first ESXi host in the cluster.
1. Login to vCenter.
2. Select Hosts and Clusters.
3. Right-click the host and select Maintenance Mode > Enter Maintenance Mode.
4. Migrate (automatically or manually) all VMs, except the VM-Series firewall, off of the host.
5. Power off the VM-Series firewall. This should happen automatically upon entering maintenance
mode on the host.
6. (Optional) Assign additional CPUs or memory to the VM-Series firewall before continuing with the
upgrade process.
Verify that enough hardware resources are available to the VM-Series firewall. Refer to the VM-
Series System Requirements to see the new resource requirements for each VM-Series model.
7. Right-click the host and select Maintenance Mode > Exit Maintenance Mode. Exiting maintenance
mode causes the NSX ESX Agent Manager (EAM) to power on the VM-Series firewall. The firewall
reboots with the new PAN-OS version.
8. Migrate (automatically or manually) all VMs back to the original host.

STEP 6 | Repeat this process for each VM-Series firewall on each ESXi host.

STEP 7 | Verify the software and Content Release version running on each managed device.
1. Select Panorama > Managed Devices.
2. Locate the device(s) and review the content and software versions on the table.

Upgrade the VM-Series Model

The licensing process for the VM-Series firewall uses the UUID and the CPU ID to generate a unique serial
number for each VM-Series firewall. Hence, when you generate a license, the license is mapped to a specific
instance of the VM-Series firewall and cannot be modified.
Use the instructions in this section, if you are:
• Migrating from an evaluation license to a production license.
• Upgrading the model to allow for increased capacity. For example you want to upgrade from the
VM-100 to the VM-300 model.

• A capacity upgrade restarts some critical processes on the firewall. An HA configuration is

recommended to minimize service disruption; to upgrade the capacity on a HA pair, see
Upgrade the VM-Series Model in an HA Pair.

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 • In a public cloud deployment, if your firewall is licensed with the BYOL option, you must
Deactivate VM before you change the instance type or VM type and apply the license
again on the firewall after you complete the model or instance upgrade. When you
change the instance type, because the firewall has a new UUID and CPU ID, the existing
license will no longer be valid.

STEP 1 | Allocate additional hardware resources to your VM-Series firewall.

Before initiating the capacity upgrade, you must verify that enough hardware resources are available
to the VM-Series firewall to support the new capacity. The process for assigning additional hardware
resources differs on each hypervisor.
To check the hardware requirements for your new VM-Series model, see VM-Series Models.
Although the capacity upgrade does not require a reboot of the VM-Series firewall, you need to power
down the virtual machine to change the hardware allocation.

STEP 2 | Retrieve the license deactivation API key from the Customer Support Portal.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal.
2. From the Go To drop-down, select License API.
3. Copy the API key.

Make sure that you are using the same account that you used to register the initial
license.

STEP 3 | On the firewall, use the CLI to install the API key copied in the previous step.
request license api-key set key <key>

STEP 4 | Enable the firewall to Verify Update Server identity on Device > Setup > Service.

STEP 5 | Commit your changes. Ensure that you have a locally-configured user on the firewall.
Panorama pushed users might not be available after the deactivation if the configuration
exceeds the non-licensed PA-VM objects limit.

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STEP 6 | Upgrade the capacity.
Select Device > Licenses > Upgrade VM Capacity and then activate your licenses and subscriptions in
one of the following ways:
• Retrieve license keys from license server—Use this option if you activated your license on the
Customer Support portal.
• Manually upload license key—Use this option if your firewall does not have connectivity to the Palo
Alto Networks Customer Support web site. In this case, you must download a license key file from
the support site on an Internet connected computer and then upload to the firewall.
• Use an authorization code—Use this option to upgrade the VM-Series capacity using an authorization
code for licenses that have not been previously activated on the support portal. When prompted,
enter the Authorization Code and then click OK.

STEP 7 | Verify that your firewall is licensed successfully.

On the Device > Licenses page, verify that the license was successfully activated.

Upgrade the VM-Series Model in an HA Pair

Upgrading the VM-Series firewall allows you to increase the capacity on the firewall. Capacity is defined in
terms of the number of sessions, rules, security zones, address objects, IPSec VPN tunnels, and SSL VPN
tunnels that the VM-Series firewall is optimized to handle. When you apply a new capacity license on the
VM-Series firewall, the model number and the associated capacities are implemented on the firewall.

Verify the VM-Series System Requirements for your firewall model before you upgrade. If
your firewall has less than 5.5GB memory, the capacity (number of sessions, rules, security
zones, address objects, etc) on the firewall will be limited to that of the VM-50 Lite.

This process is similar to that of upgrading a pair of hardware-based firewalls that are in an HA
configuration. During the capacity upgrade process, session synchronization continues, if you have it
enabled. To avoid downtime when upgrading firewalls that are in a high availability (HA) configuration,
update one HA peer at a time.

Do not make configuration change to the firewalls during the upgrade process. During the
upgrade process, configuration sync is automatically disabled when a capacity mismatch is
detected and is then re-enabled when both HA peers have matching capacity licenses.
If the firewalls in the HA pair have different major software versions (such as 9.1 and 9.0)
and different capacities, both devices will enter the Suspended HA state. Therefore, it is
recommended that you make sure both firewalls are running the same version of PAN-OS
before upgrading capacity.

STEP 1 | Upgrade the capacity license on the passive firewall.

Follow the procedure to Upgrade the VM-Series Model.
The new VM-Series model displays on the dashboard after some processes restart on this passive peer.
This upgraded peer is now is a non-functional state because of the capacity mismatch with its active
peer.
If you have enabled session synchronization, verify that sessions are synchronized across HA peers
before you continue to the next step. To verify session synchronization, run the show high-
availability interface ha2 command and make sure that the Hardware Interface counters on
the CPU table are increasing as follows:

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 • In an active/passive configuration, only the active peer show packets transmitted and the passive
device will only show packets received.
If you have enabled HA2 keep-alive, the hardware interface counters on the passive peer will show
both transmit and receive packets. This occurs because HA2 keep-alive is bidirectional which means
that both peers transmit HA2 keep-alive packets.
• In an active/active configuration, you will see packets received and packets transmitted on both
peers.

STEP 2 | Upgrade the capacity license on the active firewall.

Follow the procedure to Upgrade the VM-Series Model.
The new VM-Series model displays on the dashboard after the critical processes restart. The passive
firewall becomes active, and this peer (previously active firewall) moves from the initial state to
becoming the passive peer in the HA pair.

Downgrade a VM-Series Firewall to a Previous Release

Use the following workflow to restore the configuration that was running before you upgraded to a
different feature release. Any changes made since the upgrade are lost. Therefore, it is important to back up
your current configuration so you can restore those changes when you return to the newer release.
Use the following procedure to downgrade to a previous release.

STEP 1 | Save a backup of the current configuration file.

Although the firewall automatically creates a backup of the configuration, it is a best

practice to create a backup before you upgrade and store it externally.

1. Export named configuration snapshot (Device > Setup > Operations).

2. Select the XML file that contains your running configuration (for example, running-config.xml) and
click OK to export the configuration file.
3. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the
configuration if you have problems with the downgrade.

STEP 2 | Install the previous feature release image.

Autosave versions are created when you upgrade to a new release.

1. Check Now (Device > Software) for available images.

2. Locate the image to which you want to downgrade. If the image is not already downloaded, then
Download it.
3. After the download completes, Install the image.
4. Select a Config File for Downgrading, which the firewall will load after you reboot the device. In most
cases, you should select the configuration that was saved automatically when you upgraded from
the release to which you are now downgrading. For example, if you are running PAN-OS 9.1 and are
downgrading to PAN-OS 9.0.3, select autosave-9.0.3.
5. After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
• If you are prompted to reboot, click Yes.
• If you are not prompted to reboot, go to Device Operations (Device > Setup > Operations) and
Reboot Device.

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VM-Series Plugin
The VM-Series firewalls include the VM-Series plugin, a built-in plugin architecture for integration with
public cloud providers or private cloud hypervisors. The VM-Series plugin can be manually upgraded
independent of PAN-OS, enabling Palo Alto Networks® to accelerate the release of new features, fixes, or
integrations with new cloud providers or hypervisors.
The VM-Series plugin enables you to manage cloud-specific interactions between the VM-Series firewalls
and the supported public cloud platforms—AWS, GCP, and Azure. The plugin enables publishing custom
metrics to cloud monitoring services (such as AWS CloudWatch), bootstrapping, configuring user credential
provisioning information from public cloud environments, and seamless updates for cloud libraries or agents
on PAN-OS.

The VM-Series plugin does not manage capabilities that are common to both VM-Series
firewalls and hardware-based firewalls. For example, VM Monitoring is not part of the VM-
Series plugin because it is a core PAN-OS feature that helps you enforce policy consistently
on your virtual machine workloads from both VM-Series firewalls and hardware-based
firewalls.

The VM-Series plugin does not manage Panorama plugins. For the difference between the
VM-Series plugin and Panorama plugins, see VM-Series Plugin and Panorama Plugins.

The VM-Series plugin is a built-in component that can be upgraded or downgraded, but not removed. Each
PAN-OS release includes a specific VM-Series plugin version that corresponds to the PAN-OS software
version. When you downgrade to an earlier PAN-OS software version, the plugin version is downgraded
to the version compatible with the PAN-OS version. You can upgrade or downgrade the VM-Series plugin
locally on the virtual firewall, or manage the plugin version centrally from Panorama.
To enable Panorama to manage the VM-Series plugin version itself, or cloud-specific metrics publishing
your managed firewalls, you must manually install the VM-Series plugin on Panorama as described in
Panorama Plugins.
• Configure the VM-Series Plugin on the Firewall
• Upgrade the VM-Series Plugin

Configure the VM-Series Plugin on the Firewall

Select Device > VM-Series to configure the plugin integration for the cloud provider on which this instance
of the VM-Series firewall is deployed.

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 If your firewall is deployed on a hypervisor or cloud without a public interface (for example, VMware ESXi),
the tab is named VM-Series and displays a general message.

Upgrade the VM-Series Plugin

When a plugin update is released independent of PAN-OS, you can independently upgrade the plugin
version from your VM-Series firewall (like software or content updates) or from a bootstrap file.
Each plugin version provides PAN-OS compatibility information and includes new features or bug fixes for
one or more cloud environments.

STEP 1 | Before upgrading, check the latest Release Notes for details on whether a new VM-Series
plugin affects your environment.
For example, suppose a new VM-Series plugin version only includes AWS features. To take advantage of
the new features, you must update the plugin on your VM-Series firewall instances on AWS.

Do not install an upgrade that does not apply to your environment.

STEP 2 | Log in to the VM-Series firewall and check the dashboard to view the plugin version.

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STEP 3 | Select Panorama > Plugins and type vm_series in the search field.
Select Check Now to view the available versions.

STEP 4 | Choose a VM-Series plugin version and click Download.

STEP 5 | When the download finishes, click Install in the Actions column.
The firewall automatically uninstalls the previously installed version of the plugin.

STEP 6 | View the Dashboard to verify that the plugin upgraded successfully.

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Enable Jumbo Frames on the VM-Series
Firewall
By default, the maximum transmission unit (MTU) size for packets sent on a Layer 3 interface is 1500
bytes. This size can be manually set to any size from 512 to 1500 bytes on a per-interface basis. Some
configurations require Ethernet frames with an MTU value greater than 1500 bytes. These are called jumbo
frames.
To use jumbo frames on a firewall you must specifically enable jumbo frames at the global level. When this
is enabled, the default MTU size for all Layer 3 interfaces is set to a value of 9192 bytes. This default value
can then be set to any value in the range of 512 to 9216 bytes.
After setting a global jumbo frame size it becomes the default value for all Layer 3 interfaces that have not
explicitly had an MTU value set at the interface configuration level. This can become a problem if you only
want to exchange jumbo frames on some interfaces. In these situations, you must set the MTU value at
every Layer 3 interface that you do not want to use the default value.
The following procedure describes how to enable jumbo frames on a firewall, set the default MTU value for
all Layer 3 interfaces and to then set a different value for a specific interface.

VM-Series firewall instances deployed with multiple NUMA nodes, come up in packet MMAP
mode when jumbo frame support is enabled. You must disable jumbo frame support to use
DPDK on VM-Series firewall instance deployed with multiple NUMA nodes.

STEP 1 | Enable jumbo frames and set a default global MTU value.
1. Select Device > Setup > Session and edit the Session Settings section.
2. Select Enable Jumbo Frame.
3. Enter a value for Global MTU.
The default value is 9192. The range of acceptable values is: 512 - 9216.
4. Click OK.
A message is displayed that informs you that enabling or disabling Jumbo Frame mode requires a
reboot and that Layer 3 interfaces inherit the Global MTU value.
5. Click Yes.
A message is displayed to inform you that Jumbo Frame support has been enabled and reminds you
that a device reboot is required for this change to be activated.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Commit.

STEP 2 | Set the MTU value for a Layer 3 interface and reboot the firewall.

The value set for the interface overrides the global MTU value.

1. Select Network > Interfaces.

2. Select an interface of the Layer3 Interface type.
3. Select Advanced > Other Info.
4. Enter a value for MTU.
The default value is 9192. The range of acceptable values is: 512 - 9216.

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 5. Click OK.
6. Click Commit.
7. Select Device > Setup > Operations and select Reboot Device.

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Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses
By default, the VM-Series firewall uses the MAC address assigned to the physical interface by the host/
hypervisor and use that MAC address on the VM-Series firewall deployed with Layer 3 interfaces. The
firewall can then use the hypervisor assigned MAC address in its ARP responses. This capability allows non-
learning switches, such as the VMware vSwitch to forward traffic to the dataplane interface on the firewall
without requiring that promiscuous mode be enabled on the vSwitch. If neither promiscuous mode nor the
use of hypervisor assigned MAC address is enabled, the host will drop the frame when it detects a mismatch
between the destination MAC address for an interface and the host-assigned MAC address.

There is no option to enable or disable the use of hypervisor assigned MAC addresses on
AWS and Azure. It is enabled by default for both platforms and cannot be disabled.

If you are deploying the VM-Series firewall in Layer 2, virtual wire, or tap interface modes, you must enable
promiscuous mode on the virtual switch to which the firewall is connected. The use of hypervisor assigned
MAC address is only relevant for Layer 3 deployments where the firewall is typically the default gateway for
the guest virtual machines.
When hypervisor assigned MAC address functionality is enabled on the VM-Series firewall, make note of
the following requirements:
• IPv6 Address on an Interface—In an active/passive HA configuration (see VM-Series in High
Availability), Layer 3 interfaces using IPv6 addresses must not use the EUI-64 generated address as the
interface identifier (Interface ID). Because the EUI-64 uses the 48-bit MAC address of the interface to
derive the IPv6 address for the interface, the IP address is not static. This results in a change in the IP
address for the HA peer when the hardware hosting the VM-Series firewall changes on failover, and
leads to an HA failure.
• Lease on an IP Address—When the MAC address changes, DHCP client, DHCP relay and PPPoE
interfaces might release the IP address because the original IP address lease could terminate.
• MAC address and Gratuitous ARP—VM-Series firewalls with hypervisor assigned MAC addresses in a
high-availability configuration behave differently than the hardware appliances with respect to MAC
addressing. Hardware firewalls use self-generated floating MAC addresses between devices in an HA
pair, and the unique MAC address used on each dataplane interface (say eth 1/1) is replaced with a
virtual MAC address that is common to the dataplane interface on both HA peers. When you enable the
use of the hypervisor assigned MAC address on the VM-Series firewall in HA, the virtual MAC address is
not used. The dataplane interface on each HA peer is unique and as specified by the hypervisor.
Because each dataplane interface has a unique MAC address, when a failover occurs, the now active
VM-Series firewall must send a gratuitous ARP so that neighboring devices can learn the updated MAC/
IP address pairing. Hence, to enable a stateful failover, the internetworking devices must not block or
ignore gratuitous ARPs; make sure to disable the anti-ARP poisoning feature on the internetworking
devices, if required.
Perform the following steps to configure the VM-Series firewall to use the interface MAC addresses
provided by the host/hypervisor.

STEP 1 | Select Device > Management > Setup.

STEP 2 | Disable (clear) the option to Use Hypervisor Assigned MAC Address.
When the MAC address change occurs, the firewall generates a system log to record this transition and
the interface generates a gratuitous ARP.

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STEP 3 | Commit the change on the firewall. You do not need to reboot the firewall.

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Custom PAN-OS Metrics Published for
Monitoring
The firewall natively publishes the following metrics to monitoring systems in the public cloud such as
AWS® CloudWatch, Azure® Application Insights, and Google® Stackdriver. These metrics allow you to
assess firewall performance and usage patterns so that you can set alarms and take action to automate
events such as launching or terminating instances of the VM-Series firewalls. Because these metrics are
published through content updates on the firewall, make sure that you have the minimum content release
version that is required to enable this capability on your VM-Series firewall.

Metric Description

Dataplane CPU Utilization (%) Monitors dataplane CPU usage and measures the traffic load on
the firewall.

Dataplane Packet Buffer Utilization Monitors dataplane buffer usage and measures buffer utilization.
(%) If you have a sudden burst in traffic, monitoring your buffer
utilization allows you to ensure that the firewall does not deplete
the dataplane buffer, which results in dropped packets.

GlobalProtect™ Gateway Active Monitors the number of active GlobalProtect sessions on a

Tunnels firewall deployed as a GlobalProtect gateway. Use this metric
if you use this VM-Series firewall as a VPN gateway to secure
remote users. Check the datasheet for the maximum number of
active tunnels supported for your firewall model.

GlobalProtect Gateway Tunnel Monitors the active GlobalProtect tunnels on a gateway and
Utilization (%) measures tunnel utilization. Use this metric if you use this VM-
Series firewall as a VPN gateway to secure remote users.

panSessionConnectionsPerSecond Monitors the new connection establish rate per second.

panSessionThroughputKbps Monitors the throughput in Kbps.

panSessionThroughputPps Monitors the number of packets per second.

Sessions Active Monitors the total number of sessions that are active on the
firewall. An active session is a session that is in the flow lookup
table for which packets will be inspected and forwarded, as
required by policy.

Session Utilization (%) Monitors the TCP, UDP, ICMP and SSL sessions that are
currently active and the packet rate, new connection establish
rate, and firewall throughput to determine session utilization.

SSLProxyUtilization (%) Monitors the percentage of SSL forward proxy sessions with
clients for SSL/TLS decryption.

To publish these metrics, see:

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 • Enable CloudWatch Monitoring on the VM-Series Firewall
• Enable Azure Application Insights on the VM-Series Firewall
• Enable Google Stackdriver Monitoring on the VM Series Firewall

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Interface Used for Accessing External Services
on the VM-Series Firewall
To access the Palo Alto Networks servers for retrieving licenses and software and content updates, and for
publishing custom PAN-OS metrics or retrieving IP address and tag mapping for monitoring virtual machines
in your deployment, the VM-Series firewall uses the management interface except where noted below. To
use a dataplane interface instead of the management interface where supported, you must set up a service
route that specifies the dataplane interface that the firewall can use to access the server or service.

Access to Server or Service Interface Used on the VM-Series Firewall

Licensing Management interface only

Software Updates Management interface or Service Route

Bootstrapping from a cloud storage location Management interface only, including when interfaces
such as AWS S3 bucket, Azure storage file are swapped
service, or Google storage bucket
If your bootstrap.xml file includes
license authcodes, you cannot use a
service route. To license the firewall,
the management interface must be
used.

Publishing PAN-OS metrics to a cloud Management interface only, including when interfaces
monitoring service such as AWS CloudWatch, are swapped
Azure Application Insights or Google
Stackdriver

VM Monitoring Management interface or Service Route

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PacketMMAP and DPDK Driver Support
Single-root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) relies on communication between virtual function (VF)
drivers on the VM-Series firewall, and physical function (PF) drivers on the host (the hypervisor). The host
uses PF drivers to talk to its physical NICs, and the VM-Series firewall uses VF drivers to talk to the PF
drivers.
The following diagram is a simple visualization of that concept.

SR-IOV
Why use SR-IOV? SR-IOV is a packet acceleration technology that allows a virtual machine to directly
access packets from the NIC. In contrast, when using a virtual switch, the host processes the packets, send
the packets through a virtual switch, and then the virtual machine receives its packets.
In the Compatibility Matrix, PacketMMAP Driver Versions lists both the host version and the native
driver version on the VM-Series firewall. For example, i40e on the host, and on the firewall, i40e (for PCI-
passthrough) and i40evf (for SR-IOV).
For SR-IOV, let's consider a NIC that uses the i40e PF driver. The host communicates with the NIC via the
i40e driver. The VM-Series firewall can use its VF driver (i40evf) to directly communicate with the host's
PF driver. This allows VM-Series firewall direct access, which improves packet processing speed. To ensure
compatibility, install a host PF driver version that is later than the native PF driver version.

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PCI-Passthrough
Why does VM-Series firewall have native PF drivers? As mentioned in Options for Attaching VM-Series on
the Network, when using PCI-passthrough, the NIC is reserved for the VM-Series firewall, so the host (or
other guests on the host) cannot access the NIC. In a PCI-passthrough configuration, the VM-Series firewall
uses its native PF driver to communicate directly with the host NIC.
Refer to the PacketMMAP Driver Versions list to determine which PF driver version to install on the host.
Install a PF version that is higher than VM-Series firewall native PF driver.
Refer to Enable SR-IOV on ESXi and Enable SR-IOV on KVM for PCI-Passthrough.

DPDK
PAN-OS has two packet processing modes—DPDK (default) and MMAP—and each mode has a
corresponding native driver on the VM-Series firewall. For example, if the firewall is in DPDK mode, the
firewall uses the DPDK i40evf driver version to communicate with the host's i40e driver (when using
SR-IOV). Alternatively, when the firewall is Packet MMAP, it will use a different i40evf driver version to
communicate with the host's i40e driver.
You can enable DPDK on the host (the hypervisor), or on the guest (the VM-Series firewall). Enabling both
yields the best results.
• Compiling OVS with DPDK is part of enabling DPDK on the host.
Refer to Configure OVS and DPDK on the Host.
• VM-Series DPDK enables the native DPDK driver on the VM-Series firewall, so DPDK does not need to
be enabled on the host, but it is recommended for best performance.

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44 VM-SERIES DEPLOYMENT GUIDE | About the VM-Series Firewall
License the VM-Series Firewall
Before you can start using your VM-Series firewall to secure east-west and north-south traffic
on your network, you must activate the licenses for the services you purchased to secure your
network.
If you are an authorized CSSP partner, see Licenses for Cloud Security Service Providers
(CSSPs) for information that pertains to you.
See the following topics for details on creating a support account and activating the licenses:

> VM-Series Firewall Licensing

> Create a Support Account
> VM-Series Models
> License Types—VM-Series Firewalls
> Serial Number and CPU ID Format for the VM-Series Firewall
> Software NGFW Credits
> VM-Series Models
> Register the VM-Series Firewall
> Use Panorama-Based Software Firewall License Management
> Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall
> Deactivate the License(s)—to release the licenses attributed to a firewall
> Licensing API
> Licenses for Cloud Security Service Providers (CSSPs)

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VM-Series Firewall Licensing
Palo Alto Networks currently supports two consumption models: Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and
PAYG (Pay-As-You-Go, also called PayGo).

BYOL PAYG

Software NGFW Credits—Available on all PAN-OS releases. Purchased from a public cloud
PAN-OS 10.0.4 and later versions offer advanced features marketplace (such as AWS, Azure,
and more flexibility. or GCP), or a Cloud Security Service
Provider (CSSP).
The cost for a VM-Series firewall is based on the number of
vCPUs, the security services you have enabled, and whether Available on the PAN-OS version your
you choose to provision Panorama to manage the firewall or provider supports.
act as a log collector.
See Software NGFW Credits for a detailed explanation.

VM-Series Model licenses—Available for use on all PAN-OS

releases. PAN-OS 10.0.4 and later versions offer advanced
features and more flexibility.
The capacity license cost is based on the VM-Series
model, the device memory, storage costs, and the support
entitlement. Security services and whether you choose to
have Panorama manage the firewall are additional costs.
• Term firewall capacity license with a support entitlement
and your choice of security services.
• Perpetual VM-Series model capacity license with a
support entitlement and/or security services bundle 1 or
bundle 2.
• VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (Multi-Model
ELA)—A comprehensive one- or three-year licensing
agreement for VM-Series firewalls. An individual
license can include a model, security services, a support
entitlement, and an optional device management license
for Panorama.
VM-Series ELA features a token pool from which you
allocate tokens to license VM-Series firewalls. This token
pool is unique to the ELA, and is not the same as the
Software NGFW Credits pool.

What is the difference between the BYOL Software NGFW credits and VM-Series Model license types?
The following tables provide a quick comparison, and links to greater details.
Here is a quick overview of Software NGFW Credits characteristics.

Software NGFW Credits

PAN-OS version Available for all PAN-OS releases. With advanced and more flexible consumption
options from PAN-OS 10.0.4 and later

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 Software NGFW Credits

License type BYOL, purchased from Palo Alto Networks

Default Credit When you purchase the VM-Series or CN-Series firewall, activating your credits
Pools creates a credit pool.

Description The most flexible BYOL offering, Software Next Generation Firewall credits let
you consume Palo Alto Networks firewall-as-a-platform components: VM-Series,
CN-Series, Security Services, Virtual Panorama for Management or Dedicated Log
Collection, and a support entitlement.
Cost is based on the number of vCPUs.

Credits Reusable “tokens” that allows you to consume firewall-as-a-platform components.

When firewalls are activated, the credits are consumed. When firewalls are
deactivated, the credits are released and returned to your credit pool for you to
allocate for other firewalls or security services.

Deployment You create a deployment profile for a specific environment or use case (such as
“AWS Deployment of VM-Series”, “Protect my NSX Environment”) and configure
firewall vCPUs, security services, and VM Panorama. You can create any number
of deployment profiles and customize them at any point in time.To create a
deployment profile, you allocate credits from your credit pool.
Must have the CSP role Credit Administrator to activate and manage Software
NGFW credits.

Panorama Panorama can optionally be deployed for Management, or as a dedicated log

collector.

Security services Threat Prevention, DNS Security, GlobalProtect, WildFire, URL Filtering, SD-
WAN, DLP, and other services as they become available.
You can choose any combination of security services in your Deployment Profile,
and you can add or remove security services from your profile at any time.

Upgrade or if the VM-Series firewall has an internet connection, changes to your deployment
Downgrade profile are automatically applied.
If the firewall does not have an internet connection, you must manually stop the
VM, upload the new deployment profile, and restart the VM.
You do not have to reboot the firewall in either case.

VM-Series 1. Create a Support Account

Software NGFW 2. Activate Credits
Credits Licensing 3. Create a Deployment Profile (VM-Series)
Checklist 4. Deploy the VM-Series Firewall
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
• Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
• Set Up a Firewall in Cisco ACI
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP
• Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on a Cisco ENCS Network

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Software NGFW Credits
• Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on OpenStack
• Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-South)
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-V
5. Register the VM-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)
6. Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall (for site licenses such as
Cortex Data Lake and Auto Focus.)

CN-Series Like the VM-Series firewall, the CN-Series licensing differs depending on the
Software NGFW PAN-OS version. See the CN-Series Deployment Guide.
Credits Licensing
1. Create a Support Account
Checklist
2. Activate Credits
3. Create a Deployment Profile (CN-Series)
4. Deploy the CN-Series Firewalls
5. Register the CN-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)
6. Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall (for site licenses such as
Cortex Data Lake and Auto Focus.)

See the following table to compare VM-Series Model license characteristics with Software NGFW credits
vCPU-based firewalls.

VM-Series Model

PAN-OS version Available for all PAN-OS releases.

License type BYOL—purchased from Palo Alto Networks

PAYG—available on a supported public cloud marketplace.

Description The VM-Series model perpetual license (capacity only), or term-based capacity
and security subscriptions. You must estimate your needs and design your
configuration before your purchase. Cost is based on the VM-Series model, device
memory, and storage.

Deployment The VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (Multi-Model ELA) capacity license,
support entitlement, and security bundles are allocated from a token pool.
Must have the CSP role ELA Administrator.

Panorama Panorama can be deployed for Management.

Security services Bundle 1: Threat Prevention and premium support entitlement.

Bundle 2: Threat Prevention, DNS Security, GlobalProtect, WildFire, URL Filtering,
SD-WAN, DLP, and premium support entitlement.

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 VM-Series Model

Upgrade or Requires a license change and a reboot.

Downgrade

VM-Series Model 1. Create a Support Account

Licensing Checklist 2. Activate VM-Series Model Licenses
3. Deploy the VM-Series Firewall
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
• Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
• Set Up a Firewall in Cisco ACI
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP
• Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on a Cisco ENCS Network
• Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on OpenStack
• Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-South)
• Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-V
4. Register the VM-Series Firewall
5. Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall (for site licenses such as
Cortex Data Lake and Auto Focus.)

CN-Series Model Like the VM-Series firewall, the CN-Series licensing differs depending on the
Licensing Checklist PAN-OS version. See the CN-Series Deployment Guide.
1. Create a Support Account
2. Activate Credits
3. Create a Deployment Profile (CN-Series)
4. Deploy the CN-Series Firewalls
5. Register the CN-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)
6. Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall (for site licenses such as
Cortex Data Lake and Auto Focus.)

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Create a Support Account
You need a support account to log in to the Customer Support Portal (CSP). You must log in to activate
and manage Software NGFW credits, access software updates, or open a case with Palo Alto Networks
technical support. Your support account allows you to view and manage all assets—appliances, licenses, and
subscriptions—that you have registered with Palo Alto Networks.
For all licensing options, except for usage-based licenses that are currently only available in AWS, you
require a support account so that you can download the software package required to install the VM-Series
firewall.
If you have an existing support account, you can download and install the VM-Series firewall software, then
continue to Register the VM-Series Firewall.

STEP 1 | Go to https://support.paloaltonetworks.com/UserAccount/PreRegister.

STEP 2 | Enter the corporate email address to associate with the support account.

STEP 3 | Choose one of the following options and fill in the details in the user registration form:
For a usage-based license in AWS
1. Click Register your Amazon Web Services VM-Series Instance.
2. On the AWS Management Console, find the AWS Instance ID, AWS Product Code, and the AWS
Zone in which you deployed the firewall.
3. Fill in the other details.
For all other licenses
1. Click Register device using Serial Number or Authorization Code.
2. Enter the capacity auth code and the sales order number or customer ID.
3. Fill in the other details.

STEP 4 | Submit the form. You will receive an email with a link to activate your user account.
Complete the steps to activate the account. After your account is verified and the registration is
complete, you can log in to the support portal.

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Serial Number and CPU ID Format for the VM-
Series Firewall
When you launch an instance of the VM-Series firewall, each instance of the firewall is uniquely identified
using the CPU ID and serial number of the firewall. The format of the CPU ID and the serial number include
information on the hypervisor and the license type for each instance of the VM-Series firewall.
• With the usage-based licensing model of the VM-Series firewalls, at launch the firewall generates a serial
number and CPU ID, and you use these details to Register the Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series
Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth code).
• With the BYOL model, you must Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code) on the Customer
Support portal (CSP).
• For a firewall with direct internet access, you can apply the auth code on the firewall to generate a
license file that includes the serial number.
• For a firewall that is offline, you must use the CSP to input the CPU ID, UUID, and the auth code to
generate a license file that includes the serial number and install the license on the firewall.

License Serial Number CPU ID

Type

BYOL 15 digits, all numeric <Hypervisor>:<ActualCPUID>

Example: 0071 51 345678909 Example: ESX:12345678

PAYG 15 digits, alphanumeric <Hypervisor>:<Instance-

ID>:<CloudProductCode>:<CloudRegion>
Example: 4 DE0YTAYOGMYYTN
Example:
AWSMP:1234567890abcdef0:6kxdw3bbmdeda3o6i1ggqt4km:us-
west1

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Software NGFW Credits
Software NGFW credits can be used to fund Software NGFWs (VM-Series and CN-Series), Cloud-Delivered
Security Services (CDSS), and virtual Panorama appliances.
If you deactivate a firewall or a security service, the credits allocated to that resource are returned to your
credit pool and are available for use during the term for which the credits were purchased.
You create a deployment profile to configure one or more firewalls based on PAN-OS version:
• VM-Series firewalls on PAN-OS version 10.0.3 and earlier—Compatible with legacy licenses based on
VM-Series Models and security service bundles.
• VM-Series firewalls on PAN-OS version 10.0.4 and later—Flexible number of vCPUs from 1-16, and
flexible selection of security services. You modify the deployment profile to add or decrease the number
of vCPUs or add new services as they become available.
• CN-Series firewalls on PAN-OS version 10.0—Compatible with the configuration described in the CN-
Series Deployment Guide.
Software NGFW Credits are term-based. Terms can be defined for any amount of time between 1 and 5
years. Both allocated and unallocated credits expire at the end of the agreed upon term. If you stop using
a firewall, a security service, or Panorama deployment, the credits that were allocated to that resource are
refunded to the credit pool and can be reallocated to a new resource.
Use the table below to ensure that you allocate the necessary hardware resources for your chosen number
of vCPus.

Memory Supported Hypervisors Minimum Hard

Drive
Profile

4.5GB, ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM 32GB (60GB

5.5GB at boot)

6.5GB AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, NSX-V, OCI, 60GB
Alibaba Cloud, Cisco ACI, Cisco CSP, Cisco ENCS, NSX-T

9GB AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, NSX-V, OCI, 60GB
Alibaba Cloud, Cisco ACI, Cisco CSP, Cisco ENCS, NSX-T

16GB AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, NSX-V, OCI, 60GB
Alibaba Cloud, Cisco ACI, Cisco CSP, NSX-T

56GB AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, OCI, Alibaba 60GB
Cloud, Cisco ACI, Cisco CSP, NSX-T

For all memory profiles listed above, the minimum vCPUs is 2. You can enable Lite mode if you choose
4.5GB. Lite mode is an alternative operating mode for environments where resources are limited. See Lite
Mode for more information.

Lite mode requires minimum 32GB of hard drive space. However, because the VM-Series
base image is common for all vCPU combinations, you must allocate 60GB of hard drive
space until you license a VM-Series firewall with 4.5GB memory.

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 To achieve the best performance, all of the needed cores should be available on a single
CPU socket.

The number of vCPUs assigned to the management plane and those assigned to the dataplane differs
depending on the total number of vCPUs assigned to the VM-Series firewall. Refer to the following table
to find out the number of data plane vCPUs allocated for a given combination of memory profile and total
vCPUs.

Memory Total vCPUs

Profile 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

4.5GB 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

5.5GB 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

6.5GB 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

9GB 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

16GB 1 1 2 2 2 2 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6

56GB 1 1 2 2 2 2 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 12

The following table shows the firewall capacity for each memory profile. Unlike VM-series models, Software
NGFW Credits from PAN-OS 10.0.4 onwards allows you to choose the memory profile that best fits your
environment without consuming any additional credits.

Memory Sessions Security Dynamic IP Security IPSec VPN SSL VPN

Profiles Rules Addresses Zones Tunnels Tunnels

4.5 GB 50,000 200 in Lite 1,000 15 25 in Lite 25 in Lite

mode mode mode

5.5 GB 50,000 250 1,000 15 250 250

6.5 GB 250,000 1,500 2,500 40 1,000 500

9 GB 800,000 10,000 100,000 40 2,000 2,000

16 GB 2,000,000 10,000 100,000 200 4,000 6,000

56 GB 10,000,000 20,000 100,000 200 8,000 12,000

• Activate Credits
• Transfer Credits
• Create a Deployment Profile (VM-Series),Create a Deployment Profile (CN-Series)
• Edit a Deployment Profile
• Clone a Deployment Profile
• Provision Panorama
• Deactivate a Firewall

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 • Delete a Deployment Profile

Activate Credits
Within your organization you can create many accounts, each with a different purpose. During activation
you can choose only one account per default credit pool. Once you the credit pool is active, users granted
the credit administrator role can allocate the credits for deployments, and even transfer credits to other
pools.
If you have an existing CSP account and are a superuser or an admin, the system automatically adds the
credit admin role to your profile. If you do not have an existing account, the CSP automatically creates an
account for you and adds the credit admin role to your profile.
You (the purchaser) receive an email detailing the subscription, the credit pool ID, the subscription start and
end date, the amount of credits purchased, and the description of the default credit pool (see “default credit
pools” in VM-Series Firewall Licensing).

Secure this email for future reference.

STEP 1 | In the email, click Start Activation to view your available credit pools.

STEP 2 | Select the credit pool you want to activate. You can use the search field to filter your account
list by number or name.
If you have purchased multiple credit pools (see Software NGFW Credits), both of them are
automatically selected. The check marks represent activation links for onboarding credits.
You are prompted to authenticate or sign in.

If you deselect a credit pool, you see a reminder that if you want to activate those credits,
you must return to the email and click the Start Activation link.

STEP 3 | Select Start Activation.

STEP 4 | Select the support account (you can search by account number or name).

STEP 5 | Select the default credit pool.

STEP 6 | Select Deposit Credits.

You see a message that the deposit was successful.

STEP 7 | (optional) If this is your first credit activation, you see the Create Deployment Profile dialog.
Continue to Create a Deployment Profile (VM-Series) or Create a Deployment Profile (CN-Series).

Transfer Credits
You can transfer credits to a credit pool in the same account, or to a credit pool in a different account that
you can access.
• Different CSP Account
• Different Pool in this Account

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Different CSP Account
STEP 1 | Log into your CSP account.

STEP 2 | Select Assets > Software NGFW Credits.

• Identify the source credit pool and make note of the Credit Pool ID.
• Identify the destination credit pool and make note of the Credit Pool ID.
If the destination is in a different account, select it from the Current Account dropdown on the upper
left, and Select Assets > Software NGFW Credits. Find the destination and note the credit type and
the Credit Pool ID.

STEP 3 | Go to the source credit pool and click Transfer Credits on the bottom left.

STEP 4 | Choose Different CSP account.

1. Transfer to—Choose an account name.
2. As credit type—Choose a credit type. At this time, the source and destination type must be the same.
3. Credit Pool ID#—Choose a Credit pool ID number. If the destination account does not have any
credit pools of the chosen type, the CSP prompts you to create a credit pool.
4. Amount to transfer—Enter the amount to transfer.

STEP 5 | Select Update Credits.

Different Pool in this Account

STEP 1 | Log in to your CSP account.

STEP 2 | Select Assets > Software NGFW Credits.

• Identify the source credit pool and make note of the Credit Pool ID.
• Identify the destination credit pool and make note of the Credit Pool ID.

STEP 3 | Go to the source credit pool and select Transfer Credits on the bottom left.

STEP 4 | Select Different CSP account.

1. New credit type—Choose a credit type. At this time, the source and destination type must be the
same.
2. Credit Pool ID#—Choose a Credit pool ID number. If the destination account does not have any
credit pools of the chosen type, the CSP prompts you to create a credit pool.
3. Amount to transfer—Enter the amount to transfer.

STEP 5 | Select Update Credits.

Create a Deployment Profile (VM-Series)

To create a deployment profile, must have a Customer Support Portal account and you must have activated
your credit pool.
Before you begin, estimate the number of firewalls that will use the configuration in this profile.

STEP 1 | If you already have credit pool, log into the account, and from the dashboard, select Assets >
Software NGFW Credits > Create New Profile.
If you have just activated a credit pool you see the Create Deployment Profile form.

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 1. Select the VM-Series firewall type.
2. Select the PAN-OS version.
• PAN-OS 10.0.3 and below (VM-Series Models)
• PAN-OS 10.0.4 and above (Software NGFW Credits)
3. Click Next.

STEP 2 | VM-Series profile.

1. Profile Name.
Name the profile.
2. Number of Firewalls.
Enter the number of firewalls this profile deploys, assuming you have sufficient credits.
3. Firewall Model (PAN-OS 10.0.3 and below):
Choose a VM-Series model.
Planned vCPU/Firewall (PAN-OS 10.0.4 or above).
Enter the number of vCPUs per firewall.
4. Customize Subscription.
Select a use case from the drop list. You can add or remove security services.
5. Use Credits to Enable VM Panorama.
Choose the Panorama use case(s) (Management and/or Log Collector).

STEP 3 | (optional) Hover over the question mark following Protect more, save more to see how your
credit allocation affects savings.

STEP 4 | Click Calculate Estimated Cost to view the credit total, and the number of credits available
before the deployment.
(optional) Hover over the question mark following the estimate to view the credit breakdown for each
component.

STEP 5 | Click Create Deployment Profile.

Your deployment profile is displayed in the CSP dashboard at Assets > Software NFGW credits.
View the new profile in the Current Deployment Profiles tab.
The Credits Consumed/Allocated column shows 0 and Update Pending before the allocation is
complete.
The Transaction History tab shows deployment profile changes.

Create a Deployment Profile (CN-Series)

To create a deployment profile for CN-Series, must have a Customer Support Portal account and you must
have an activated a credit pool.

STEP 1 | If you already have credit pool, log into the account, and from the dashboard, select Assets >
Software NGFW Credits > Create New Profile.
If you have just activated a credit pool you see the Create Deployment Profile form.
1. Select the CN-Series firewall type.
2. Select the PAN-OS version.

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 3. Click Next.

STEP 2 | CN-Series profile.

1. Profile Name.
Name the profile.
2. Number of Firewalls.
Enter the number of firewalls per Kubernetes node.
3. Customize subscription.
Select a service bundle. The basic bundle is a support entitlement. The Essential and Advanced
bundles also include a premium support entitlement.

STEP 3 | (optional) Hover over the question mark following Protect more, save more to see how your
credit allocation affects savings.

STEP 4 | Click Calculate Estimated Cost to view the credit total, and the number of credits available
before the deployment.
(optional) Hover over the question mark following the estimate to view the credit breakdown for each
component.

Edit a Deployment Profile

STEP 1 | Select Assets > Software NGFW Credits and choose a profile (select a row).

STEP 2 | On the far right, select the vertical ellipsis (More Options) and select Edit Profile.

STEP 3 | Make your changes and select Update Deployment Profile.

Clone a Deployment Profile

STEP 1 | Go to Assets > Software NGFW Credits and select a profile (select a row).

STEP 2 | On the far right, select the vertical ellipsis (More Options) and select Clone Profile.

STEP 3 | Change the profile name, make any other changes, and select Create Deployment Profile.

Provision Panorama
This option is only visible if you selected Panorama when the deployment profile was created.

STEP 1 | Go to Assets > Software NGFW Credits and select a profile (select a row).

STEP 2 | On the far right, select the vertical ellipsis (More Options) and select Provision Panorama.

STEP 3 | Choose the Panorama you want to manage your firewalls or act as a log collector, and click
Provision.

Deactivate a Firewall
STEP 1 | In the CSP, select Assets > Software NGFW Credits and select a profile (select a row).

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STEP 2 | On the far right, select the vertical ellipsis (More Options) and select Deactivate Firewall.

STEP 3 | Select the firewall to deactivate.

Delete a Deployment Profile

Before deleting a deployment profile, you must deactivate any firewalls using the profile.

STEP 1 | In the CSP, select Assets > Software NGFW Credits and select a profile (select a row).

STEP 2 | On the far right, select the vertical ellipsis (More Options) and select Delete.

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VM-Series Models
The VM-Series firewall is available in the following models—VM-50, VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, VM-500,
VM-700, and VM-1000-HV. These models are available for PAN-OS version 10.0.3 and earlier.
All models can be deployed as guest virtual machines on VMware ESXi and vCloud Air, KVM, Microsoft
Hyper-V, Cisco ACI, Cisco ENCS, and Cisco CSP. In the public cloud environments—Amazon Web Services,
Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Alibaba Cloud—all models except the VM-50 are
supported; on VMware NSX, only the VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, VM-500, and VM-1000-HV firewalls are
supported. The software package (.xva, .ova, or .vhdx file) that is used to deploy the VM-Series firewall is
common across all models.
When you apply the capacity license on the VM-Series firewall, the model number and the associated
capacities are implemented on the firewall. Capacity is defined in terms of the number of sessions, rules,
security zones, address objects, IPSec VPN tunnels, and SSL VPN tunnels that the VM-Series firewall is
optimized to handle. To make sure that you purchase the correct model for your network requirements, use
the following table to understand the maximum capacity for each model and the capacity differences by
model:

Model Sessions Security Dynamic IP Security IPSec VPN SSL VPN

Rules Addresses Zones Tunnels Tunnels

VM-50 50,000 • 250 1,000 15 • 250 • 250

• 200 • 25 in • 25 in
in Lite Lite Lite
mode mode mode

VM-100 250,000 1,500 2,500 40 1,000 500

VM-200

VM-300 800,000 10,000 100,000 40 2,000 2,000

VM-1000-
HV

VM-500 2,000,000 10,000 100,000 200 4,000 6,000

VM-700 10,000,000 20,000 100,000 200 8,000 12,000

The SD-WAN capabilities are supported on all VM-Series models, except the VM-50 and
VM-100.

For information on the platforms on which you can deploy the VM-Series firewall, see VM-Series
Deployments. For more information about the VM-Series firewall models, see the Palo Alto Networks
Firewall comparison tool. You can also review general information About the VM-Series Firewall.
• VM-Series System Requirements
• CPU Oversubscription
• VM-50 Lite Mode

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VM-Series System Requirements
Each instance of the VM-Series firewall requires a minimum resource allocation—number of CPUs, memory,
and disk space, on its host server. Use the table below to verify that you allocate the necessary hardware
resources for your VM-Series model or memory profile.

VM-Series Model Supported Hypervisors Supported Minimum Minimum Hard

vCPUs Memory Drive

VM-50 ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM 2 • 5.5GB 32GB (60GB

• 4.5GB in Lite at boot)
mode

VM-100 AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud 2 6.5GB 60GB

Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, NSX-
VM-200
V, OCI, Alibaba Cloud, Cisco
ACI, Cisco CSP, Cisco ENCS,
NSX-T (VM-100)

VM-300 AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud 2, 4 9GB 60GB

Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, NSX-
VM-1000-HV
V, OCI, Alibaba Cloud, Cisco
ACI, Cisco CSP, Cisco ENCS,
NSX-T (VM-300)

VM-500 AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud 2, 4, 8 16GB 60GB

Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, NSX-
V, OCI, Alibaba Cloud, Cisco
ACI, Cisco CSP, NSX-T

VM-700 AWS, Azure, ESXi, Google Cloud 2, 4, 8, 16 56GB 60GB

Platform, Hyper-V, KVM, OCI,
Alibaba Cloud, Cisco ACI, Cisco
CSP, NSX-T

You can enable Lite mode on the VM-50. Lite mode is an alternative operating mode for environments
where resources are limited. See VM-50 Lite Mode for more information.

To achieve the best performance, all of the needed cores should be available on a single
CPU socket.

For operation, the VM-50 firewall requires minimum 32GB of hard drive space. However,
because the VM-Series base image is common to all models, you must allocate 60GB of
hard drive space until you license the VM-50.

The number of vCPUs assigned to the management plane and those assigned to the dataplane differs
depending on the total number of vCPUs assigned to the VM-Series firewall. If you assign more vCPUs than
those officially supported by the license, any additional vCPUs are assigned to the management plane.

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 Total vCPUs Management Plane vCPUs Dataplane vCPUs

2 1 1

4 2 2

8 2 6

16 4 12

CPU Oversubscription
The VM-Series firewall supports CPU oversubscription on all models. CPU oversubscription allows you
deploy a higher density of VM-Series firewalls on hypervisors running on x86 architecture. You can deploy
two (2:1) to five (5:1) VM-Series firewalls per required allocation of CPUs. When planning your deployment,
use the following formula to calculate the number of VM-Series firewalls your hardware can support.
(Total CPUs x Oversub Ratio)/CPUs per firewall = total number of VM-Series firewalls
For example, at a 5:1 ratio, a host machine with 16 physical CPU and at least 180GB of memory (40 ×
4.5GB) can support up to 40 instances to the VM-50. Each VM-50 requires two vCPUs and five VM-50s
can be associated to each pair of vCPUs.
(16 CPUs x 5)/2 = 40 VM-50 firewalls
Beyond meeting the minimum VM-Series System Requirements, no additional configuration is required to
take advantage of oversubscription. Deploy VM-Series firewalls normally and resource oversubscription
occurs automatically. When planning your deployment, consider other functions, such as virtual switches,
and guest machines on the host that require hardware resources of their own.

VM-50 Lite Mode

The standard VM-50, while the smallest model of the VM-Series, requires more resources than are available
in some environments. The VM-50 Lite mode provides an alternative for environments where hardware
resources are constrained. The VM-50 Lite requires 4.5GB of memory instead of the 5.5GB required by the
standard VM-50. The VM-50 Lite uses the same license as the standard VM-50 but comes up in Lite mode
when allocated 4.5GB of RAM.

• In high availability deployments, both VM-Series firewalls must both be licensed as

a VM-50 Lite to avoid capacity mismatch issues. In the case of a capacity license
mismatch, the VM-50 (non-Lite) is considered to have a higher capacity; the VM-50
becomes non-functional while the VM-50 Lite remains functional.

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 • The VM-50 Lite does not support jumbo frames; the VM-50 and VM-50 Lite do not
support WildFire inline ML.

VM-Series Model License Types

The following licenses and subscriptions are available for the VM-Series firewall:
• Capacity License—The VM-Series firewall requires a base license, also called a capacity license, to
enable the model number (VM-50, VM-100, VM-200, VM300, VM-500, VM-700, or VM-1000-HV) and
the associated capacities on the firewall. Capacity licenses are included in a bundle and can be perpetual
or term-based:
• Perpetual License—A license with no expiration date, it allows you to use the VM-Series firewall at
the licensed capacity, indefinitely. Perpetual licenses are available for the VM-Series capacity license
only.
• Term-Based License—A term-based license allows you to use the VM-Series firewall for a specified
period of time. It has an expiration date and you will be prompted to renew the license before
it expires. Term-based licenses are available for the capacity licenses, support entitlements, and
subscriptions.
• VM-Series ELA—For high-growth enterprises, the VM-Series enterprise licensing agreement (VM-
Series ELA) provides a fixed price licensing option that allows up to unlimited deployment of VM-Series
firewalls with BYOL. The ELA is offered in one and three-year term agreements with no true-up at the
end of the term.
There are two flavors of the VM-Series ELA:
• If you purchased the VM-Series ELA before December 4, 2018, you have the legacy VM-Series ELA
which includes your choice of a single VM-Series model on any supported hypervisor or public cloud
environment. With this ELA, you receive a single license authorization code for capacity, support,
GlobalProtect, PAN-DB URL Filtering, Threat Prevention, WildFire subscriptions for every instance
of the VM-Series firewall. You also get unlimited deployments of the Panorama virtual appliance
included with a device management license for 1000 firewalls on each.
Palo Alto Networks began phasing out the legacy VM-Series ELA on April 16, 2019. Existing
enterprise license customers will be notified by their support representative when their account is
migrated to the Multi-Model ELA. Licensing tokens will be distributed according to your VM-Series
firewall subscription agreement — no additional action is necessary for continued operation of your
firewalls. If you would like to Manage VM-Series ELA License Tokens, you must designate an ELA
administrator. Only a super user role on the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal (CSP) can
assign an ELA administrator.

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 • The VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (Multi-Model ELA) you purchase after December 4,
2018 (either as a new purchase or as a repurchase of the legacy VM-Series ELA) is called the multi-
model VM-Series ELA that includes most models of the VM-Series firewall portfolio along with
the GlobalProtect, PAN-DB URL Filtering, Threat Prevention, WildFire subscriptions, and support
entitlement. You also get unlimited deployments of the Panorama virtual appliance with a device
management license for 1000 firewalls on each.

VM-Series Firewall for NSX Licenses

In order to automate the provisioning and licensing of the VM-Series firewall for NSX in the VMware
integrated NSX solution, two license bundles are available:
• One bundle includes the VM-Series capacity license (VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, VM-500, or VM-1000-
HV only), Threat Prevention license and a premium support entitlement.
• Another bundle includes the VM-Series capacity license (VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, VM-500, or
VM-1000-HV only) with the complete suite of licenses that include Threat Prevention, GlobalProtect,
WildFire, PAN-DB URL Filtering, DNS Security, and a premium support entitlement.

VM-Series Firewall Licenses for Public Clouds

The VM-Series firewall licensing strategy is the same for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. There are
different license types (see License Types—VM-Series Firewalls), and Bring Your Own License and Pay-as-
you-go licensing methods:
• Bring Your Own License (BYOL)—A license that is purchased from a partner, reseller, or directly from
Palo Alto Networks. BYOL supports individual capacity licenses, support licenses, and subscription
bundles.
• For individual BYOL licenses, you must apply the auth code after you deploy the VM-Series firewall.
• A BYOL license bundle has a single auth code you can include in the bootstrap package (see
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall). All the subscriptions included in the bundle are licensed when the
firewall launches.
• Pay-as-you-go (PAYG)—Also called usage-based or pay-per-use licensing. PAYG licenses can be
purchased from your Cloud provider:
• AWS: Purchase from AWS Marketplace. Supports hourly and annual PAYG options.
• Azure: Purchase from Azure Marketplace. Supports the hourly PAYG option.
• Google Cloud Platform: Purchase from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace. Google Cloud Platform
supports per-minute PAYG option.
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: (PAN-OS 10.0.3 or later) Purchase from Oracle Cloud Marketplace.

The VM-Series on OCI PAYG license does not support the VM-100.

With the PAYG license bundles, the firewall is prelicensed and ready for use as soon as you deploy it;
you do not receive an auth code. When you stop or terminate the firewall from your Cloud console,
PAYG licenses are suspended or terminated.
A PAYG license applies a VM-Series capacity license based on the hardware allocated to the instance.
the PAYG instance checks the amount of hardware resources available to the instance and applies
the largest VM-Series firewall capacity license allowed for the resources available. For example, if the
instance has 2 vCPUs and 16GB of memory, a VM-100 capacity license is applied based on the number
of vCPUs. However, if the instance has 16 vCPUs and 16GB of memory, a VM-500 license is applied
based on the amount of memory. For more information about VM-Series model resource requirements,
see VM-Series System Requirements.

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 Downgrading PAN-OS is not supported on a PAYG firewall instance that was initially
deployed running PAN-OS 9.1.2. Firewall instances deployed prior to PAN-OS 9.1.2 can
be downgraded to older versions of PAN-OS.

The PAYG licenses are bundled as follows:

License Features Bundle 1 Bundle 2

VM-Series firewall capacity license VM-100, VM-300, VM-100, VM-300,

VM-500, VM-700 VM-500, VM-700

Premium Support

Threat Prevention (AV, IPS, and malware

prevention)

GlobalProtect

PAN-DB URL Filtering

WildFire

DNS Security

When using the VM-Series firewall CLI to view your applied PAYG license, the command
show system info displays a different value from the output displayed for the command
request license info. The command request license info always displays the license as a
VM-300, regardless of the actual VM-Series model. However, request license info

You cannot switch between the PAYG and the BYOL licenses. To move from PAYG to BYOL, contact your
Palo Alto Networks channel partner or sales representative to purchase a BYOL license and get a BYOL
auth code that you can use to license your firewall. If you have deployed your firewall and want to switch
the license, see Switch Between the BYOL and the PAYG Licenses.

If you have an evaluation copy of the VM-Series firewall and would like to convert it to a fully
licensed (purchased) copy for the same license type (BYOL to BYOL), you can deactivate
the evaluation license and activate the purchased license in its place. See Upgrade the VM-
Series Firewall for instructions.

VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (Multi-Model ELA)

The VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (VM-Series ELA) is a one- or three-year comprehensive
licensing agreement that enables you to purchase VM-Series firewalls, along with the GlobalProtect, PAN-
DB URL Filtering, Threat Prevention, WildFire, and DNS Security subscriptions. It also includes a support
entitlement and a device management license for Panorama. The multi-model VM-Series ELA provides
simplified license management with a single contract that allows you to deploy any model of the VM-Series
firewall that meets your enterprise security needs.
When you purchase the multi-model VM-Series ELA, you forecast the number of firewalls that you’ll need
over the term of your subscription. Based on your forecast and an additional allotment that accommodates
for future growth, your account on the Customer Support Portal (CSP) is credited with a license token pool
that allows you to deploy any model of the VM-Series firewall. Depending on the firewall model and the

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 number of firewalls that you deploy, a specified number of tokens are deducted from your available license
token pool. The tokens drawn from your account are calculated based on the value of each firewall model:
• VM-50—10 tokens
• VM-100—25 tokens
• VM-300—50 tokens
• VM-500—140 tokens
• VM-700—300 tokens
With the VM-Series ELA, there is no true-up due at the end of the term which means that you are not billed
retroactively even if you deploy more firewalls than your original forecast. So, to balance flexibility with
accountability, the VM-Series ELA terms of use includes a bounded and unbounded period that explains
how you can consume tokens and deploy firewalls as the need arises. For details, refer to the ELA terms
and conditions. The VM-Series firewalls that you deploy with the VM-Series ELA do not have a perpetual
license and on the expiry of the term, you must renew the agreement to extend the support entitlement and
get continued access to software and content release updates on the firewalls.
With the ELA administrator role on the CSP, you can transfer or split the licensing tokens among other
administrators who belong to different departments with their own CSP accounts. This sharing enables
other administrators in your enterprise to deploy the VM-Series firewall on demand as long as they have
tokens available in their respective CSP accounts. See Manage VM-Series ELA License Tokens to invite
other administrators to share ELA tokens and deploy any model of the VM-Series firewall that meets your
enterprise security need. You can also reclaim tokens to remove CSP accounts from the VM-Series ELA if
want to redistribute tokens based on changing organizational needs.

The following videos provide a walkthrough of the VM-Series Multi-Model ELA.

Manage VM-Series ELA License Tokens

The VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (Multi-Model ELA) (VM-Series ELA) gives you the flexibility
of having a single contract that you can share with other administrators in your enterprise. You must have
the super user role on the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal (CSP) to activate the ELA, and upon
activating the ELA authorization code you inherit the ELA administrator role on the CSP.
With the ELA administrator role, you can manage the license token pool available to deploy VM-Series
firewalls and subscriptions included in the agreement. You can invite other administrators to share the VM-
Series ELA tokens, grant which models and how many instances of the VM-Series firewalls are available
to each administrator, as well as remove CSP accounts from your VM-Series ELA. Depending on what you
allocate for each grantee, they receive a specific number of tokens that they can then use to deploy VM-
Series firewalls.

Additional purchases and grants do not directly add to the number of available VM-Series
firewalls in a CSP account; instead, ELA license tokens are added to the VM-Series ELA
token pool. The ELA license tokens can subsequently be allocated by the ELA administrator
to a given CSP account to increase the number of available VM-Series firewalls.

STEP 1 | (Legacy VM-Series ELA Customers only) Designate an ELA administrator to manage tokens.
Existing enterprise license customers who have been migrated to the Multi-Model ELA must designate
an ELA administrator to manage VM-Series ELA license tokens. Upon conversion, no other action is
necessary for continued operation of your firewalls, however, you will not be able to (re)allocate tokens
for deploying firewalls until an ELA administrator has been assigned. Only an administrator with a super
user role on the CSP has the ability to designate an ELA administrator, who in turn, can manage tokens
or grant tokens to other administrators.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks CSP.

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 2. Select Members > Manage Users.
3. Click on the pencil icon under Actions to edit the user to whom you want to assign the ELA
administrator role.
4. Select ELA Administrator and then click the check mark to add the new role to the selected user.
5. Continue to step 3.

STEP 2 | Activate the ELA authorization code.

The administrative user who activates the ELA inherits the ELA administrator and super user role on the
CSP and has the ability to manage the tokens or grant the tokens to other administrators.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks CSP.
2. Select Assets > Enterprise Agreements > Activate Enterprise Agreement.
3. Enter the Authorization Code and Agree and Submit the EULA.
Verify the authorization code is registered to your account under Enterprise Agreements: VM-Series.
The page displays the Auth Code, Account ID, Account Name, License Description, Expiration Date,
the number of Licenses (used/total) you have, and how many are available to deploy within the
bounded and unbounded period of the agreement.

4. Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes to view the authorization codes for deploying each model of
the VM-Series firewall and associated subscriptions included with the ELA.

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STEP 3 | Grant ELA access to other administrators in your enterprise.
This capability allows you to share the VM-Series ELA with other administrators within your enterprise
or department so that they can deploy VM-Series firewalls on demand. As an ELA administrator, you can
grant access to other users who are registered with an email address on the CSP.

1. On Assets > Enterprise Agreements, select Grant ELA Access.

2. Enter the Destination Email address of the administrator whom you want to invite.
The destination email address that you enter above must be a registered user on the CSP with a
super user role so that they can log in and accept the grant. If the email address is not registered on
the CSP, you must first create a new account for the user on Members > Create New User.
3. Select Notify User to trigger a notification email to the email address you entered.
The recipient must log in to the CSP to Accept the VM-Series ELA. After the recipient accepts the
grant, the account ID is available on Assets > Enterprise Agreements as shown in the following
screenshot.

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STEP 4 | Allocate tokens for deploying firewalls.
1. Select Assets > Enterprise Agreements > Manage VM-Series Tokens.
For each account ID, you can specify the number of firewalls by model that you want to allocate.
Based on the quantity and firewall model, the number of tokens are automatically calculated and
become available for use. In this example, you are allowing 10 instances each of the VM-50 and the
VM-500.

2. Verify that the accurate number of firewall instances are deposited in the account.
Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Code to confirm the auth codes you allotted. In this example,
the account has the ability to provision 10 instances each of the VM-50 and the VM-500. As the
recipients deploy firewalls, the number of tokens are deducted from the total available pool, and
you can view the number of firewall instances that they have provisioned as a ratio of the total
quantity you allocated for them. As your security needs evolve, you have the flexibility to allocate
more quantity and allow access to a different VM-Series firewall model as long as you have tokens
available.

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STEP 5 | Remove a CSP account from the VM-Series ELA to reclaim tokens.

You cannot reclaim a portion of the tokens allocated to a CSP account. By reclaiming
tokens, you are removing the entirety of the CSP account from the VM-Series ELA and
reallocating all associated tokens to the token pool.

1. Verify that all tokens associated with the CSP account that you want to remove are not being utilized
by the VM-Series firewalls. Deactivate the VM-Series firewalls as necessary to provision tokens for
removal.
2. Select Assets > Enterprise Agreements > Manage VM-Series Token.
Select the account ID from whom you want to reclaim tokens from and click Reclaim Token. If tokens
are available for reclamation, you will receive a confirmation of a successful removal.

Accept the VM-Series ELA

If your enterprise has purchased a VM-Series ELA, your ELA administrator can invite you to share the
contract and share the license token pool so that you have access to VM-Series firewall auth codes which

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 enable you to deploy VM-Series firewalls on demand. When you receive a grant for access to the VM-Series
ELA, you get an email notification that includes a link to log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support
Portal (CSP) and you must agree and accept the terms of use. After you accept the ELA terms of use, the
ELA administrator can allocate which VM-Series firewall models and how many you are entitled to use; the
corresponding number of VM-Series ELA tokens are deposited in your account.

STEP 1 | Check your email inbox for the grant notification.

The notification includes the email address of the ELA administrator who has invited you to share the
VM-Series ELA.

STEP 2 | Accept the grant.

You must review the terms and accept the EULA and the support agreement before the ELA admin can
allocate tokens which enable you to deploy VM-Series firewalls.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto CSP.
2. Select VM-Series Auth Codes to Review Tokens Grant.
You must Agree and Accept the EULA and support agreement to accept the grant. If you reject it,
the ELA Admin who gave you the grant receives an email notification that you declined the grant. Do
make sure to let the ELA administrator know that you have accepted the grant so that you he/she
can allocate the VM-Series firewall models and quantity that you can deploy.

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 If you belong to multiple accounts on the CSP and accidentally accept the grant in to
the wrong account, you must request the ELA administrator to resend the grant to you.
Do not start using the auth code to provision firewalls until you accept the grant in the
correct account.

STEP 3 | Verify which VM-Series models and how many are allocated for you.
After the ELA administrator allocates the VM-Series firewall models and number of instances you can
provision, you can select Assets > VM-Series Auth Codes to view which models and how many of each
are allocated for you. For example, the grant in the following screenshot displays the auth codes that
enable you to deploy 10 instances each of the VM-50 and the VM-500.

As you deploy firewalls and register them to the CSP, the number of provisioned firewalls is
incremented. The Quantity of VM Provisioned displays the ratio of provisioned to total available for
each model.

Activate VM-Series Model Licenses

To activate the license on your VM-Series firewall, you must have deployed the VM-Series firewall and
completed initial configuration. To deploy the firewall, see VM-Series Deployments.

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 Use the instructions in this section for all the BYOL models including AWS, Azure, and Google Public Cloud.
For usage-based licensing in public clouds, you do not need to activate the license. You must Register the
Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth code) in order to activate your
premium support entitlement.

For usage-based models of the VM-Series firewall in the AWS Marketplace, instances with
short and long AWS instance IDs are supported.

Until you activate the license on the VM-Series firewall, the firewall does not have a serial number, the
MAC address of the dataplane interfaces are not unique, and only a minimal number of sessions are
supported. Because the MAC addresses are not unique until the firewall is licensed, to prevent issues
caused by overlapping MAC addresses, make sure that you do not have multiple, unlicensed VM-Series
firewalls.
When you activate the license, the licensing server uses the UUID and the CPU ID of the virtual machine to
generate a unique serial number for the VM-Series firewall. The capacity auth code in conjunction with the
serial number is used to validate your entitlement.

After you license a VM-Series firewall, if you need to delete and redeploy the VM-Series
firewall, make sure to Deactivate the License(s) on the firewall. Deactivating the license
allows you to transfer the active licenses to a new instance of the VM-Series firewall without
help from technical support.

• Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall (Standalone Version)

• Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX
• Troubleshoot License Activation Issues

Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall (Standalone Version)

If you have not elected to use the bootstrapping workflow using a subscription bundle, you must deploy the
VM-Series firewall and complete initial configuration before you can activate the license on your VM-Series
firewall.

• If your VM-Series firewall has direct internet access.

To activate the license, the firewall must be configured with an IP address, netmask, default gateway,
and DNS server IP address.
The firewall must have a valid DNS configuration and have network connectivity to access the Palo Alto
Networks licensing server.
1. Select Device > Licenses and select the Activate feature using authorization code link.
2. Enter the capacity auth code that you registered on the support portal. The firewall will connect
to the update server (updates.paloaltonetworks.com), and download the license and reboot
automatically.
3. Log back in to the web interface and confirm that the Dashboard displays a valid serial number. If the
term Unknown displays, it means the device is not licensed.
4. On Device > Licenses, verify that PA-VM license is added to the device.
If you see an error message, check Troubleshoot License Activation Issues.

• If your VM-Series firewall does not have internet access.

1. Select Device > Licenses and click the Activate Feature using Auth Code link.
2. Click Download Authorization File, and download the authorizationfile.txt on the client machine.

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 3. Copy the authorizationfile.txt to a computer that has access to the internet and log in to the support
portal. Click My VM-Series Auth-Codes link and select the applicable auth code from the list and
click the Register VM link.
4. On the Register Virtual Machine tab upload the authorization file. Select the PAN-OS version and the
hypervisor on which you have deployed the firewall, to complete the registration process. The serial
number of your VM-Series firewall will be attached to your account records.

5. Navigate to Assets > My Devices and search for the VM-Series device just registered and click the
PA-VM link. This will download the VM-Series license key to the client machine.
6. Copy the license key to the machine that can access the web interface of the VM-Series firewall and
navigate to Device > Licenses.

License keys must be installed through the web interface. The firewall does not
support license key installation through SCP or FTP.
7. Click Manually Upload License link and enter the license key. When the capacity license is activated
on the firewall, a reboot occurs.
8. Log in to the device and confirm that the Dashboard displays a valid serial number and that the PA-
VM license displays in the Device > Licenses tab.

Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX
Panorama serves as the central point of administration for the VM-Series firewalls for VMware NSX and
the license activation process is automated when Panorama has direct internet access. Panorama connects
to the Palo Alto Networks update server to retrieve the licenses, and when a new VM-Series firewall for
NSX is deployed, it communicates with Panorama to obtain the license. If Panorama is not connected to
the internet, you need to manually license each instance of the VM-Series firewall so that the firewall can
connect to Panorama. For an overview of the components and requirements for deploying the VM-Series
firewall for NSX, see VM-Series for NSX Firewall Overview.
For this integrated solution, the auth code (for example, PAN-VM-1000-HV-SUB-BND-NSX2) includes
licenses for threat prevention, URL filtering and WildFire subscriptions and premium support for the
requested period.
In order to activate the license, you must have completed the following tasks:
• Registered the auth code to the support account. If you don’t register the auth code, the licensing server
will fail to create a license.
• Entered the auth code in the Service Definition on Panorama. On Panorama, select VMware Service
Manager to add the Authorization Code to the VMware Service Definition.

If you have purchased an evaluation auth code, you can license up to 5 VM-Series
firewalls with the VM-1000-HV capacity license for a period of 30 or 60 days. Because

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 this solution allows you to deploy one VM-Series firewall per ESXi host, the ESXi cluster
can include a maximum of 5 ESXi hosts when using an evaluation license.
The following process of activating the licenses is manual. If you have a custom script or an orchestration
service, you can use the Licensing API to automate the process of retrieving the licenses for the VM-Series
firewalls.
• Activate Licenses on VM-Series Firewalls on NSX When Panorama has Internet Access
• Activate Licenses on VM-Series Firewalls on NSX When Panorama has No Internet Access
Activate Licenses on VM-Series Firewalls on NSX When Panorama has Internet Access
Complete the following procedure to activate the VM-Series firewall for NSX when Panorama has access to
the internet.

STEP 1 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is connected to Panorama.

1. Log in to Panorama.
2. Select Panorama > Managed Devices and check that the firewall displays as Connected.

STEP 2 | Verify that each firewall is licensed.

Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Licenses and verify that Panorama has matched the auth code
and applied the licenses to each firewall.
If you do not see the licenses, click Refresh. Select the VM-Series firewalls for which to retrieve
subscription licenses and click OK.

Activate Licenses on VM-Series Firewalls on NSX When Panorama has No Internet Access
Complete the following procedure to activate the VM-Series firewall for NSX when Panorama does not
have access to the internet.

STEP 1 | Locate the CPU ID and UUID of the VM-Series firewall.

1. From the vCenter server obtain the IP address of the firewall.
2. Log into the web interface and select Dashboard.
3. Get the CPU ID and the UUID for the firewall from the General Information widget.

STEP 2 | Activate the auth code and generate the license keys.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials. If you
need a new account, see Create a Support Account.
2. Select Assets > VM-Series Auth Codes, click Add VM-Series Auth Codes to enter the auth code.
3. Select Register VM in the row that corresponds to the auth code that you just registered, enter the
CPU ID and the UUID of the firewall and click Submit. The portal will generate a serial number for
the firewall.
4. Select Assets > Devices and search for the serial number.
5. Click the link the Actions column to download each key locally to your laptop. In addition to the
subscription license key, you must get the capacity license and the support license keys.

STEP 3 | Upload the keys to the firewall.

1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Select Device > Licenses, and select Manually upload license key.
3. Browse to select a key and click OK to install the license on the firewall.

Install the capacity license key file (pa-vm.key) first. When you apply the capacity
license key, the VM-Series firewall will reboot. On reboot, the firewall will have a serial
number that you can use to register the firewall as a managed device on Panorama.

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 4. Repeat the process to install each key on the firewall.
5. Select Dashboard and verify that you can see the Serial # in the General Information widget.

STEP 4 | Add the serial number of the firewall on Panorama.

Select Panorama > Managed Devices and click Add to enter the serial number for the VM-Series
firewall for NSX. The firewall should now be able to connect with Panorama so that it can obtain its
configuration and policy rules.

Troubleshoot License Activation Issues

Some of the most common issues with activating your license is covered in this section.

• If you see an error that reads Failed to fetch licenses. Failed to get license info. Please try
again lateror a generic communications error message displays.

Verify the following:

• Can the firewall route traffic to the Palo Alto Networks server using a service route? By default,
the firewall uses the management interface to access the server. If you plan on using a dataplane
interface, make sure that you have set up a service route.

• Is routing over the internet working? SSH into the firewall and ping an publicly accessible IP address
such as 4.2.2.2. Be sure to use the source option if you are using a dataplane interface. For example:
ping count 3 source 10.0.1.1 host 4.2.2.2.
• Is DNS set up correctly? SSH into the firewall and ping a DNS name such as google.com. For example:

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 • If you see an error that reads Invalid Auth Code:

Verify the following:

• You have entered the auth code properly.
• You have registered the auth code to your account on the support portal.
• Your auth code has not reached the maximum provisioning capacity for the VM-Series firewalls.

Switch Between the BYOL and the PAYG Licenses

The VM-Series firewall cannot be converted between the BYOL and PAYG licensing options. If you have
already deployed and configured a VM-Series firewall with the PAYG or BYOL option in AWS, Azure, or
Google Cloud Platform, and now want to switch to the other option, use the following instructions to
save and export the configuration on your existing firewall, deploy a new firewall, and then restore the
configuration on the new firewall.

STEP 1 | Save a backup of the current configuration file and store it to an external server.
1. Select Device > Setup > Operations and Export named configuration snapshot.
2. Select the XML file that contains your running configuration (for example, running-config.xml) and
click OK to export the configuration file.
3. Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall.

STEP 2 | Deploy a new firewall and register or activate the license, as appropriate.

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 For a new PAYG instance:
1. In the AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform Marketplace, select the software image for the PAYG
licensing bundle you want to deploy.
2. Deploy a new VM-Series firewall in the AWS, Azure, or Google public cloud. See Set Up the VM-
Series Firewall on AWS, Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure, or Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
Google Cloud Platform.
3. Register the Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth code).
For a new BYOL instance:
1. Contact your sales representative or reseller to purchase a BYOL license, and get a BYOL auth code
that you can use to license your firewall.
2. Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code).
3. Deploy a new VM-Series firewall in the AWS or Azure public cloud. See Set Up the VM-Series
Firewall on AWS, Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure or Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
Google Cloud Platform.
4. Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall (Standalone Version).

STEP 3 | On the newly deployed firewall, restore the configuration that you exported.
1. Access the web interface of the newly deployed firewall.
2. Select Device > Setup > Operations, click Import named configuration snapshot, Browse to the
configuration file on the external host, and click OK.
3. Click Load named configuration snapshot, select the Name of the configuration file you just
imported, and click OK.
4. Click Commit to overwrite the running configuration with the snapshot you just imported.
5. Verify that the configuration on the new firewall matches the firewall that you are replacing, before
you delete the firewall or deactivate the licenses on the replaced firewall.

Switch Between VM-Series Model Licenses

You can switch the license of your currently-deployed VM-Series firewall with the BYOL option, such
as moving from a subscription bundle to an enterprise license agreement (ELA) and vice versa, without
disrupting traffic moving through the firewall. You can switch the license on an individual firewall or on
multiple firewalls simultaneously from Panorama. Complete one of the following procedures to perform one
of the following license changes:
• Subscription bundle 1 to subscription bundle 2
• Subscription bundle 1 or 2 to an ELA
• Capacity license to subscription bundle or ELA

Do not use this procedure for switching between PAYG and BYOL. See Switch Between the
BYOL and the PAYG Licenses for more information.

Before switching to an ELA license, you must allocate enough tokens equal the number of currently-
deployed VM-Series firewalls. See VM-Series Enterprise License Agreement (Multi-Model ELA) for more
information about the tokens required for each VM-Series model.

• Switch a license on a standalone firewall.

1. Register your authorization code.
• For a subscription bundle, register your new authorization code.
• For an ELA, activate the ELA authorization code.

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 Do not use the ELA authorization code to activate individual VM-Series firewalls.
After registering your ELA, use the VM-Series model authorization codes to
activate individual firewalls. You can find these authorization codes on the
Customer Support Portal under Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes.
2. Log in to the VM-Series firewall web interface.
3. Verify the Palo Alto Networks update server configuration.
1. Select Device > Setup > Services.
2. Confirm that Update Server is set to updates.paloaltonetworks.com.
3. Confirm that Update Server Identity is selected.
4. Apply a VM-Series authorization code. A firewall authorization code for an ELA begins with the letter
A, as shown below.

1. Select Device > Licenses and select the Activate feature using authorization code link.
2. Enter your VM-Series authorization code.
3. Click OK to confirm the license upgrade.The firewall contacts the Palo Alto Networks update
server and consume the tokens required for your firewall based on the VM-Series model.
4. Verify the license updated successfully by checking the license expiration date.
5. Repeat this process for each VM-Series firewall in your deployment.

• Switch licenses on managed firewalls using Panorama.

1. Register your authorization code.
• For a subscription bundle, register your new authorization code.
• For an ELA, activate the ELA authorization code.

Do not use the ELA authorization code to activate individual VM-Series firewalls.
After registering your ELA, use the VM-Series model authorization codes to
activate individual firewalls. You can find these authorization codes on the
Customer Support Portal under Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes.
2. Log in to the Panorama web interface.
3. Verify the Palo Alto Networks update server configuration for the firewalls.
1. Select Device > Setup > Services.
2. Confirm that Update Server is set to updates.paloaltonetworks.com.
3. Confirm that Update Server Identity is selected.
4. Apply a VM-Series authorization code. A firewall authorization code for an ELA begins with the letter
A, as shown below.

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 1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Licenses and click Activate.
2. Enter your VM-Series authorization code.
3. Use the filters to select the managed firewalls to be licensed.
4. Enter your authorization code in the Auth Code column for each firewall.
5. Click Activate to confirm the license upgrade.Panorama contacts the Palo Alto Networks update
server and consume the tokens required for your firewalls based on the VM-Series model.

6. Verify the license updated successfully by checking the license expiration date.

Renew VM-Series Firewall License Bundles

When your VM-Series firewall bundle licenses are due for renewal, you can log in to the Palo Alto Networks
Customer Support Portal and adjust the license quantity to meet your deployment needs. At renewal, you
can review your usage trends and based your future needs, pick from the following options:
• Renew—You can opt to renew all licenses as is, or to increase or decrease the licensed quantity. If you
decrease the number of licenses you need, you must opt to get a basic bundle for the firewalls you are
not renewing, otherwise you will forfeit the portion that you do not renew. If you increase the license
quantity, the addition is added to your existing auth code.
• Change to Basic Bundle—If you have a VM-Series bundle 1 or a bundle 2 license that includes
subscriptions, you can change to a basic bundle that includes a perpetual capacity license and support
entitlement. When you switch to the basic bundle, you retain the VM-Series firewall model that you
had previously purchased. All firewalls that are currently deployed and are associated with the existing
auth code will continue to function, and the support entitlement will have a new expiration date. For any
unprovisioned firewalls, you’ll receive a new auth code that you can use to deploy new instances.
• Forfeit—Relinquish the licenses that you no longer need. If you have deployed the firewalls that you
don't want to renew, you need to select the serial number of the instances for which you want to
discontinue renewals. You can continue to use these firewall instances with the software and content
versions that are currently installed, but your subscriptions and support entitlements are no longer valid.
And to forfeit the license of VM-Series firewalls that you have not provisioned, just select the quantity
that you want to forfeit.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal with your account credentials.

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STEP 2 | Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes and find the auth code you want to renew.
The Renew option displays for auth codes that are eligible for renewal.

STEP 3 | Click the Renew link to select the serial numbers to Renew, Change to Basic Bundle, or Forfeit.
If you have provisioned the firewall, select the appropriate option in the row that corresponds to the
Serial Number. If you have unprovisioned instances of the firewall, select the quantity for each renewal
option you choose under Unprovisioned VM Renewal Settings.

STEP 4 | Save your changes.

You will receive an onscreen confirmation that your changes are submitted for processing. After
submitting your changes, if you select Renew again, you can view the status of your request
against each serial number. If renewal processing has started, and you need to make additional
revisions, you will be unable to save changes. For assistance, you can contact the renewals team at
[email protected].

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Register the VM-Series Firewall
When you purchase a VM-Series firewall, you receive an email that includes an auth code for a capacity
license for the VM-Series model, a support entitlement auth code, and one or more auth codes for the
subscription licenses. To use the auth code(s), you must register the code to the support account on the
Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website. In the case of the VMware integrated NSX solution, the
email contains a single authorization code that bundles the capacity license for one or more instances of the
VM-Series model, the support entitlement, and one or more subscription licenses.
For the usage-based licenses in public clouds (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform), you do not receive
an auth code. However, in order to activate your premium support entitlement with Palo Alto Networks,
you must create a support account and register the VM-Series firewall on the Palo Alto Networks Customer
Support website.
Use the instructions in this section to register the capacity auth code or firewall with your support account:
• Register the VM-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)
• Register the CN-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)
• Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code)
• Register the Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth code)

Register the VM-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)

Complete the following procedure to register your VM-Series firewall with an auth code.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials.
Select Assets > Software NFGW credits, find the deployment profile, and make note of the Auth Code.l

STEP 2 | Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes > Add VM-Series Auth-Code.

STEP 3 | In the Add VM-Series Auth-Code field, enter the Software NGFW Credits authcode for the
deployment profile used to create the firewall.
View the credit pool details to see the number of VM-Series firewalls that have been deployed and the
number of credits available for use against each auth code. When all the available licenses are used, the
auth code does not display on the VM-Series Auth-Codes page. To view all the assets that are deployed,
select Assets > Devices.

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Register the CN-Series Firewall (Software NGFW Credits)
STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials.
Select Assets > Software NFGW credits, find the deployment profile that allocated the credits your
Kubernetes cluster, and note the Auth Code.l

STEP 2 | Select Assets > CN-Series Licensing.

STEP 3 | In the Add CN-Series Auth-Code field, enter the Software NGFW Credits authcode for the
deployment profile used to create the Kubernetes cluster.
View the credit pool details to see the number of VM-Series firewalls that have been deployed and the
number of credits available for use against each auth code. When all the available licenses are used, the
auth code does not display on the VM-Series Auth-Codes page. To view all the assets that are deployed,
select Assets > Devices.

Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code)

Complete the following procedure to register your VM-Series firewall with an auth code.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials. If
you need a new account, see Create a Support Account.

STEP 2 | Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes > Add VM-Series Auth-Code.

STEP 3 | In the Add VM-Series Auth-Code field, enter the capacity auth code you received by email,
and click the checkmark on the far right to save your input. The page will display the list of auth
codes registered to your support account.
You can track the number of VM-Series firewalls that have been deployed and the number of licenses
that are still available for use against each auth code. When all the available licenses are used, the auth
code does not display on the VM-Series Auth-Codes page. To view all the assets that are deployed,
select Assets > Devices.

Register the Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for

Public Clouds (no auth code)
To register usage-based firewalls on the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal (CSP) you can use
automatic registration or manual registration. The automatic registration of the usage-based firewalls

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 enables you to seamlessly register the firewall as soon as you launch it and access the site license
entitlements associated with your CSP account. For details, see Install a Device Certificate on the VM-
Series Firewall.
Use the following workflow to manually register your VM-Series firewalls. Before you begin the manual
registration process, log in to the VM-Series firewall and jot down the serial number and the CPU ID (UUID
is optional) from the dashboard.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website, and click Register a Device.

1. Select Register usage-based VM-Series models (hourly/annual) purchased from public cloud
Marketplace or Cloud Security Service Provider (CSSP).
2. Select your Cloud Marketplace vendor and click Next.

STEP 2 | Enter the Serial #, the CPU ID, and the UUID of the VM-Series firewall.
For example, from the Dashboard of the VM-Series firewall on your VM you will see the following
information.

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 If you plan to use the firewall offline, please select the Offline checkbox and enter the
PAN-OS version you plan to use.

STEP 3 | Agree and Submit to accept the EULA and register the firewall.

STEP 4 | Verify that the details on the licenses you purchased are displayed on the CSP Assets page.

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Use Panorama-Based Software Firewall
License Management
The Panorama Software Firewall License plugin allows you to automatically license a VM-Series firewall
when it connects to Panorama. If your VM-Series firewalls are located in the perimeter of your deployment
and do not have connectivity to the Palo Alto Networks licensing server, the Software License plugin
simplifies the license activation process by using Panorama to license the VM-Series firewall.

Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) licenses are not supported for use with this plugin.

Additionally, the Software Firewall License plugin simplifies the license activation and deactivation of VM-
Series firewalls in environments that use auto-scaling and automation to deploy and delete firewalls to
address changes in the cloud.

The Software Firewall License plugin does not support the VM-Series firewall for VMware
NSX. The Panorama plugin for VMware NSX automatically licenses VM-Series firewalls
deployed in NSX-V or NSX-T
Additionally, do not this plugin to license firewalls deployed in device groups that include
instances of the VM-Series firewall deployed in NSX-V or NSX-T.

STEP 1 | Install the Software Firewall License Plugin for Panorama.

1. Log in to the Panorama web interface.
2. Select Panorama > Plugins.
3. Click Check Now to get the list of available plugins.
4. Search for sw_fw_license to locate the plugin.
5. Select Download and Install the Software Licensing plugin.
After you successfully install, Panorama refreshes and the Software Licensing plugin displays on the
Panorama tab.

STEP 2 | Configure a Bootstrap Definition.

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 1. Select Panorama > SW Firewall License > Bootstrap Definitions.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name to identify the Bootstrap Definition.
4. (Optional) Enter a Description of the Bootstrap Definition.
5. Enter the Auth Code that Panorama will use to license the VM-Series firewall when it connects to
Panorama.
6. Click OK.

STEP 3 | Configure a License Manager.

1. Select Panorama > SW Firewall License > License Managers.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name to identify the License Manager.
4. (Optional) Enter a Description of the License Manager.
5. Select a Device Group from the drop-down. When a VM-Series firewall bootstrapped using the
license manager connects to Panorama, it is placed in the specified device group.
6. Select a Template Stack from the drop-down. When a VM-Series firewall bootstrapped using the
license manager connects to Panorama, it is placed in the specified template Stack.
7. In the Auto Deactivate field, specify the amount of time, in hours, that Panorama waits before
deactivating the license of a disconnected VM-Series firewall. When you select Never, Panorama
does not deactivate a disconnected VM-Series firewall. Auto Deactivate is set to Never by default.
You can set the deactivation time, in hours, from one to 24.

When a Auto Deactivate interval, the plugin might deactivate the license of stopped
VM-Series firewalls that are managed by the same license manager of firewalls that
deactivate as expected.
8. Select a Bootstrap Definition from the drop-down. The selected bootstrap definition specifies the
auth code used by Panorama to license the VM-Series firewalls associated with the license manager.
9. Click OK.
10.Commit your changes.

STEP 4 | (Optional) Create an init-cfg.txt file for bootstrap the VM-Series firewall. After configuring a
license manager, you can copy and paste bootstrap parameters generated by Panorama when
deploy your VM-Series firewalls. Depending on your deployment, the parameters displayed
might be a subset of those shown in the image below. For example, if your Panorama appliance

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 is deployed in a public cloud, the bootstrap parameters will not include the public IP address
for Panorama. In that case, you must manually enter the public IP address in the init-cfg.txt
file. Panorama will always generate the auth-key and plugin-op-commands=panorama-
licensing-mode-on for use in your init-cfg.txt file.
The auth key displayed here is generated by Panorama and used to authenticate the VM-Series firewall
connection to Panorama. Additionally, this auth key is used instead of the VM auth key that you might
generate on Panorama and add to your init-cfg.txt file.

If you use the auth key displayed here in your init-cfg.txt file, do not use a manually
generated VM auth key.

1. Select Panorama > SW Firewall License > License Managers.

2. In the Action column of a given license manager, click Show Bootstrap Parameters.
3. Copy the displayed information and paste it into a text editor to create an init-cfg.txt file for
bootstrapping.
4. Click Close when finished.

STEP 5 | (Optional) View and deactivate a managed VM-Series firewall. From the Show Devices dialogue,
you can view the devices associated with a given license manager. You can view the name,
serial number, management IP address, connection status, and amount of time Panorama waits
to deactivate a disconnected firewall. Additionally, you can manually deactivate the license of
managed VM-Series firewall.
1. Select Panorama > SW Firewall License > License Managers.
2. In the Action column of a given license manager, click Show Devices.
3. To manually deactivate a connected or disconnected (but not yet deactivated) managed VM-Series
firewall, select a one or more listed VM-Series firewalls and click Deactivate.

STEP 6 | (Optional) Verify that Panorama has completed the necessary API calls to license connected
firewalls.

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1. Log in to the Panorama command line interface.
2. Execute the following command.
show plugins sw_fw_license panorama-api-requests

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Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series
Firewall
The firewall requires a device certificate to retrieve the site license entitlements and securely access cloud
services such as WildFire, AutoFocus, and Cortex Data Lake. There are two methods for applying a site
license to your VM-Series firewall—One-time password and auto-registration PIN. Each password or PIN is
generated on the Customer Support Portal (CSP) and unique to your Palo Alto Networks support account.
The method you use depends on the license type used to deploy your firewall and if your firewalls are
managed by Panorama.
• One Time Password—For VM-Series firewalls that have already been registered with Palo Alto Networks
licensing server, you must generate a One-Time Password on the Customer Support Portal and apply it
to your VM-Series firewall. Use this method for VM-Series firewalls with a BYOL or ELA license in small-
scale, unmanaged deployments and manually-deployed VM-Series firewalls managed by Panorama.
• Registration PIN—This method allows you to apply a site license to your VM-Series firewall at initial
startup. Use this method for VM-Series firewalls with usage-based licenses (PAYG), that you bootstrap
at launch or with any type of automated deployment, regardless of license type. The auto-registration
PIN enables you to automatically register your usage-based firewalls at launch with the CSP and retrieve
site licenses.
For the VM-Series firewall on NSX-V and NSX-T, you can add the auto-registration PIN to your service
definition configuration so the device certificate is fetched by the firewall upon initial boot up. See
the service definition configuration for NSX-V, NSX-T (North-South), and NSX-T (East-West) for more
information. If you upgrade previously-deployed firewalls to PAN-OS version that supports device
certificates, you can apply a device certificate to the those firewalls individually using a one-time password.
One-time passwords and auto-registration PINs must be used before they expire. If you do not, you must
return to the CSP to generate a new one.

• Enable the firewalls to retrieve the site licenses automatically at launch.

The firewall requires the device certificate to get the site license entitlements and securely access the
cloud services. To retrieve the site licenses when you launch the firewall, in the bootstrap package
you must include the authcode in the /license folder, and add the auto registration PIN ID and value in
the init-cfg.txt file and place it in the /config folder. Adding the auto registration PIN ID and value also
enable auto-registration of the PAYG or usage-based instances on the VM-Series firewall.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal (CSP).
2. Generate the VM-Series registration PIN.
Select Assets > Device Certificates > Generate Registration PIN. Save the PIN ID and value. Make
sure to launch the firewall before the PIN expires.

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 3. Add the registration PIN ID and value in the init-cfg.txt file.
In addition to the required parameters, you must include:

vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=

vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=

4. Log in to the firewall and verify that you can see the site license on the firewall.

• Generate the one-time password (OTP) and manually retrieve the device certificate on the
firewall.
The firewall requires this device certificate to get the site license entitlements and securely access the
cloud services.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal.
Register your VM-Series firewall, if you have not already.
2. Select Assets > Device Certificates > Generate OTP.

3. Select your firewall from the list to Generate OTP.

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 4. Log in to the firewall, and retrieve the device certificate.
Select Setup > Management > Device Certificate and Get Certificate

5. Verify that the device certificate is fetched and that you can see the site license on the firewall.

• If using Panorama to manage the VM-Series firewall, see Install the device certificate on a
managed firewall.

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Deactivate the License(s)
The license deactivation process enables you to self-manage licenses. Whether you want to remove one
or more active licenses or subscriptions attributed to a firewall (hardware-based or VM-Series firewall) or
you want to deactivate the VM-Series firewall and unassign all active licenses and subscriptions, begin the
deactivation process on the firewall or Panorama (not on the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support web
site).
To successfully deactivate a license, you must install a license deactivation API key and enable verification
of the update server identity (enabled by default). PAN-OS uses this deactivation API key to authenticate
with all update a license services. The deactivation API is key is not required for manual license deactivation,
where there is not connectivity between the firewall and license server.
If the firewall/Panorama has internet access and can communicate with the Palo Alto Networks Licensing
servers, the license removal process completes automatically with a click of a button. If the firewall/
Panorama does not have internet access, you must complete the process manually in a two-step process.
In the first step, from the firewall or Panorama, you generate and export a license token file that includes
information on the deactivated keys. In the second step, while logged in to the Palo Alto Networks
Customer Support website, upload the token file to dissociate the license keys from the firewall.
• Install a License Deactivation API Key
• Deactivate a Feature License or Subscription Using the CLI
• Deactivate VM

Install a License Deactivation API Key

Retrieve your license API key from the Customer Support Portal and install it using the CLI on the firewall
and Panorama. You must have superuser privileges on the firewall or Panorama to install the license API
key. When you install a license API key on Panorama, Panorama pushes the API key to its managed devices.
If the managed device has an API key installed, Panorama overwrites the old API key with the new one.

STEP 1 | Retrieve the license deactivation API key from the Customer Support Portal.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal.
2. Select Assets > Licensing API.
3. Copy the API key.

STEP 2 | Use the CLI to install the API key copied in the previous step.
request license api-key set key <key>

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STEP 3 | After installing the license deactivation API key, Deactivate VM as normal.
Deactivating a VM-Series license requires a software restart.

STEP 4 | To replace a license deactivation API key, use the following CLI command to delete an installed
API key.
request license api-key delete
To deactivate a VM-Series firewall after deleting the API key, you must install a new one.

Deactivate a Feature License or Subscription Using the CLI

If you accidentally installed a license/subscription on a firewall and need to reassign the license to another
firewall, you can deactivate an individual license and re-use the same authorization code on another firewall
without help from Technical Support. This capability is supported on the CLI only; this process is supported
both on the hardware-based firewalls and on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | Log into the CLI on the firewall.

STEP 2 | (Direct internet access only) View the name of the license key file for the feature you want to
deactivate.
request license deactivate key features ?

STEP 3 | (Direct internet access only) Deactivate the license or subscription.

request license deactivate key features <name> mode auto
where, name is the full name for the license key file.
For example:

admin@vmPAN2> request license deactivate key features

WildFire_License_2015_01_28_I5820573.key mode auto007200002599

WildFire License Success

Successfully removed license keys

STEP 4 | (When there is no direct internet access) View the name of the license key file for the feature you
want to deactivate.
request license deactivate key features

STEP 5 | (When there is no direct internet access) Deactivate the license manually.
request license deactivate key features <name> mode manual
For example:

admin@PA-VM> request license deactivate key features

PAN_DB_URL_Filtering_2015_01_28_I6134084.key mode manual

Successfully removed license keys

dact_lic.01282015.100502.tok

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 The token file uses the format dact_lic.timestamp.tok, where the timestamp is in
the dmmyyyy.hrminsec format.

STEP 6 | Verify that the token file was generated.

show license-token-files

STEP 7 | Export the token file to an SCP or TFTP server and save it to your computer.
scp export license-token-file to <username@serverIP> from <token_filename>
For example:
scp export license-token-file to [email protected]:/tmp/ from
dact_lic.01282015.100502.tok

STEP 8 | Log into the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website.

STEP 9 | Click the Deactivate License(s) link on the Assets tab.

STEP 10 | Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes > Deactivate License(s).

STEP 11 | While logged in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website, upload the token file
to complete the deactivation.

Deactivate VM
When you no longer need a BYOL instance of the VM-Series firewall, you can free up all active licenses—
subscription licenses, VM-Capacity licenses, and support entitlements— using the web interface, CLI, or the
XML API on the firewall or Panorama. The licenses are credited back to your account and you can use the
same authorization codes on a different instance of the VM-Series firewall.
Deactivating a VM removes all the licenses/entitlements and places the VM-Series firewall in an unlicensed
state; the firewall will not have a serial number and can support only a minimal number of sessions. Because
the configuration on the firewall is left intact, you can re-apply a set of licenses and restore complete
functionality on the firewall, if needed.

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 Make sure to deactivate licenses before you delete the VM-Series firewall. If you delete the
firewall before deactivating the licenses you have two options:
• If the device was managed by Panorama, you can deactivate the license from Panorama.
• If the device was not managed by Panorama, you must contact Palo Alto Networks
Customer Support.

• Deactivate the VM from the Firewall

• Deactivate the VM from Panorama

Deactivate the VM from the Firewall

Complete the following process to deactivate the VM license from the firewall.

STEP 1 | Log into the web interface and select Device > Licenses.

STEP 2 | Select Deactivate VM in the License Management section.

STEP 3 | Verify the list of licenses/entitlements that will be deactivated on the firewall.

STEP 4 | Pick one of the following options to start deactivating the VM:
• Click Continue, if the firewall can communicate directly with the Palo Alto Networks Licensing server.
You will be prompted to reboot the firewall; on reboot the licenses are deactivated.
• Click Complete Manually, if the firewall does not have internet access. Click the Export license
token link to save the token file to your local computer. For example, the token filename is
20150128_1307_dact_lic.01282015.130737.tok. You will be prompted to reboot the firewall; on
reboot the licenses are deactivated.

STEP 5 | (Manual process only) Complete the following tasks to register the changes with the Licensing
server:
1. Log into the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website.
2. Select Assets > VM-Series Auth-Codes > Deactivate License(s).
3. While logged in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website, upload the token file to
complete the deactivation.

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Deactivate the VM from Panorama
Complete the following process to deactivate the VM license from Panorama.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama web interface and select Panorama > Device Deployment > Licenses.

STEP 2 | Deactivate VMs and select the VM-Series firewall that you want to deactivate.

STEP 3 | Pick one of the following options to deactivate the VM:

• Continue—If Panorama can communicate directly with the Palo Alto Networks Licensing servers
and can register the changes. To verify that the licenses have been deactivated on the firewall, click
Refresh on Panorama > Device Deployment > Licenses. The firewall is automatically rebooted.
• Complete Manually—If Panorama does not have internet access. Panorama generates a token file.
Click the Export license token link to save the token file to your local computer. The successful
completion message is displayed on-screen, and the firewall will be automatically rebooted.

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STEP 4 | (Manual process only) To use the token file register the changes with the licensing server, see
this step above.

STEP 5 | Remove the deactivated VM-Series firewall as a managed device on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > Managed Devices.
2. Select the firewall that you deactivated from the list of managed devices, and click Delete.

Instead of deleting the firewalls, if you prefer, you can create a separate device group
and assign the deactivated VM-Series firewalls to this device group.

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Licensing API
To successfully license firewalls that do not have direct internet access, Palo Alto Networks provides a
licensing API. You can use this API with a custom script or an orchestration service to register auth codes,
retrieve licenses attached to an auth code, renew licenses, and to deactivate all licenses on a VM-Series
firewall (Deactivate VM).

The API also allows you to view the details of an auth code so that you can track the number of unused
licenses attached to an auth-code or auth-code bundle that enables you to license more than one instance
of the firewall. An auth-code bundle includes the VM-Series model, subscriptions and support in a single,
easy to order format; you can use this bundle multiple times to license VM-Series firewalls as you deploy
them.
To use the API, each support account is assigned a unique key. Each API call is a POST request, and the
request must include the API key to authenticate the request to the licensing server. When authenticated,
the licensing server sends the response in json (content-type application/json).
• Manage the Licensing API Key
• Use the Licensing API
• Licensing API Error Codes

Manage the Licensing API Key

To get the API key required to use the licensing API, your account must have super user privileges on the
support portal.
The expiration date of the API key is the same date as that of the latest subscription in your support
account. If you renew your current subscriptions and need to reset the expiration date of the API key, you
can either regenerate a key (and replace the existing key with this new key wherever you've used it) or
contact Palo Alto Networks support for help with extending the term of your existing API key.

STEP 1 | Get your Licensing API key.

1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Support portal with an account that has super user privileges.
2. Select Licensing API from the —Go To— drop-down.
3. Click Enable to view your key and copy it for use. Once you generate a key, the key is enabled until
you regenerate or disable it.

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STEP 2 | Regenerate or revoke the API key.
1. You can generate a new API key or revoke the use of the key.
• Click Regenerate to generate a new key. If you suspect that an API key may be compromised, you
can generate a new key, which process automatically invalidates the old key.
• Select Disable if you no longer plan to use the key. Disabling the API key revokes it.

Use the Licensing API

The base URI for accessing the licensing API is https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license; based on the
task you want to perform, for example activate licenses, deactivate licenses, or track license use—the URL
will change.
An API request must use the HTTP POST method, and you must include the API key in the apikey HTTP
request header and pass the request parameters as URL-encoded form data with content-type application/
x-www-form-urlencoded.
The API Version is optional and can include the following values—0 or 1. If specified, it must be included in
the version HTTP request header. The current API version is 1; if you do not specify a version, or specify
version 0, the request uses the current API version.
All API responses are represented in json.
Before you begin, Get your Licensing API key. This is required before you can perform any of the following
tasks:
• Activate Licenses
• Deactivate Licenses
• Track License Usage

Activate Licenses
URL: https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/activate
Parameters: uuid, cpuid, authCode, and serialNumber.
Use these parameters to accomplish the following:
• For first time or initial license activation, provide the cpuid, uuid, auth-code in the API request.
• If you did not save the license keys or had a network connection trouble during initial license activation,
to retrieve the license(s) again for a firewall that you have previously activated, you can either provide
the cpuid and uuid in the API request, or provide the serial number of the firewall in the API request.
Header: apikey
Sample request for initial license activation using Curl:

curl -i -H "apikey:$APIKEY" --data-urlencode cpuid=51060400FFFBAB1F --

data-urlencode uuid=564D0E5F-3F22-5FAD-DA58-47352C6229FF --data-urlencode
authCode=I7115398 https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/activate

Sample API response:

[{"lfidField":"13365773","partidField":"PAN-SVC-PREM-VM-300","featureFi--
eld":"Premium","feature_descField":"24 x 7 phone support;
advanced replacement hardware service","keyField":"m4iZEL1t3n6Oa
+6ll1L7itDZTphYw48N1AMOZXutDgExC5f5pOA52+Qg1jmAxanB
\nKOyat4FJI4k2hWiBYz9cONuKoiaNOtAGhJvAuZmYgqAZejKueWrTzCuLrwxI/iEw
\nkRGR3cYG+j6o84RitR937m2iOk2v9o8RSfLVilgX28nqmcO8LcAnTqbrRWdFtwVk
\nluz47AUMXauuqwpMipouQYjk0ZL7fTHHslhyL7yFjCyxBoYXOt3JiqQ0OCDdBdDI
\n91RkVPylEwTKgSXm3xpzbmC2ciUR5b235gyqdyW8eQXKvaThuR8YyHr1Pdw/lAjs

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 \npyyIVFa6FufPacfB2RHApQ==
\n","auth_codeField":"","errmsgField":null,"typeField":"SUP","regDateField":"2016-06-03T
12:00:00 AM","PropertyChanged":null},
{"lfidField":"13365774","partidField":"PAN-VM-300-TP","featureField":"Threat
Prevention","feature_descField":"Threat Prevention","keyField":"NqaXoaFG
+9qj0t9Vu7FBMizDArj+pmFaQEd6I2OqfBfAibXrvuoFKeXX/K2yXtrl
\n2qJhNq3kwXBDxn181z3nrUOsQd/eW68dyp4jb1MfAwEM8mlnCyLhDRM3EE+umS4b
\ndZBRH5AQjPoaON7xZ46VMFovOR+asOUJXTptS/Eu1bLAI7PBp3+nm04dYTF9O50O
\ndey1jmGoiBZ9wBkesvukg3dVZ7gxppDvz14+wekYEJqPfM0NZyxsC5dnoxg9pciF
\ncFelhnTYlma1lXrCqjJcFdniHRwO0RE9CIKWe0g2HGo1uo2eq1XMxL9mE5t025im
\nblMnhL06smrCdtXmb4jjtg==
\n","auth_codeField":"","errmsgField":null,"typeField":"SUB","regDateField":"2016-06-03T
12:00:00 AM","PropertyChanged":null}
...<truncated>

The feature_Field in the response indicates the type of key that follows in the keyField.
Copy each key to a text file and save it with the .key extension. Because the key is in json
format, it does not have newlines; make sure to convert it to newlines if needed for your
parser. Make sure to name each key appropriately and save it to the /license folder of the
bootstrap package. For example, include the authcode with the type of key to name it as
I3306691_1pa-vm.key (for the capacity license key), I3306691_1threat.key (for the Threat
Prevention license key), I3306691_1wildfire.key (for the WildFire subscription license key).

Sample API request for retrieving previously activated licenses using Curl:

curl -i -H "apikey:$APIKEY" --data-urlencode serialNumber=007200006142

https://api/paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/activate

Sample API response:

[{"lfidField":"13365773","partidField":"PAN-SVC-PREM-
VM-300","featureField":"Premium","feature_descField":"24 x 7 phone
support; advanced replacement hardware service","keyField":"m4iZEL1t3n6Oa
+6ll1L7itDZTphYw48N1AMOZXutDgExC5f5pOA52+Qg1jmAxanB
\nKOyat4FJI4k2hWiBYz9cONuKoiaNOtAGhJvAuZmYgqAZejKueWrTzCuLrwxI/iEw
\nkRGR3cYG+j6o84RitR937m2iOk2v9o8RSfLVilgX28nqmcO8LcAnTqbrRWdFtwVk
\nluz47AUMXauuqwpMipouQYjk0ZL7fTHHslhyL7yFjCyxBoYXOt3JiqQ0OCDdBdDI
\n91RkVPylEwTKgSXm3xpzbmC2ciUR5b235gyqdyW8eQXKvaThuR8YyHr1Pdw/lAjs
\npyyIVFa6FufPacfB2RHApQ==
\n","auth_codeField":"","errmsgField":null,"typeField":"SUP","regDateField":"2016-06-03T
"expirationField":"8/29/2016 12:00:00 AM","PropertyChanged":null},
{"lfidField":"13365774","partidField":"PAN-VM-300-TP","featureField":"Threat
Prevention","feature_descField":"Threat Prevention","keyField":"NqaXoaFG
+9qj0t9Vu7FBMizDArj+pmFaQEd6I2OqfBfAibXrvuoFKeXX/K2yXtrl
\n2qJhNq3kwXBDxn181z3nrUOsQd/eW68dyp4jb1MfAwEM8mlnCyLhDRM3EE+umS4b
\ndZBRH5AQjPoaON7xZ46VMFovOR+asOUJXTptS/Eu1bLAI7PBp3+nm04dYTF9O50O
\ndey1jmGoiBZ9wBkesvukg3dVZ7gxppDvz14+wekYEJqPfM0NZyxsC5dnoxg9pciF
\ncFelhnTYlma1lXrCqjJcFdniHRwO0RE9CIKWe0g2HGo1uo2eq1XMxL9mE5t025im
\nblMnhL06smrCdtXmb4jjtg==
\n","auth_codeField":"","errmsgField":null,"typeField":"SUB","regDateField":"2016-06-03T
12:00:00 AM","PropertyChanged":null}

...<truncated>

Deactivate Licenses
URL: https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/deactivate
Parameters: encryptedToken

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 To deactivate the license(s) on a firewall that does not have direct internet access, you must generate
the license token file locally on the firewall and then use this token file in the API request. For details on
generating the license token file, see Deactivate VM or Deactivate a Feature License or Subscription Using
the CLI.
Header: apikey
Request: https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/deactivate?encryptedtoken@<token>
Sample API request for license deactivation using Curl:

curl -i -H "apikey:$APIKEY" --data-urlencode

encryptedtoken@dact_lic.05022016.100036.tok https://
api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/deactivate

Sample API response:

[{"serialNumField":"007200006150","featureNameField":"","issueDateField":"","successFiel
{"serialNumField":"007200006150","featureNameField":"","issueDateField":"","successField
{"serialNumField":"007200006150","featureNameField":"","issueDateField":"","successField
{"serialNumField":"007200006150","featureNameField":"","issueDateField":"","successField
{"serialNumField":"007200006150","featureNameField":"","issueDateField":"","successField
{"serialNumField":"007200006150","featureNameField":"","issueDateField":"","successField

Track License Usage

URL: https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/get
Parameters: authCode
Header: apikey
Request: https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/get?authCode=<authcode>
Sample API request for tracking license usage using Curl:

curl -i -H "apikey:$APIKEY" --data-urlencode authcode=I9875031 https://

api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/get

Sample API response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 05 May 2016 20:07:16 GMT
Content-Length: 182

{"AuthCode":"I9875031","UsedCount":4,"TotalVMCount":10,"UsedDeviceDetails":
[{"UUID":"420006BD-113D-081B-F500-2E7811BE80C
9","CPUID":"D7060200FFFBAB1F","SerialNumber":"007200006142"}]}.....

Licensing API Error Codes

The HTTP Error Codes that the licensing server returns are as follows:
• 200 Success
• 400 Error
• 401 Invalid API Key
• 500 Server Error

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Licenses for Cloud Security Service Providers
(CSSPs)
The Palo Alto Networks CSSP partners program allows service providers to provide security as a service or
as a hosted application to their end customers. The license offerings that Palo Alto Networks provides for
authorized Cloud Security Service Provider (CSSP) partners are different from the offerings for enterprise
users.
For CSSP partners, Palo Alto Networks supports a usage-based model for the VM-Series firewalls bundled
with subscriptions and support. CSSP partners can combine a term-based capacity license for the VM-
Series Models with a choice of subscription licenses for Threat Prevention, URL Filtering, AutoFocus,
GlobalProtect, and WildFire, and support entitlements that provide access to technical support and
software updates. If you plan on deploying the firewalls in an HA configuration, you can purchase the cost-
effective high availability option.
• Get the Auth Codes for CSSP License Packages
• Register the VM-Series Firewall with a CSSP Auth Code
• Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series Firewall

Get the Auth Codes for CSSP License Packages

To be a CSSP Partner, you have to enroll in the Palo Alto Networks CSSP partners program. For information
on enrolling in the CSSP program, contact your Palo Alto Networks Channel Business Manager. If you are
enrolled, the Palo Alto Network Support portal provides tools that allow you to select a license package,
track license usage, and apply license entitlements.
A license package is a combination of the following options:
• Usage term—The pay-per-use options are hourly, monthly, 1-year, and 3-years.
• VM-Series firewall model—The VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, and VM-1000-HV that give you the model
number and the capacities associated with each model.
• Subscription bundle—The three options are basic, bundle 1, and bundle 2. The basic option does not
include any subscriptions; bundle 1 has the Threat Prevention license that includes IPS, AV, malware
prevention; bundle 2 has the Threat Prevention (includes IPS, AV, malware prevention), DNS Security,
GlobalProtect, WildFire, and PAN-DB URL Filtering licenses.
• Level of support—Premium support or backline support.
• Redundant firewalls—The option are either high availability (HA) or without HA. This option is a cost-
effective option if you plan to deploy a pair of redundant firewalls.
The offering PAN-VM-300-SP-PREM-BND1-YU, for example, is a one-year term package that includes the
VM-300 with premium support and the subscription bundle 1. Each package supports up to a maximum of
10,000 instances of the VM-Series firewall.
After you select your license package, you receive an email with your auth code; the fulfillment process can
take up to 48 hours.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials. If
you need a new account, see Create a Support Account.

STEP 2 | Select CSSP > Order History, to view the list of auth codes registered to your support account.
As you deploy firewalls, you must register each instance of the firewall against an auth code.

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Register the VM-Series Firewall with a CSSP Auth Code
To activate the license on your VM-Series firewall, you must have deployed the VM-Series firewall and
completed initial configuration. As a CSSP partner, you can choose from the following options to register a
firewall:
• API—Use the Licensing API if you have a custom script or an orchestration service. With this option, the
firewall does not need direct internet access.
• Bootstrap—Use this option to automatically configure the firewall and license it on first boot. See
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall.
• Firewall web interface—You can Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall (Standalone Version)
using the firewall web interface. This workflow is valid for firewalls with or without internet access.
• Customer Support Portal—Use this option to manually register the firewall on the Palo Alto Networks
Customer Support portal, as shown below.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials. If
you need a new account, see Create a Support Account.

STEP 2 | Select CSSP > Order History, to view the list of auth codes registered to your support account.

STEP 3 | Select CSSP > VM Provisioning Auth Codes, select an Authorization Code and click Register
VM.

STEP 4 | Enter the UUID and CPUID of the VM instance and click Submit. The portal will generate a
serial number for the firewall.

You can track the number of VM-Series firewalls that have been deployed and the
number of licenses that are still available for use against each auth code. To view all
the total number of firewalls registered against a specific auth code, select CSSP >

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 VM Provisioning Auth Codes, then select an Authorization Code and click Provisioned
Devices.

Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series

Firewall
For CSSP licensees, after you register the firewall, you can use either the Palo Alto Networks Support portal
or the Licensing API to link the serial number of the VM-Series firewall with the customer for whom you
provisioned the firewall.
• Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series Firewall (Customer Support Portal). The
Support portal authenticates with user name and password.
• Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series Firewall (API). The API authenticates using
the Licensing API key.

Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series Firewall

(Customer Support Portal)
Complete the following procedure to add end-customer information for a registered firewall through the
Customer Support Portal.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website with your account credentials.

STEP 2 | Select CSSP > Provisioned Devices.

STEP 3 | Select the Serial Number and click Add End User Info.

STEP 4 | Enter the Account Information for the customer as follows.

• Customer Reference Id: Required
• Company Name: Required
• DNB #: Data Universal Numbering System (D-U-N-S) number
• Contact Email: Required, end-user email address
• Contact Phone Number: End-user phone number
• Address: Required, end-user address
• Country: Required, ISO 2-letter country code
• City: Required, end-user city name
• Region/State: Required; for the United States and Canada, you must enter an ISO 2-letter subdivision
code; for all other countries, any text string is valid
• Postal Code: Required, end-user postal code
• Company Website: End-user website URL
• Industry: End-user industry type, such as networking or consultancy

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 Click Submit to save the details.

After you add account information, you can find all firewalls registered to a customer. In
Search Existing End User, enter the customer ID or customer name and click Search to
find all firewalls provisioned for the customer.

Add End-Customer Information for a Registered VM-Series Firewall (API)

The URL for accessing the API is https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/ReportEndUserInfo.
An API request must use the HTTP POST method, and you must include HTTP requests headers that
include the API key and specify the content type as JSON. API responses are in JSON format.

STEP 1 | Get your Licensing API key.

STEP 2 | Use the ReportEndUserInfo API to add end-user information for a VM-Series Firewall that is
registered to a CSSP.
URL: https://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/ReportEndUserInfo
Headers:
• Content-Type: application/json
• apiKey: API Key
Parameters:
• SerialNumbers: Required, provide at least one valid firewall serial number
• CustomerReferenceId: Required
• CompanyName: Required, end-user company name
• DnBNumber: Data Universal Numbering System (D-U-N-S) number
• PhoneNumber: End-user phone number
• EndUserContactEmail: Required, end-user email address
• Address: Required, end-user address
• Country: Required, ISO 2-letter country code
• City: Required, end-user city name

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• Region/State: Required; for the United States and Canada, you must enter an ISO 2-letter
subdivision code; for all other countries, any alpha string is valid
• PostalCode: Required, end-user postal code
• Industry: End-user industry type, such as networking or consultancy
• WebSite: End-user website URL
• CreatedBy: System or person submitting this information
Sample request to add end-user information for a registered VM-Series firewall using Curl:

curl -X POST "http://api.paloaltonetworks.com/api/license/

ReportEndUserInfo" \-H "Content-Type: application/json" \-H "apikey:
your_key_here" \--data-raw '{ "SerialNumbers": ["0001A101234"],
"CustomerAccountId": 12345, "CompanyName": "ExampleInc", "DnBNumber":
"123456789", "Address": "123 Main St", "City": "Sunnydale", "Region":
"CA", "State": "CA", "Country": "US", "PostalCode": "12345", "Industry":
"Medical", "PhoneNumber": "4081234567", "WebSite": "example.com",
"EndUserContactEmail": "[email protected]", "CreatedBy": "Jane Doe"}'

Sample API response:

"{"Message": "End User Information Updated Successfully"}"

If you receive an error, see Licensing API Error Codes.

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Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi
Server
The VM-Series firewall is distributed in the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) format, which is
a standard method of packaging and deploying virtual machines. You can install this solution on
any x86 device that is capable of running VMware ESXi.
In order to deploy a VM-Series firewall you must be familiar with VMware and vSphere,
including vSphere networking, ESXi host setup and configuration, and virtual machine guest
deployment.
If you want to automate the process of deploying a VM-Series firewall, you can create a gold
standard template with the optimal configuration and policies, then use the vSphere API and
the PAN-OS XML API to rapidly deploy new VM-Series firewalls in your network. For more
information, see the article: VM-Series Data Center Automation.
See the following topics for information:

> Supported Deployments on VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)

> VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements and Limitations
> Install a VM-Series firewall on VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)
> VM Monitoring on vCenter
> Troubleshoot ESXi Deployments
> Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for ESXi

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Supported Deployments on VMware vSphere
Hypervisor (ESXi)
You can deploy one or more instances of the VM-Series firewall on the ESXi server. Where you place the
VM-Series firewall on the network depends on your topology. Choose from the following options (for
environments that are not using VMware NSX):
• One VM-Series firewall per ESXi host—Every VM server on the ESXi host passes through the firewall
before exiting the host for the physical network. VM servers attach to the firewall via virtual standard
switches. The guest servers have no other network connectivity, therefore the firewall has visibility and
control over all traffic leaving the ESXi host. One variation of this use case is to also require all traffic to
flow through the firewall, including server to server (east-west) traffic on the same ESXi host.
• One VM-Series firewall per virtual network—Deploy a VM-Series firewall for every virtual network.
If you have designed your network such that one or more ESXi hosts has a group of virtual machines
that belong to the internal network, a group that belongs to the external network, and a group that
belongs to the DMZ, you can deploy a VM-Series firewall to safeguard the servers in each group. If a
group or virtual network does not share a virtual switch or port group with any other virtual network,
it is completely isolated from all other virtual networks within or across the host(s). Because there is no
other physical or virtual path to any other network, the servers on each virtual network must use the
firewall to talk to any other network. The firewall has visibility and control over all traffic leaving the
virtual (standard or distributed) switch attached to each virtual network.
• Hybrid environment—Both physical and virtual hosts are used. The VM-Series firewall can replace a
physical firewall appliance in a traditional aggregation location. A hybrid environment achieves the
benefits of a common server platform for all devices, and unlinks hardware and software upgrade
dependencies.
Continue with VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements and Limitations and Install a VM-Series firewall on
VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi).

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VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements and
Limitations
This section lists requirements and limitations for the VM-Series firewall on VMware vSphere Hypervisor
(ESXi). To deploy the VM-Series firewall, see Install a VM-Series firewall on VMware vSphere Hypervisor
(ESXi).
• VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements
• VM-Series on ESXi System Limitations

VM-Series on ESXi System Requirements

You can create and deploy multiple instances of the VM-Series firewall on an ESXi server. Because each
instance of the firewall requires a minimum resource allocation—number of CPUs, memory and disk space—
on the ESXi server, make sure to conform to the specifications below to ensure optimal performance.
The VM-Series firewall has the following requirements:
• The host CPU must be an x86-based Intel or AMD CPU with virtualization extension.
• See the Compatibility Matrix for supported versions of ESXi. The support for the vmx version is based on
the OVA that you use to deploy the VM-Series firewall, and you cannot modify this version. Upgrading
or downgrading the VM-Series software version does not change the vmx version that was enabled at
launch.
• See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-Series
model.
• Minimum of two network interfaces (vNICs). One is a dedicated vNIC for the management interface and
one is for the data interface. You can then add up to eight more vNICs for data traffic. For additional
interfaces, use VLAN Guest Tagging (VGT) on the ESXi server or configure subinterfaces on the firewall.
Hypervisor assigned MAC address are enabled by default. vSphere assigns a unique vNIC MAC address
to each dataplane interface of the VM-Series firewall. If you disable hypervisor assigned MAC addresses,
the VM-Series firewall assigns each interface a MAC address from its own pool. Because this causes the
MAC addresses on each interface to differ, you must enable promiscuous mode on the port group of the
virtual switch to which the firewall’s dataplane interfaces are attached; this allows the firewall to receive
frames (see Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server). If neither promiscuous mode nor
hypervisor assigned MAC address is enabled, the firewall does not receive any traffic. This is because
vSphere does not forward frames to a virtual machine when the frame’s destination MAC address and
the vNIC MAC address do not match.
• Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) is enabled by default on VM-Series firewalls on ESXi. For more
information about DPDK, see Enable DPDK on ESXi.
• To achieve the best performance out of the VM-Series firewall, you can make the following adjustments
to the host before deploying the VM-Series firewall. See Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for ESXi
for more information.
• Enable DPDK. DPDK allows the host to process packets faster by bypassing the Linux kernel.
Instead, interactions with the NIC are performed using drivers and the DPDK libraries.
• Enable SR-IOV. Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) allows a single PCIe physical device under a
single root port to appear to be multiple separate physical devices to the hypervisor or guest.
Do not configure a vSwitch on the physical port on which you enable SR-IOV. To communicate with
the host or other virtual machines on the network, the VM-Series firewall must have exclusive access
to the physical port and associated virtual functions (VFs) on that interface.

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 • Enable multi-queue support for NICs. Multi-queue allows network performance to scale with the
number of vCPUs and allows for parallel packet processing by creating multiple TX and RX queues.

VM-Series on ESXi System Limitations

The VM-Series firewall functionality is very similar to the Palo Alto Networks hardware firewalls, but with
the following limitations:
• Do not use the VMware snapshots functionality on the VM-Series on ESXi. Snapshots can impact
performance and result in intermittent and inconsistent packet loss.See the VMware best practice
recommendation for using snapshots.
If you need configuration backups, use Panorama, or from the firewall, use Export named configuration
snapshot (Device > Set up > Operations). Using Export named configuration snapshot exports the
firewall’s active configuration (running-config.xml) and allows you to save it to any network
location.
• Dedicated CPU cores are recommended.
• High Availability (HA) Link Monitoring is not supported on VM-Series firewalls on ESXi. Use Path
Monitoring to verify connectivity to a target IP address or to the next hop IP address.
• Up to 10 total ports can be configured; this is a VMware limitation. One port is used for management
traffic and up to 9 can be used for data traffic.
• Only the vmxnet3 driver is supported.
• Virtual systems are not supported.
• vMotion of the VM-Series firewall is supported on vSphere 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 if the ESXi hosts have
homogeneous CPU configuration. PAN-OS 9.1.6 and later is required to Use vMotion to Move the VM-
Series Firewall Between Hosts installed on vSphere 6.5 or 6.7.
• Forged transmit and promiscuous mode must be enabled on the ESXi vSwitch port groups connected to
Layer 2 and vwire interfaces on the VM-Series firewall.
• To use PCI devices with the VM-Series firewall on ESXi, memory mapped I/O (MMIO) must be below
4GB. You can disable MMIO above 4GB in your server’s BIOS. This is an ESXi limitation.
• When using ESXi 7.0, interfaces do not come up when attaching VFs to virtual machines with PCI device
passthrough.

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Install a VM-Series firewall on VMware
vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)
To install a VM-Series firewall you must have access to the Open Virtualization Alliance format (OVA)
template. Use the auth code you received in your order fulfillment email to register your VM-Series firewall
and download the OVA template. The OVA template is a zip archive that contains three types of files:
• .mf: OVF manifest file that contains the SHA-1 digests of individual files in the package
• .ovf: OVF descriptor file that contains all metadata for the package and its contents
• .vmdk: Virtual disk image file that contains the virtualized version of the firewall
Complete the following tasks to install and configure the VM-Series firewall on ESXi.
• Plan the Interfaces for the VM-Series for ESXi
• Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server
• Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series on ESXi
• (Optional) Add Additional Disk Space to the VM-Series Firewall
• Use VMware Tools on the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi and vCloud Air
• Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts

Plan the Interfaces for the VM-Series for ESXi

By planning the mapping of VM-Series Firewall vNICs and interfaces, you can avoid reboots and
configuration issues. The following table describes the default mapping between VMware vNICs and VM-
Series interfaces when all 10 vNICs are enabled on ESXi.

VMware vNIC VM-Series Interfaces

1 Ethernet 1/0 (mgmt)

2 Ethernet 1/1 (eth1)

3 Ethernet 1/2 (eth2)

4 Ethernet 1/3 (eth3)

5 Ethernet 1/4 (eth4)

6 Ethernet 1/5 (eth5)

7 Ethernet 1/6 (eth6)

8 Ethernet 1/7 (eth7)

9 Ethernet 1/8 (eth8)

10 Ethernet 1/9 (eth9)

The mapping on the VM-Series Firewall remains the same no matter which vNICs you add on ESXi.
Interfaces you activate on the firewall always take the next available vNIC on ESXi.

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 In the following diagram, eth3 and eth4 on the VM-Series Firewall are paired to vNICs 2 and 3 on ESXi, and
eth1 and eth2 are unmapped, as shown on the left.
If you want to add two additional interfaces while maintaining the current mapping, activate vNICs 4 and
5 and reboot down the firewall. The existing vNIC mapping is preserved because you added the interfaces
after the last-mapped inteface.
If you activate eth1 and eth2 on the VM-Series firewall, the interfaces reorder themselves as shown on the
right, resulting in a mapping mismatch that impacts traffic.

To avoid the issues described in the preceding example, you can do the following:
• When provisioning your ESXi host for the first time, activate all nine vNICs beyond the first. Adding all
nine vNICs as placeholders before powering on the VM-Series Firewall allows you to use any VM-Series
interfaces regardless of order.
• If all vNICs are active, adding additional interfaces no longer requires a reboot. Because each vNIC on
ESXi requires that you choose a network, you can create an empty port group as a network placeholder.
• Do not remove VM-Series firewall vNICs to avoid mapping mismatches.

Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server

Use these instructions to deploy the VM-Series firewall on a (standalone) ESXi server. For deploying the
VM-Series NSX edition firewall, see Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX.

STEP 1 | Download the OVA file.

Register your VM-Series firewall and obtain the OVA file from the Palo Alto Networks Customer
Support web site.

The OVA file contains the base installation. After the base installation is complete, you
must download and install the latest PAN-OS version from the support portal. This
ensures that you have the latest fixes implemented since the base image was created.
For instructions, see Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (Standalone Version).

STEP 2 | Before deploying the OVA file, set up virtual standard switch(es) or virtual distributed
switch(es) that you need for the VM-Series firewall.

If you are deploying the VM-Series firewall with Layer 3 interfaces, your firewall uses
Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses by default. If you choose to disable hypervisor
assigned MAC address, or if you are deploying the firewall with Layer 2, virtual wire, or
tap interfaces, you must configure (set to Accept) any virtual switch attached to the VM-

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 Series firewall to allow the following modes: promiscuous mode, MAC address changes,
and Forged transmits.

Configure a virtual standard switch or a virtual distributed switch to receive frames for the VM-Series
firewall.
Virtual Standard Switch
1. Navigate to Home > Hosts and Clusters and select a host.
2. Click the Configure tab and view Virtual Switches. For each VM-Series firewall attached a virtual
switch, click on Properties.
3. Highlight a port group corresponding to a virtual switch and click Edit Settings. In the vSwitch
properties, click the Security tab and set Promiscuous Mode, MAC Address Changes and Forged
Transmits to Accept and then click OK. This change propagates to all port groups on the virtual
switch.
Virtual Distributed Switch
1. Select Home > Networking. Select your virtual distributed switch and highlight the Distributed Port
Group you want to edit.
2. Click Edit Settings, select Policies > Security, and set Promiscuous Mode, MAC Address Changes and
Forged Transmits to Accept and click OK.

STEP 3 | Deploy the OVA.

If you add additional interfaces (vNICs) to the VM-Series firewall, you must reboot
(because new interfaces are detected during the boot cycle). To minimize the need to
reboot the firewall, activate the interfaces at initial deployment or during a maintenance
window.

To view the progress of the installation, monitor the Recent Tasks list.

1. Log in to vCenter using the vSphere client. You can also go directly to the target ESXi host if needed.
2. From the vSphere web client, go to Hosts and Clusters, right-click your host, and select Deploy OVF
Template.
3. Browse to the OVA file that you downloaded in 1 Select the file, and click Next. Review the
template’s details and click Next.
4. Name the VM-Series firewall instance, and in the Inventory Location window, select a Data Center
and Folder, and click Next.
5. Select an ESXi host for the VM-Series firewall, and click Next.
6. Select the datastore to use for the VM-Series firewall, and click Next.
7. Leave the default settings for the datastore provisioning, and click Next. The default is Thick
Provision Lazy Zeroed.

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 8. Select the networks to use for the two initial vNICs. The first vNIC is used for the management
interface and the second vNIC for the first data port. Make sure that the Source Networks map to
the correct Destination Networks.

9. Review the details, select Power on after deployment, and click Next.

10.When the deployment is complete, click the Summary tab to review the current status.

Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series on ESXi

Use the virtual appliance console on the ESXi server to set up network access to the VM-Series firewall. By
default, the VM-Series firewall uses DHCP to obtain an IP address for the management interface, but, you
can also assign a static IP address. After completing the initial configuration, access the web interface to
complete further configuration tasks. If you have Panorama for central management, refer to the Panorama
Administrator’s Guide for information on managing the device using Panorama.

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 If you are using bootstrapping to perform the configuration of your VM-Series firewall on ESXi, refer to
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi.
For general information about bootstrapping, see Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall.

STEP 1 | Gather the required information from your network administrator.

• IP address for MGT port
• Netmask
• Default gateway
• DNS server IP address

STEP 2 | Access the console of the VM-Series firewall.

1. Select the Console tab on the ESXi server for the VM-Series firewall, or right click the VM-Series
firewall and select Open Console.
2. Press Enter to access the login screen.
3. Enter the default username/password (admin/admin) to log in.
4. Enter configure to switch to configuration mode.

STEP 3 | Configure the network access settings for the management interface.
Enter the following commands:

set deviceconfig system type static

set deviceconfig system ip-address <Firewall-IP> netmask <netmask>

default-gateway <gateway-IP> dns-setting servers primary <DNS-IP>

STEP 4 | Commit your changes and exit the configuration mode.

Enter commit.
Enter exit.

STEP 5 | Verify network access to external services required for firewall management, such as the Palo
Alto Networks Update Server.
1. Use the ping utility to verify network connectivity to the Palo Alto Networks Update server as shown
in the following example. Verify that DNS resolution occurs and the response includes the IP address
for the Update server (the Update server does not respond to ping requests.) After verifying DNS
resolution, press Ctrl+C to stop the ping request.

admin@PA-220 > ping host updates.paloaltonetworks.com

PING updates.paloaltonetworks.com (10.101.16.13) 56(84) bytes of data.

From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable
2. Use the following CLI command to retrieve information on the support entitlement for the firewall
from the Palo Alto Networks update server: request support check If you have connectivity, the
update server responds with the support status for your firewall.

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STEP 6 | Apply the capacity auth code and retrieve a license before you begin testing the VM-Series
firewall.
An unlicensed VM-Series firewall can process up to approximately 1230 concurrent sessions. Depending
on the environment, the session limit can be reached very quickly, causing unpredictable results.

Add Additional Disk Space to the VM-Series Firewall

The VM-Series firewall requires a 60GB virtual disk, of which 21GB is used for logging, by default.
• For large deployments, use Panorama to aggregate data from all next-generation firewalls, and provide
visibility across all the traffic on your network. Panorama provides centralized logging and reporting.
• In smaller deployments where you do not use Panorama, you can add a new virtual disk to increase log
storage capacity. The new virtual disk can support 60GB to 2TB of storage capacity for logs. This task is
described below.

When the virtual appliance is configured to use a virtual disk, the VM-Series firewall
no longer stores logs. If the appliance loses connectivity to the virtual disk, logs can be
lost during the failure interval. If necessary, place the newly created virtual disk on a
datastore that provides RAID redundancy. RAID10 provides the best write performance
for applications with high logging characteristics.

STEP 1 | Power off the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 2 | On the ESXi server, add the virtual disk to the firewall.
1. Select the VM-Series firewall on the ESXi server.
2. Click Edit Settings.
3. Click Add to launch the Add Hardware wizard, and select the following options when prompted:
1. Select Hard Disk for the hardware type.
2. Select Create a new virtual disk.
3. Select SCSI as the virtual disk type.
4. Select the Thick provisioning disk format.
5. In the location field, select Store with the virtual machine option. The datastore does not have to
reside on the ESXi server.
6. Verify that the settings look correct and click Finish to exit the wizard. The new disk is added to
the list of devices for the virtual appliance.

STEP 3 | Power on the firewall.

Powering on the firewall initializes the virtual disk for first-time use. The time that the initialization
process takes to complete varies by the size of the new virtual disk.
When the new virtual disk is initialized and ready, PAN-OS moves all logs from the existing disk to the
new virtual disk. New log entries are now written to this new virtual disk.
PAN-OS also generates a system log entry that records the new disk.

If you reuse a virtual disk that was previously used for storing PAN-OS logs, all logs from
the existing disk are overwritten.

STEP 4 | Verify the size of the new virtual disk.

1. Select Device > Setup > Management.
2. In the Logging and Reporting Settings section, verify that the Log Storage capacity accurately
displays the new disk capacity.

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Use VMware Tools on the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi and vCloud
Air
The VMware Tools utility improves VM-Series firewall management from vCenter server and vCloud
Director. VMware Tools are bundled with the software image for the VM-Series firewall, and all updates
are made available with a new OVF image. You cannot manually install or upgrade VMware Tools using the
vCenter server or vCloud Director.

• View the IP address(es) on the management interface and the software version on the firewall
and Panorama.
In the Hosts and Cluster section on the vCenter server, select the firewall or Panorama and view the
Summary tab for information on the IP address(es) assigned to the management interface and the
software version currently installed.

• View resource utilization metrics on hard disk, memory, and CPU. Use these metrics to enable
alarms on the vCenter server.
In the Hosts and Cluster section on the vCenter server, select the firewall or Panorama and view the
Monitor > Utilization tab for information on hard disk, memory, and CPU usage.

• Gracefully shutdown or restart the firewall and Panorama from the vCenter server.

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 In the Hosts and Cluster section on the vCenter server, select the firewall or Panorama and select the
Actions > Power drop-down.

• Create alarm definitions for events you want to be notified about, or events for which you
want to specify an automated action.
Refer to the VMware documentation for details on creating alarm definitions.
In the Hosts and Cluster section on the vCenter server, select the firewall or Panorama and select
the Manage > Alarm Definitions to add a new trigger and specify an action when a threshold is met.
For example, missing heartbeats for a specified duration, or when memory resource usage exceeds a
threshold. The following screenshot shows you how to use notifications for heartbeat monitoring on the
firewall or Panorama.

Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts

To maintain traffic flow while using vMotion to move your VM-Series firewall on VMware ESXi between
ESXi hosts with homogeneous CPU configurations, you must use the PAN-OS CLI to pause the internal
heartbeat monitoring of the VM-Series firewall during vMotion. You can specify the amount of time, in
minutes, that heartbeat monitoring is paused. Heartbeat monitoring can be paused for up to 60 minutes.
When the pause interval expires or you deliberately end the pause interval, heartbeat monitoring resumes.
vMotion of the VM-Series firewall is supported on vSphere 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 if the ESXi hosts have
homogeneous CPU configuration.

These commands are not required when using vMotion if you are running vSphere 7.0 or
later.

STEP 1 | Log in the VM-Series firewall CLI.

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STEP 2 | Set the heartbeat monitoring pause interval using the following command. The pause begins as
soon as the command is executed. If vMotion is taking longer than expected, you can rerun this
command to set a new, longer interval that starts when the command is executed again.
request system heartbeat-pause set interval <pause-time-in-minutes>
You can view the time remaining in pause interval using the following command.
request system heartbeat-pause show interval

STEP 3 | (Optional) If you complete vMotion before the pause interval has elapsed, you can end the
pause by setting the interval to zero (0).
request system heartbeat-pause set interval 0

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VM Monitoring on vCenter
Install and configure the Panorama plugin for VMware vCenter to retrieve the IP addresses for guests in
your vCenter environment and use that information to build policy using Dynamic Address Groups.

The Panorama plugin for VMware vCenter does not support proxy servers.

• About VM Monitoring on VMware vCenter

• Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware vCenter
• Configure the Panorama Plugin for VMware vCenter

About VM Monitoring on VMware vCenter

The Panorama plugin for VMware vCenter gives you the tools to build policy for your vCenter environment
using Dynamic Address Groups. Dynamic address groups allow you to create policy that automatically
adapts to changes in your environment, such as the addition or deletion of guests. The VMware vCenter
plugin monitors for changes in your vCenter environment and shares that information with Panorama.
The plugin processes the information it receives from vCenter and converts it into a set of tags on
Panorama that you can use as match criteria for assigning IP address to dynamic address groups. Each tag
has a prefix that describes the hierarchy above the VM.
In this example, each tag in Panorama begins with the prefix shown below. Each tag includes the vCenter
name, data center name, and cluster name; if you have folders in your vCenter hierarchy, tags will include
the folder names. The order of the objects in the tag matches the order in the vCenter hierarchy.
vcenter.<vcenter-name>_ParentA_ParentB_Datacenter_CHILD1_CHILD2_Cluster_<tag>

The Panorama plugin for VMware vCenter does not support tags associated to vApps or
resource pools.

The tags are shown in Panorama in the following formats:

• vcenter.<vcenter-name>_<datacenter-name>_<cluster-name>_vmname.<vm-name>—this tag maps
virtual machine IP addresses based on VM name.
• vcenter.<vcenter-name>_<datacenter-name>_<cluster-name>_guestos.<guest-os>—this tag maps
virtual machine IP addresses based on guest operating system.
• vcenter.<vcenter-name>_<datacenter-name>_<cluster-name>_annotation.<annotation>—this tag maps
virtual machine IP addresses based on annotation.
• vcenter.<vcenter-name>_<datacenter-name>_<cluster-name>_vlanId.<vlan-ID>—this tag maps virtual
machine IP addresses based on VLAN ID.

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 • vcenter.<vcenter-name>_<datacenter-name>_<cluster-name>_host-ip.<host-ip>—this tag maps virtual
machine IP addresses based on host IP address.
• vcenter.<vcenter-name>_<datacenter-name>_<cluster-name>_<tag-category>.<user-defined-tag>—
this tag maps virtual machine IP addresses based on user-defined tags created in vCenter.

The plugin supports a maximum of 16 user-defined tags per VM. Any user-defined tags
beyond 16 are not processed.
The Panorama plugin for vCenter cannot process tags that are longer than 128 characters; this includes
letters, numbers, and special characters. Whitespace in vCenter object names is replaced with forward
slashes. Additionally, Panorama does not support non-ASCII special characters or the following special
characters—’<>&” in vCenter VM names and annotations. Panorama drops tags containing unsupported
characters.
To retrieve endpoint IP-address-to-tag mapping information, you must configure a Monitoring Definition
for each vCenter in your virtual environment. The Monitoring Definition specifies the username
and password that allows Panorama to connect to vCenter. It also specifies the device groups and
corresponding notify groups containing the firewalls to which Panorama pushes the tags. After you
configure the Monitoring Definition and the Panorama plugin for VMware vCenter retrieves the tags, you
can create DAGs and add the tags as match criteria.

Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware vCenter

To get started with endpoint monitoring on vCenter, download and install the Panorama Plugin for VMware
vCenter.
If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer. When
installing the plugin on Panoramas in an HA pair, install the plugin on the passive peer before the active
peer. After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state. Installing the
plugin on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 1 | Select Panorama > Plugins.

STEP 2 | Select Upload and click Browse to locate the plugin file.

STEP 3 | Click OK to complete the upload.

STEP 4 | Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
Panorama will alert you when the installation is complete.

Configure the Panorama Plugin for VMware vCenter

After installing the plugin, complete the following procedure to establish a connection between Panorama
and vCenter.
For the plugin to monitor virtual machines in your vCenter environment, you must have VMware tools
installed. In vCenter, IP addresses of VMs are not externally retrievable; they are only visible through
VMware tools.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

STEP 2 | Enable monitoring and set the monitoring interval.

1. Select Panorama > VMware vCenter > Setup > General.

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 2. Select Enable Monitoring. This enables monitoring for all vCenters in your deployment.
3. Set the Monitoring Interval in seconds. The monitoring interval is how often Panorama retrieves
updated network information from vCenter. The default value is 60 seconds and has a range of 60 to
84600 seconds.

STEP 3 | Create a notify group.

1. Select Panorama > VMware vCenter > Setup > Notify Groups.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your notify group.
4. Select the device groups in your vCenter deployment.

STEP 4 | Add vCenter information. The Panorama plugin for VMware vCenter supports up to 16
vCenter instances.
1. Select Panorama > VMware vCenter > Setup > vCenter.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your vCenter.
3. Enter the IP address or FQDN for vCenter and port, if applicable.
4. Enter your vCenter username.
5. Enter and confirm your vCenter password.
6. Click Validate to verify that Panorama can connect to vCenter using the login credentials you
entered.
7. Click OK.

STEP 5 | Configure up to 16 Monitoring Definitions.

A vCenter instance can be assigned to only one Monitoring Definition.

1. Select Panorama > VMware vCenter > Monitoring Definition and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name and optionally a description to identify the vCenter for which you use this
definition.
3. Select the vCenter and Notify Group.
4. Click OK.

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STEP 6 | Commit your changes.

STEP 7 | Verify that you can view the VM information on Panorama, and define the match criteria for
Dynamic Address Groups.

You must use the OR operator when using more than one tag in the match criteria; using
the AND operator does not work.

Some browser extensions may block API calls between Panorama and vCenter which
prevents Panorama from receiving match criteria. If Panorama displays no match criteria
and you are using browser extensions, disable the extensions and Synchronize Dynamic
Objects to populate the tags available to Panorama.

STEP 8 | Verify that addresses in your VMs are added to DAGs.

1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
2. Click More in the Addresses column of a DAG.
Panorama displays a list of IP addresses added to that DAG based on the match criteria you specified.

STEP 9 | Use dynamic address groups in policy.

1. Select Policies > Security.
2. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the policy.
3. Add the Source Zone to specify the zone from which the traffic originates.
4. Add the Destination Zone at which the traffic is terminating.
5. For the Destination Address, select the Dynamic address group you just created.
6. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
to the rule.
7. Repeats Steps 1 through 6 to create another policy rule.
8. Click Commit.

STEP 10 | You can update the dynamic objects from vCenter at any time by synchronizing dynamic
objects. Synchronizing dynamic objects enables you to maintain context on changes in the
virtual environment and allows you to enable applications by automatically updating the
Dynamic Address Groups used in policy rules.
1. Select Panorama > VMware vCenter > Monitoring Definition.
2. Click Synchronize Dynamic Objects.

STEP 11 | If a firewall in your vCenter deployment restarts or disconnects from Panorama, that firewall
goes out of sync with the Panorama plugin for vCenter and no receive updates. After the
firewall reconnects with Panorama, you must manually synchronize Panorama and the
firewall.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command.
admin@Panorama> request plugins vmware_vcenter sync

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Troubleshoot ESXi Deployments
Many of the troubleshooting steps for the VM-Series firewall are very similar to the hardware versions of
PAN-OS. When problems occur, you should check interface counters, system log files, and if necessary, use
debug to create captures.
The following sections describe how to troubleshoot some common problems:
• Basic Troubleshooting
• Installation Issues
• Licensing Issues
• Connectivity Issues

Basic Troubleshooting
Recommendation for Network Troubleshooting Tools
It is useful to have a separate troubleshooting station to capture traffic or inject test packets
in the virtualized environment. It can be helpful to build a fresh OS from scratch with common
troubleshooting tools installed such as tcpdump, nmap, hping, traceroute, iperf, tcpedit,
netcat, etc. This machine can then be powered down and converted to a template. Each time
the tools are needed, the troubleshooting client (virtual machine) can be quickly deployed to
the virtual switch(es) in question and used to isolate networking problems. When the testing
is complete, the instance can simply be discarded and the template used again the next time
it is required.

For performance related issues on the firewall, first check the Dashboard from the firewall web interface.
To view alerts or create a tech support or stats dump files navigate to Device > Support.
For information in the vSphere client go to Home > Inventory > VMs and Templates, select the VM-Series
firewall instance and click the Summary tab. Under Resources, check the statistics for consumed memory,
CPU and storage. For resource history, click the Performance tab and monitor resource consumption over
time.

Installation Issues
• Issues with Deploying the OVA
• Why does the firewall boot into maintenance mode?
• How do I modify the base image file for the VM-1000-HV license?

Issues with Deploying the OVA

• The VM-Series is delivered as a zip archive in the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) format that
expands into three files.
If you are having trouble deploying the OVA image, make sure the three files are unpacked and
accessible. If necessary, download and extract the OVA image again.
• The virtual disk in the OVA image is nearly 1GB. It must be present on the computer running the
vSphere client, or it must be accessible as a URL for the OVA image.
• Make sure the network connection between the vSphere client computer and the target ESXi host
has low latency and sufficient bandwidth. If the connection is poor, the OVA deployment can take
hours, or timeout and fail.

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 You can minimize this problem if you host the image on a device in the same network as the ESXi
host.
• Any firewalls in the path must allow TCP ports 902 and 443 from the vSphere client to the ESXi
host(s).
• ESX 6.5.0a build 4887370 limits you to 2 CPU cores per socket. If you are deploying a VM-300, VM-500
or VM-700 to which you want to allocate more than 2 vCPUs per socket, refer to the VMware KB:
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/53354, for a workaround.

Why does the firewall boot into maintenance mode?

If you have purchased the VM-1000-HV license and are deploying the VM-Series firewall in standalone
mode on a VMware ESXi server, you must allocate the minimum memory your VM-Series model requires.
To avoid booting in maintenance mode, you must either modify the base image file (see How do I modify
the base image file for the VM-1000-HV license?), or, edit the settings on the ESXi host or the vCenter
server before you power on the VM-Series firewall.
Also, verify that the interface is VMXnet3. Setting the interface type to any other format causes the firewall
to boot into maintenance mode.

How do I modify the base image file for the VM-1000-HV license?
If you have purchased the VM-1000-HV license and are deploying the VM-Series firewall in standalone
mode on a VMware ESXi server, use these instructions to modify the following attributes that are defined in
the base image file (.ova or .xva) of the VM-Series firewall.
Important: Modifying values other than those listed here invalidates the base image file.

STEP 1 | Open the base image file, for example 7.0.0, with a text editing tool such as notepad.

STEP 2 | Search for 4096 and change the memory allocated to 5012 (that is 5 GB) as follows:

<Item>
<rasd:AllocationUnits>byte * 2^20</rasd:AllocationUnits>
<rasd:Description>Memory Size</rasd:Description>
<rasd:ElementName>4096MB of memory</rasd:ElementName>
<rasd:InstanceID>2</rasd:InstanceID>
<rasd:ResourceType>4</rasd:ResourceType>
<rasd:VirtualQuantity>4096</rasd:VirtualQuantity>
<Item>
<rasd:AllocationUnits>byte * 2^20</rasd:AllocationUnits>
<rasd:Description>Memory Size</rasd:Description>
<rasd:ElementName>5120MB of memory</rasd:ElementName>
<rasd:InstanceID>2</rasd:InstanceID>
<rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>
<rasd:VirtualQuantity>5120</rasd:VirtualQuantity>

STEP 3 | Change the number of virtual CPU cores allotted from 2 to 4 or 8 as desired for your
deployment:

<Item>
<rasd:AllocationUnits>hertz * 10^6</rasd:AllocationUnits>
<rasd:Description>Number of Virtual CPUs</rasd:Description>
<rasd:ElementName>2 virtual CPU(s)</rasd:ElementName>
<rasd:InstanceID>1</rasd:InstanceID>
<rasd:ResourceType>3</rasd:ResourceType>

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 <rasd:VirtualQuantity>2</rasd:VirtualQuantity>
<vmw:CoresPerSocket ova:required="false">2</vmw:CoresPerSocket>
</Item>
<Item>
<rasd:AllocationUnits>hertz * 10^6</rasd:AllocationUnits>
<rasd:Description>Number of Virtual CPUs</rasd:Description>
<rasd:ElementName>4 virtual CPU(s)</rasd:ElementName>
<rasd:InstanceID>1</rasd:InstanceID>
<rasd:ResourceType>3</rasd:ResourceType>
<rasd:VirtualQuantity>4</rasd:VirtualQuantity>
<vmw:CoresPerSocket ova:required="false">2</vmw:CoresPerSocket>
</Item>

Alternatively, you can deploy the firewall, and before you power on the VM-Series firewall, edit the
memory and virtual CPU allocation directly on the ESXi host or the vCenter server.

Licensing Issues
• Why am I unable to apply the support or feature license?
• Why does my cloned VM-Series firewall not have a valid license?
• Does moving the VM-Series firewall cause license invalidation?

Why am I unable to apply the support or feature license?

Have you applied the capacity auth-code on the VM-Series firewall? Before you can activate the support or
feature license, you must apply the capacity auth-code so that the device can obtain a serial number. This
serial number is required to activate the other licenses on the VM-Series firewall.

Why does my cloned VM-Series firewall not have a valid license?

VMware assigns a unique UUID to each virtual machine including the VM-Series firewall.So, when a VM-
Series firewall is cloned, a new UUID is assigned to it. Because the serial number and license for each
instance of the VM-Series firewall is tied to the UUID, cloning a licensed VM-Series firewallresults in
a new firewall with an invalid license. You need a new auth-code to activate the license on the newly
deployed firewall. You must apply the capacity auth-code and a new support license in order to obtain full
functionality, support, and software upgrades on the VM-Series firewall.

Does moving the VM-Series firewall cause license invalidation?

If you are manually moving the VM-Series firewall from one host to another, be sure to select the option,
This guest was moved to prevent license invalidation.

Connectivity Issues
• Why is the VM-Series firewall not receiving any network traffic?

Why is the VM-Series firewall not receiving any network traffic?

On the VM-Series firewall. check the traffic logs (Monitor > Logs). If the logs are empty, use the following
CLI command to view the packets on the interfaces of the VM-Series firewall:

show counter global filter

delta yes
Global counters:
Elapsed time since last sampling: 594.544 seconds
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 Total counters shown: 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the vSphere environment, check for the following issues:

• Check the port groups and confirm that the firewall and the virtual machine(s) are on the correct port
group
Make sure that the interfaces are mapped correctly.
Network adapter 1 = management
Network adapter 2= Ethernet1/1
Network adapter 3 = Ethernet1/2
For each virtual machine, check the settings to verify the interface is mapped to the correct port group.
• Verify that either promiscuous mode is enabled for each port group or for the entire switch or that you
have configured the firewall to Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses.
Since the dataplane PAN-OS MAC addresses are different than the vNIC MAC addresses assigned by
vSphere, the port group (or the entire vSwitch) must be in promiscuous mode if not enabled to use the
hypervisor assigned MAC address:
• Check the VLAN settings on vSphere.
The use of the VLAN setting for the vSphere port group serves two purposes: It determines which
port groups share a layer 2 domain, and it determines whether the uplink ports are tagged (802.1Q).
• Check the physical switch port settings
If a VLAN ID is specified on a port group with uplink ports, then vSphere uses 802.1Q to tag
outbound frames. The tag must match the configuration on the physical switch or the traffic does not
pass.
Check the port statistics if using virtual distributed switches (vDS); Standard switches do not provide
any port statistics

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Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for ESXi
The VM-Series firewall for ESXi is a high-performance appliance but may require tuning of the hypervisor
to achieve the best results. This section describes some best practices and recommendations for facilitating
the best performance of the VM-Series firewall. For the best performance, ESXi 6.0.0.0 or later is
recommended.
• Install the NIC Driver on ESXi
• Enable DPDK on ESXi
• Enable SR-IOV on ESXi
• Enable ESXi VLAN Access Mode with SR-IOV
• Enable Multi-Queue Support for NICs on ESXi
• VNF Tuning for Performance

Install the NIC Driver on ESXi

For the best performance, use SR-IOV with Intel 10GB network interfaces which requires the ixgbe 4.4.1
driver to support multiple queues for each interface.

STEP 1 | Obtain a list of network interfaces on the ESXi host.

1. Log in to the ESXi host CLI.
2. Use the following command to return a list of network interfaces:

$ esxcli network nic list

STEP 2 | Determine the driver version for a particular interface.

You can use either ethtool or esxcli to determine the currently-installed driver version. The
following example uses vNIC4 and returns driver version 3.21.6.
• ethtool—ethtool -l <nic-name>

$ ethtool -I vNIC4
driver: ixgbe
version: 3.21.6iov
firmware-version: 0x80000389
bus-info: 0000:04:00.0
• esxcli—esxcli network nic get -n <nic-name>

$ esxcli network nic get -n vNIC4

Advertised Auto Negotiation: true
Advertised Link Modes:
Auto Negotiation: true
Cable Type:
Current Message Level: 7
Driver Info:
Bus Info: 0000:04:00.0
Driver: ixgbe
Firmware Version: 0x80000389
Version: 3.21.6iov
Link Detected: false
Link Status: Down
Name: vNIC4

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 PHYAddress: 0
Pause Autonegotiate: true
Pause RX: true
Pause TX: true
Supported Ports: FIBRE
Supports Auto Negotiation: true
Supports Pause: true
Supports Wakeon: false
Transceiver: external
Wakeon: None

STEP 3 | Install the new driver.

1. Download the ixgbe 4.4.1 driver from the VMware website. Extract the contents to a local directory
and find the .zip or .vib files for your driver.
2. Create a new folder in your ESXi host datastore.
3. Copy the local .zip or .vib file you extracted to the new folder in your ESXi host datastore.
4. Enable maintenance mode on the ESXi host.
5. Use one of the following commands to install the new driver, using -d for .zip files, or -v for .vib files.
• $ esxcli software vib install -d <path to driver .zip file>

• $ esxcli software vib install -v <path to driver .vib file>

You must specify the absolute path to the .zip or .vib file. For example:

$ esxcli software vib install -d "/vmfs/volumes/

Datastore/DirectoryName/DriverName.zip"
6. Verify the VIB installation.

$ esxcli software vib list

7. Reboot the ESXi host.

Enable DPDK on ESXi

The Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) enhances VM-Series performance by increasing network interface
card (NIC) packet processing speed. On the VM-Series firewall, DPDK is enabled by default on ESXi.

To support DPDK, all data interfaces must be using the same driver.

To take advantage of DPDK, you must use a NIC with one of the supported DPDK drivers mentioned in
DPDK Driver Versions:
If you disable DPDK, the NIC uses PacketMMap instead of DPDK. You can disable DPDK using the
command set system setting dpdk-pkt-io off.
See the Compatibility Matrix for ESXi hypervisor support and PacketMMAP and DPDK driver support by
PAN-OS version.

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Enable SR-IOV on ESXi
Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) allows a single PCIe physical device under a single root port to appear
to be multiple separate physical devices to the hypervisor or guest. Enable SR-IOV by enabling virtual
function devices on the SR-IOV NIC and the modify the guest settings in vCenter.
SR-IOV on the VM-Series for ESXi requires one of the Intel NIC drivers mentioned in PacketMMAP Driver
Versions. See the Compatibility Matrix for SR-IOV and DPDK driver support by PAN-OS version.
There are two ways to enable SR-IOV on ESXi.
• SR-IOV passthrough—In this method you enable virtual function devices on the SR-IOV NIC and modify
the guest settings in vCenter, adding the SR-IOV VF interface as adaptor type “SR-IOV passthrough”.
Refer to Assign a Virtual Function as SR-IOV Passthrough Adapter to a Virtual Machine.
This method, which is preferred for PAN-OS 8.1.2 and later, allows you to add the SR-IOV PF to a
vSwitch or DvSwitch.
• PCI Adaptor—This method was required for PAN-OS 8.0 through 8.1.1. You can view the PCI Adaptor
workflow in Enable SR-IOV on ESXi in the 8.1 Deployment Guide.
The PCI Adaptor method has the limitation that you cannot configure a vSwitch on the physical port on
which you enable SR-IOV. The VM-Series firewall must have exclusive access to the physical port and
associated virtual functions (VFs) on that interface so it can communicate with the host or other virtual
machines on the network. Refer to Add a PCI Device in the vSphere Web Client.

Enable ESXi VLAN Access Mode with SR-IOV

The VM-Series firewalls on ESXi can operate in VLAN access mode to support use cases where it is
deployed as a virtual network function (VNF) that offers security-as-a-service in a multi-tenant cloud/data
center environment. In VLAN access mode, each VNF has dedicated virtual network interfaces (VNIs) for
each network and it sends and receives packets to/from SR-IOV virtual functions (VFs) without VLAN
tags; you must enable this capability on the physical and virtual functions on the host hypervisor. When
you, then enable VLAN access mode on the VM-Series firewall, the firewall can send and receive traffic
without VLAN tags across all its dataplane interfaces. Additionally, if you configure QoS policies, the firewall
can enforce QoS on the access interface and provide differentiated treatment of traffic in a multi-tenant
deployment.

By default, the VM-Series firewall on ESXi operates in VLAN trunk mode.

STEP 1 | On the host system, set up the physical and virtual function to operate in VLAN access mode.
1. Click Networking in the VMware Host Client inventory and click Port groups.
2. In the list that you want to edit, right-click the port group and select Edit settings.Enter a new port
group Name.Enter a new value for the VLAN ID.

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 For best performance on the VM-Series firewall, make sure to:
• Enable CPU pinning.
• Disable Replay Protection, if you have configured IPSec Tunnels.
On the firewall web interface, select Network > IPSec Tunnels, select an IPSec tunnel,
click General, select Show Advanced Options, and clear Enable Replay Protection.

STEP 2 | Access the CLI on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 3 | Enable VLAN access mode.

request plugins vm-series vlan-mode access-mode on
on enables VLAN access mode; to use VLAN trunk mode, enter request plugins vm-series
vlan-mode access-mode off.

STEP 4 | Reboot the firewall.

request restart system

STEP 5 | Verify the VLAN mode configuration.

show plugins vm-series vlan-mode

Enable Multi-Queue Support for NICs on ESXi

Multi-queue allows network performance to scale with the number of vCPUs and allows for parallel packet
processing by creating multiple TX and RX queues. Modify the .vmx file or access Advanced Settings to
enable multi-queue.

STEP 1 | Enable multi-queue.

1. Open the .vmx file.
2. Add the following parameter:

ethernetX.pnicFeatures = “4”

STEP 2 | Enable receive-side scaling (RSS).

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 1. Log in to the CLI on the ESXi host.
2. Execute the following command:

$ vmkload_mod -u ixgbe
$ vmkload_mod ixgbe RSS=”4,4,4,4,4,4”

STEP 3 | For the best performance, allocate additional CPU threads per ethernet/vSwitch device. This is
limited by the amount of spare CPU resources available on the ESXi host.
1. Open the .vmx file.
2. Add the following parameter:

ethernetX.ctxPerDev = “1”

VNF Tuning for Performance

This topic provides VNF tuning guidance for VM-Series deployments. It is a reference to help you choose
some of the parameter settings for a VM-Series deployment. Before attempting tuning, you should be
familiar with the steps to install the VM-Series firewall on the VMware vSphere hypervisor (ESXi), including
how to configure tuning parameters and attributes.

This guidance might not apply to VM-Series deployments on top of white-box or grey-box
environments targeting SD-WAN, MSSP, or CSSP use-cases.

VM-Series is a high-performance appliance and is available in various form-factors depending on size,

hypervisor footprint, and its deployment location in either private or public cloud.
Global and host-level configuration changes impact other VMs running on the same host. You should
consider any trade-offs and prudently choose the parameters that best suit your deployment.
• ESXi Tuning Parameters
• Use Cases
• References

ESXi Tuning Parameters

To achieve best results in performance on VM-series, you can tune hardware, hypervisor, and network I/O
parameters.

The parameters mentioned here do not apply to every deployment model.

• BIOS Settings
• Physical Settings
• Virtual NIC Settings
• NUMA and Resource Considerations
BIOS Settings
This section recommends BIOS Power Management, Hyperthreading, and Intel VT-D settings that can
enhance VM-Series firewall performance, and concludes with a sample BIOS configuration.
• Power Management
• Hyperthreading
• Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O

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 • Sample BIOS Configuration

Power Management
For latency-sensitive applications, any form of power management adds latency to the path where an idle
system (in one of several power-saving modes) responds to an external event. VMware recommends setting
the BIOS power management setting to “static high performance” (no OS-controlled power management),
effectively disabling any form of active power management. Servers with Intel Nehalem class and later
CPUs (Intel Xeon 55xx and later) offer two other power management options: C-states and Intel Turbo
Boost.
Leaving C-states enabled can increase memory latency and is therefore not recommended for low-latency
workloads. Even the enhanced C-state, known as C1E, introduces longer latencies to wake up the CPUs
from halt (idle) states to full-power. VMware recommends disabling C1E in the BIOS to further lower
latencies.
• For HP, set Power Regulator Mode to Static High Mode and disable QPI Processor, C-state support, and
C1E Support.
• For Dell, set Power Management Mode, CPU power, and Performance Management to Maximum
Performance.
Another parameter to consider is P-states. For outright performance considerations, disable P-state settings
on BIOS.
Intel Turbo Boost can lead to performance variations over a period of time. For consistent and deterministic
performance, disable Turbo Boost.

Hyperthreading
If the hardware and BIOS support hyperthreading, ESXi automatically enables hyperthreading on hosts. For
the best performance from VM series firewalls, disable hyperthreading on ESXi hosts.
If the deployment environment warrants enabling hyperthreading, then ensure that all CPU resources for
the VM-Series firewall are reserved from the same NUMA/Socket node that has access to the PCI devices.
In general, configure the PA-VM as a single NUMA VM. See NUMA and Resource Considerations for more
details.

Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O

Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-D) allows a LAN card to be dedicated to a guest
system, which enables increased network performance beyond that of an emulated LAN card. Enable this
feature at the BIOS. If you plan to leverage SR-IOV for performance (recommended), enable the SRI-OV
BIOS setting.

Sample BIOS Configuration

The following screenshots show the system profile settings and the processor settings for a Dell BIOS.

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Physical Settings
Most 1GbE or 10GbE network interface cards (NICs) support a feature called interrupt moderation
or interrupt throttling, which coalesces interrupts from the NIC to the host so that the host doesn’t
get overwhelmed and spend all its CPU cycles processing interrupts. However, for latency-sensitive
workloads, the time the NIC is delaying the delivery of an interrupt for a received packet or a packet
that has successfully been sent on the wire is the time that increases the latency of the workload. For
best performance on PA-VM, disable interrupt moderation. For example, disable physical NIC interrupt
moderation on the ESXi host as follows:

# esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgbe -p "InterruptThrottleRate=0"

• Transmit Queue
• Queue Pairing

Transmit Queue
The ESXi uplink pNIC layer also maintains a software Tx queue of packets queued for transmission, which
by default holds 500 packets. If the workload is I/O intensive with large bursts of transmit packets, this
queue can overflow, leading to packets being dropped in the uplink layer. The Tx queue size can be
increased up to 10,000 packets with the following ESXi command:

# esxcli system settings advanced set -i 10000 -o /Net/MaxNetifTxQueueLen

Depending on the physical NIC and the specific version of the ESXi driver being used on the ESXi host,
sometimes packets can be dropped in the pNIC driver because the transmit ring on the pNIC is too small

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 and is filled up. Most pNIC drivers allow you to increase the size of the transmit ring using the following
command:

# ethtool -G vmnic0 tx 4096

This command increases the Tx ring size to 4096 entries. The maximum size you can set for a specific pNIC
driver, as well as the current Tx ring size in effect, can be determined using the following command:

# ethtool -g vmnic0

Ring parameters for vmnic0:

Pre-set maximums:
RX: 4096
RX Mini: 0
RX Jumbo: 0
TX: 4096
Current hardware settings:
RX: 512
RX Mini: 0
RX Jumbo: 0
TX: 4096

Queue Pairing
Some pNIC drivers, such as Intel’s ixgbe and Broadcom’s bnx2x, also support “queue pairing”, which
indicates to the ESXi uplink layer that the receive thread (NetPoll) will also process completion of
transmitted packets on a paired transmit queue. For certain transmit-heavy workloads, this can cause
delays in processing transmit completions, causing the transmit ring for the vNIC to run out of room for
transmitting additional packets, and forcing the vNIC driver in the guest OS to drop packets.
Disabling queue pairing for all pNICs on an ESXi host creates a separate thread for processing pNIC transmit
completions. As a result, completions are processed in a timely manner, freeing space in the vNIC’s transmit
ring to transmit additional packets.
The ESXi command to disable queue pairing is:

# esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Net/NetNetqRxQueueFeatPairEnable

-i 0

For this to take effect, you must reboot the ESXi host.

If PCI-pass through on VM-700 is used on a dedicated host, no performance tuning of the

NIC/NIC driver is needed. However, this deployment mode is not common.

Virtual NIC Settings

If possible, use SR-IOV for better performance, as explained in the following topics:
• SR-IOV
• VMXNET3/vSwitch and Virtual Interrupt Coalescing
• Enable Multiqueue Support on Intel x710/x520

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SR-IOV
• Changing module parameters for an SR-IOV driver requires an ESXi host reboot.
• Disable physical NIC interrupt moderation on ESXi host as follows:

# esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgbe -p "InterruptThrottleRate=0“

• If you enable multiqueue support, you must also enable Receive-Side Scaling (RSS) for the driver.
• To enable RSS, set the port value to 4.
• Specify ports in a comma-separated string.
Example—Set 3 NICs with 2 ports each.

$ vmkload_mod -u ixgbe esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgbe

-p RSS=”4,4,4,4,4,4”

$ vmkload_mod ixgbe RSS=”4,4,4,4,4,4”

Example—Set RSS for a single port:

$ vmkload_mod -u ixgbe esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgbe

-p RSS=”0,4,0,0,0,0”

VMXNET3/vSwitch and Virtual Interrupt Coalescing

By default, VMXNET3 supports an interrupt coalescing algorithm (for the same reasons that physical NICs
implement interrupt moderation). To avoid flooding the host system with too many interrupts, packets are
collected and one single interrupt is generated for multiple packets. This is called interrupt coalescing.
Interrupt coalescence refers to the amount of traffic that a network interface receives, or the amount
of time that passes after traffic is received, before you issue a hard interrupt. Interrupting too soon or
too frequently results in poor system performance, as the kernel stops (or “interrupts”) a running task
to handle the interrupt request from the hardware. Interrupting too late can result in traffic loss if the
traffic is not taken off the NIC soon enough—more traffic arrives, overwriting the previous traffic still
waiting to be received into the kernel.To disable this functionality through the vSphere Web Client,
go to VM Settings > Options > Advanced General > Configuration Parameters and add an entry for
ethernetX.coalescingScheme with the value disabled.
To disable virtual interrupt coalescing for all virtual NICs on the host (which affects all VMs, not just the
latency-sensitive ones), set the advanced networking performance option. Go to Configuration > Advanced
Settings > Net and set CoalesceDefaultOn to 0 (disabled).

Enable Multiqueue Support on Intel x710/x520

Use ESXi 6.0.0 or later, with an ixgbe driver version with multiqueue support. See SR-IOV Driver Versions in
the Compatibility Matrix. Modify the .vmx file or access Advanced Settings to enable multiqueue support:

ethernetX.pnicFeatures = “4”

To set multi-core affinity so a vSwitch can exceed 300K PPS, set:

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 ethernetX.pnicFeatures = "4"
ethernetX.ctxPerDev = "1"

Setting ethernetX.ctxPerDev = “1”, is like a binary flag (set to 1 to enable). This binary flag adds a
CPU thread to process traffic only from the port ethernetX. This leads to improved traffic scheduling
performance.
NUMA and Resource Considerations
NUMA is Non-Uniform Memory Access. Multi-Core processors have complicated designs. To tackle
performance issues in such systems, you need to be aware of all NUMA and CPU Pinning nuances. Vital
aspects to look for:
• Which cores are our threads are running on? (if hyperthreading is enabled, check Hyperthreading)
• Which cores are our vCPUs are running on? (affinity)
• In which NUMA socket is the physical NIC card installed?
• Where has memory been allocated? (NUMA effects)
Threads running on any socket see one unified memory space – therefore they can read/write to
memory that is local to other Sockets.
• Is memory shared between different sockets on a node?
• It takes more time to access memory on different sockets than it takes to access local memory.
NUMA effects occur when threads excessively access memory on a different NUMA domain. To avoid
cross-NUMA issues, avoid Quick Path Interconnect (QPi) between Socket 0 communication and Socket
1.
For latency-sensitive VMs like PA-VM, VMware recommends that you do not over-commit vCPUs as
compared to the number of physical CPUs (processors) on the ESXi host. For example, if the host has 8 CPU
cores, limit the number of vCPUs for your VM to 7. This ensures that the ESXi VMkernel scheduler has a
better chance of placing the vCPUs on pCPUs that won’t contend with other scheduling contexts, such as
vCPUs from other VMs or ESXi helper worlds. It is a good practice to ensure that the number of vCPUs you
allocate to the VM does not exceed the number of active CPU-consuming processes or threads in the VM.
For best performance, all vCPUs should be scheduled on the same NUMA node and all VM memory should
fit and be allocated out of the local physical memory attached to that NUMA node. This can be changed
using the VM setting numa.nodeAffinity=0, 1, … where 0, 1, and so forth, are the socket numbers.
To ensure that the VM gets exclusive access to the CPU resources, set Latency Sensitivity to High. For the
new setting to take effect, the VM CPU reservation must be set to maximum, Memory should be reserved,
and the CPU limit must be set to unlimited.
• In newer versions, use the vSphere Web Client to set the VM Latency Sensitivity option to High (the
default is Normal).
• In older versions, set sched.cpu.latencySensitivity to High.

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Additionally, VM’s vCPUs can be pinned to host CPU cores using the VM setting Host Affinity so that it is
never scheduled to different cores. Keep NUMA and hyperthreading in mind when you use Host Affinity.
Avoid setting Host Affinity if the system is over committed. For more detail see Potential Issues with CPU
Affinity.

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 After you implement the tuning parameters, use esxtop or CPU charts to check CPU Ready (%RDY) and Co
Stop (%CSTP) for the VM. Both values should be close to 0% to ensure exclusive access to CPU resources.
You can also use esxtop to check for NUMA usage and ensure memory resources for the VM are not spread
across NUMA nodes. For more detail, see Interpreting esxtop Statistics.

Use Cases
Use Case 1: vSwitch Deployment
The figure below shows a deployment of a PA-VM on an ESXi host where the data ports “Port 1” and “Port
2” are linked to eth1 and eth2 of the PA-VM. Each port hosts two queue pairs (for example, Tx0/Rx0, and
Tx1/Rx1) or has multiqueue enabled.

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Enabling multiqueue and RSS for load balancing packets sent/received to/from multiple queues enhances
processing performance. Based on an internal logic of vCPU to port/queue mapping (in this case) packets
arriving and being sent out from P1/Q0 and P2/Q0 are processed by dataplane task T1 running on (i.e.,
pinned to) vCPU1. The data plane task T2 follows a similar association, as shown in the vSwitch deployment
diagram above.
The two data plane tasks are running on vCPU1 and vCPU2 and these are non-sibling CPUs (means that
they do not share the same core in case of hyperthreading). This means that even with hyperthreading
enabled the task assignment can be pinned to different cores for high performance. Also these dataplane
task vCPUs all belong to the same NUMA node (or socket) to avoid NUMA-related performance issues.
Two other performance bottlenecks can be addressed with increasing the queue sizes and dedicating a
vCPU or thread to the ports that schedule traffic to and from these ports. Increasing the queue sizes (Qsize)
will accommodate large sudden bursts of traffic and prevent packet drops under bursty traffic. Adding a
dedicated CPU thread (ethernetX.ctxPerDev = 1) to port level packet processing will allow traffic to
be processed at a higher rate, thereby increasing the traffic throughput to reach line rate.
The PA-VM packet processing technique also determines performance. This can be set to either DPDK or
PacketMMAP. DPDK uses a poll mode driver (depends on the driver type) to constantly poll for packets
received in the queues. This leads to higher throughput performance. Depending on the poll period is
latency observed by the packets. If the polling is continuous (i.e., busy-poll a setting from the PANOS
cli) then the vCPU utilization for the data plane tasks will be a 100% but will yield the best performance.
Internally the software uses a millisecond-level polling time to prevent unnecessary utilization of CPU
resources.
PacketMMAP, on the other hand, has a lower performance than DPDK but it works with any network level
drivers. For DPDK the vSwitch driver must have support for DPDK. PacketMMAP works with interrupts
that are raised when a packet is received by the port and placed in the receive queue. This means that for
every packet, or group of packets, interrupts are raised and packets are drained off the receive queue for
processing. This results in lower latency in packet processing, but reduced throughput, because interrupts
must be processed every time, causing higher CPU overhead. In general PacketMMAP will have lower
packet processing latency than DPDK (without busy poll modification).

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 Use Case 2: SR-IOV Deployment
The SR-IOV diagram below shows a PAVM deployment similar to the vSwitch use case, but in SR-IOV
mode.

In SR-IOV the compatible physical NIC port (manifests as a Physical Function) is essentially carved out
into multiple interfaces (manifests as Virtual Functions). The figure above shows that NIC1 Port1 has
a VF named VFX that is associated as one of the PAVM dataplane interfaces — eth1, for example. A
similar association is created for Port2 VF to PAVM eth2.The chain of packet processing is similar to
that of the deployment in the vSwitch environment. The only difference is that the SR-IOV VF drivers
should be compatible with those used in PAN-OS. Also, since there is no internal vSwitch (in the host)
switching traffic, there is no need to set a dedicated thread for traffic scheduling from a port (that is,
ethernetX.ctxPerDev = 1 is not required in this setting). Interfaces with SR-IOV and DPDK will yield
even higher packet processing performance than the vSwitch use case.

References
• Tuning VMware vCloud NFV for Data-Intensive Workloads
• Best Practices for Performance Tuning of Telco and NFV Workloads in vSphere
• Potential Issues with CPU Affinity
• Interpreting esxtop Statistics

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud
Air
The VM-Series firewall can be deployed in a virtual data center (vDC) on vCloud Air using the
vCloud Air portal, from the vCloud Director portal or using the vCloud Air API.

> About the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air

> Deployments Supported on vCloud Air
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air

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About the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall in a virtual data center (vDC) on VMware vCloud Air using the
vCloud Air portal or from the vCloud Director portal. And to centrally manage all your physical and VM-
Series firewalls, you can use an existing Panorama or deploy a new Panorama on premise or on vCloud Air.
The VM-Series firewall on vCloud Air requires the following:
• ESXi version of the software image, an Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) file, from the Palo Alto
Networks Customer Support web site. Currently, the vCloud Air Marketplace does not host the software
image.
In order to efficiently deploy the VM-Series firewall, include the firewall software image in a vApp. A
vApp is a container for preconfigured virtual appliances (virtual machines and operating system images)
that is managed as a single object. For example, if your vApp includes a set of multi-tiered applications
and the VM-Series firewall, each time you deploy the vApp, the VM-Series firewall automatically secures
the web server and database server that get deployed with the vApp.
• License and subscriptions purchased from a partner, reseller, or directly from Palo Alto Networks, in the
Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model; the usage-based licensing for the VM-Series on vCloud Air is not
available.
• Due to the security restrictions imposed on vCloud Air, the VM-Series firewall on vCloud Air is best
deployed with Layer 3 interfaces and the interfaces must be enabled to use the hypervisor assigned
MAC address. If you do not enable hypervisor assigned MAC address, the VMware vSwitch cannot
forward traffic to the dataplane interfaces on the VM-Series firewall because the vSwitch on vCloud
Air does not support promiscuous mode or MAC forged transmits. The VM-Series firewall cannot be
deployed with tap interfaces, Layer 2 interfaces, or virtual wire interfaces.
The VM-Series firewall on vCloud Air can be deployed in an active/passive high availability configuration.
However, the VM-Series firewall on vCloud Air does not support VM Monitoring capabilities for virtual
machines that are hosted on vCloud Air.
To learn all about vCloud Air, refer to the VMware vCloud Air documentation.

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Deployments Supported on vCloud Air
To enable applications safely, block known and unknown threats, and to keep pace with changes in your
environment, you can deploy the VM-Series firewall on vCloud Air with Layer 3 interfaces in the following
ways:
• Secure the virtual data center perimeter—Deploy the VM-Series firewall as a virtual machine that
connects isolated and routed networks on vCloud Air. In this deployment the firewall secures all north-
south traffic traversing the infrastructure on vCloud Air.
• Set up a hybrid cloud—Extend your data center and private cloud into vCloud Air and use a VPN
connection to enable communication between the corporate network and the data center. In this
deployment, the VM-Series firewall uses IPSec to encrypt traffic and secure users accessing the cloud.
• Secure traffic between application subnets in the vDC—To improve security, segment your network
and isolate traffic by creating application tiers, and then deploy the VM-Series firewall to protect against
lateral threats between subnets and application tiers.
The following illustration combines all three deployments scenarios and includes Panorama. Panorama
streamlines policy updates, centralizes policy management, and provides centralized logging and reporting.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on vCloud Air
Use the instructions in this section to deploy your VM-Series firewall in an on-demand or dedicated vDC
on vCloud Air. This procedure assumes that you have set up your vDC, including the gateways required
to allow traffic in and out of the vDC, and the networks required for routing management traffic and data
traffic through the vDC.

STEP 1 | Obtain the VM-Series OVA image from the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support web site;
the vCloud Air Marketplace does not host the software image currently.
1. Go to: www.paloaltonetworks.com/services/support.html.
2. Filter by PAN-OS for VM-Series Base Images and download the OVA image. For example, PA-VM-
ESX-9.1.0.ova.

STEP 2 | Extract the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) file from the OVA image and import the OVF file
in to your vCloud Air catalog.
When extracting files from the OVA image, make sure to place all the files—.mf, .ovf, and .vmdk—within
the same directory.
For instructions to extract the OVF file from the OVA image, refer to the VMware documentation:
https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/ovf/#sthash.WUp55ZyE.dpuf
When you import the OVF file, the software image for the VM-Series firewall is listed in My
Organization’s Catalogs.

STEP 3 | Choose your workflow.

A vApp is a collection of templates for preconfigured virtual appliances that contain virtual machines,
and operating system images.
• If you want to create a new vDC and a new vApp that includes the VM-Series firewall, go to step 4
• If you have already deployed a vDC and have a vApp and now want to add the VM-Series firewall to
the vApp to secure traffic, go to step 5

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STEP 4 | Create a vDC and a vApp that includes the VM-Series firewall.
1. Log in to vCloud Air.
2. Select VPC OnDemand and select the location in which you want to deploy the VM-Series firewall.

3. Select Virtual Data Centers and click + to add a new Virtual Data Center.
4. Select the vDC, right click and select Manage Catalogs in vCloud Director. You will be redirected to
the vCloud Director web interface.
5. Create a new vApp that contains one or more virtual machines including the VM-Series firewall:
1. Select My Cloud > vApps, and click Build New vApp.

2. Select Name and Location, and the Virtual Datacenter in which this vApp will run. By default,
Leases for runtime and storage never expire and the vApp is not automatically stopped.
3. Add Virtual Machines. To add the VM-Series firewall image from the Look in: drop-down, select
My Organization’s Catalog, select the image and click Add. Click Next
4. Configure Resources to specify the Storage Policies for the virtual machines when deployed. The
VM-Series firewall uses the Standard option.
5. Configure the Virtual Machines. Name each virtual machine and select the network to which
you want it to connect. You must connect NIC 0 (for management access) to the default routed
network; NIC 1 is used for data traffic. You can add additional NICs later.
6. Verify the settings and click Finish.
7. Continue to step 6.

STEP 5 | Add the VM-Series Firewall into a vApp.

1. Log in to vCloud Air.
2. Select your existing Virtual Data Center from the left pane, right click and select Manage Catalogs in
vCloud Director. You will be redirected to the vCloud Director web interface.
3. Select My Cloud > vApps and click the Name of the vApp in which to include the VM-Series firewall.
4. Open the vApp (double-click on the name), select Virtual Machines and click to add a virtual
machine.

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 1. In the Look in: drop-down, choose My Organization’s Catalog, select the VM-Series firewall image
and click Add. Click Next.
2. Click Next to skip Configure Resources. The VM-Series firewall uses the Standard option and you
do not to modify the Storage Policy.
3. Enter a Name for the firewall and for management access (NIC 0), select the default routed
network and the IP Mode— Static or DHCP. You can configure NIC 1 and add additional NICs in
step 6. Click Next.
4. Verify how this vApp connects to the vDC— Gateway Address and Network Mask for the virtual
machines in this vApp.
5. Verify that you have added the VM-Series firewall and click Finish.
6. Continue to step 6.

STEP 6 | Connect the data interface(s) of the VM-Series firewall to an isolated or a routed network, as
required for your deployment.
1. In vCloud Director, select My Cloud > vApps and select the vApp you just created or edited.
2. Select Virtual Machines and select the VM-Series firewall. Then, right-click and select Properties.
3. Select Hardware, scroll to the NICs section and select NIC 1.
4. Attach the dataplane network interface to a vApp network or an organizational VDC network based
on your connectivity needs for data traffic to the VM-Series firewall. To create a new network:
1. In the Network drop-down, click Add Network.
2. Select the Network Type and give it a name and click OK.
3. Verify that the new network is attached to the interface.
5. To add additional NICs to the firewall, click Add and repeat step 4 above. You can attach a maximum
of seven dataplane interfaces to the VM-Series firewall.
6. Verify that the management interface of the VM-Series firewall is attached to the default routed
subnet on the vDC and at least one dataplane interface is connected to a routed or isolated network.
1. Select My Cloud > vApps and double-click the Name of the vApp you just edited.
2. Verify network connectivity in the vApp Diagram.

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STEP 7 | (Optional) Edit the hardware resources allocated for the VM-Series firewall.
Required only if you need to allot additional CPU, memory, or hard disk to the firewall.
1. Select My Cloud > vApps and double-click the Name of the vApp you just deployed.

2. Select Virtual Machine and click on the Name of the VM-Series firewall to access the Virtual Machine
Properties.

3. Add additional Hardware resources for the VM-Series firewall:

• See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum vCPU, memory, and disk requirements for
your VM-Series model.
• NICs: One management and up to seven dataplane interfaces.

STEP 8 | Power on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 9 | Configure an IP address for the VM-Series firewall management interface.

Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series on ESXi.
The VM-Series firewall on vCloud Air supports VMware Tools, and you can Use VMware Tools on
the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi and vCloud Air to view the management IP address of the VM-Series
firewall.

STEP 10 | Define NAT rules on the vCloud Air Edge Gateway to enable Internet access for the VM-
Series firewall.
1. Select Virtual Data Centers > Gateways, select the gateway and double-click to add NAT Rules.
2. Create two DNAT rules. One for allowing SSH access and one for HTTPS access to the management
port’s IP address on the VM-Series firewall.

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 3. Create a SNAT rule for translating the internal source IP address for all traffic initiated from the
management port on the VM-Series firewall to an external IP address.

To send and receive traffic from the dataplane interfaces on the firewall, you must
create additional DNAT and SNAT rules on the vCloud Air Edge Gateway.

STEP 11 | Log in to the web interface of the firewall.

In this example, the URL for the web interface is https://107.189.85.254
The NAT rule on the Edge Gateway translates the external IP address and port 107.189.85.254:443 to
the private IP address and port 10.0.0.102:443.

STEP 12 | Add the auth code(s) to activate the licenses on the firewall.
Activate the License.

STEP 13 | Configure the VM-Series firewall to use the hypervisor assigned MAC address.
Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses

STEP 14 | Configure the dataplane interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces.

1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
2. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• Select the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, select New Zone from the Security Zone drop-down. Define a new zone, for
example untrust, and then click OK.
• Select IPv4, assign a static IP address.
• On Advanced > Other Info, expand the Management Profile drop-down, and select New
Management Profile.
• Enter a Name for the profile, such as allow_ping, and select Ping from the Permitted Services list,
then click OK.
• To save the interface configuration, click OK.
3. Repeat the process for each additional interface.
4. Click Commit to save the changes.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware
NSX
The VM-Series firewall can be deployed in both versions of VMware’s network virtualization
solution—NSX-V and NSX-T.

> Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-V

> Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-South)
> Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware
NSX-V
The VM-Series firewall for VMware NSX-V is jointly developed by Palo Alto Networks and VMware. This
solution uses the NetX API to integrate the Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls and Panorama
with VMware ESXi servers to provide comprehensive visibility and safe application enablement of all data
center traffic including intra-host virtual machine communications.
The following topics provide information about the VM-Series for NSX-V:
• VM-Series for Firewall NSX-V Overview
• VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V Deployment Checklist
• Install the VMware NSX Plugin
• Register the VM-Series Firewall as a Service on the NSX-V Manager
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall
• Create Security Groups and Steering Rules
• Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall
• Steer Traffic from Guests that are not Running VMware Tools
• What is Multi-NSX Manager Support on the VM-Series for NSX-V?
• Add a New Host to Your NSX-V Deployment
• Dynamically Quarantine Infected Guests
• Migrate Operations-Centric Configuration to Security-Centric Configuration
• Use Case: Shared Compute Infrastructure and Shared Security Policies
• Use Case: Shared Security Policies on Dedicated Compute Infrastructure
• Dynamic Address Groups—Information Relay from NSX-V Manager to Panorama

VM-Series for Firewall NSX-V Overview

NSX-V, VMware's Networking and Security platform designed for the software-defined data center (SDDC),
offers the ability to deploy the Palo Alto Networks firewall as a service on a cluster of ESXi servers. The
term SDDC is a VMware term that refers to a data center where infrastructure—compute resources,
network and storage—is virtualized using VMware NSX-V.
To keep pace with the changes in the agile SDDC, the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V simplifies the process
of deploying a Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall and continually enforcing security and
compliance for the east-west traffic in the SDDC. For details on the VM-Series for NSX-V, see the following
topics:
• What are the Components of the VM-Series for NSX-V Solution?
• How Do the Components in the VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V Solution Work Together?
• What are the Benefits of the NSX-V VM-Series firewall for NSX-V Solution?
• What is Multi-Tenant Support on the VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V?

What are the Components of the VM-Series for NSX-V Solution?

The following tables show the components of this joint Palo Alto Networks and VMware solution. The
following topics describe each component in more detail:
• vCenter Server
• NSX-V Manager
• Panorama
• VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V

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 • Ports/Protocols used Network Communication

VMware Components

vCenter Server The vCenter server is the centralized management tool for the vSphere suite.

NSX-V Manager VMware's Networking and Security platform must be installed and registered
with the vCenter server. The NSX-V Manager is required to deploy the VM-
Series firewall on the ESXi hosts within a ESXi cluster.

ESXi Server ESXi is a hypervisor that enables compute virtualization.

See the Palo Alto Networks Compatibility Matrix for supported software versions.

Palo Alto Networks Components

PAN-OS The VM-Series base image (PA-VM-NSX-9.1.zip) is used for deploying the VM-
Series firewall for NSX-V with PAN-OS 9.1.
The minimum system requirement for deploying the VM-Series firewall for NSX-
V on the ESXi server depends on your VM-Series model. See VM-Series System
Requirements for the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-Series
model.

Panorama Panorama is the centralized management tool for the Palo Alto Networks next-
generation firewalls. In this solution, Panorama works with the NSX-V Manager
Panorama must be
to deploy, license, and centrally administer—configuration and policies—on the
running the same
VM-Series firewall for NSX-V.
release version or
later version that Panorama must be able to connect to the NSX-V Manager, the vCenter server,
the firewalls that it the VM-Series firewalls and the Palo Alto Networks update server.
will manage.
The resources required by Panorama depend on the mode Panorama will run in:
Panorama or Management Only. Panorama installations running in Legacy mode
prior to upgrade remain in Legacy mode after upgrading to 10.0.
See the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for information about deploying your
Panorama appliance.

VM-Series Firewall The VM-100, VM-200, VM-300, VM-500, and VM-1000-HV, support NSX-V.
for NSX-V

vCenter Server
The vCenter server is required to manage the NSX-V Manager and the ESXi hosts in your data center. This
joint solution requires that the ESXi hosts be organized into one or more clusters on the vCenter server and
must be connected to a distributed virtual switch.
For information on clusters, distributed virtual switch, DRS, and the vCenter server, refer to your VMware
documentation: http://www.vmware.com/support/vcenter-server.html

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NSX-V Manager
NSX-V is VMware’s network virtualization platform that is completely integrated with vSphere. The NSX-
V Firewall and the Service Composer are key features of the NSX-V Manager. The NSX-V firewall is a
logical firewall that allows you to attach network and security services to the virtual machines, and the
Service Composer allows you to group virtual machines and create policy to redirect traffic to the VM-
Series firewall (called the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service on the NSX-V Manager).
Panorama
Panorama is used to register the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V as the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service on
the NSX-V Manager. Registering the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service on the NSX-V Manager allows the
NSX-V Manager to deploy the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V on each ESXi host in the ESXi cluster.
Panorama serves as the central point of administration for the VM-Series firewalls running on NSX-V.
When a new VM-Series firewall is deployed in NSX-V, it communicates with Panorama to obtain the license
and receives its configuration/policies from Panorama. All configuration elements, policies, and dynamic
address groups on the VM-Series firewalls can be centrally managed on Panorama using Device Groups and
Template Stacks. The REST-based XML API integration in this solution, enables Panorama to synchronize
with the NSX-V Manager and the VM-Series firewalls to allow the use of dynamic address groups and share
context between the virtualized environment and security enforcement. For more information, see Policy
Enforcement using Dynamic Address Groups.
VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V
The VM-Series firewall for NSX-V is the VM-Series firewall that is deployed on the ESXi hypervisor. The
integration with the NetX API makes it possible to automate the process of installing the VM-Series firewall
directly on the ESXi hypervisor, and allows the hypervisor to forward traffic to the VM-Series firewall
without using the vSwitch configuration; it therefore, requires no change to the virtual network topology.
The VM-Series firewall for NSX-V only supports virtual wire interfaces. On this firewall, ethernet 1/1 and
ethernet 1/2 are bound together through a virtual wire and use the NetX dataplane API to communicate
with the hypervisor. Layer 2 or Layer 3 interfaces are neither required nor supported on the VM-Series
firewall for NSX-V, and therefore no switching or routing actions can be performed by the firewall.
For enabling traffic separation in a multi-tenancy environment, you can create additional zones that
internally map to a pair of virtual wire subinterfaces on the parent virtual wire interfaces, ethernet 1/1 and
ethernet 1/2.

Ports/Protocols used Network Communication

In order to enable the network communication required to deploy the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V, you
must allow the use of the following protocols/ports and applications.
• Panorama—To obtain software updates and dynamic updates, Panorama uses SSL to access
updates.paloaltonetworks.com on TCP/443; this URL leverages the CDN infrastructure. If you need a
single IP address, use staticupdates.paloaltonetworks.com. The App-ID for updates is paloalto-updates.
The NSX-V Manager and Panorama use SSL to communicate on TCP/443.
• VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V—If you plan to use WildFire, the VM-Series firewalls must be able to
access wildfire.paloaltonetworks.com on port 443. This is an SSL connection and the App-ID is paloalto-
wildfire-cloud.
The management interface on the VM-Series firewall uses SSL to communicate with Panorama over
TCP/3978.

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 • vCenter Server The vCenter Server must be able to reach the deployment web server that is hosting the
VM-Series OVA. The port is TCP/80 by default or App-ID web-browsing.

How Do the Components in the VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V Solution

Work Together?
To meet the security challenges in the software-defined data center, the NSX-V Manager, ESXi servers and
Panorama work harmoniously to automate the deployment of the VM-Series firewall.

1. Register the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service—The first step is to register the Palo Alto Networks
NGFW as a service on the NSX-V Manager. The registration process uses the NetX management plane
API to enable bi-directional communication between Panorama and the NSX-V Manager. Panorama
is configured with the IP address and access credentials to initiate a connection and register the Palo
Alto Networks NGFW service on the NSX-V Manager. The service definition includes the URL for
accessing the VM-Series base image that is required to deploy the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V, the
authorization code for retrieving the license and the device group and template stacks to which the
VM-Series firewalls will belong. The NSX-V manager uses this management plane connection to share
updates on the changes in the virtual environment with Panorama.
2. Deploy the VM-Series automatically from NSX-V—The NSX-V Manager collects the VM-Series base
image from the URL specified during registration and installs an instance of the VM-Series firewall
on each ESXi host in the ESXi cluster. From a static management IP pool or a DHCP service (that you
define on the NSX-V Manager), a management IP address is assigned to the VM-Series firewall and
the Panorama IP address is provided to the firewall. When the firewall boots up, the NetX dataplane
integration API connects the VM-Series firewall to the hypervisor so that it can receive traffic from the
vSwitch.

3. Establish communication between the VM-Series firewall and Panorama—The VM-Series firewall then
initiates a connection to Panorama to obtain its license. Panorama retrieves the license from the update
server and pushes it to the firewall. The VM-Series firewall receives the license and reboots with a valid
serial number.

If your Panorama is offline, which means that it does not have direct Internet access to
retrieve the licenses and push them to the firewalls, you must manually license each
firewall. If your VM-Series firewall does not have internet access, you must add the serial
number of the firewall to Panorama so that it is registered as a managed device, so that
you can push the appropriate template stacks and device group settings from Panorama.
4. Install configuration/policy from Panorama to the VM-Series firewall—The VM-Series firewall
reconnects with Panorama and provides its serial number. Panorama now adds the firewall to the device
group and template stack that was defined in the service definition and pushes the configuration and

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 policy rules to the firewall. The VM-Series firewall is now available as a security virtual machine that can
be further configured to safely enable applications on the network.
5. Push traffic redirection rules to NSX-V Manager—Create security groups and define network
introspection rules that specify the guests from which traffic will be steered to the VM-Series firewall.
See Integrated Policy Rules for details.

To ensure that traffic from the guests is steered to the VM-Series firewall, you must
have VMware Tools installed on each guest. If VMware Tools is not installed, the NSX-
V Manager does not know the IP address of the guest and therefore, the traffic cannot
be steered to the VM-Series firewall. For more information, see Steer Traffic from Guests
that are not Running VMware Tools. This is not required if you are running NSX-V
Manager 6.2.4 or later.
6. Receive real-time updates from NSX-V Manager—The NSX-V Manager sends real-time updates on the
changes in the virtual environment to Panorama. These updates include information on the security
groups and IP addresses of guests that are part of the security group from which traffic is redirected to
the VM-Series firewall. See Integrated Policy Rules for details.
7. Use dynamic address groups in policy and push dynamic updates from Panorama to the VM-Series
firewalls—On Panorama, use the real-time updates on security groups to create dynamic address groups,
bind them to security policies and then push these policies to the VM-Series firewalls. Every VM-Series
firewall in the device group will have the same set of policies and is now completely marshaled to secure
the SDDC. See Policy Enforcement using Dynamic Address Groups for details.
Integrated Policy Rules
Panorama serves as the single point of configuration that provides the NSX-V Manager with the contextual
information required to redirect traffic from the guest virtual machines to the VM-Series firewall. The traffic
steering rules are defined on Panorama and pushed to NSX-V Manager; these determine what traffic from
which guests in the cluster are steered to the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service. Security enforcement
rules are also defined on Panorama and pushed to the VM-Series firewalls for the traffic that is steered to
the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service.
• Steering Rules—The rules for directing traffic from the guests on each ESXi host are defined on
Panorama and applied by NSX-V Manager as partner security services rules.
For traffic that needs to be inspected and secured by the VM-Series firewall, the steering rules created
on Panorama allow you to redirect the traffic to the Palo Alto Networks NGFW service. This traffic is
then steered to the VM-Series firewall and is first processed by the VM-Series firewall before it goes to
the virtual switch.

Traffic that does not need to be inspected by the VM-Series firewall, for example network data backup
or traffic to an internal domain controller, does not need to be redirected to the VM-Series firewall and
can be sent to the virtual switch for onward processing.
• Rules centrally managed on Panorama and applied by the VM-Series firewall—The next- generation
firewall rules are applied by the VM-Series firewall. These rules are centrally defined and managed on
Panorama using template stacks and device groups and pushed to the VM-Series firewalls. The VM-
Series firewall then enforces security policy by matching on source or destination IP address—the use
of dynamic address groups allows the firewall to populate the members of the groups in real time—and
forwards the traffic to the filters on the NSX-V Firewall.
To understand how the NSX-V Manager and Panorama stay synchronized with the changes in the
SDDC and ensure that the VM-Series firewall consistently enforces policy, see Policy Enforcement using
Dynamic Address Groups.

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 Policy Enforcement using Dynamic Address Groups
Unlike the other versions of the VM-Series firewall, because both virtual wire interfaces (and subinterfaces)
belong to the same zone, the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V uses dynamic address groups as the traffic
segmentation mechanism. A security policy rule on the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V must have the same
source and destination zone, therefore to implement different treatment of traffic, you use dynamic address
groups as source or destination objects in security policy rules.
Dynamic address groups offer a way to automate the process of referencing source and/or destination
addresses within security policies because IP addresses are constantly changing in a data center
environment. Unlike static address objects that must be manually updated in configuration and committed
whenever there is an address change (addition, deletion, or move), dynamic address groups automatically
adapt to changes.
Any dynamic address groups created in a device group belonging to NSX-V configuration and configured
with the match criterion _nsx_<dynamic address group name> trigger the creation on corresponding
security groups on the NSX-V Manager. In an ESXi cluster with multiple customers or tenants, the ability to
filter security groups for a service profile (zone on Panorama) on the NSX-V Manager allows you to enforce
policy when you have overlapping IP addresses across different security groups in your virtual environment.
If, for example, you have a multi-tier architecture for web applications, on Panorama you create three
dynamic address groups for the WebFrontEnd servers, Application servers and the Database servers. When
you commit these changes on Panorama, it triggers the creation of three corresponding security groups on
NSX-V Manager.

On NSX-V Manager, you can then add individual guest VMs or IP sets (IP ranges or subnets) to the
appropriate security groups. Then, in security policy you can use the dynamic address groups as source or
destination objects, define the applications that are permitted to traverse these servers, and push the rules
to the VM-Series firewalls.
Each time a guest is added or modified in the ESXi cluster or a security group is updated or created, the
NSX-V Manager uses the PAN-OS REST-based XML API to update Panorama with the IP address, and the
security group to which the guest belongs. To trace the flow of information, see Dynamic Address Groups—
Information Relay from NSX Manager to Panorama.

To ensure that the name of each security group is unique, the vCenter server assigns
a Managed Object Reference (MOB) ID to the name you define for the security group.
The syntax used to display the name of a security group on Panorama is serviceprofileid-
specified_name-securitygroup-number; for example, serviceprofile13-WebFrontEnd-
securitygroup-47.

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 When Panorama receives the API notification, it verifies/updates the IP address of each guest and the
security group and the service profile to which that guest belongs. Then, Panorama pushes these real-time
updates to all the firewalls that are included in the device group and notifies device groups in the service
manager configuration on Panorama.
On each firewall, all policy rules that reference these dynamic address groups are updated at runtime.
Because the firewall matches on the security group tag to determine the members of a dynamic address
group, you do not need to modify or update the policy when you make changes in the virtual environment.
The firewall matches the tags to find the current members of each dynamic address group and applies the
security policy to the source/destination IP address that are included in the group.

What are the Benefits of the NSX-V VM-Series firewall for NSX-V
Solution?
The VM-Series firewall for VMware NSX-V is focused on securing east-west communication in the
software-defined data center. Deploying the firewall has the following benefits:
• Sturdier Centralized Management—The firewalls deployed using this solution are licensed and managed
by Panorama, the Palo Alto Networks central management tool. Panorama serves as a single point
of configuration for integration with NSX-V. It gives the NSX-V Manager the information is it needs
to steer redirect traffic to the VM-Series firewall for inspection and enforcement. Using Panorama
to manage both the perimeter and data center firewalls (the hardware-based and virtual firewalls)
allows you to centralize policy management and maintain agility and consistency in policy enforcement
throughout the network.
• Automated Deployment—The NSX-V Manager automates the process of delivering next-generation
firewall security services and the VM-Series firewall allows for transparent security enforcement. When
a new ESXi host is added to a cluster, a new VM-Series firewall is automatically deployed, provisioned
and available for immediate policy enforcement without any manual intervention. The automated
workflow allows you to keep pace with the virtual machine deployments in your data center. The
hypervisor mode on the firewall removes the need to reconfigure the ports/ vswitches/ network
topology; because each ESXi host has an instance of the firewall, the traffic does not need to traverse
the network or be backhauled for inspection and consistent enforcement of policies.
• Ease in Administering Tenants in Shared and Dedicated Compute Infrastructure —This integration
provides the flexibility in configuring the firewall to handle multiple zones for traffic segmentation,
defining shared or specific policy sets for each tenant or sub-tenant, and includes support for
overlapping IP addresses across tenants or sub-tenants. Whether you have a shared cluster and need
to define tenant specific policies and logically isolate traffic for each tenant (or sub-tenant), or you have
a dedicated cluster for each tenant, this solution enables you to configure the firewall for your needs.
And if you need a dedicated instance of the VM-Series firewall for each tenant in a cluster that hosts the
workloads for multiple tenants, you can deploy multiple instances of the VM-Series firewall on each host
in an ESXi cluster. For more information, see What is Multi-Tenant Support on the VM-Series Firewall
for NSX-V?
• Tighter Integration Between Virtual Environment and Security Enforcement for Dynamic Security—
Dynamic address groups maintain awareness of changes in the virtual machines/applications and ensure
that security policy stays in tandem with the changes in the network. This awareness provides visibility
and protection of applications in an agile environment.
In summary, this solution ensures that the dynamic nature of the virtual network is secured with minimal
administrative overhead. You can successfully deploy applications with greater speed, efficiency, and
security.

What is Multi-Tenant Support on the VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V?

Multi-tenancy on the VM-Series firewall enables you to secure more than one tenant or more than one sub-
tenant. A tenant is a customer or an organization such as Palo Alto Networks. A sub-tenant is a department
or business unit within the organization such as Marketing, Accounting, or Human Resources. To allow

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 you to secure multiple tenants, Panorama provides the flexibility to create multiple sets of security policy
rules for each tenant, and multiple zones to isolate traffic from each sub-tenant and redirect traffic to the
appropriately configured VM-Series firewall. You can also deploy more than one instance of the VM-Series
firewall on each host within an ESXi cluster.

Panorama and managed VM-Series firewalls must be running PAN-OS 7.1 or greater to
support multi-tenancy.

To deploy a multi-tenant solution, create one or more service definition(s) and service profile zone(s) on
Panorama. A service definition on Panorama specifies the configuration of the VM-Series firewall using
one device group and one template stack. This means that each instance of the VM-Series firewalls that is
deployed using a service definition has one common set of policy rules for securing the tenants and sub-
tenants in the ESXi cluster.
A service profile zone within a Panorama template stack is used to segment traffic from each sub-tenant
using virtual wire subinterfaces. When you create a new service profile zone, Panorama pushes the zone
as a part of the template stack configuration to the firewall, and the firewall automatically creates a pair
of virtual wire subinterfaces, for example ethernet1/1.3 and ethernet 1/2.3 so that the firewall can isolate
traffic for a sub-tenant. Because a template stack supports up to 32 subinterface pairs, you can logically
isolate traffic and secure up to 32 sub-tenants.
Panorama registers each service definition as a service definition on the NSX-V Manager and each service
profile zone as a service profile within the corresponding service definition. And, when you deploy the
service definition from the NSX-V Manager, an instance of the VM-Series firewall is deployed on each host
in the ESXi cluster. And you can use the steering rules defined on Panorama and applied to the NSX-V
Manager to specify what traffic to redirect to the VM-Series firewall based on NSX-V security groups, and
to which tenant or sub-tenant based on the service profile.
Based on your requirements, you can choose from the following multi-tenancy options:
• Shared cluster with shared VM-Series firewalls- Multiple tenants share the cluster and the VM-
Series firewall. A single instance of the VM-Series firewall is deployed on each host in the cluster. In
order to separate traffic from each tenant, you create a zone for each tenant, and you define a single,
common set of policy rules to secure the virtual machines for all tenants. See Use Case: Shared Compute
Infrastructure and Shared Security Policies.
• Dedicated cluster with dedicated VM-Series firewalls- A single tenant occupies the cluster, and a
single instance of the VM-Series firewall is deployed on each host in the cluster. In this deployment,
the tenant can have a single zone and a single policy set, or the tenant can have multiple zones for sub-
tenants that require traffic separation (one zone per sub-tenant) and a single policy set with zone-based
rules to secure traffic for each sub-tenant. Use Case: Shared Security Policies on Dedicated Compute
Infrastructure.
• Shared cluster with dedicated VM-Series firewalls- Multiple tenants share the cluster and multiple
instances of the VM-Series firewalls are deployed on each host in a cluster so that each tenant can
have a dedicated instance of the VM-Series firewall. This deployment provides scalability and better
performance on shared infrastructure for each tenant. Based on each tenant’s needs, you will define two
or more service definitions for the cluster.
When deploying multiple instances of the VM-Series firewall, you must ensure that each ESXi host has
the sufficient CPU, memory and hard disk resources required to support the VM-Series firewalls and the
other virtual machines that will be running on it.

VM-Series Firewall for NSX-V Deployment Checklist

To deploy the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V, use the following workflow:
Step 1: Set up the Components—To deploy the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V, set up the following
components (see What are the Components of the VM-Series for NSX-V Solution?):

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• Set up the vCenter server, install and register the NSX-V Manager with the vCenter server.
If you have not already set up the virtual switch(es) and grouped the ESXi hosts in to clusters, refer to
the VMware documentation for instructions on setting up the vSphere environment. This document
does not take you through the process of setting up the VMware components of this solution.

Unless you Enable Large Receive Offload, do not modify the default value (1500
bytes) of the MTU on the virtual Distributed Switch (vDS) in the vSphere infrastructure.
Modifying the MTU to any other value causes the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V to
discard packets.
• Upgrade Panorama. If you are new to Panorama, refer to the Panorama documentation for
instructions on setting up and upgrading Panorama. See Migrate Operations-Centric Configuration to
Security-Centric Configuration if you choose to migrate your Operations-Centric configuration to a
Security-Centric configuration format.
• Configure an SSL/TLS Service Profile. If you are running NSX-V Manager 6.2.3 or earlier, you must
configure an SSL/TLS Service profile that allows TLSv1.0 and apply it to the Panorama management
interface. If you are running NSX-V Manager 6.2.4 or later, an SSL/TLS Service profile is not required.
• Install the VMware NSX Plugin.
• Install a License Deactivation API Key. Deleting the Palo Alto Networks Service Deployment on NSX-
V Manager automatically triggers license deactivation. A license deactivation API key is required to
successfully deactivate the VM-Series license.
• Download and save the ovf template for the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V on a web server. The ovf
template must match your VM-Series model. If you are using the VM-200, select the VM-100 ovf. If
using the VM-1000-HV, select the VM-300 ovf.
The NSX-V Manager must have network access to this web server so that it can deploy the VM-
Series firewall as needed. You cannot host the ovf template on Panorama.

Give the ova filename a generic name that does not include a version number. Using
a generic naming convention, such as https://acme.com/software/PA-VM-NSX.ova
allows you to overwrite the ova each time a newer version becomes available.
• Register the capacity auth-code for the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V with your support account on
the Support Portal. For details, see Upgrade the VM-Series Firewall.
Step 2: Register—Configure Panorama to Register the VM-Series Firewall as a Service on the NSX-V
Manager. When registered, the VM-Series firewall is added to the list of network services that can be
transparently deployed as a service by the NSX-V Manager. The connection between Panorama and the
NSX-V Manager is also required for licensing and configuring the firewall.
• (On Panorama) Create a service manager to enable communication between Panorama and NSX-V
Manager.
• (On Panorama) Create the service definition. If you upgrade from an earlier version, your existing
service definition is automatically migrated for you.
Step 3: Deploy the VM-Series Firewall—Before you can deploy the VM-Series firewall in NSX-V, each
host in the cluster must have the necessary NSX-V components required to deploy the firewall.
• (On NSX-V Manager) Define the IP address pool. An IP address from the defined range is assigned to
the management interface of each instance of the VM-Series firewall.

The NSX-V Manager uses the IP address as a match criterion to steer traffic to the
VM-Series firewall. If VMware tools is not installed on the guest, see Steer Traffic from
Guests that are not Running VMware Tools. This is not required if you are running
NSX-V Manager 6.2.4 or later.
• (On NSX-V Manager) Prepare the ESXi host for the VM-Series firewall.
• (On NSX-V Manager) Deploy the VM-Series firewall. The NSX-V Manager automatically deploys an
instance of the VM-Series firewall on each ESXi host in the cluster.

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 • (On NSX-V Manager) Add VMs to the relevant security groups.
• (On Panorama) Apply policies to the VM-Series firewall. From Panorama, you define, push, and
administer policies centrally on all the VM-Series firewalls. This centralized administration mechanism
allows you to secure guests/applications with minimal administrative intervention.
Step 4: Create Security Groups and Steering Rules—How you choose to deploy the security groups and
steering rules depends on whether your deployment focus is Security Centric or Operations Centric.
In a Security Centric deployment, your security administrator creates the security group and steering
rules in Panorama. You might start with an existing set of security policies and a set of named source
and destination groups. Any new dynamically deployed applications fit into predefined security
policies defined on Panorama. Panorama pushes these named groups to NSX-V Manager, where the
virtualization administrator picks up the group names and defines which VMs go into them.
In an Operations Centric deployment, security groups are defined by a virtualization administrator based
upon the need to classify and categorize VM workloads. In this case, security groups are defined and
populated in the NSX-V Manager. Security groups created in NSX-V Manager must be associated with
dynamic address groups on Panorama, which is completed after the firewalls are deployed. In this case,
NSX-V base functionality is deployed first and the VM-Series firewalls are added later.
You must decide whether a Security Centric or an Operations Centric deployment is right for your
NSX-V environment before continuing. This document describes the procedure for a Security Centric
deployment.
Security Centric—Create the service definition(s) that specify the configuration for the VM-Series
firewall, create dynamic address groups, and create policies to redirect traffic to the VM-Series firewall.
See Create Security Groups and Steering Rules in a Security Centric Deployment.
• (On Panorama) Set up the dynamic address groups that map to security groups on NSX-V Manager. A
security group assembles the specified guests/applications so that you can apply policy to the group.
• (On Panorama) Create the security policy rules to redirect traffic to the Palo Alto Networks service
profile.
Operations Centric—On the NSX-V Manager, create security groups and policies to redirect traffic
to the VM-Series firewall. See Create Security Groups and Steering Rules in an Operations Centric
Deployment.
• (On NSX-V Manager) Set up the security groups. A security group assembles the specified guests/
applications so that you can apply policy to the group.
• (On NSX-V Manager) Create the NSX-V Firewall policies to redirect traffic to the Palo Alto Networks
service profile.
Step 5: Monitor and Maintain Network Security—Panorama provides a comprehensive, graphical view
of network traffic. Using the visibility tools on Panorama—the Application Command Center (ACC),
logs, and the report generation capabilities—you can centrally analyze, investigate and report on all
network activity, identify areas with potential security impact, and translate them into secure application
enablement policies. Refer to the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for more information.
The following additional tasks are not required parts of the main VM-Series for NSX-V deployment
procedure and should only be completed if and when necessary for your deployment.
• Upgrade the Software Version—When upgrading the VM-Series firewalls for NSX-V, you must first
upgrade Panorama before upgrading the firewalls. To upgrade the firewalls, see Upgrade the PAN-OS
Software Version (VM-Series for NSX).

• For upgrading the PAN-OS version on the firewall, do not modify the VM-Series OVA
URL in Panorama > VMware Service Manager.
• Do not use the VMware snapshots functionality on the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V.
Snapshots can impact performance and result in intermittent and inconsistent packet
loss. See VMware’s best practice recommendation with using snapshots. If you need

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 configuration backups, use Panorama or Export named configuration snapshot from
the firewall (Device > Set up > Operations). Using the Export named configuration
snapshot exports the active configuration (running-config.xml) on the firewall and
allows you to save it to any network location.
• Migrate from Operations-Centric configuration to Security-Centric configuration—If you upgrade your
existing Operations-Centric VM-Series firewall for NSX-V deployment and plan to use the Security
Centric workflow going forward, Migrate Operations-Centric Configuration to Security-Centric
Configuration.
If you need to reinstall or remove the VM-Series from your NSX-V deployment, see the How to Remove
VM-Series Integration from VMware NSX-V knowledge base article.

Install the VMware NSX Plugin

To deploy the VM-Series for NSX solution, you must install the VMware NSX plugin on Panorama.

If another version of the plugin is currently installed, selecting Install removes it and installs
the selected version.

STEP 1 | Download the plugin.

1. Select Panorama > Plugins.
2. Select Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.
3. Select Download in the Action column to download the plugin.
4. Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin. Panorama
will alert you when the installation is complete.
When installing the plugin on Panoramas in an HA pair, install the plugin on the passive peer before the
active peer. After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state.
Installing the plugin on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 2 | If you are upgrading your version of the VMware NSX plugin, complete a manual configuration
sync.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Managers.
2. Select NSX Config-Sync in the Action column.
3. Click Yes.
4. When the sync is complete, click OK.

Register the VM-Series Firewall as a Service on the NSX-V

Manager
You need to enable communication between Panorama and the NSX-V Manager and then register the VM-
Series firewall as a service on the NSX-V Manager. When registered, the VM-Series firewall is added to the
list of network services that can be transparently deployed as a service by the NSX-V Manager.
• Enable Communication Between the NSX-V Manager and Panorama
• Create Template(s) and Device Group(s) on Panorama
• Create the Service Definitions on Panorama

Enable Communication Between the NSX-V Manager and Panorama

To automate the provisioning of the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V, enable communication between the
NSX-V Manager and Panorama. This is a one-time setup, and only needs to be modified if the IP address of
the NSX-V Manager changes or if the capacity license for deploying the VM-Series firewall is exceeded.

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STEP 1 | (Optional) Bypass proxy server settings, configured on Panorama under Panorama > Setup >
Services > Proxy Server, for communication between Panorama and NSX-V Manager. This
command allows Panorama to communicate directly with NSX-V Manager while maintaining
proxied communication for other services. This feature requires Panorama plugin for VMware
NSX 2.0.5.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command to enable or disable proxy bypass.
admin@Panorama> request plugins vmware_nsx global proxy bypass {yes | no}
Select yes to enable proxy bypass and no to disable proxy bypass.

STEP 2 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

Using a secure connection (https) from a web browser, log in using the IP address and password you
assigned during initial configuration (https://<IP address>).

STEP 3 | Set up access to the NSX-V Manager.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Managers and click Add.
2. Enter the Service Manager Name.
On the NSX-V Manager, this name displays in the Service Manager column on Networking &
Security > Service Definitions > Service Managers.
3. (Optional) Add a Description that identifies the VM-Series firewall as a service.
4. Enter the NSX Manager URL—IP address or FQDN—at which to access the NSX-V Manager.
5. Enter the NSX Manager Login credentials—the username and password for your Enterprise
Administrator role on NSX Manager. This allows Panorama to authenticate with the NSX-V Manager.

The ampersand (&) special character is not supported in the NSX-V manager account
password. If a password includes an ampersand, the connection between Panorama
and NSX-V manager fails.

If you change your NSX-V Manager login password, ensure that you update the
password on Panorama immediately. An incorrect password breaks the connection
between Panorama and NSX-V Manager. Panorama does not receive updates about
changes to your deployment while disconnected from NSX-V Manager.
6. Click OK.

STEP 4 | Commit your changes to Panorama.

Select Commit and Commit Type: Panorama.

STEP 5 | Verify the connection status on Panorama.

To view the connection status between Panorama and the NSX-V Manager.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Managers.
2. Verify the message in the Status column.
When the connection is successful, the status displays as Registered. This indicates that Panorama
and the NSX-V Manager are in sync and the VM-Series firewall is registered as a service on the NSX-
V Manager.
The unsuccessful status messages are:

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 • Not connected: Unable to reach/establish a network connection to the NSX-V Manager.
• Invalid Credentials: The access credentials (username and/or password) are incorrect.
• Out of sync: The configuration settings defined on Panorama are different from what is defined
on the NSX-V Manager.Click the link for details on the reasons for failure. For example, NSX-
V Manager may have a service definition with the same name as defined on Panorama. To fix
the error, use the service definition name listed in the error message to validate the service
definition on the NSX-V Manager. Until the configuration on Panorama and the NSX-V Manager is
synchronized, you cannot add a new service definition on Panorama.
• No service/ No service profile: Indicates an incomplete configuration on the NSX-V Manager.

If you make a change and need to manually sync, see 10

STEP 6 | Verify that the firewall is registered as a service on the NSX-V Manager.
1. On the vSphere web client, select Networking & Security > Service Definitions > Service Managers.

2. Verify that Palo Alto Networks displays as a vendor in the list of services available for installation.

STEP 7 | If you are running VMware NSX plugin 2.0.4 or later, you can configure Panorama to
automatically synchronize dynamic objects with NSX-V manager as if you issued an
Synchronize Dynamic Objects. By default, the DAG Sync interval is disabled and the value
is set to zero (0). To enable the DAG Sync, set the interval between one hour and 72 hours.
Setting a value of zero hours disables the DAG sync. To configure or disable the interval,
complete the following procedure.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command.
request plugins vmware_nsx nsx_v dag-sync-interval interval <interval-in-
hours>
You can view the configured value with the following show command.
show plugins vmware_nsx nsx_v dag-sync-interval

STEP 8 | (Optional) In large NSX-V environments with tens of thousands of IP addresses, allowing
Panorama enough time to retrieve IP address updates from NSX-V Manager is essential. You
can now configure the amount of time—up to 10 minutes—Panorama has to retrieve updates
from NSX-V Manager. By default, Panorama waits up to two minutes (120 seconds) to get
IP address updates from NSX-V Manager. However, if Panorama does not retrieve all the IP
address updates within the alloted two minutes, Panorama times out and the update fails.
You can determine if you are experiencing curl call failures through the Panorama error log. Curl call
failures return the following message.

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 2019-05-23 06:50:15.780 -0700 ERROR: Curl call to NSX Manager failed

Complete the following procedure to increase the amount of time Panorama has to process updates.
This feature requires Panorama plugin for VMware NSX 2.0.5.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command to set the curl call timeout. You can set the time out from 30
seconds to 600 seconds (10 minutes).
admin@Panorama> request plugins vmware_nsx global curl-timeout timeout
<seconds>

If Panorama is part of an HA pair, configure the same timeout value on the active and
passive Panorama peers.

Create Template(s), Template Stack(s), and Device Group(s) on

Panorama
To manage the VM-Series firewalls for NSX-V using Panorama, the firewalls must belong to a device
group and a template that is a member of a template stack. Device groups allow you to assemble firewalls
that need similar policies and objects as a logical unit; the configuration is defined using the Objects and
Policies tabs on Panorama. Use template stacks to configure the settings that are required for the VM-
Series firewalls to operate on the network and associate; the configuration is defined using the Device and
Network tabs on Panorama. And each template stack with zones used in your NSX-V configuration on
Panorama must be associated with a service definition; at a minimum, you must create a zone within the
template stack so that the NSX-V Manager can redirect traffic to the VM-Series firewall.
Each virtual wire zone belonging to the NSX-related template becomes available as a service profile on the
Service Composer on the NSX-V Manager. When you create NSX-related zone on Panorama, Panorama
pushes the zone as a part of the template stack configuration to the firewall, and the firewall automatically
creates a pair of virtual wire subinterfaces, for example ethernet1/1.3 and ethernet 1/2.3, to isolate traffic
for a tenant or sub-tenant. On the firewall, you can then Create Security Groups and Steering Rules to
secure traffic that arrives on the virtual wire subinterface pair that maps to the zone.
If you are new to Panorama, refer to the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for instructions on setting up
Panorama.

STEP 1 | Add a device group or a device group hierarchy.

1. Select Panorama > Device Groups, and click Add. You can also create a device group hierarchy.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the device group.
3. Click OK.
After the firewalls are deployed and provisioned, they will display under Panorama > Managed
Devices and will be listed in the device group.
4. Click Commit and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 2 | Add a template.

1. Select Panorama > Templates, and click Add.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the template.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

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STEP 3 | Add a template stack.
1. Select Panorama > Templates, and click Add Stack.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the template stack.
3. Click Add under Templates and select the template you created above.
4. Click OK.
5. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 4 | Create the zone(s) for each template.

Each zone is mapped to a service profile on NSX-V Manager. To qualify, a zone must be of the virtual
wire type and a template associated with a service definition.

For a single-tenant deployment, create one zone. If you have multi-tenant deployment,
create a zone for each sub-tenant.

You can add up to 32 zones in each template.

1. Select Network > Zones.
2. Select the correct template in the Template drop-down.
3. Select Add and enter a zone Name.
4. Set the interface Type to Virtual Wire.
5. Click OK.
6. Verify that the zones are attached to the correct template.
7. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.
Panorama creates a corresponding service profile on NSX-V Manager for each qualified zone upon
commit.

Create the Service Definitions on Panorama

A service definition specifies the configuration for the VM-Series firewalls installed on each host in an ESXi
cluster. The service definition must include the device group, the license auth-codes for deploying the VM-
Series firewalls, and a template stack with one or more NSX-V service profile zones. Typically, you create a
service definition for the VM-Series firewall in an ESXi cluster. If you have different ESXi clusters that have
workloads that require the VM-Series firewall to handle traffic differently, you can create multiple service
definitions on Panorama.
On a Panorama commit, each service definition is registered on the NSX-V Manager. On registration with
the NSX-V Manager, the NetX API implementation makes each zone (defined within the template stack)
available for redirecting traffic. When you deploy the VM-Series firewalls, you can select the profile name
for the VM-Series firewall(s) to which you want to redirect traffic from the objects in NSX-V security
groups. The appropriately configured firewall can then inspect the traffic and enforce policy from the virtual
machines that belong to the NSX-V security groups.

STEP 1 | (Optional) Configure a Notify Group

Create a notify group by specifying devices groups that should be notified of changes in the virtual
environment. The firewalls included in the specified device groups receive a real-time update of security
groups and IP addresses of guest VMs in them. The firewalls use this update to determine the most
current list of members that constitute dynamic address groups referenced in policy
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Notify Group and click Add.
2. Give your Notify Group a descriptive Name.

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 3. Select the boxes of all devices groups that should be notified of changes to the virtual environment.
If a device group does not have a check box available, it means that the device group is automatically
included by virtue of the device group hierarchy.
4. Click OK.

STEP 2 | Add a new service definition.

You can create up to 32 service definitions on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Definitions.

2. Select Add to create a new service definition. The maximum number of characters in a service
definition name is 40.
On the NSX-V Manager, this service definition name displays in the Services column on Networking
& Security > Service Definitions > Services.
3. (Optional) Add a Description that identifies the function or purpose for the VM-Series firewalls that
will be deployed using this service definition.

STEP 3 | Assign a device group and a template stack to the service definition.
Make sure to Create the zone(s) for each template stack.
Because the firewalls deployed in this solution will be centrally administered from Panorama, you must
specify the Device Group and the Template Stack that the firewalls belong to. All the firewalls that are
deployed using this service definition belong to the specified template stack and device group.
1. Select the device group or device group hierarchy in the Device Group drop-down.
2. Select the template stack in the Template drop-down.

You cannot reuse a template stack or a device group assigned to one service
definition in another service definition.

STEP 4 | Specify the location of the OVF file.

Download the zip file, unzip it to extract and save the .ovf, mf and .vmdk files to the same directory.
Both the files are used to deploy each instance of the firewall.
If needed, modify the security settings on the server so that you can download the file types. For
example, on the IIS server modify the Mime Types configuration; on an Apache server edit the .htaccess
file.

Do not change the Panorama service definition OVF path after a successful NSX Service
Deployment of VM-Series firewalls. Changing the OVF path, after a successful VM-
Series firewall deployment, can result in a NSX Service Deployment failed state. You may
resolve this failure in NSX-V Manager, however this may cause all VM-Series firewalls to
redeploy.

It is recommended that you use an OVF path name that scales and allows you to change the base image
without impacting your deployed firewalls. Instead of a path such as https://acme.com/software/PA-
VM-NST.9.1.0.ovf, use something such as https://acme.com/software/PanoSvcDef1-Cluster1.ovf.
Using a static path reference will eliminate any future need to change the OVF path. It is recommended
to create a path for each Panorama service definition (vSphere cluster) in your deployment and change
the PAN-OS base images references on the web server as needed.
To use a different OVF for an existing Service Definition, change the reference link on the web server to
point to another OVF. Changing the web server OVF reference links will not impact existing NSX Service

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 Deployments. The new OVF path will take affect on new service deployments or any hosts introduced
into the vSphere Cluster.

In VM-Series OVF URL, add the location of the web server that hosts the ovf file. Both http and https
are supported protocols. For example, enter https://acme.com/software/PA-VM-NSX.9.1.0.ovf

Select the ovf file that matches the VM-Series model you plan to deploy. For the VM-200,
use vm100.ovf. For the VM-1000-HV, use vm300.ovf.

You can use the same ovf version or different versions across service definitions. Using different ovf
versions across service definitions allows you to vary the PAN-OS version on the VM-Series firewalls in
different ESXi clusters.

STEP 5 | (Optional) Select a Notify Group.

To create context awareness between the virtual and security environments so that policy is consistently
applied to all traffic steered to the firewalls, select the device groups to notify when there are changes in
the virtual environment.
Select each device group to which you want to enable notifications in the Notify Device Groups
drop-down. If a device group does not have a checkbox available, it means that the device group is
automatically included by virtue of the device group hierarchy.
The firewalls included in the specified device groups receive a real-time update of security groups and IP
addresses. The firewalls use this update to determine the most current list of members that constitute
dynamic address groups referenced in policy.

STEP 6 | To automatically retrieve a device certificate when the VM-Series firewall is deployed by NSX
Manager, configure the device certificate.
1. If you have not done so already, log in to the Customer Support Portal and generate a Registration
PIN and PIN ID.
2. Under Device Certificate, click Enable.
3. Copy the PIN ID and enter it into the Device Certificate PIN ID field.
4. Reenter the PIN ID into the Confirm Device Certificate PIN ID field.
5. Copy the Registration ID and enter it into the Device Certificate PIN Value field.
6. Reenter the Registration ID into the Confirm Device Certificate PIN Value field.

STEP 7 | Save the service definition and attach it to the service manager.
1. Click OK.
2. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Manager and click the link of the service manager
name.

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 3. Under Service Definitions, click Add and select your service definition from the drop-down.
4. Click OK.
5. Select Commit and Commit Type: Panorama.
Committing the changes triggers the process of registering each service definition as a security
service on the NSX-V Manager.

STEP 8 | Add the authorization code to license the firewalls.

The auth-code must be for the VM-Series model NSX bundle; for example, PAN-VM-300-
PERP- BND-NSX.

Verify that the order quantity/ capacity is adequate to support the number of firewall you need to
deploy in your network.
1. Select Panorama > Device Groups and choose the device group you associated with the service
definition you just created.
2. Under Dynamically Added Device Properties, add the authorization code you received with your
order fulfillment email and select a PAN-OS software version from the SW Version drop-down.
When a new firewall is deployed under NSX-V and added to the selected device group, the
authorization code is applied and the firewall is upgraded to the select version of PAN-OS.
On the support portal, you can view the total number of firewalls that you are authorized to deploy
and the ratio of the number of licenses that have been used to the total number of licenses enabled
by your auth-code.
3. Synchronize the configuration between Panorama and the NSX-V Manager.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Managers.
2. Select NSX Config-Sync under the Actions column.
3. Click Yes to confirm the sync.

STEP 9 | Verify that the service definition and the NSX-V service profile that you defined on Panorama
are registered on the NSX-V Manager.
1. On the NSX-V Manager, to verify that the service definition is available, select Networking &
Security > Service Definitions > Services. The service definition is listed as a Service on the NSX-V
Manager.

2. To verify that the zones are available on the NSX-V Manager:

1. Select Networking and Security > Service Composer > Security Policies, and click Create Security
Policy.
2. Select Network Introspection Services, and click Add.
3. In the Service Name drop-down, select a Palo Alto Networks service that you verified in the step
above.
4. In the Profile drop-down, verify that you can view all the zones you defined for that service
definition on Panorama.

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STEP 10 | (Optional) Synchronize the configuration between Panorama and the NSX-V Manager.
If you add or update the service definitions configured on Panorama, select NSX Config Sync in the
Action column under Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Managers to synchronize the changes on
the NSX-V Manager.

This link is not available if you have any pending commits on Panorama.

If the synchronization fails, view the details to know whether to fix the error on Panorama or on the
NSX-V Manager. For example, if you delete a service definition on Panorama, but the service definition
cannot be deleted from the NSX-V Manager because it is referenced in a rule on the NSX-V Manager,
the synchronization will fail with an error message that indicates the reason for failure.

Deploy the VM-Series Firewall

After registering the VM-Series firewall as a service (Palo Alto Networks NGFW) on the NSX-V Manager
and creating security groups and steering rules, complete the following tasks on the NSX-V Manager.
• Define an IP Address Pool (Required only if the management interface is not configured for DHCP)
• Prepare the ESXi Host for the VM-Series Firewall
• Deploy the Palo Alto Networks NGFW Service
• Enable Large Receive Offload

Support for vMotion of guest virtual machines in the vSphere/NSX-V Environment

When a guest VM is vMotioned from one host to another within a cluster, the target host
NSX-V distributed firewall will steer all new sessions to the VM-Series firewall on the
destination host. To ensure that all active (existing sessions) remain uninterrupted during
and after the guest vMotion, the NSX-V Manager polls the VM-Series firewall for existing
allowed sessions and then shares these sessions with the NSX-V distributed firewall on the
destination host. All existing sessions that were allowed by the original VM-Series will be
allowed by the NSX-V distributed firewall (filtering module) on the destination host without
steering to the target host VM-Series firewall to prevent session loss.
The VM-Series firewall runs as a service on each host of the cluster and therefore is never
vMotioned.

Define an IP Address Pool

You can configure the management interface on the VM-Series firewall to use an IP address from a static IP
pool or to be a DHCP client.

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 If you opt to use an IP pool, which is a range of (static) IP addresses that are reserved for establishing
management access to the VM-Series firewalls, when the NSX-V Manager deploys a new VM-Series
firewall, the first available IP address from this range is assigned to the management interface of the
firewall.

STEP 1 | In the Networking & Security Inventory, select the NSX Manager, and double click to open the
configuration details of the NSX-V Manager.

STEP 2 | Select Manage > Grouping Objects > IP Pools.

STEP 3 | Click Add IP Pool and specify the network access details requested in the screen including the
range of static IP addresses that you want to use for the Palo Alto Networks NGFW.

Prepare the ESXi Host for the VM-Series Firewall

Before you deploy the VM-Series firewall, each host in the cluster must have the necessary NSX-V
components that allow the NSX-V firewall and the VM-Series firewall to work together. The NSX-V
Manager will install the components— the Ethernet Adapter Module (.eam) and the SDK —required to
deploy the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | On the NSX-V Manager, select Networking and Security > Installation > Host Preparation.

STEP 2 | Click Install and verify that the installation status is successful.

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 As new ESXi hosts are added to a cluster, this process is automated and the necessary
NSX-V components are automatically installed on each guest on the ESXi host.

STEP 3 | If the Installation Status is not ready or a warning displays on screen, click the Resolve link. To
monitor the progress of the re-installation attempt, click the More Tasks link and look for the
successful completion of the following tasks:

Deploy the Palo Alto Networks NGFW Service

Use the following steps to automate the process of deploying an instance of the VM-Series firewall for
NSX-V on each ESXi host in the specified cluster.

STEP 1 | Select Networking and Security > Installation > Service Deployments.

STEP 2 | Click New Service Deployment (green plus icon), and select the service definition for the Palo
Alto Networks next generation firewall you want to deploy, Palo Alto Networks NGFW service
in this example. Click Next.

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STEP 3 | Select the Datacenter and the cluster(s) on which the service will be deployed. One instance of
the firewall will be deployed on each host in the selected cluster(s).

STEP 4 | Select the datastore from which to allocate disk space for the firewall. Select one of the
following options depending on your deployment:
• If you have allocated shared storage for the cluster, select an available shared datastore.
• If you have not allocated shared storage for the cluster, select the Specified-on-host option. Be sure
to select the storage on each ESXi host in the cluster. Also select the network that will be used for
the management traffic on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 5 | Select the port group that provides management network traffic access to the firewall.

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STEP 6 | Select the IP address pool assignment.
• Use IP Pool (Define an IP Address Pool) from which to assign a management IP address for each
firewall when it is being deployed.
• Use DHCP on the management interface.

If you use an IP pool, on deployment, the display name for the VM-Series firewall on
Panorama includes the hostname of the ESXi host. For example: PA-VM:10.5.1.120.

If you use DHCP, the display name for the VM-Series firewall does not include the name of the ESXi
host.

STEP 7 | Review the configuration and click Finish.

STEP 8 | Verify that the NSX-V Manager reports the Installation Status as Successful. This process can
take a while; click the More tasks link on vCenter to monitor the progress of the installation.

If the installation of VM-Series fails, the error message is displayed on the Installation
Status column. You can also use the Tasks tab and the Log Browser on the NSX-V
Manager to view the details for the failure and refer to the VMware documentation for
troubleshooting steps.

STEP 9 | Verify that the firewall is successfully deployed.

1. On the vCenter server, select Hosts and Clusters to check that every host in the cluster(s) has one
instance of the firewall.

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 2. View the management IP address(es) and the PAN-OS version running on the firewall directly from
vCenter server. VMware Tools is bundled with the PAN-OS software image and is automatically
enabled when you launch the VM-Series firewall.
With VMware Tools, you can view resource utilization metrics on hard disk, memory, and CPU, and
use these metrics to enable alarms or actions on the vCenter server. The heartbeats allow you to
verify that the firewall is live and trigger actions to ensure high availability. You can also perform a
graceful shutdown and restart of the firewall using the power off function on vCenter.

STEP 10 | Access the Panorama web interface to make sure that the VM-Series firewalls are connected
and synchronized with Panorama.
1. Select Panorama > Managed Devices to verify that the firewalls are connected and synchronized.
If the firewall gets its IP address from an IP Pool, the Display Name for the firewall includes the
hostname of the ESXi server on which it is deployed, for example PA-VM:ESX1.Sydney. If the firewall
gets a DHCP assigned IP address, the hostname of the ESXi server does not display.

If the ESXi server hostname is longer than 32 characters, the hostname will not be
displayed in Panorama. Instead, only PA-VM is displayed.

2. Click Commit, and select Commit Type as Panorama.

A periodic Panorama commit is required to ensure that Panorama saves the device
serial numbers to configuration. If you reboot Panorama without committing the
changes, the managed devices will not connect back to Panorama; although the
Device Group will display the list of devices, the devices will not display in Panorama >
Managed Devices.

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STEP 11 | Verify that the capacity license is applied and apply any additional licenses that you have
purchased. At a minimum, you must activate the support license on each firewall.

When Panorama does not have internet access (Offline), you must manually license each
firewall, and then add the serial number of the firewall to Panorama so that it is registered
as a managed device, and can receive the template stack and device group settings from
Panorama. See Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX for more
information.

1. Select Panorama > Device Deployment > Licenses to verify that the VM-Series capacity license is
applied.

2. To apply additional licenses on the VM-Series firewalls:

• Click Activate on Panorama > Device Deployment > Licenses.
• Find or filter for the firewall, and in the Auth Code column, enter the authorization code for the
license to activate. Only one authorization code can be entered at a time, for each firewall.

3. Click Activate, and verify that the result of the license activation was successful.

STEP 12 | (Optional) Upgrade the PAN-OS version on the VM-Series firewalls, see Upgrade the PAN-OS
Software Version (VM-Series for NSX).

STEP 13 | Add guest VMs to the right security groups for traffic from those VMs to be redirected to the
VM-Series firewall.
1. Log in to vCenter.
2. Select Networking & Security > Service Composer > Security Groups.
3. Highlight the security group to which you want to assign guest VMs and click the Edit Security Group
icon.
4. Select Define dynamic membership and click the + icon.
5. Click Add.
6. Define the dynamic membership criteria that the guest VMs must meet to be part of the selected
security group. The criteria you use depends on your network deployment. For example, you might
choose to group VMs by an Entity such as Logical Switch or Distributed Port Group.

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 7. Click Finish.
8. Repeat this procedure for each security group that should have its traffic redirected to the VM-Series
firewall.

Enable Large Receive Offload

Large receive offload (LRO) is a technique for increasing the inbound throughput on high-bandwidth
network connections by decreasing CPU overhead. Without LRO, the firewall drops packets larger than
the configured maximum transmission unit MTU, which is a maximum of 9216 bytes when the firewall
is enabled for jumbo frames. With LRO enabled, the firewall accepts packets up to 64KB in size and the
does not drop packets larger than the configured MTU. Instead, it segments the larger packets into smaller
chunks of 9000 bytes. For example, if the VM1 sends a 64KB packet to VM2 and the packet is divided into
eight segments.

LRO is disabled by default on new NSX-V deployments and upon upgrade. You can enable or disable LRO
and view the LRO status on through the CLI. Enabling LRO on the VM-Series firewall automatically enables
jumbo frames. Additionally, LRO and TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO) must be enabled on VMXNET3
network adapter on the VM-Series firewall host machine.

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STEP 1 | Verify that large receive offload and TCP segmentation offload is enabled on the host.
For information about LRO and TSO on the host machine, see theVMware vSphere documentation.
1. Log in to vSphere and navigate to your host machine.
2. Select Manage > Settings > System > Advanced System Settings.
3. Locate the following parameters and verify that their value is set 1. A 1 indicates that the parameter
is enabled on the VMXNET3 adapter.
• For LRO—Net.Vmxnet3HwLRO
• For TSO—Net.UseHwTSO and Net.UseHwTSO6

STEP 2 | Enable LRO on the VM-Series firewall.

1. Access the firewall CLI.
2. Use the following command to enable LRO:

admin@PA-VM> set system setting lro enable

3. Reboot the firewall using the following command:

> request restart system

4. Verify the LRO is enabled with the following command:

admin@PA-VM> show system setting lro

Device LRO mode: on
Current device mtu size: 9192

You can disable LRO using the command set system setting lro disable.

Create Security Groups and Steering Rules

The following topics describe how to create security groups and policies to steer traffic to the VM-Series
firewall. Follow the link below that matches your deployment process—Security Centric or Operations
Centric.
• Create Security Groups and Steering Rules in a Security Centric Deployment
• Create Security Groups and Steering Rules in an Operations Centric Deployment

Create Security Groups and Steering Rules in a Security Centric

Deployment
The following topics describe how to create policies on Panorama to steer traffic to the VM-Series firewall.
In order for the VM-Series firewall to secure traffic, you must complete the following tasks:
• Set Up Dynamic Address Groups on Panorama
• Create Steering Rules on Panorama
Set Up Dynamic Address Groups on Panorama
A security group is a logical container that assembles guests across multiple ESXi hosts in the cluster. When
you create a dynamic address group that meets the right criteria and commit your changes, a corresponding
security group is created on the NSX-V Manager. Creating security groups are required to manage and

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 secure the guests; to understand how security groups enable policy enforcement, see Policy Enforcement
using Dynamic Address Groups.

STEP 1 | Configure a dynamic address group for each security group required for your deployment.

Shared dynamic address groups are not supported on the VM-Series for VMware NSX-V.

1. Select Objects > Address Groups.

2. Verify that you are configuring the dynamic address groups in a device group associated with an
NSX-V service definition.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and Description for the address group.
4. Select Type as Dynamic.
5. Define the match criteria.

For the dynamic address group to become a security group in NSX-V Manager, the
match criteria string must be enclosed in single quotes with the prefix _nsx_ followed
by the exact name of the Address Group. For example, ‘_nsx_PAN_APP_NSX’.
6. Repeat this process for each security group you require.

STEP 2 | Verify that the corresponding security groups are created on the NSX-V Manager.
1. Select Network and Security > Service Composer > Security Groups.
2. Verify that your dynamic address groups appear as security groups on the Security Groups list. Each
security group is prefixed with your service definition followed by an underscore and the dynamic
address group name.

Create Steering Rules on Panorama

Do not apply the traffic redirection policies unless you understand how rules work on the NSX-V Manager
as well as on the VM-Series firewall and Panorama. The default policy on the VM-Series firewall is set to

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 deny all traffic, which means that all traffic redirected to the VM-Series firewall will be dropped. To create
policies on Panorama and push them to the VM-Series firewall, see Apply Policies to the VM-Series Firewall.
Create security policy rules in the associated device group. For each security rule set the Rule Type to
Intrazone, select one zone in the associated template stack, and select the dynamic address groups as
the source and destination. Creating a qualifying security policy in Panorama helps in the creation of a
corresponding steering rule on NSX-V Manager upon steering rule generation and commit in Panorama.

STEP 1 | Create security policy.

1. In Panorama, select Policies > Security > Pre Rules.
2. Verify that you are configuring the dynamic address groups in a device group associated with an
NSX-V service definition.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and Description for your security policy rule.
4. Set the Rule Type to intrazone (Devices with PAN-OS 6.1 or later).
5. In the Source tab, set the source zone to the zone from the template stack associated with the
service definition. Then select a dynamic address group (NSX-V security group) you created
previously as the Source Address. Do not add any static address groups, IP ranges, or netmasks as a
Source Address.
6. In the Destination tab, Panorama does not allow you to set a destination zone because you set the
rule type to intrazone. Then select a dynamic address group (NSX-V security group) you created
previously as the Destination Address. Do not add any static address groups, IP ranges, or netmasks
as a Destination Address.
7. Click OK.
8. Repeat steps 1 through 7 for each steering rule you require.
9. Commit your changes.

STEP 2 | Generate steering rules.

Panorama generates a steering rule for each qualifying security policy rule.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Steering Rules.
2. Select Auto-Generate Steering Rules.
Panorama will populate the list of steering rules based on qualified security policy rules in the device
group attached in the service definition.

3. (Optional) Modify the NSX Traffic Direction and add NSX-V Services to a Steering Rule.
By default, the NSX Traffic Direction is set to inout and no NSX-V Services are selected. When no
NSX-V Services are specified, any type of traffic is redirected to the VM-Series firewall.
1. Select the auto-generated steering to be modified.
2. To change the traffic direction, select the direction from the NSX Traffic Direction drop-down.
3. Click Add under NSX Services and choose a service from the Services drop-down. Repeat this
step to add additional services.
4. Click OK.
4. If you deleted any steering rules, click Auto-Generate Steering Rules before committing your
changes.
5. Commit your changes.

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STEP 3 | Verify that the corresponding traffic steering rules were created on the NSX-V Manager.
1. Select Network and Security > Firewall > Configuration > Partner Security Services.
2. Confirm that the traffic steering rules your created on Panorama are listed.

Create Security Groups and Steering Rules in an Operations Centric

Deployment
In an operations-centric deployment, you create security groups and traffic redirection rules on the NSX-
V Manager instead of Panorama. Then your security rules configured on Panorama enforce the traffic
redirected to the VM-Series firewall. Complete the following tasks when deploying the VM-Series firewall
for NSX-V in an operations-centric deployment:
• Set Up Security Groups on the NSX-V Manager
• Create Steering Rules on NSX-V Manager
Set Up Security Groups on the NSX-V Manager
A security group is a logical container that assembles guests across multiple ESXi hosts in the cluster.
Creating security groups makes it easier to manage and secure the guests. The VM-Series firewall can
secure static VM membership, using IP Sets that include subnets and ranges, and dynamic VM membership,
using tags. When using an IP Set as the membership criteriaTo understand how security groups enable
policy enforcement, see Policy Enforcement using Dynamic Address Groups.

STEP 1 | Log in to the vSphere user interface.

STEP 2 | Select Networking and Security > Service Composer > Security Groups, and add a New
Security Group.

STEP 3 | Add a Name and Description. This name will display in the match criteria list when defining
dynamic address groups on Panorama.

STEP 4 | Select the guests that constitute the security group. You can either add members
dynamically or statically. You can Define Dynamic Membership by matching on security tags
(recommended), or statically by adding IP Sets under Select the Objects to Include. In the
following screenshot, the guests that belong to the security group are selected using the
Objects Type: Virtual Machine option.

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STEP 5 | Review the details and click OK to create the security group.

Create Steering Rules on NSX-V Manager

Do not apply the traffic redirection policies unless you understand how rules work on the NSX-V Manager
as well as on the VM-Series firewall and Panorama. The default policy on the VM-Series firewall is set to
deny all traffic, which means that all traffic redirected to the VM-Series firewall will be dropped. To create
policies on Panorama and push them to the VM-Series firewall, see Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series
Firewall.

STEP 1 | Select Networking and Security > Service Composer > Security Policies and click Create
Security Policy ( ).

STEP 2 | Add a rule Name.

STEP 3 | Add a network introspective service.

1. Select Network Introspection Service and click the green plus icon.
2. Name the network introspection service and add a Description.
3. Select Redirect to Service under Action.
4. Select your service definition under Service Name.
5. Select you service profile under Profile.
6. Select a Source and a Destination. By default, traffic source is set to Policy’s Security Groups. This
option dynamically includes all security groups where this policy is applied. Alternatively, you can
choose to have traffic from any source redirected to the firewall or specify certain security groups.
However, vSphere requires that Source or Destination (or bother) be set Policy’s Security Group.
If you select Any or specific security groups for Destination, then Source must be set to Policy’s
Security Group.
7. (Optional) Select specific network services to be redirected to the firewall. If you choose any service
or services, all other traffic will not be redirect to the firewall.
8. Click OK.
9. Repeat steps 1 through 6 to add additional network introspection services.

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 10.Click Finish to save your configuration.

STEP 4 | Apply redirection policy to security groups.

1. Highlight a security policy by clicking it.
2. Select Networking and Security > Service Composer > Security Policies and click Apply Security
Policy ( ).
3. Apply the redirection rules by checking all appropriate zones.
4. Click OK.

Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall

Now that you have created the steering rules on Panorama and pushed them to the NSX-V Manager, you
can now use Panorama for centrally administering policies on the VM-Series firewalls.
To manage centralized policy, attach the dynamic address group as a source or destination address in
security policy and push it to the firewalls; the firewalls can dynamically retrieve the IP addresses of the
virtual machines that are included in each security group to enforce compliance for traffic that originates
from or is destined to the virtual machines in the specified group.

STEP 1 | Log in to Panorama.

STEP 2 | (Operations-centric deployments only) Create dynamic-address groups.

Skip this step for security-centric deployments. If you are performing a security-centric
deployment, you have already created dynamic-address groups.

After creating the security redirection rules on the NSX-V Manager, the names of the security groups
that are referenced in security policy will be available on Panorama.

Shared dynamic address groups are not supported on the VM-Series for VMware NSX-V.

1. Select Objects > Address Groups.

2. Select the Device Group you created for managing your VM-Series on NSX-V firewall from the
Device Group drop-down.

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 3. Click Add and enter a Name and Description for the dynamic address group.
4. Select Type as Dynamic.
5. Add Match Criteria to your dynamic address group.

Some browser extensions may block API calls between Panorama and NSX-V which
prevents Panorama from receiving match criteria. If Panorama displays no match
criteria and you are using browser extensions, disable the extensions and Synchronize
Dynamic Objects to populate the tags available to Panorama.
6. Click Add Match Criteria.
7. Select the And or Or operator and click the plus (+) icon next to the security group name to add it to
the dynamic address group.

The security groups that display in the match criteria dialog are derived from the
groups you defined on the Distributed Firewall Partner Security Services or on
the Service Composer on the NSX-V Manager. Only the security groups that are
referenced in the security policies and from which traffic is redirected to the VM-Series
firewall are available here.

8. Click OK.
9. Repeat these steps to create the appropriate number of dynamic address groups required for your
deployment.
10.Commit your changes.

STEP 3 | Create security policy rules.

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 1. Select Policies > Security > Prerules.
2.
Select the Device Group that you created for managing the VM-Series
firewalls for NSX-V in Register the VM-Series Firewall as a Service on the NSX-V Manager.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the rule. In this example, the security rule allows all
traffic between the WebFrontEnd servers and the Application servers.
4. Select the Source Zone and Destination Zone. The zone name must be the same in both columns.
5. For the Source Address and Destination Address, select or type in an address, address group
or region. In this example, we select an address group, the Dynamic address group you created
previously.

6. Select the Application to allow. In this example, we create an Application Group that includes a static
group of specific applications that are grouped together.
1. Click Add and select New Application Group.
2. Click Add to select the application to include in the group. In this example, we select the following:
3. Click OK to create the application group.

7. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
for antivirus, anti-spyware, and vulnerability protection, under Profiles.
8. Repeats the steps above to create the pertinent policy rules.
9. Click Commit, select Commit Type as Panorama. Click OK.

STEP 4 | Apply the policies to the VM-Series firewalls for NSX-V.

1. Click Commit, and select Commit Type Device Groups.

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 2. Select the device group, NSX-V Device Group in this example and click OK.
3. Verify that the commit is successful.

STEP 5 | Validate that the members of the dynamic address group are populated on the VM-Series
firewall.
1. From Panorama, switch device context to launch the web interface of a firewall to which you pushed
policies.

2. On the VM-Series firewall, select Policies > Security, and select a rule.
3. Select the drop-down arrow next to the address group link, and select Inspect. You can also verify
that the match criteria is accurate.

4. Click the more link and verify that the list of registered IP addresses is displayed.

Policy will be enforced for all IP addresses that belong to this address group, and are displayed here.

STEP 6 | (Optional) Use template to push a base configuration for network and device configuration such
as DNS server, NTP server, Syslog server, and login banner.
Refer to the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for information on using templates.

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STEP 7 | Create a Zone Protection profile and attach it to a zone.
A zone protection profile provides flood protection and has the ability to protect against port scanning,
port sweeps and packet-based attacks. It allows you to secure intra-tier and inter-tier traffic between
virtual machines within your data center and traffic from the Internet that is destined to the virtual
machines (workloads) in your data center.
1. Select your Template.
2. Select Network > Network Profiles > Zone Protection to add and configure a new profile.
3. Select Network > Zones, click the default-zone listed and select the profile in the Zone Protection
Profile drop down.

STEP 8 | Create a DoS Protection profile and attach it to DoS Protection policy rule.
1. Select your Device Group.
2. Select Objects > Security Profiles > DoS Protection to add and configure a new profile.
• A classified profile allows the creation of a threshold that applies to a single source IP. For
example, you can configure a max session rate for an IP address that matched the policy, and then
block that single IP address once the threshold is triggered.
• An aggregate profile allows the creation of a max session rate for all packets matching the policy.
The threshold applies to new session rate for all IP addresses combined. Once the threshold is
triggered it affects all traffic that matches the policy.
3. Create a new DoS Protection policy rule in Policy > DoS Protection, and attach the new profile to it.

Steer Traffic from Guests that are not Running VMware Tools
VMware Tools contains a utility that allows the NSX-V Manager to collect the IP address(es) of each guest
running in the cluster. NSX-V Manager uses the IP address as a match criterion to steer traffic to the VM-
Series firewall. If you do not have VMware tools installed on each guest, the IP address(es) of the guest is
unavailable to the NSX-V Manager and traffic cannot be steered to the VM-Series firewall.
The following steps allow you to manually provision guests without VMware Tools so that traffic from each
of these guests can be managed by the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | Create an IP set that includes the guests that need to be secured by the VM-Series firewall.
This IP set will be used as the source or destination object in an NSX-V distributed firewall rule
in Step 2 below.
1. Select NSX Managers > Manage > Grouping Objects > IP Sets.
2. Click Add and enter the IP address of each guest that does not have VMware tools installed, and
needs to be secured by the VM-Series firewall. Use commas to separate individual IP addresses; IP
ranges or subnets are not valid.

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STEP 2 | Attach the IP sets to the Security Groups on NSX-V, to enforce policy.
1. Select Networking and Security > Service Composer > Security Groups.
2. Select Select objects to include > IP Sets, add the IP set object to include.

What is Multi-NSX Manager Support on the VM-Series for NSX-

V?
Multi-NSX Manager support on the VM-Series firewall for NSX-V allows you to connect a single Panorama
to multiple NSX-V Managers running individual vCenter servers. Using a single Panorama allows you to
manage common objects and policies and synchronize them across multiple vCenter servers. You can now
configure and manage multiple NSX-V Managers in a single location, eliminating the need to replicate
common configuration many times on multiple Panorama servers.
• Plan Your Multi-NSX Deployment
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall in a Multi-NSX Manager Environment

Plan Your Multi-NSX Deployment

You must carefully plan your device group hierarchy and template stacks and consider how they interact
with the other components needed for deployment. Service definitions reference device groups and
template stacks and push that information to the firewalls in the related ESXi clusters.
• Configure your device groups—Devices groups are logical units that group firewalls based on common
aspects that require similar policy configurations. Each service definition requires a device group and
each device group can only be referenced in one service definition.
A device group inherits policy rules and object settings from device groups above it in the device group
hierarchy. This allows you to configure common or shared settings in parent device groups and unique
settings in child or grandchild device groups. By default, Panorama has a Shared device group and any
configuration in the shared device group is pushed to all device groups. When configuring any policy
rules or object settings, confirm that you have selected the right device group.
See Managing Device Groups in the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for information on configuring and
managing device groups.
• Configure your template stacks—A template stack contains settings that enable a firewall to connect
to your network, such as interface and zone configurations. Each service definition requires a template
stack and each template stack can only be referenced in one service definition.
When assigning a template stack to a service definition, consider the priority of the templates in the
stack to ensure that the right configuration is pushed to the correct firewalls. If the templates in a stack
contain overlapping configuration, the template with higher priority takes precedence and the same
setting in lower templates are ignored. Therefore, ensure that template configuration unique to an
NSX-V Manager is given higher priority in the template stack assigned to that NSX-V Manager’s service
definition.
See Manage Templates and Template Stacks in the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for information on
configuring and managing template stacks.

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 • Create your service definition—A service definition specifies the configuration for the VM-Series
firewalls on each host in the ESXi cluster. Each individual NSX-V manager configuration requires at
least one service definition. A service manager can have multiple service definitions but each service
definition can only have one device group and one template stack. After a device group or template
stack has been assigned to a service definition, you can no longer select that device group or template
stack for future service definitions.
For example, in a disaster recovery deployment scenario, you would need to create identical device groups
for each data center. Because all the policy rules and objects are the same for data centers, you can perform
all you configuration in a single device group. However, you cannot use the same device group in two
service definitions. To ensure that each data center gets the same policy rules, create a child device group
for each data center under the device group with the common configuration. These child device groups do
not need any configuration of their own because they inherit everything the VM-Series firewalls need from
the parent device group. And because each data center is identical, configure your network settings in a
template (Template 1). Create a template stack for each data center and assign Template 1 to each stack.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall in a Multi-NSX Manager Environment
Whether you are deploying a single NSX-V Manager or a multi-NSX Manager environment, set up the
connection between an NSX-V Manager and Panorama before you continue on to set up the next NSX-V
Manager with Panorama.

STEP 1 | Install the VMware NSX Plugin version 2.0 as it allows you to connect up to 16 NSX-V
Managers. This version of the plugin allows you to add more than one Service Manager to your
VM-Series firewall for NSX-V configuration on Panorama.

STEP 2 | Enable Communication Between the NSX-V Manager and Panorama.

STEP 3 | Create Template(s), Template Stack(s), and Device Group(s) on Panorama. Device groups and
template stacks push the security policy and network settings to the VM-Series firewalls in
each ESXi cluster.
When configuring policy rules and objects, verify that you have selected the correct device group.

When configuring network and device settings, verify that you have selected the correct template stack.

STEP 4 | Create the Service Definitions on Panorama and attach them to the service manager. Each
service definition can reference one device group and one template stack. Panorama supports
up to 32 service definitions across all service managers.

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STEP 5 | Configure dynamic address groups or security groups and redirect traffic to the VM-Series
firewall.
• For security-centric deployments Set Up Dynamic Address Groups on Panorama and Create Steering
Rules on Panorama.
• For operations-centric deployments Set Up Security Groups on the NSX-V Manager and Create
Steering Rules on NSX-V Manager.
Verify that you have selected the correct device group so the right steering rules are sent to the
corresponding NSX-V Manager.

STEP 6 | Deploy the Palo Alto Networks NGFW Service on each ESXi cluster by using the relevant
service definitions.

STEP 7 | Repeat this process for each NSX-V Manager.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Managers and click Add.
2. Enable Communication Between the NSX-V Manager and Panorama.

Dynamically Quarantine Infected Guests

Threat and traffic logs in PAN-OS include the source or destination universally unique identifier (UUID) of
guest VMs in your NSX-V deployment. This allows the VM-Series for NSX-V to support the tagging of guest
VMs with NSX-V security tags. With the guest VMs’ UUID now included in the log events, the firewall,
based on the filtered log events, can tag the affected guest VM via NSX-V Manager API. This allows for
automatic location of compromised VMs in the NSX-V environments. NSX-V can then put all associated
UUIDs under policies to quarantine those VMs from the rest of the network.

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 Panorama includes predefined payload formats for threat and traffic logs in the HTTP Server Profile. These
payload formats correspond to predefined security tags in NSX-V. When a guest VM is found in the threat
or traffic logs, Panorama makes an API call to NSX-V Manager telling NSX-V Manager to tag the guest VM
with the tag specified in the HTTP Server Profile. When the guest VM becomes tagged, NSX-V Manager
dynamically moves the tagged guest VM into the quarantine security group, which places the guest VM into
the quarantine dynamic address group.

STEP 1 | Confirm that you have content update version 636 or later installed on Panorama.

STEP 2 | Create a dynamic address group to be your quarantine dynamic address group.

STEP 3 | Create an HTTP Server Profile to send API calls to NSX-V Manager.
1. Select Panorama > Server Profiles > HTTP and Add a new HTTP Server Profile.
2. Enter a descriptive Name.
3. Select Add to provide the details of NSX-V Manager.
4. Enter a Name for NSX-V Manager.
5. Enter the IP Address of NSX-V Manager.
6. Select the Protocol (HTTP or HTTPS). The default Port is 80 or 443 respectively.
7. Select PUT under the HTTP Method column.
8. Enter the username and password for NSX-V Manager.

9. Select Payload Format and choose an NSX-V payload format from the Pre-defined Formats drop-
down. This populates the URI Format, HTTP Headers, and Payload fields with the correct information
to send the HTTP API call to NSX-V Manager. Additionally, the chosen format determines which
security tag NSX-V Manager applies to infected guest VMs. In the example below, NSX-V Anti-Virus
Threat High is selected which corresponds to the ANTI_VIRUS.VirusFound.threat=high security tag
on NSX-V Manager.

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STEP 4 | Define the match criteria for when Panorama will forward logs to the NSX-V Manager, and
attach the HTTP server profile to use.
1. Select Panorama > Collector Groups > Collector Log Forwarding for Threat or Traffic logs.
2. Click Traffic or Threat and Add.
3. Enter a descriptive name for the new log settings.
4. (Optional) Under Filter, you can add filters such as severity to narrow the logs that are forwarded to
NSX-V Manager. If All Logs is selected, all threat or traffic logs that meet the criteria set in the HTTP
Server profile are sent to NSX-V Manager.
5. Click Add under HTTP and select the HTTP Server Profile configured in Step 3.
6. Click OK.

STEP 5 | Configure an NSX-V server certificate for Panorama to forward logs to NSX-V manager.
1. Select Panorama > Certificate Management > Certificates.
2. Create a root CA certificate with CN=IP address of Panorama.
3. Create a signed certificate with CN=IP address of NSX-V Manager.
4. Export the root CA certificate in PEM format without a private key.

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 5. Export the signed certificate in PEM format with a private key.

6. Using a tool such as OpenSSL, concatenate the exported certificates into a single PEM file for upload
to NSX-V manager. Use the following commands in OpenSSL to complete this step.

cat cert_NSX_Root_CA.crt
cert_NSX_Signed1.pem > cert_NSX_cert_chain.pem
openssl pkcs12 -export -in cert_NSX_cert_chain.pem -out cert_NSX_cert.p12
7. Log in to NSX-V Manager and select Manage Appliance Settings > SSL Certificates > Upload
PKC#12 Keystore. Click Choose File, locate the p12 file you created in the previous step, and click
Import.

STEP 6 | Associate a security group with a security tag in vCenter.

1. Log in to vCenter.
2. Select Networking & Security > Service Composer > Security Groups.
3. Select a security group that is counterpart to the quarantine dynamic address group you created
previously and click Edit Security Group.

4. Select Define dynamic membership and click the + icon.

5. Click Add.
6. Set the criteria details to Security Tag Contains and then enter the NSX-V security tag that
corresponds to the NSX payload format you chose in 3. Each of the predefined NSX-V payload
formats corresponds to an NSX-V security tag. To view the NSX-V security tags in NSX-V, select
Networking & Security > NSX Managers > NSX Manager IP > Manage > Security Tags.
In this example, NSX Anti-Virus Threat High is used in the HTTP Server Profile so
ANTI_VIRUS.VirusFound.threat=high is the NSX-V Security Tag that is used here.
7. Click Finish.

STEP 7 | After the guest VM is cleared for removal from quarantine, manually remove the NSX-V
security tag from the guest VM in NSX-V.
1. Log in to vCenter.
2. Select VMs and Templates and choose the quarantined guest.

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 3. Select Summary > Security Tags > Manage.
4. Uncheck the security tag used by the quarantine security group and click OK.
5. Refresh the page and the quarantine security will no longer be listed under Summary > Security
Group Membership.
Source and destination UUID fields in threat and traffic logs may be blank after a guest VM is removed
from quarantine. This can occur when running NSX-V 6.2.3 or earlier or if NSX-V steering rules do not
use the inout direction. You can resolve this by upgrading NSX-V to 6.2.4 or issue an NSX Config-sync
under Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Manager and reboot the PA-VM to resolve this issue.

Migrate Operations-Centric Configuration to Security-Centric

Configuration
Complete the following procedure to migrate your Operations Centric configuration into Security Centric
formats. This migration is not required. The VM-Series firewall for VMware NSX-V supports both styles of
configuration. However, using both styles of configuration in the same deployment is not recommended.

STEP 1 | Upgrade Panorama.

STEP 2 | Update the match criteria format in your dynamic address groups.
1. Select Objects > Address Groups and click the link name for your first dynamic address group.
2. Delete the existing match criteria entry.
3. Enter the new match criteria in the following format:

‘_nsx_<dynamic-address-group-name>’

4. Click OK.
5. Repeat this process for each dynamic address group.

STEP 3 | Change security policy used as NSX-V steering rules to intrazone.

1. Select Policies > Security > Pre Rules and click the link name for your first security policy rule.
2. On the General tab, change the Rule Type to intrazone.

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 3. Click OK.
4. Repeat this process for each security policy rule.

STEP 4 | Generate new steering rules.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Steering Rules.
2. Click Auto-Generate Steering Rules.

STEP 5 | Commit your changes.

When you commit your changes, Panorama pushes updates to NSX-V Manager.
1. Verify that NSX-V Manager created new security groups.
1. Login to vCenter and select Networking & Security > Security Groups.
2. The new security groups (mapped to the updated dynamic address groups) should appear in the
following format:
<service-definition-name> - <dynamic-address-group-name>

2. Verify that NSX-V Manager created new steering rules.

1. Select Networking & Security > Firewall > Configuration > Partner security services.
2. The new steering rules (mapped to the security policy rules you create on Panorama) are listed
above the old steering rules.

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STEP 6 | Add match criteria to the newly created security groups to ensure that your VMs are placed in
the correct security group.
There two ways to complete this task—recreate the match criteria from the old security group in the
new security group or nest the old security group within the new security group.
To recreate the match criteria from the old security group, complete the following procedure.
1. Select Network & Security > Service Composer > Security Groups.
2. Click on a new security group and select Edit Security Group.
3. Select Define dynamic membership and click the plus icon.
4. Add the same match criteria in the corresponding old security group.
5. Repeat this process for each new security group.
6. Delete the old security groups.

To nest the old security group within the new security group, complete the following procedure. In this
method, VMs in the old security group are added to the new security group. Additionally, any new VM
that meets the criteria of the old security group is automatically added to the new security group.
1. Select Network & Security > Service Composer > Security Groups.
2. Click on a new security group and select Edit Security Group.
3. Select Select objects to include.
4. Select the Security Group Object Type.
5. Choose the corresponding old security group under Available Objects and move it to Selected
Objects by clicking the right arrow icon.
6. Click Finish.

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STEP 7 | Delete the old steering rules from vCenter.
1. Select Networking & Security > Firewall > Configuration > Partner security services.
2. Delete the old steering rules. Take care not to delete the Palo Alto Networks rules created by the
Security-Centric workflow. These steering rule sections use the following naming convention.
<service-definition-name> - <dynamic-address-group-name>

Add a New Host to Your NSX-V Deployment

When you add a new host to an existing cluster in your NSX-V environment, a new VM-Series firewall
service is deployed on that new host. If you have DRS enabled and to ensure that the no traffic is lost while
the VM-Series firewall is coming up, complete the following procedure. You will need to create a temporary
cluster to house the new host and disable VMotion until the VM-Series firewall is ready.

STEP 1 | Create a temporary cluster and add your new host.

STEP 2 | Deploy the VM-Series Firewall service instance on your new host.

STEP 3 | Disable vMotion on the virtual switches or distributed switches used by your new host.
• Virtual Switch
1. Log in to vCenter Server and select your new host in the inventory.
2. Select Configuration > Networking > Virtual Switch.
3. Select the virtual switch that includes the VMkernal port group used by your host and click
Properties > Ports.
4. Select the port group configured for VMotion and click Edit.
5. On the General tab, uncheck the Enabled check box for VMotion.
6. Click OK and Close.
• Distributed Virtual Switch
1. Log in to vCenter Server and select your new host in the inventory.
2. Select Configuration > Distributed Virtual Switch.
3. Select Manage Virtual Adapters.
4. Choose the virtual adapter used by your host and click Edit.
5. Uncheck Use this virtual adapter for VMotion.
6. Click OK.

STEP 4 | Place your new host in maintenance mode.

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STEP 5 | Move your new host to the existing cluster and exit maintenance mode. Wait for the VM-
Series firewall to boot up completely. Because VMotion is disabled on the host, no other virtual
machines will be moved to the host by DRS.

STEP 6 | When the VM-Series firewall is booted up completely, renable VMotion on the new host.
Guest VMs can now move to the new host and security is intact with no traffic lost.

Use Case: Shared Compute Infrastructure and Shared Security

Policies
This use case allows you to logically isolate traffic from two tenants that share an ESXi cluster and have a
common set of security policies. In order to isolate traffic from each tenant you need to create a service
definition with a template stack that includes two zones. Zone-based traffic separation makes it possible
to distinguish traffic between virtual machines that belong to separate tenants, when it traverses through
the firewall. The firewall is able to distinguish traffic between tenant virtual machines based on a service
profiles and security groups created on the NSX-V Manager, which are available as match criteria in
Dynamic Address Groups on the firewall. Therefore, even with overlapping IP addresses, you can segregate
traffic from each tenant and secure each tenant’s virtual machines using zone-base policy rules (source and
destination zones must be the same) and dynamic address groups.

STEP 1 | Enable Communication Between the NSX-V Manager and Panorama.

This is one-time task and is required if you have not enabled access between the NSX-V Manager and
Panorama.

STEP 2 | Create Template(s) and Device Group(s) on Panorama.

1. Log in to the Panorama web interface.
2. Select Panorama > Templates to add a template stack. This use case has a template stack named
NSX-Template.
3. Select Panorama > Device Groups and add device group. This use case has a device group named
NSX-DG.
4. Create two zones within the template stack. To isolate traffic for each tenant, you need two zones in
this use case.
1. Select Network > Zones.
2. Select the correct template stack in the Template drop-down.
3. Select Add and enter a zone Name. For example, Tenant1.
4. Sets the interface Type to Virtual Wire.

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 5. Click OK.
6. Repeat the steps to add another zone, for example, Tenant2.
7. Verify that the zones are attached to the correct template stack.

STEP 3 | Create the Service Definitions on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Definitions.
2. Select Add and fill in the details.

3. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 4 | Create Security Groups and Steering Rules.

1. Select Objects > Address Groups and Set Up Dynamic Address Groups on Panorama for each
tenant’s virtual machines. For example, this use case has two security groups per tenant; one security
group for the web servers and the other security group for the application servers.
2. Select Policies > Security > Pre Rules to set up security policy rules for sending traffic to the VM-
Series firewall.
3. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Steering Rules and click Auto-Generate Steering Rules.
4. Commit your changes

STEP 5 | Prepare the ESXi Host for the VM-Series Firewall.

The ESXi hosts in the cluster must have the necessary NSX-V components that allow the NSX-V firewall
and the VM-Series firewall to work together. The NSX-V Manager will install the components— the
Ethernet Adapter Module (.eam) and the SDK —required to deploy the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 6 | Deploy the Palo Alto Networks NGFW Service.

1. Select Networking and Security > Installation > Service Deployments.
2. Click New Service Deployment (green plus icon), and select the service definition for the Palo Alto
Networks next generation firewall you want to deploy, Palo Alto Networks NGFW Test 1 in this
example, make your selections including the appropriate ESXi cluster to which you want to deploy
the firewall and click Finish.

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 3. Verify that the NSX-V Manager reports the Installation Status as Successful.
4. Verify that the VM-Series firewall is successfully deployed.
1. On the vCenter server, select Hosts and Clusters to check that every host in the cluster(s) has one
instance of the firewall.
2. View the management IP address(es) and the PAN-OS version running on the firewall directly
from vCenter server. VMware Tools is bundled with the PAN-OS software image and is
automatically enabled when you launch the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 7 | Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall.

1. Create Dynamic Address groups for each tenant on Panorama. The dynamic address group(s) that
match on the name of the security group(s) you defined on the NSX-V Manager.
1. On Panorama, select Objects > Address Groups.
2. Select the correct Device Group from the drop-down and click Add.
3. Add a Name for the address group and set Type as Dynamic and Add Match Criteria. Verify that
you select the correct tags for each tenant, the tag includes the service profile ID, the security
group name and the security group ID. For example, for this use case there are four dynamic
address groups:

2. On Panorama, create security policy rules and use the dynamic address groups as source or
destination address objects in security policy rules and push it to the firewalls.
1. Select Policies > Security > Prerules and click Add.

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 2. Create rules for each tenant. This use case has the following policy rules:

3. Click Commit, and select Commit Type as Device Groups. Select the device group, NSX-DG in this
example and click OK.

STEP 8 | Verify that traffic from each tenant is secured.

1. Log in to the CLI on the firewall and enter the following command to view the subinterfaces on the
firewall:

show interface all

total configured hardware interfaces: 2
name id speed/duplex/state mac address
---------------------------------------------------
ethernet1/1 16 auto/auto/up d4:f4:be:c6:af:10
ethernet1/2 17 auto/auto/up d4:f4:be:c6:af:11
aggregation groups: 0
total configured logical interfaces: 6

name id vsys zone forwarding

------------------- ----- ---- -----------------
ethernet1/1 16 1 vwire:ethernet1/2
ethernet1/1.3 4099 1 TENANT-1 vwire:ethernet1/2.3
ethernet1/1.4 4100 1 TENANT-2 vwire:ethernet1/2.4
ethernet1/2 17 1 vwire:ethernet1/1
ethernet1/2.3 4355 1 TENANT-1 vwire:ethernet1/1.3
ethernet1/2.4 4356 1 TENANT-2 vwire:ethernet1/1.4

2. On the web interface of the VM-Series firewall, select Objects > Address Groups and verify that
you can view the IP address for the members of each Dynamic Address Group. The following is an
example of duplicate IP addresses in dynamic address groups across both tenants.

3. View the ACC and the Monitor > Logs > Traffic. Filter on the zone name to ensure that traffic from
the virtual machines for each tenant is secured.

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Use Case: Shared Security Policies on Dedicated Compute
Infrastructure
If you are a Managed Service Provider who needs to secure a large enterprise (tenant) with multiple
departments (sub-tenants), and each tenant requires dedicated compute infrastructure and security policy
rules, you need to create a service definition for each tenant.
In this use case, each tenant—Oak and Maple— has a dedicated ESXi cluster. And each tenant has sub-
tenants—Dev, QA, and Prod—whose workloads are deployed in the cluster. You need to define two service
definitions to allow the VM-Series firewalls for each tenant to have Security policies for their respective
ESXi clusters. The service definition for each tenant includes multiple zones (with corresponding virtual wire
subinterface pairs) for isolating traffic from each sub-tenant. Each zone is mapped to a service profile on
the NSX-V Manager, which allows the firewall to distinguish traffic from the virtual machines for each sub-
tenant and to enforce zone-based security policy rules within the common set of policy rules for the tenant.
Zone-based policies in combination with the Dynamic Address groups also allow you to secure sub-tenants
who may have overlapping networks, and hence have duplicate IP addresses. To uniquely identify virtual
machines assigned to each sub-tenant and successfully enforce policy, the NSX-V Manager provides the
service profile and security group to which a virtual machine belongs as match criteria in dynamic address
groups on Panorama. For more information, see Policy Enforcement using Dynamic Address Groups.
You can also configure role-based access control using access domains on Panorama. Access domains
allow you to control administrative access to specific device groups (to manage policies and objects) and
template stacks (to manage network and device settings), so that each tenant administrator can manage the
configuration for their VM-Series firewalls. Role-based access also allows you to limit log visibility for the
respective tenant only.

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STEP 1 | Enable Communication Between the NSX-V Manager and Panorama.
This is one-time task and is required if you have not enabled access between the NSX-V Manager and
Panorama.

STEP 2 | Create Template(s) and Device Group(s) on Panorama.

1. Log in to the Panorama web interface.
2. Select Panorama > Templates to add template stacks. This use case has two template stacks named
NSX-Template-MAPLE and NSX-Template-OAK.
3. Select Panorama > Device Groups and add device groups. This use case has two device groups
named NSX-DG-OAK and NSX-DG-MAPLE.
4. Create NSX-V service profile zones within each template stack. To isolate traffic for each tenant in
this use case, you need three zones for each tenant.
1. Select Network > Zones.
2. Select the correct template stack in the Template drop-down.
3. Select Add and enter a zone Name. For example, Tenant1.
4. Sets the interface Type to Virtual Wire.
5. Click OK.
6. Repeat the steps a-e to add additional zones for each sub-tenant.
7. Verify that the zones are attached to the correct template stack.

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 5. Create a service profile zone for each other template stack.

STEP 3 | Create the Service Definitions on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Service Definitions.
2. Select Add. Fill in the details for the service definition for each tenant. In this example, the two
service definitions are Palo Alto Networks - Maple and Palo Alto Networks - Oak.

3. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 4 | Create Security Groups and Steering Rules.

1. Select Objects > Address Groups and Set Up Dynamic Address Groups on Panorama for each
tenant’s virtual machines. For example, this use case has two security groups per tenant; one security
group for the web servers and the other security group for the application servers.

2. Select Policies > Security > Pre Rules to set up security policy rules for sending traffic to the VM-
Series firewall.
3. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-V > Steering Rules and click Auto-Generate Steering Rules.
4. Commit your changes

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STEP 5 | Prepare the ESXi Host for the VM-Series Firewall
The ESXi hosts in the cluster must have the necessary NSX-V components that allow the NSX-V firewall
and the VM-Series firewall to work together. The NSX-V Manager will install the components— the
Ethernet Adapter Module (.eam) and the SDK —required to deploy the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 6 | Deploy the Palo Alto Networks NGFW Service

1. Select Networking and Security > Installation > Service Deployments.
2. Click New Service Deployment (green plus icon), and select the service definition for the Palo Alto
Networks next generation firewall you want to deploy, Palo Alto Networks NGFW Test 1 in this
example, make your selections and click Finish.
3. Verify that the NSX-V Manager reports the Installation Status as Successful.

4. Verify that the VM-Series firewall is successfully deployed.

1. On the vCenter server, select Hosts and Clusters to check that every host in each cluster has one
instance of the firewall.
2. View the management IP address(es) and the PAN-OS version running on the firewall directly
from vCenter server. VMware Tools is bundled with the PAN-OS software image and is
automatically enabled when you launch the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 7 | Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall

1. Create dynamic address groups for each sub-tenant on Panorama. The dynamic address group(s)
match on the name of the security group(s) you defined on the NSX-V Manager.
1. On Panorama, select Objects > Address Groups.
2. Select a Device Group from the drop-down and click Add.
3. Add a Name for the address group and set Type as Dynamic and Add Match Criteria. For ease of
managing these groups, use the same name for the dynamic address group as that of the security
group on the NSX-V Manager.

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 4. Create the dynamic address groups for the sub-tenants for the other tenant, Oak in this example.
2. On Panorama, create Security policies and use the dynamic address groups as source or destination
address objects in security policy rules and push it to the firewalls.
1. Select Policies > Security > Pre Rules.
2. Select a Device Group from the drop-down and click Add.
3. Create rules for each sub-tenant. Make sure to keep the source and destination zone the same in
a policy rule. To ensure that only the application that is running on the server is allowed, allow the
service on the application-default port only.
This use case has the following policy rules for the tenant Maple:

3. Select the other Device Group from the drop-down and create the Security policies for the each sub-
tenant for the other tenant, Oak in this example.
4. Click Commit, and select Commit Type as Device Groups. Select the device groups, NSX-DG-OAK
and NSX-DG-MAPLE in this example and click OK.
The commit pushes the Security policies to the firewalls that belong to each device group, and they
can enforce policy on the traffic redirected by the NSX-V Manager.

STEP 8 | Verify that traffic from each tenant is secured.

1. On Panorama, go to Monitor > Logs > Traffic and Monitor > Logs > Threat to view the Traffic logs
and Threat logs. Select the device group for a tenant and sort on the Zone name for full visibility in to
traffic from each sub-tenant.
2. On Panorama, use the ACC for visibility into traffic patterns and actionable information on threats.
Use the widgets and filters to interact with the data on the ACC.
3. On the VM-Series firewall, select Objects > Address Groups to view the IP address for the members
of each Dynamic Address Group.

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STEP 9 | (Optional) Enable role-based access for tenant administrators to manage the configuration and
policies for the VM-Series firewalls.
1. Create an access domain. An access domain allows you to restrict admin access to a specific device
group and template stack. In this example, you create two access domains and restrict access to the
device group and template stack for the respective tenant.
2. Configure an admin role for Device Group and Template role and allow the administrator to manage
the access domain. The administrator can only manage the firewalls that belong to the access domain.
3. Create an administrative account and associate the access domain and admin role with the account.

Dynamic Address Groups—Information Relay from NSX-V

Manager to Panorama
To enforce security policies in a VM-Series and NSX-V integrated data center, Panorama must be able to
obtain information on the changes in the virtual landscape. As new virtual machines are deployed, changed,
or deleted, the NSX-V Manager informs Panorama of IP addresses added, removed from security groups on
the NSX-V Manager. Panorama in turn then, pushes this information to the VM-Series firewalls. Dynamic
address groups referenced in firewall policies match against this information to determine the members
that belong to the group. This process allows the firewall to enforce context-aware security policy, which
secures traffic to and from these virtual machines. For details on dynamic address groups, see Policy
Enforcement using Dynamic Address Groups.
The following diagram illustrates how the information is relayed from the NSX-V Manager to Panorama.

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 To understand this process, let’s trace the information update sent from the NSX-V Manager to Panorama
when a new server is added to a security group. Use the elements highlighted within the output in each
phase of this example, to troubleshoot where the process failed.

STEP 1 | To view the updates in real-time, log in to the Panorama CLI.

Log in to the Command Line Interface on Panorama.

STEP 2 | Verify that the request from the NSX-V Manager is routed to the web server on Panorama.
To check the webserver-log on Panorama during an NSX-V Security Group update, use the following
command:

admin@Panorama> tail follow yes webserver-log cmsaccess.log

127.0.0.1 - - [Wed Dec 03 14:24:11 2014 PST] "POST /unauth/php/
RestApiAuthenticator.php HTTP/1.1" 200 433
127.0.0.1 - - [Wed Dec 03 14:24:11 2014 PST] "PUT /api/index.php?
client=wget&file-name=dummy&type=vmware/vmware/2.0/si/serviceprofile/
serviceprofile-1/containerset HTTP/1.0" 200 446

If your output does not include the elements above, check for routing issues. Ping the
Panorama from the NSX-V Manager and check for ACLs or other network security
devices that might be blocking the communication between the NSX-V Manager and
Panorama.

STEP 3 | Verify that the request is parsed by the PHP daemon on Panorama.
1. Enable debug using the following URL: https://<Panorama_IP>/php/utils/debug.php

2. From the CLI, enter the following command to view the logs generated by the PHP server:

admin@Panorama> tail follow yes mp-log php.debug.log

[2014/12/03 14:24:11]
<request cmd="op" cookie="0604879067249569" refresh="no">
<operations xml="yes">
<show>
<cli>

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 ...
<request>
<partner>
<vmware-service-manager>
<update>
<method>PUT</method>
<type>update</type>
<username>_vsm_admin</username>
<password>4006474760514053</password>
<url>/vmware/2.0/si/serviceprofile/serviceprofile-1/containerset</url>
<data><![CDATA[
<containerSet><container><id>securitygroup-10</id><name>WebServers</
name><description></description><revision>8</revision><type>IP</type><address>10.3.4.185</
address><address>10.3.4.186</address><address>15.0.0.203</address><address>15.0.0.202</
address></container></containerSet>]]></data>

</update>
</vmware-service-manager>
</partner>
</request>
</operations>
</request>

STEP 4 | The information is processed by the Management server on Panorama.

1. Enable debugging on the management server using the following command:

admin@Panorama> debug management-server on debug

2. Enter the following command to view the logs generated by the configd log:

admin@Panorama> tail follow yes mp-log configd.log

3. In the output check that the update was relayed from the PHP daemon to the management server
daemon.

2014-12-03 14:24:11.143 -0800 debug:

pan_job_progress_monitor(pan_job_mgr.c:3694): job-monitor:
updated 0 jobs……2014-12-03 14:24:11.641 -0800 debug:
recursive_add_params(pan_op_ctxt.c:158): > 'url'='/vmware/2.0/si/
serviceprofile/serviceprofile-1/containerset'
2014-12-03 14:24:11.641 -0800 debug:
recursive_add_params(pan_op_ctxt.c:158): > 'data'='
<containerSet><container><id>securitygroup-10</id><name>WebServers</
name><description></description><revision>8</revision><type>IP</type><address>10.3.4.185</
address><address>10.3.4.186</address><address>15.0.0.203</address><address>15.0.0.202</
address></container></containerSet>'
2014-12-03 14:24:11.641 -0800 Received vshield update: PUT /vmware/2.0/si/
serviceprofile/serviceprofile-1/containerset
Received dynamic address update from VSM:
<request cmd='op' cookie='0604879067249569' client="xmlapi"><operations
xml='yes'><request>
<partner>
<vmware-service-manager>
<update>
<method>PUT</method>
<type>update</type>

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 <username>_vsm_admin</username>
<password>4006474760514053</password><url>/vmware/2.0/si/serviceprofile/
serviceprofile-1/containerset</url><data><![CDATA[
<containerSet><container><id>securitygroup-10</id><name>WebServers</
name><description></description><revision>8</revision><type>IP</type><address>10.3.4.185</
address><address>10.3.4.186</address><address>15.0.0.203</address><address>15.0.0.202</
address></container></containerSet>]]>

</data></update>
4. Look for the list of IP addresses and security group tags.

2014-12-03 14:24:11.646 -0800 debug:

pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3721): ip:
10.3.4.185
2014-12-03 14:24:11.646 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3738): tag:
WebServers-securitygroup-10
2014-12-03 14:24:11.646 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3721): ip:
15.0.0.202
2014-12-03 14:24:11.646 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3738): tag:
WebServers-securitygroup-10
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3738): tag:
DomainControllers-securitygroup-16
2014-12-03 14:24:11.647 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3721): ip:
15.0.0.201
2014-12-03 14:24:11.648 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3738): tag:
SQLServers-securitygroup-11
2014-12-03 14:24:11.665 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3738): tag:
SharePointServers-securitygroup-13
2014-12-03 14:24:11.665 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3721): ip:
10.3.4.187
2014-12-03 14:24:11.665 -0800 debug:
pan_cfg_mongo_sel_ip_taglist_by_tag_rev(src_cms/
pan_cfg_mongo_tables.c:3738): tag:
SharePointServers-securitygroup-13
...
5. Finally, verify that the update was relayed from the management server daemon to the managed
firewalls.

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Send to device: 007900002079 [UNREG: 0; REG: 2] with dynamic address
update : <request cmd='op' cookie='0604879067249569' target-…. <register>
<entry ip="15.0.0.203">
<tag>
<member>WebServers-securitygroup-10</member>
</tag>
</entry>
<entry ip="10.3.4.186">
<tag>
<member>WebServers-securitygroup-10</member>
</tag>
</entry>
</register>

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on VMware
NSX-T (North-South)
The VM-Series firewall on VMware NSX-T integrates the Palo Alto next-generation firewalls and Panorama
with ESXi host servers to provide comprehensive visibility and safe application enablement of all north-
south traffic in your NSX-T software-defined datacenter.
The following topics provide information about the VM-Series firewall on VMware NSX-T:
• Supported Deployments of the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (North-South)
• Components of the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)
• Extend Security Policy from NSX-V to NSX-T

Supported Deployments of the VM-Series Firewall on VMware

NSX-T (North-South)
You can deploy one or more instances of the VM-Series firewall as a partner service in your VMware NSX-T
Data Center. Attach a VM-Series firewall to any tier-0 or tier-1 logical router to protect north-south traffic.
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall as standalone service instance or two firewalls in a high-availability
(HA) pair. Panorama manages the connection with NSX-T Manager and the VM-Series firewalls deployed in
your NSX-T software-defined datacenter.

• Tier-0 Insertion—Tier-0 insertion deploys a VM-Series firewall to a tier-0 logical router, which processes
traffic between logical and physical networks. When you deploy the VM-Series firewall with tier-0
insertion, NSX-T Manager uses the deployment information you configured on Panorama to attach a
firewall to a tier-0 logical router in virtual wire mode.
• Tier-1 Insertion—Tier-1 insertion deploys a VM-Series firewall to a tier-1 logical router, which provides
downlink connections to segments and uplink connection to tier-0 logical routers. NSX-T Manager
attaches VM-Series firewalls deployed with tier-1 insertions to a tier-1 logical router in virtual wire
mode.
After deploying the firewall, you configure traffic redirection rules that send traffic to the VM-Series firewall
when crossing a tier-0 or tier-1 router. Security policy rules that you configure on Panorama are pushed to
managed VM-Series firewalls and then applied to traffic passing through the firewall.

Components of the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)

The following tables show the components of this joint Palo Alto Networks and VMware NSX-T solution.

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 VMware Components

vCenter/ESXi The vCenter server is the centralized management tool

for the vSphere suite. ESXi is a hypervisor that enables
compute virtualization.
Refer to VMware’s Compatibility Matrix for vCenter
compatibility with your version of NSX-T.

NSX-T Manager VMware NSX-T Data Center 2.4.0 and later must be
installed and registered with the vCenter server. The
NSX-T Manager is required to deploy the VM-Series
firewall on the ESXi hosts within a ESXi cluster.

Palo Alto Networks Components

PAN-OS The VM-Series base image (PA-VM-NST-9.1.zip) is

required for deploying the VM-Series firewall on NSX-
T.
The minimum system requirement for deploying the
VM-Series firewall for NSX on the ESXi server depends
on your VM-Series model. See VM-Series Models for
the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-
Series model.

Panorama The VM-Series firewall on NSX-T requires Panorama

9.1 or later.
Panorama must be running the same release
version or later version that the firewalls that Panorama is the centralized management tool for the
it will manage. Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls. In this
solution, Panorama works with the NSX-T Manager to
deploy, license, and centrally administer—configuration
and policies—the VM-Series firewall for NSX-T.
Panorama must be able to connect to the NSX-T
Manager, the VM-Series firewalls and the Palo Alto
Networks update server.
See the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for
information about deploying your Panorama appliance.

Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX 3.0.0 or later

VM-Series Plugin 1.0.6 or later

VM-Series Firewall Models The VM-100, VM-300, VM-500, and VM-700 support
NSX-T.

Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)

Complete the following tasks to secure North-South traffic in your NSX-T environment with the VM-Series
firewall.

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 The following procedure refers to NSX-T Manager 3.0
.

• Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX

• Enable Communication Between NSX-T Manager and Panorama
• Create Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama
• Configure the Service Definition on Panorama
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall
• Direct Traffic to the VM-Series Firewall
• Apply Security Policy to the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T
• Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts

Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX

Download and install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX. See the Compatibility Matrix before installing
or upgrading your plugin.
If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer. When
installing the plugin on Panorama HA peers, install the plugin on the passive peer before the active peer.
After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state. Installing the plugin
on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 1 | Select Panorama > Plugins. See the Compatibility Matrix before installing or upgrading your
plugin.

STEP 2 | Select Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.

STEP 3 | Select Download in the Action column to download the plugin.

STEP 4 | Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
Panorama will alert you when the installation is complete.

Enable Communication Between NSX-T Manager and Panorama

Complete the following procedure to enable communication between Panorama and NSX-T Manager. You
can connect your Panorama to up to 16 NSX-T Managers. If you are connecting your Panorama to multiple
NSX-T Managers, you must carefully plan your device group hierarchy and template stacks and consider
how they interact with the other components needed for deployment. Service definitions reference device
groups and template stacks and push that information to the firewalls in the related ESXi clusters.

STEP 1 | (Optional) Bypass proxy server settings, configured on Panorama under Panorama > Setup >
Services > Proxy Server, for communication between Panorama and NSX-T Manager. This
command allows Panorama to communicate directly with NSX-T Manager while maintaining
proxied communication for other services.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command to enable or disable proxy bypass.
admin@Panorama> request plugins vmware_nsx proxy bypass {yes | no}
Select yes to enable proxy bypass and no to disable proxy bypass. This is set to no by default.

STEP 2 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

Using a secure connection (https) from a web browser, log in using the IP address and password you
assigned during initial configuration (https://<IP address>).

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STEP 3 | Set up access to the NSX-T Manager. Repeat this procedure for each NSX-T Manager to which
you will connect Panorama.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Managers and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your NSX-T Manager.
3. (Optional) Add a Description for NSX-T Manager.
4. Enter the NSX Manager URL—NSX-T Manager cluster virtual IP address or FQDN—at which to
access the NSX-T Manager.
5. Enter the NSX Manager Login credentials—username and password, so that Panorama can
authenticate to the NSX-T Manager.
6. Click OK.

If you change your NSX-T Manager login password, ensure that you update the password
on Panorama immediately. An incorrect password breaks the connection between
Panorama and NSX-T Manager.

STEP 4 | Commit your changes to Panorama.

Select Commit and Commit to Panorama.

STEP 5 | Verify the connection status on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Managers.
2. Verify the message in the Status column.
When the connection is successful, the status displays as Registered. This indicates that Panorama
and the NSX-T Manager are in sync.
The unsuccessful status messages are:
• No connection: Unable to reach/establish a network connection to the NSX-T Manager.
• Invalid Credentials: The access credentials (username and/or password) are incorrect.
• Out of sync: The configuration settings defined on Panorama are different from what is defined
on the NSX-T Manager.Click the link for details on the reasons for failure. For example, NSX-
T Manager may have a service definition with the same name as defined on Panorama. To fix
the error, use the service definition name listed in the error message to validate the service
definition on the NSX-T Manager. Until the configuration on Panorama and the NSX-T Manager is
synchronized, you cannot add a new service definition on Panorama.
• Connection Disabled: The connection between Panorama and the NSX-T Manager was manually
disabled.

Create Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama

To manage the VM-Series firewalls on NSX-T using Panorama, the firewalls must belong to a device group
and a template stack. Device groups allow you to assemble firewalls that need similar policies and objects
as a logical unit; the configuration is defined using the Objects and Policies tabs on Panorama. Use template
stacks to configure the settings that are required for the VM-Series firewalls to operate on the network; the
configuration is defined using the Device and Network tabs on Panorama. Each template stack used in your
NSX-T configuration must be associated with a service definition.
Firewalls deployed in NSX-T have two default zones and two interfaces configured in virtual-wire mode.
Ethernet1/1 is part of zone south and ethernet1/2 is part of zone north. To push policy rules from
Panorama to managed firewalls, you must configure zones and interfaces matching those on the firewall in
the corresponding template stack on Panorama.

STEP 1 | Add a device group or a device group hierarchy.

1. Select Panorama > Device Groups, and click Add. You can also create a device group hierarchy.

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 2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the device group.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Commit and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 2 | Add a template.

1. Select Panorama > Templates, and click Add.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the template.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 3 | Create a template stack.

1. Select Panorama > Templates, and click Add Stack.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the template.
3. Click Add to add the template you created previously.
4. Click OK.
5. Click Commit, and select Commit to Panorama to save the changes to the running configuration on
Panorama.

STEP 4 | Configure the virtual wire, interfaces, and zones. Ensure that you select the correct template
from the drop-down shown below. The objects you create must meet the following criteria:

If you change the default virtual wire or zone names, the virtual wire and zones on
Panorama must match the names used on the firewall.

• Use ethernet1/1 and ethernet1/2.

• The virtual wire object named vw1.
• The first zone named south, type virtual-wire, and contain ethernet1/1.
• The second zone named north, type virtual-wire, and contain ethernet1/2.

Repeat this process for each template in your deployment.

STEP 5 | Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

Configure the Service Definition on Panorama

A service definition specifies the configuration for the VM-Series firewalls installed in your NSX-T data
center environment. The service definition must include the device group, a template stack, and an OVF
URL.

STEP 1 | Add a new service definition.

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 You can create up to 32 service definitions on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Definitions.

2. Select Add to create a new service definition.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your service definition.
4. ( Optional) Add a Description that identifies the function or purpose for the VM-Series firewalls that
will be deployed using this service definition.

STEP 2 | Assign a device group and a template stack to the service definition.
Make sure to Create Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama.
Because the firewalls deployed in this solution will be centrally administered from Panorama, you must
specify the Device Group and the Template Stack that the firewalls belong to. All the firewalls that are
deployed using this service definition belong to the specified template stack and device group.
1. Select the device group or device group hierarchy in the Device Group drop-down.
2. Select the template stack in the Template drop-down.

You cannot reuse a template stack or a device group assigned to one service
definition in another service definition.

STEP 3 | Specify the location of the OVF file.

Download the zip file, unzip it to extract and save the .ovf, mf and .vmdk files to the same directory. The
ovf and vmdk files are used to deploy each instance of the firewall.
If needed, modify the security settings on the server so that you can download the file types. For
example, on the IIS server modify the Mime Types configuration; on an Apache server edit the .htaccess
file.

Do not change the Panorama service definition OVF path after a successful NSX Service
Deployment of VM-Series firewalls. Changing the OVF path, after a successful VM-
Series firewall deployment, can result in a NSX Service Deployment failed state. You may
resolve this failure in NSX-T Manager, however this may cause all VM-Series firewalls to
redeploy.

It is recommended that you use an OVF path name that scales and allows you to change the base image
without impacting your deployed firewalls. Instead of a path such as https://acme.com/software/PA-
VM-NST.9.1.0.ovf, use something such as https://acme.com/software/PanoSvcDef1-Cluster1.ovf.
Using a static path reference will eliminate any future need to change the OVF path. It is recommended
to create a path for each Panorama service definition (vSphere cluster) in your deployment and change
the PAN-OS base images references on the web server as needed.

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 In OVF URL, add the location of the web server that hosts the ovf file. Both http and https are
supported protocols.

Panorama must have network connectivity with the web server to retrieve the OVF file.

You can use the same ovf version or different versions across service definitions. Using different ovf
versions across service definitions allows you to vary the PAN-OS version on the VM-Series firewalls in
different ESXi clusters.

STEP 4 | Select North South as the Insertion Type for your firewall.

STEP 5 | To automatically retrieve a device certificate when the VM-Series firewall is deployed by NSX
Manager, configure the device certificate.
Enable this option to apply a device certificate to newly deployed VM-Series firewalls. Only use this
option when deploying the firewall using a base image OVF that supports device certificates. Panorama
pushes the device certificate information to NSX Manager as part of the service definition. When a new
firewall is deployed in NSX, the device certificate is installed on the firewall at bootup.
For list of OVFs that support device certificates for the VM-Series firewall on VMware NSX, see the Palo
Alto Networks Compatibility Matrix.
If your OVF does not support a device certificate, disable this option.
1. If you have not done so already, log in to the Customer Support Portal and generate a Registration
PIN and PIN ID.
2. Under Device Certificate, click Enable.
3. Copy the PIN ID and enter it into the Device Certificate PIN ID field.
4. Reenter the PIN ID into the Confirm Device Certificate PIN ID field.
5. Copy the PIN Value and enter it into the Device Certificate PIN Value field.
6. Reenter the PIN Value into the Confirm Device Certificate PIN Value field.

STEP 6 | Click OK to save the service definition.

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STEP 7 | Attach the service definition to the service manager.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Manager and click the link of the service manager
name.
2. Under Service Definitions, click Add and select your service definition from the drop-down.
3. Click OK.

STEP 8 | Add the authorization code to license the firewalls.

1. Select Panorama > Device Groups and choose the device group you associated with the service
definition you just created.
2. Under Dynamically Added Device Properties, add the authorization code you received with your
order fulfillment email and, optionally, select None from the SW Version drop-down.
When a new firewall is deployed on NSX-T it is automatically added to the device group, licensed
using the authorization code you provided, and upgraded to the PAN-OS version you specified.
On the support portal, you can view the total number of firewalls that you are authorized to deploy
and the ratio of the number of licenses that have been used to the total number of licenses enabled
by your authorization code.

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STEP 9 | Commit to Panorama.

STEP 10 | On the NSX-T Manager, verify that the service definition is available.
Select System > Service Deployments > Catalog. The service definition is listed as a Service Instance on
the NSX-T Manager.

Deploy the VM-Series Firewall

After completing the configuration on Panorama, perform the following procedure to launch the VM-Series
firewall in your NSX-T Data Center.
When deploying the VM-Series firewall on NSX-T in high availability, both firewalls are deployed to the
same Device Group and Template Stack.

STEP 1 | Log in to NSX-T Manager.

STEP 2 | Select System > Service Deployments > Deployment.

STEP 3 | Select your service definition from the Partner Service drop-down.

STEP 4 | Click Deploy Service.

STEP 5 | Enter a descriptive Service Deployment Name for your VM-Series firewall.

STEP 6 | Select a tier-0 or tier-1 router under Attachment Points. NSX-T Manager attaches the VM-
Series firewall to the selected router and redirects traffic passing through that router to the
VM-Series firewall for inspection. You must select a router with no service insertion attached.

STEP 7 | Select a Compute Manager. The compute manager is the vCenter server managing your
datacenter.

STEP 8 | Select a Cluster. You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on any cluster that does not include
any Edge Transport Nodes.

STEP 9 | Select a Datastore.

STEP 10 | Configure your network settings.

1. Click Edit Details in the Networks column.
2. Select the Primary Interface Network.
3. Enter the Primary Interface IP.
4. Enter the Primary Gateway Address.

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 5. Enter the Primary Subnet Mask.
6. Click Save.

STEP 11 | NSX-T Manager prepopulates the Deployment Specification and Deployment Template
based on the Partner Service you selected.

STEP 12 | Set the Failure Policy to Allow or Block. The failure policy defines how NSX-T Manager
handles traffic that is directed to the VM-Series firewall if the firewall becomes unavailable.

STEP 13 | Select the Deployment Mode for your VM-Series firewall—Standalone or High Availability.
If you have an edge node cluster and select High Availability, NSX-T Manager will deploy an
additional VM-Series firewall on the standby edge node in addition to the firewall deployed
on the active edge node.

STEP 14 | Click Save to deploy the VM-Series firewall.

Direct Traffic to the VM-Series Firewall

Complete the following procedure to direct traffic to your VM-Series firewall. For North-South traffic,
redirection rules are stateless by default and cannot be changed. Additionally, NSX-T automatically creates
a corresponding reflexive rule for return traffic.
When you deploy the VM-Series firewall for NSX-T North-South in HA mode, you must create a traffic
redirection rule for both HA peers. Additionally, you must create the redirection rule for active peer first
and the passive peer second.

The reflexive rule does not appear in the NSX-T web interface.

STEP 1 | Log in to NSX-T Manager.

STEP 2 | Verify that your are in Policy mode.

STEP 3 | Select Security > North South Security > Network Introspection (N-S).

STEP 4 | Click Add Policy.

STEP 5 | Enter a descriptive Name for your policy.

STEP 6 | Select a VM-Series firewall service instance from the Redirect To drop-down. NSX-T Manager
will automatically populate the Applied To field based on the service instance you select.

STEP 7 | Select your newly created policy.

STEP 8 | Click Add Rule.

If your NSX-T environment has Edge Nodes in active-standby HA, you must create a
redirect rule for each Edge Node. NSX-T does not automatically apply a redirect rule to
the standby node in the event of a failover.

STEP 9 | Click on the Name field and enter a descriptive name for the rule.

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STEP 10 | By default, the source is set to Any. Complete the following steps to specify a different
source.
1. Click on the edit button in the Source column.
2. Select the group or groups to set as the Source or click Add Group to create a new group.
3. Click Apply.

STEP 11 | By default, the destination is set to Any. Complete the following steps to specify a different
destination.
1. Click on the edit button in the Destination column.
2. Select the group or groups to set as the Destination or click Add Group to create a new group.
3. Click Apply.

STEP 12 | By default, Any service is redirected to the firewall. Complete the following steps to specify
certain services and protocols.
1. Click on the edit button in the Services column.
2. Select the group or groups to set as the Service or click Add Service to create a new service.
3. Click Apply.

STEP 13 | Select Redirect from the Action drop-down to send traffic to your VM-Series firewall.

STEP 14 | Enable the rule. NSX-T Manager publishes the redirection rule you just created and
automatically creates a reflexive rule for return traffic. The reflexive rule does not appear in
the NSX-T Manager web interface.

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STEP 15 | If your VM-Series firewalls are deployed in HA, create another rule for the passive HA peer.

If return traffic is not directed to the VM-Series firewall, manually configure a traffic
redirection rule for return traffic.

Apply Security Policy to the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T

Now that you have deployed the VM-Series firewall and created traffic redirection rules to send traffic to
the firewall, you can use Panorama to centrally manage security policy rules on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | Log in to Panorama.

STEP 2 | Create security policy rules.

By default, the firewall creates a rule that allows Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
(BFD). Do not create a rule that blocks BFD. If BFD is blocked, NSX-T thinks that the
firewall is unavailable.

1. Select Policies > Security > Prerules.

2. Select the Device Group that you created for managing the VM-Series firewalls on NSX-T in Create
Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the rule. In this example, the security rule allows all
traffic between the WebFrontEnd servers and the Application servers.
4. Select the Source Zone and Destination Zone.
5. For the Source Address and Destination Address, select or type in an address, static address group,
or region.

The VM-Series firewall on NSX-T does not support dynamic address groups for North-
South traffic.
6. Select the Application to allow. In this example, we create an Application Group that includes a static
group of specific applications that are grouped together.
1. Click Add and select New Application Group.
2. Click Add to select the application to include in the group.
3. Click OK to create the application group.
7. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
for antivirus, anti-spyware, and vulnerability protection, under Profiles.
8. Click Commit, select Commit to Panorama. Click OK.

STEP 3 | Apply the policies to the VM-Series firewalls on NSX-T.

1. Click Commit > Push to Devices > Edit Selections.
2. Select the device group and click OK.
3. Select Force Template Values. By default, Panorama does not override objects on the firewall with
objects on Panorama that share a name. You must select Force Template Values to push policy to the
managed firewalls.
4. Click Yes to confirm force template values.
5. Click OK.
6. Verify that the commit is successful.

STEP 4 | (Optional) Use template to push a base configuration for network and device configuration such
as DNS server, NTP server, Syslog server, and login banner.
Refer to the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for information on using templates.

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Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts
To maintain traffic flow while using vMotion to move your VM-Series firewall between ESXi hosts with
homogeneous CPU configurations in VMware NSX-T, you must use the PAN-OS CLI to pause the internal
heartbeat monitoring of the VM-Series firewall during vMotion. You can specify the amount of time, in
minutes, that heartbeat monitoring is paused. Heartbeat monitoring can be paused for up to 60 minutes.
When the pause interval expires or you deliberately end the pause interval, heartbeat monitoring resumes.
vMotion of the VM-Series firewall is supported on vSphere 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 if the ESXi hosts have
homogeneous CPU configuration.

This procedure is not required when using vMotion to move the VM-Series firewall if you are
running vSphere 7.0 or later.

STEP 1 | Log in the VM-Series firewall CLI.

STEP 2 | Set the heartbeat monitoring pause interval using the following command. The pause begins as
soon as the command is executed. If vMotion is taking longer than expected, you can rerun this
command to set a new, longer interval that starts when the command is executed again.
request system heartbeat-pause set interval <pause-time-in-minutes>
You can view the time remaining in pause interval using the following command.
request system heartbeat-pause show interval

STEP 3 | (Optional) If you complete vMotion before the pause interval has elapsed, you can end the
pause by setting the interval to zero (0).
request system heartbeat-pause set interval 0

Extend Security Policy from NSX-V to NSX-T

If you are moving from an NSX-V deployment to an NSX-T deployment or combining an NSX-T deployment
with an NSX-V deployment, you can extend your existing security policy from NSX-V to NSX-T without
having to recreate the policy rules. This is achieved by leveraging your existing device groups and sharing
them between the NSX-V and NSX-T service definitions. After migrating your policy to NSX-T, you can
continue using the VM-Series for NSX-V or remove your NSX-V deployment.

STEP 1 | Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX 3.2.0 or later. See the Panorama Plugin for
VMware NSX 3.2.0 Release Notes before upgrading.

STEP 2 | Configure an NSX-T service definition for each NSX-V service definition in your deployment.
Do not create new device groups; instead use your existing NSX-V device groups. Using the
existing device groups allows you to apply the same security policy rules used on NSX-V to the
VM-Series firewalls deployed on NSX-T. If you have policy that reference a particular zone, add
the same template stack from your NSX-V service definition to your NSX-T service definition.
Additionally, if your device group references a particular template, ensure that you select the
template stack that includes the template referenced in the device group.

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STEP 3 | Configure an NSX-T service manager and associate the NSX-T service definitions to the service
manager.

STEP 4 | Prepare your NSX-T environment and deploy the VM-Series firewall. You must create your
security groups, service chains, and traffic redirection policy before launching the VM-Series
firewall.
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

STEP 5 | Add the NSX-T tags to you existing dynamic address groups.
1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
2. Click on the name of an existing NSX-V dynamic address group.
3. Click Add Match Criteria to display the tags from NSX-V and NSX-T.
4. Add the NSX-T tag to the dynamic address groups. Be sure to use the OR operator between the tags.
5. When you have added all the necessary tags, click OK.
6. Commit your changes.

STEP 6 | After your VM workloads have successfully migrated from NSX-V to NSX-T, you remove
the NSX-V tags from your dynamic address groups if you plan to discontinue use of NSX-
V. All NSX-V tags and corresponding IP addresses are unregistered after all NSX-V related
configuration is removed from the Panorama plugin for NSX and VM-Series firewall
configuration is removed from NSX-V manager.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-
West)
The VM-Series firewall on VMware NSX-T integrates the Palo Alto next-generation firewalls and Panorama
with ESXi host servers to provide comprehensive visibility and safe application enablement of all East-West
traffic in your NSX-T software-defined data center.
• Components of the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)
• VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West) Integration
• Supported Deployments of the VM-Series Firewall on VMware NSX-T (East-West)
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)
• Extend Security Policy from NSX-V to NSX-T
• Use In-Place Migration to Move Your VM-Series from NSX-V to NSX-T

Components of the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

The following tables show the components of this joint Palo Alto Networks and VMware NSX-T (East-West)
solution.

VMware Components

vCenter/ESXi The vCenter server is the centralized management tool

for the vSphere suite. ESXi is a hypervisor that enables
compute virtualization.
Refer to VMware’s Compatibility Matrix for vCenter
compatibility with your version of NSX-T.

NSX-T Manager VMware NSX-T Data Center 2.5.0 and later must be
installed and registered with the vCenter server. The
NSX-T Manager is required to deploy the VM-Series
firewall on the ESXi hosts within a ESXi cluster.

Palo Alto Networks Components

PAN-OS PAN-OS 9.1.x and later.

The VM-Series base image, for example PA-VM-
NST-9.1.0zip, is required for deploying the VM-Series
firewall on NSX-T.
The minimum system requirement for deploying the
VM-Series firewall for NSX on the ESXi server depends
on your VM-Series model. See VM-Series Models for
the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-
Series model.

Panorama The VM-Series firewall on NSX-T requires Panorama

9.1.0 and later for firewalls running 9.1.0

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 Palo Alto Networks Components
Panorama must be running the same release Panorama is the centralized management tool for the
version or later version that the firewalls that Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls. In this
it will manage. solution, Panorama works with the NSX-T Manager to
deploy, license, and centrally administer—configuration
and policies—the VM-Series firewall for NSX-T.
Panorama must be able to connect to the NSX-T
Manager, the VM-Series firewalls and the Palo Alto
Networks update server.
See the 9.1 Panorama Administrator’s Guide for
information about deploying your Panorama appliance.

Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX 3.1.0 or later

VM-Series Plugin 1.0.8 or later

VM-Series Firewall Models The VM-100, VM-300, VM-500, and VM-700 support
NSX-T.

Before you deploy the VM-Series

firewall on NSX-T, ensure that you
have sufficient hardware resources
to support the number of VM-Series
firewalls in your chosen deployment
model (service cluster or per host).
This is critical when deploying large
firewalls, such as the VM-700.

VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West) Integration

NSX-T Manager, vCenter, Panorama, and the VM-Series firewall work together to meet the security
challenges of your NSX-T Data Center.

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 1. Register the VM-Series firewall as a service—Use Panorama to connect to your VMware NSX-T
manager. Panorama communicates with NSX-T Manager using the NSX-T API and establishes bi-
directional communication. On Panorama, you configure the Service Manager by entering the IP address,
username, and password of NSX-T Manager to initiate communication.
After establishing communication with NSX-T Manager, configure the service definition. The service
definition includes the location of the VM-Series firewall base image, the authorization code needed
to license the VM-Series firewall, and the device groups and template stack to which the firewall will
belong.
Additionally, NSX-T Manager uses this connection to send updates on the changes in the NSX-T
environment with Panorama.
2. Deploy the VM-Series firewall per host or in a service cluster—NSX-T Manager uses the information
pushed from Panorama in the service definition to deploy the VM-Series firewall. Choose a where the
VM-Series firewall will be deployed (in a service cluster or on each ESXi host) and how NSX-T provides a
management IP address to the VM-Series firewall (DHCP or static IP). When the firewall boots up, NSX-
T manager’s API connects the VM-Series firewall to the hypervisor so it that can receive traffic from the
vSwitch.
3. The VM-Series connects to Panorama—The VM-Series firewall then connects to Panorama to obtain
its license. Panorama gets the license from the Palo Alto Networks update server and sends it to the
firewall. When the firewall gets its license, it reboots and comes back up with a serial number.

If Panorama does not have internet access, it cannot retrieve licenses and push them to
the firewall, so you have to manually license each firewall individually. If the VM-Series
firewall does not have internet access, you must manually add the serial numbers to

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 Panorama to register them as managed devices, so Panorama can push template stacks,
device groups, and other configuration information. For more information, see Activate
the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX.
4. Panorama sends security policy to the VM-Series firewall—When the firewall reconnects to Panorama,
it is added to device group and template stack defined in the service definition and Panorama pushes the
appropriate security policy to that firewall. The firewall is now ready to secure traffic in your NSX-T data
center.
5. Create network introspection rules to redirect traffic to the VM-Series firewall—On the NSX-T
Manager, create a service chain and network introspection rules that redirect traffic in your NSX-T data
center.
6. Send real-time updates from NSX-T Manager—The NSX-T Manager sends real-time updates about
changes in the virtual environment to Panorama. These updates include changes in group membership
and IP addresses of virtual machines in groups that send traffic to the VM-Series firewall.
7. Panorama sends dynamic updates—As Panorama receives updates from NSX-T Manager, it sends those
updates from its managed VM-Series firewalls. Panorama places virtual machines into dynamic address
groups based on criteria that you determine and pushes dynamic address group membership information
to the firewalls. This allows firewalls to apply the correct security policy to traffic flowing to and from
virtual machines in your NSX-T data center.

Supported Deployments of the VM-Series Firewall on VMware

NSX-T (East-West)
You can deploy one or more instances of the VM-Series firewall as a partner service in your VMware NSX-
T Data Center to secure East-West traffic and perform micro-segmentation. To configure the VM-Series
firewall to perform mirco-segmentation, you can deploy the firewalls in a service cluster or per host.
• Service Cluster—In a clustered deployment, all the VM-Series firewalls are installed on a single cluster.
Traffic between VMs and groups are redirected to the VM-Series cluster for policy inspection and
enforcement before continuing to its destination. When you configure a clustered deployment, you can
specify a particular host within the cluster or select Any and let NSX-T choose a host.

• Host-Based—In a per host deployment, an instance of the VM-Series firewall is installed on each host in
the ESXi cluster. Traffic between guests on the same host is inspected by the local firewall, so it does not
need to leave the host for inspection. Traffic leaving the host is inspected by the firewall before reaching
the vSwitch.

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 After deploying the firewall, you configure traffic redirection rules that send traffic to the VM-Series
firewall. Security policy rules that you configure on Panorama are pushed to managed VM-Series firewalls
and then applied to traffic passing through the firewall.

Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

Complete the following tasks to deploy the VM-Series firewall to secure East-West traffic in your NSX-T
data center.
• Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX
• Enable Communication Between NSX-T Manager and Panorama
• Create Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama
• Configure the Service Definition on Panorama
• Launch the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)
• Add a Service Chain
• Direct Traffic to the VM-Series Firewall
• Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)
• Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts

Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX

Download and install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX. See the Compatibility Matrix before installing
or upgrading your plugin.
If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer. When
installing the plugin on Panorama HA peers, install the plugin on the passive peer before the active peer.
After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state. Installing the plugin
on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 1 | Select Panorama > Plugins.

STEP 2 | Select Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.

STEP 3 | Select Download in the Action column to download the plugin.

STEP 4 | Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
Panorama will alert you when the installation is complete.

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Enable Communication Between NSX-T Manager and Panorama
Complete the following procedure to enable communication between Panorama and NSX-T Manager. You
can connect your Panorama to up to 16 NSX-T Managers. If you are connecting your Panorama to multiple
NSX-T Managers, you must carefully plan your device group hierarchy and template stacks and consider
how they interact with the other components needed for deployment. Service definitions reference device
groups and template stacks and push that information to the firewalls in the related ESXi clusters.

STEP 1 | (Optional) Bypass proxy server settings, configured on Panorama under Panorama > Setup >
Services > Proxy Server, for communication between Panorama and NSX-T Manager. This
command allows Panorama to communicate directly with NSX-T Manager while maintaining
proxied communication for other services.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command to enable or disable proxy bypass.
admin@Panorama> request plugins vmware_nsx proxy bypass {yes | no}
Select yes to enable proxy bypass and no to disable proxy bypass. This is set to no by default.

STEP 2 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

Using a secure connection (https) from a web browser, log in using the IP address and password you
assigned during initial configuration (https://<IP address>).

STEP 3 | Set up access to the NSX-T Manager. Repeat this procedure for each NSX-T Manager to which
you will connect Panorama.
1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Managers and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your NSX-T Manager.
3. (Optional) Add a Description for NSX-T Manager.
4. Enter the NSX Manager URL—NSX-T Manager cluster virtual IP address or FQDN—at which to
access the NSX-T Manager.
5. Enter the NSX Manager Login credentials—username and password, so that Panorama can
authenticate to the NSX-T Manager.
6. Click OK.

If you change your NSX-T Manager login password, ensure that you update the password
on Panorama immediately. An incorrect password breaks the connection between
Panorama and NSX-T Manager.

STEP 4 | Commit your changes to Panorama.

Select Commit and Commit to Panorama.

STEP 5 | Verify the connection status on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Managers.
2. Verify the message in the Status column.
When the connection is successful, the status displays as Registered. This indicates that Panorama
and the NSX-T Manager are in sync.
The unsuccessful status messages are:
• No connection: Unable to reach/establish a network connection to the NSX-T Manager.
• Invalid Credentials: The access credentials (username and/or password) are incorrect.
• Out of sync: The configuration settings defined on Panorama are different from what is defined
on the NSX-T Manager.Click the link for details on the reasons for failure. For example, NSX-

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 T Manager may have a service definition with the same name as defined on Panorama. To fix
the error, use the service definition name listed in the error message to validate the service
definition on the NSX-T Manager. Until the configuration on Panorama and the NSX-T Manager is
synchronized, you cannot add a new service definition on Panorama.
• Connection Disabled: The connection between Panorama and the NSX-T Manager was manually
disabled.

Create Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama

To manage the VM-Series firewalls for NSX-T using Panorama, the firewalls must belong to a device
group and a template that is a member of a template stack. Device groups allow you to assemble firewalls
that need similar policies and objects as a logical unit; the configuration is defined using the Objects and
Policies tabs on Panorama. Use template stacks to configure the settings that are required for the VM-
Series firewalls to operate on the network and associate; the configuration is defined using the Device
and Network tabs on Panorama. And each template stack with zones used in your NSX-T configuration on
Panorama must be associated with a service definition; at a minimum, you must create a zone within the
template stack so that the NSX-T Manager can redirect traffic to the VM-Series firewall.
Panorama can support deployments of both NSX-T North-South and NSX-T East-West at the same time. It
is recommend that you configure separate device groups, template stacks, and service definitions for NSX-T
North-South and NSX-T East-West.

STEP 1 | Add a device group or a device group hierarchy.

1. Select Panorama > Device Groups, and click Add. You can also create a device group hierarchy.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the device group.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Commit and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 2 | Add a template.

1. Select Panorama > Templates, and click Add.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the template.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.

STEP 3 | Create a template stack.

1. Select Panorama > Templates, and click Add Stack.
2. Enter a unique Name and a Description to identify the template.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Commit, and select Commit to Panorama to save the changes to the running configuration on
Panorama.

STEP 4 | Create the zone(s) for each template.

Each zone is mapped to a service profile on NSX-T Manager. To qualify, a zone must be of the virtual
wire type and a template associated with a service definition.
You can add up to 32 zones in each template.
1. Select Network > Zones.
2. Select the correct template in the Template drop-down.
3. Select Add and enter a zone Name.
4. Set the interface Type to Virtual Wire.

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 5. Click OK.
6. Verify that the zones are attached to the correct template.

7. Click Commit, and select Panorama as the Commit Type to save the changes to the running
configuration on Panorama.
Panorama creates a corresponding service profile on NSX-T Manager for each qualified zone upon
commit.

Configure the Service Definition on Panorama

A service definition specifies the configuration for the VM-Series firewalls installed in your NSX-T data
center environment. The service definition must include the device group, a template stack, and an OVF
URL.

STEP 1 | (Optional) Configure a Notify Group

Create a notify group by specifying devices groups that should be notified of changes in the virtual
environment. The firewalls included in the specified device groups receive a real-time update of security
groups and IP addresses of guest VMs in them. The firewalls use this update to determine the most
current list of members that constitute dynamic address groups referenced in policy
1. Select Panorama > VMware > Notify Group and click Add.
2. Give your Notify Group a descriptive Name.
3. Select the boxes of all devices groups that should be notified of changes to the virtual environment.
If a device group does not have a check box available, it means that the device group is automatically
included by virtue of the device group hierarchy.
4. Click OK.

STEP 2 | Add a new service definition.

You can create up to 32 service definitions on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Definitions.

2. Select Add to create a new service definition.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your service definition.
4. (Optional) Add a Description that identifies the function or purpose for the VM-Series firewalls that
will be deployed using this service definition.

STEP 3 | Assign a device group and a template stack to the service definition.
Make sure to Create Template Stacks and Device Groups on Panorama.
Because the firewalls deployed in this solution will be centrally administered from Panorama, you must
specify the Device Group and the Template Stack that the firewalls belong to. All the firewalls that are
deployed using this service definition belong to the specified template stack and device group.
1. Select the device group or device group hierarchy in the Device Group drop-down.
2. Select the template stack in the Template drop-down.

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 You cannot reuse a template stack or a device group assigned to one service
definition in another service definition.

STEP 4 | Specify the location of the OVF file.

Download the zip file, unzip it to extract and save the .ovf, mf and .vmdk files to the same directory. The
ovf and vmdk files are used to deploy each instance of the firewall.

Do not change the Panorama service definition OVF path after a successful NSX Service
Deployment of VM-Series firewalls. Changing the OVF path, after a successful VM-
Series firewall deployment, can result in a NSX Service Deployment failed state. You may
resolve this failure in NSX-T Manager, however this may cause all VM-Series firewalls to
redeploy.

It is recommended that you use an OVF path name that scales and allows you to change the base image
without impacting your deployed firewalls. Instead of a path such as https://acme.com/software/PA-
VM-NST.9.1.0.ovf, use something such as https://acme.com/software/PanoSvcDef1-Cluster1.ovf.
Using a static path reference will eliminate any future need to change the OVF path. It is recommended
to create a path for each Panorama service definition (vSphere cluster) in your deployment and change
the PAN-OS base images references on the web server as needed.

In OVF URL, add the location of the web server that hosts the ovf file. Both http and https are
supported protocols.
You can use the same ovf version or different versions across service definitions. Using different ovf
versions across service definitions allows you to vary the PAN-OS version on the VM-Series firewalls in
different ESXi clusters.

STEP 5 | (Optional) Select a Notify Group.

STEP 6 | Select East West as the Insertion Type for your firewall.

STEP 7 | (Optional) Enable Health Check. Health check is disabled by default. Also called service health
check, this NSX-T feature allows you to simulate high availability in the case of a service
instance failing. When configured with the VM-Series firewall, if a VM-Series service instance
fails, any traffic directed to that firewall is redirect to another firewall instance in the cluster
(for service cluster deployments) or a firewall instance on another host (for host-based
deployments).

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 You cannot disable or enable Health Check in a service definition after committing and
deploying VM-Series firewalls in NSX-T. Attempting to commit a change in the Health
Check configuration returns commit failure. To change this, you must delete and recreate
your service definition and redeploy your VM-Series firewalls.

STEP 8 | To automatically retrieve a device certificate when the VM-Series firewall is deployed by NSX
Manager, configure the device certificate.
Enable this option to apply a device certificate to newly deployed VM-Series firewalls. Only use this
option when deploying the firewall using a base image OVF that supports device certificates. Panorama
pushes the device certificate information to NSX Manager as part of the service definition. When a new
firewall is deployed in NSX, the device certificate is installed on the firewall at bootup.
For list of OVFs that support device certificates for the VM-Series firewall on VMware NSX, see the Palo
Alto Networks Compatibility Matrix.
If your OVF does not support a device certificate, disable this option.
1. If you have not done so already, log in to the Customer Support Portal and generate a Registration
PIN and PIN ID.
2. Under Device Certificate, click Enable.
3. Copy the PIN ID and enter it into the Device Certificate PIN ID field.
4. Reenter the PIN ID into the Confirm Device Certificate PIN ID field.
5. Copy the PIN Value and enter it into the Device Certificate PIN Value field.
6. Reenter the PIN Value into the Confirm Device Certificate PIN Value field.

STEP 9 | Click OK to save the service definition.

STEP 10 | Attach the service definition to the service manager.

You cannot use a service definition in more than one service manager.

1. Select Panorama > VMware > NSX-T > Service Manager and click the link of the service manager
name.
2. Under Service Definitions, click Add and select your service definition from the drop-down.
3. Click OK.

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STEP 11 | Add the authorization code to license the firewalls.
1. Select Panorama > Device Groups and choose the device group you associated with the service
definition you just created.
2. Under Dynamically Added Device Properties, add the authorization code you received with your
order fulfillment email and, optionally, select None from the SW Version drop-down.
When a new firewall is deployed on NSX-T it is automatically added to the device group, licensed
using the authorization code you provided, and upgraded to the PAN-OS version you specified.
On the support portal, you can view the total number of firewalls that you are authorized to deploy
and the ratio of the number of licenses that have been used to the total number of licenses enabled
by your authorization code.

STEP 12 | Commit to Panorama.

STEP 13 | On the NSX-T Manager, verify that the service definition is available.
Select System > Service Deployments > Catalog. The service definition is listed as a Service Instance on
the NSX-T Manager.

Launch the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

Complete the following procedure to deploy the VM-Series firewall as a service in your NSX-T environment.
The Deployment Specification and Deployment Template fields are automatically populated with
information pushed from Panorama as part of the service definition.

Do not edit any settings under Deployment Attributes. These values are imported from
Panorama and changing them causes the deployment to fail.

STEP 1 | Log in to the NSX-T Manager.

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STEP 2 | Select System > Service Deployments > Deployment.

STEP 3 | Select your service definition from the Partner Service drop-down.

STEP 4 | Click Deploy Service.

STEP 5 | Enter a descriptive Name for your service deployment.

STEP 6 | Select the Compute Manager (vCenter).

STEP 7 | Select a Deployment Type—Clustered or Host Based.

STEP 8 | If you selected Clustered as the Deployment Type, enter the Clustered Deployment Count to
specify the number of VM-Series firewall instances to deploy on the cluster.

STEP 9 | Select a Host if you are launching the VM-Series in a clustered deployment. Select a particular
host from the Host drop-down or Any to allow NSX-T Manager to choose the host. This option
is grayed out in Per Host deployments.

STEP 10 | Select a Data Store as the repository for the VM-Series firewall. In a clustered deployment,
select a shared data store if you choose Any for the host or select a local data store if you
specified a particular host.

STEP 11 | Configure the Networks settings.

1. In the Networks column, click Set.
2. Select the Network for eth0 - Management Nic.
3. Select the Network Type—DHCP or Static IP Pool. If you choose Static IP Pool, select an IP Pool.
4. Check eth1 - Data-1 Nic.
5. Click Save.

STEP 12 | Select or configure a Service Segment. To configure a service segment, complete the
following procedure.
1. Click Action in the Service Segments column.

2. Click Add Service Segment.

3. Enter a descriptive Name.
4. Select a Transport Zone (Overlay).
5. Click Save and Close.

STEP 13 | Select the Cluster where the service will be deployed. You must select a cluster with NSX
Configuration.

STEP 14 | Click Save.

STEP 15 | Verify that your firewalls deployed successfully.

1. Select System > Service Deployments > Service Instances.

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 2. Confirm that your firewalls are listed and the Deployment Status shows Up.

STEP 16 | Verify that your firewalls connected to Panorama.

1. Log in to Panorama.
2. Select Panorama > Managed Devices > Summary.
3. Confirm that your firewalls are listed under the correct device group and the Device State shows
Connected.

Add a Service Chain

A service chain is a grouping of services set in logical sequence. When traffic is redirected to the service
chain, it moves through each service in the order you configure.

STEP 1 | Select Security > Network Introspection Settings > Service Chains > Add Chain.

STEP 2 | Enter a descriptive Name and Description (optional) for your service chain.

STEP 3 | Select the Service Segment that you applied when you deployed the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 4 | Set the forward path. The service chain is a logical sequence of service profiles, so traffic
moves through the services in the order you specify as the forward path.
1. Select Set Forward Path > Add Profile in Sequence.
2. Select a service profile. The service column is populated automatically based on the service profile
you select.
3. Click Add.
4. (Optional) If you have other partner service profiles in your NSX-T environment, click Add Profile in
Sequence to add them to this service chain.

You can select only one service profile per service definition.

5. Click Save when you have finished adding service profiles.

STEP 5 | In the Reverse Path column, check Inverse ForwardPath for return traffic to move through the
service chain in reverse order.

STEP 6 | (Optional) If other partner service profiles are selected, set a reverse path.

You must select the same VM-Series service profile set in the Forward Path.

1. Select Set Reverse Path > Add Profile in Sequence.

2. Select a service profile. The service column is populated automatically based on the service profile
you select.
3. Click Add.
4. (Optional) If you have other, service profiles in your NSX-T environment, click Add Profile in
Sequence to add them to this service chain.
5. Click Save when you have finished adding service profiles.

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STEP 7 | Set the Failure Policy—Allow or Block. This defines the action NSX-T takes if a service profile
fails.

STEP 8 | Click Save.

Direct Traffic to the VM-Series Firewall

Configure policy rules to direct traffic virtual machines or groups of virtual machines to the VM-Series
firewall.

STEP 1 | Select Security > Network Introspection (E-W) > Rules > Add Policy.

STEP 2 | Click New Policy to give your policy a descriptive name.

STEP 3 | Select your service chain from the Redirect To drop-down.

STEP 4 | Select the policy and click Add Rule.

STEP 5 | Click New Rule to give your rule a descriptive name.

STEP 6 | Select a source.

1. Click the pencil icon in the source column to choose a source group of virtual machines.

2. Check the source group or groups.

3. Click Apply.

STEP 7 | Select a Destination.

1. Click the pencil icon in the destination column to choose a source group of virtual machines.

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 2. Check the destination group or groups.
3. Click Apply.

STEP 8 | (Optional) Select Services to which the rule will be applied.

STEP 9 | Choose one of the following in the Applied To field:

• Select DFW to apply the rule to all virtual NICs attached to the logical switch.
• Select Groups to apply the rule to virtual NICs of members virtual machines in the specified group or
groups.

STEP 10 | Select the Action—Redirect or Do Not Redirect.

STEP 11 | Click Publish.

STEP 12 | Repeat this process to create additional policy or rules.

Apply Security Policies to the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

Now that you have created the redirection rules on the NSX-T Manager, you can now use Panorama for
centrally administering policies on the VM-Series firewalls.
To manage centralized policy, attach the dynamic address group as a source or destination address in
security policy and push it to the firewalls; the firewalls can dynamically retrieve the IP addresses of the
virtual machines that are included in each security group to enforce compliance for traffic that originates
from or is destined to the virtual machines in the specified group.

STEP 1 | Log in to Panorama.

STEP 2 | Create dynamic-address groups.

1. Select Objects > Address Groups.

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 2. Select the Device Group you created for managing your VM-Series on NSX-T firewall from the
Device Group drop-down.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and Description for the dynamic address group.
4. Select Type as Dynamic.
5. Add Match Criteria to your dynamic address group.

Some browser extensions may block API calls between Panorama and NSX-T which
prevents Panorama from receiving match criteria. If Panorama displays no match
criteria and you are using browser extensions, disable the extensions and Synchronize
Dynamic Objects to populate the tags available to Panorama.
6. Click Add Match Criteria.
7. Select the And or Or operator and click the plus (+) icon next to the security group name to add it to
the dynamic address group.

The security groups that display in the match criteria dialog are derived from the
groups you defined on the NSX-T Manager. Only the groups that are referenced in
the security policies and from which traffic is redirected to the VM-Series firewall are
available here.

8. Click OK.
9. Repeat these steps to create the appropriate number of dynamic address groups required for your
deployment.
10.Commit your changes.

STEP 3 | Create security policy rules.

1. Select Policies > Security > Prerules.

2. Select the Device Group that you created for managing the VM-Series firewalls on NSX-T in Register
the VM-Series Firewall as a Service on the NSX-V Manager.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the rule. In this example, the security rule allows all
traffic between the WebFrontEnd servers and the Application servers.
4. Select the Source Zone and Destination Zone. The zone name must be the same in both columns.
5. For the Source Address and Destination Address, select or type in an address, address group
or region. In this example, we select an address group, the Dynamic address group you created
previously.
6. Select the Application to allow. In this example, we create an Application Group that includes a static
group of specific applications that are grouped together.
1. Click Add and select New Application Group.
2. Click Add to select the application to include in the group.
3. Click OK to create the application group.

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 7. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
for antivirus, anti-spyware, and vulnerability protection, under Profiles.
8. Repeats the steps above to create the pertinent policy rules.
9. Click Commit, select Commit Type as Panorama. Click OK.

STEP 4 | Apply the policies to the VM-Series firewalls for NSX-T.

1. Click Commit, and select Commit Type Device Groups.
2. Select the device group, NSX-T Device Group in this example and click OK.
3. Verify that the commit is successful.

STEP 5 | Validate that the members of the dynamic address group are populated on the VM-Series
firewall.
1. From Panorama, switch device context to launch the web interface of a firewall to which you pushed
policies.
2. On the VM-Series firewall, select Policies > Security, and select a rule.
3. Select the drop-down arrow next to the address group link, and select Inspect. You can also verify
that the match criteria is accurate.

4. Click the more link and verify that the list of registered IP addresses is displayed.
Policy will be enforced for all IP addresses that belong to this address group, and are displayed here.

STEP 6 | (Optional) Use template to push a base configuration for network and device configuration such
as DNS server, NTP server, Syslog server, and login banner.
Refer to the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for information on using templates.

STEP 7 | Create a Zone Protection profile and attach it to a zone.

A zone protection profile provides flood protection and has the ability to protect against port scanning,
port sweeps and packet-based attacks. It allows you to secure intra-tier and inter-tier traffic between
virtual machines within your data center and traffic from the Internet that is destined to the virtual
machines (workloads) in your data center.
1. Select your Template.
2. Select Network > Network Profiles > Zone Protection to add and configure a new profile.
3. Select Network > Zones, click the default-zone listed and select the profile in the Zone Protection
Profile drop down.

STEP 8 | Create a DoS Protection profile and attach it to DoS Protection policy rule.
1. Select your Device Group.
2. Select Objects > Security Profiles > DoS Protection to add and configure a new profile.
• A classified profile allows the creation of a threshold that applies to a single source IP. For
example, you can configure a max session rate for an IP address that matched the policy, and then
block that single IP address once the threshold is triggered.
• An aggregate profile allows the creation of a max session rate for all packets matching the policy.
The threshold applies to new session rate for all IP addresses combined. Once the threshold is
triggered it affects all traffic that matches the policy.
3. Create a new DoS Protection policy rule in Policy > DoS Protection, and attach the new profile to it.

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Use vMotion to Move the VM-Series Firewall Between Hosts
To maintain traffic flow while using vMotion to move your VM-Series firewall between ESXi hosts with
homogeneous CPU configurations in VMware NSX-T, you must use the PAN-OS CLI to pause the internal
heartbeat monitoring of the VM-Series firewall during vMotion. You can specify the amount of time, in
minutes, that heartbeat monitoring is paused. Heartbeat monitoring can be paused for up to 60 minutes.
When the pause interval expires or you deliberately end the pause interval, heartbeat monitoring resumes.
vMotion of the VM-Series firewall is supported on vSphere 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 if the ESXi hosts have
homogeneous CPU configuration.

This procedure is not required when using vMotion to move the VM-Series firewall if you are
running vSphere 7.0 or later.

STEP 1 | Log in the VM-Series firewall CLI.

STEP 2 | Set the heartbeat monitoring pause interval using the following command. The pause begins as
soon as the command is executed. If vMotion is taking longer than expected, you can rerun this
command to set a new, longer interval that starts when the command is executed again.
request system heartbeat-pause set interval <pause-time-in-minutes>
You can view the time remaining in pause interval using the following command.
request system heartbeat-pause show interval

STEP 3 | (Optional) If you complete vMotion before the pause interval has elapsed, you can end the
pause by setting the interval to zero (0).
request system heartbeat-pause set interval 0

Extend Security Policy from NSX-V to NSX-T

If you are moving from an NSX-V deployment to an NSX-T deployment or combining an NSX-T deployment
with an NSX-V deployment, you can extend your existing security policy from NSX-V to NSX-T without
having to recreate the policy rules. This is achieved by leveraging your existing device groups and sharing
them between the NSX-V and NSX-T service definitions. After migrating your policy to NSX-T, you can
continue using the VM-Series for NSX-V or remove your NSX-V deployment.

STEP 1 | Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX 3.2.0 or later. See the Panorama Plugin for
VMware NSX 3.2.0 Release Notes before upgrading.

STEP 2 | Configure an NSX-T service definition for each NSX-V service definition in your deployment.
Do not create new device groups; instead use your existing NSX-V device groups. Using the
existing device groups allows you to apply the same security policy rules used on NSX-V to the
VM-Series firewalls deployed on NSX-T. If you have policy that reference a particular zone, add
the same template stack from your NSX-V service definition to your NSX-T service definition.
Additionally, if your device group references a particular template, ensure that you select the
template stack that includes the template referenced in the device group.

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STEP 3 | Configure an NSX-T service manager and associate the NSX-T service definitions to the service
manager.

STEP 4 | Prepare your NSX-T environment and deploy the VM-Series firewall. You must create your
security groups, service chains, and traffic redirection policy before launching the VM-Series
firewall.
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (North-South)
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West)

STEP 5 | Add the NSX-T tags to you existing dynamic address groups.
1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
2. Click on the name of an existing NSX-V dynamic address group.
3. Click Add Match Criteria to display the tags from NSX-V and NSX-T.
4. Add the NSX-T tag to the dynamic address groups. Be sure to use the OR operator between the tags.
5. When you have added all the necessary tags, click OK.
6. Commit your changes.

STEP 6 | After your VM workloads have successfully migrated from NSX-V to NSX-T, you remove
the NSX-V tags from your dynamic address groups if you plan to discontinue use of NSX-
V. All NSX-V tags and corresponding IP addresses are unregistered after all NSX-V related
configuration is removed from the Panorama plugin for NSX and VM-Series firewall
configuration is removed from NSX-V manager.

Use In-Place Migration to Move Your VM-Series from NSX-V to

NSX-T
Complete the following procedure to migrate your VM-Series firewall configuration from NSX-V to NSX-
T. By migrating your configuration, you can reuse policy and dynamic address groups already configured on
Panorama. This procedure refers to information and processes published in VMware documentation as well
as steps specific to PAN.

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 This procedure supports operations-centric NSX-V deployments only. An operations-centric deployment
means that your policy rules for redirecting traffic to the VM-Series firewall were created in NSX-V
Manager, not Panorama.

This procedure requires NSX-T Manager 3.1.0 or later.

It is recommended that plan for security downtime while performing this migration.

STEP 1 | Prepare your NSX-V and NSX-T environments for migration based on the steps described by
VMware.

STEP 2 | Install the Panorama Plugin for VMware NSX 3.2.0 or later. See the Panorama Plugin for
VMware NSX 3.2.0 Release Notes before upgrading.

STEP 3 | Enable Communication Between NSX-T Manager and Panorama.

STEP 4 | Configure an NSX-T service definition for each NSX-V service definition in your deployment.
Do not create new device groups; instead use your existing NSX-V device groups. Using the
existing device groups allows you to apply the same security policy rules used on NSX-V to the
VM-Series firewalls deployed on NSX-T. If you have policy that reference a particular zone, add
the same template stack from your NSX-V service definition to your NSX-T service definition.
Additionally, if your device group references a particular template, ensure that you select the
template stack that includes the template referenced in the device group.

STEP 5 | Configure an NSX-T service manager and associate the NSX-T service definitions to the service
manager.

STEP 6 | Verify that your NSX-T configuration is present on NSX-T Manager.

1. Log in to NSX-T Manager.
2. Select System > Service Deployments > Catalog.
3. Confirm that your NSX-T service definition is listed.
4. Select Security > Network Introspection Settings > Service Profiles.
5. Confirm that your zones associated with your NSX-T template are listed.

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STEP 7 | If you have not already done so, add a compute manager in NSX-T Manager. After you have
verified that the Registration Status and Connection Status are up, continue below.

STEP 8 | Import the NSX-V configuration to NSX-T.

STEP 9 | Uninstall the service instance from NSX-V.

This step will result in traffic disruption.

1. Log in to your vSphere client.

2. Select Installation and Upgrade > Service Deployment.
3. Select your service deployment.
4. Click Delete.
5. Click Delete to confirm.

STEP 10 | Resolve Configuration issues on NSX-T Manager. While resolving configuration issues, you
must take specific actions to migrate your VM-Series firewall configuration. In most cases,
you can accept the recommendations presented by NSX-T Manager.
1. When resolving service insertion configuration, verify that you selected the correct service definition
that you previously configured on Panorama for the VM-Series on NSX-T.

2. Continue resolving the remaining configuration.

3. Before moving to Migrate Configuration, you will be asked to provide a transport zone for the
service insertion.
4. Map the service profiles on NSX-V to the corresponding service profiles on NSX-T.
1. Auto_PAN_VendorTPL can be skipped.

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2. Map the NSX-T service profile to the corresponding NSX-V service profile.

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STEP 11 | Migrate the configuration.

STEP 12 | Verify that your configuration has been migrated successfully.

1. Select Inventory > Groups to verify that your IP sets and security groups are present. You can click
on the security group name to see that the correct IP address are a part of the security group.
2. Select Security > Network Introspection Settings > Service Segment to confirm that a service
segment has been created.
3. Select Security > Network Introspection Settings > Service Chains to confirm that a service chain
has been created. Click the Profiles link in the Forward Path and Reverse Path columns to view your
service profile.
4. Select Security > Network Introspection (E-W) to confirm that a traffic redirection rule has been
created to direct traffic to the service profile of the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 13 | If applicable, modify and migrate edges.

STEP 14 | Configure and migrate your hosts.

STEP 15 | Add the NSX-T tags to you existing dynamic address groups.
1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
2. Click on the name of an existing NSX-V dynamic address group.
3. Click Add Match Criteria to display the tags from NSX-V and NSX-T.
4. Add the NSX-T tag to the dynamic address groups. If you choose not to remove the NSX-V tags, be
sure to use the OR operator between the tags.

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 5. When you have added all the necessary tags, click OK.
6. Commit your changes.

STEP 16 | Launch the VM-Series Firewall on NSX-T (East-West). You do not need to create a new
service segment; instead select the service segment created during migration.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
The VM-Series firewall can be deployed in the public Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud
and AWS GovCloud. It can then be configured to secure access to the applications that are
deployed on EC2 instances and placed into a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on AWS.

> About the VM-Series Firewall on AWS

> Deployments Supported on AWS
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
> VM-Series Integration with an AWS Gateway Load Balancer
> High Availability for VM-Series Firewall on AWS
> Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the AWS Cloud
> Use Case: Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure New EC2 Instances within the VPC
> Use Case: VM-Series Firewalls as GlobalProtect Gateways on AWS
> VM Monitoring on AWS
> Auto Scale VM-Series Firewalls with the Amazon ELB Service
> List of Attributes Monitored on the AWS VPC

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About the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
The Amazon Web Service (AWS) is a public cloud service that enables you to run your applications on a
shared infrastructure managed by Amazon. These applications can be deployed on scalable computing
capacity or EC2 instances in different AWS regions and accessed by users over the internet.
For networking consistency and ease of management of EC2 instances, Amazon offers the Virtual Private
Cloud (VPC). A VPC is apportioned from the AWS public cloud, and is assigned a CIDR block from the
private network space (RFC 1918). Within a VPC, you can carve public/private subnets for your needs and
deploy the applications on EC2 instances within those subnets. To then enable access to the applications
within the VPC, you can deploy the VM-Series firewall on an EC2 instance. The VM-Series firewall can then
be configured to secure traffic to and from the EC2 instances within the VPC.
The VM-Series firewall is available in both the public AWS cloud and on AWS GovCloud. The VM-Series
firewall in public AWS and AWS GovCloud supports the Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model and
the hourly Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG), the usage-based licensing model that you can avail from the AWS
Marketplace. For licensing details, see VM-Series Firewall Licenses for Public Clouds.
• AWS EC2 Instance Types
• VM-Series Firewall on AWS GovCloud
• VM-Series Firewall on AWS China
• VM-Series Firewall on AWS Outposts
• AWS Terminology
• Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB

AWS EC2 Instance Types

For supported instance types, see VM-Series Models on EC2 Instances.
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on an AWS instance size with more resources than the minimum
VM-Series System Requirements. If you choose a larger instance size for the VM-Series firewall model,
although the firewall only uses the max vCPU cores and memory shown in table, it does take advantage of
the faster network performance that AWS provides. If you want to change the instance type on your VM-
Series firewall that is licensed with the BYOL option, you must deactivate the VM before you switch the
instance type to ensure that your license is valid. See Upgrade the VM-Series Model to know why.
For guidance with sizing the VM-Series firewall on AWS, refer to this article.

VM-Series Firewall on AWS GovCloud

AWS GovCloud is an isolated AWS region that meets the regulatory and compliance requirements of the
US government agencies and customers.
To secure your workloads that contain all categories of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) data and
government-oriented, publicly available data in the AWS GovCloud (US) Region, the VM-Series firewall
provides the same robust security features in the standard AWS public cloud and on AWS GovCloud. The
VM-Series firewall on AWS GovCloud and the standard AWS public cloud support the same capabilities.
See AMI on AWS GovCloud to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

VM-Series Firewall on AWS China

The VM-Series firewall is available with the BYOL option on the AWS China Marketplace, and is available in
the AWS China (Beijing) and the AWS China (Ningxia) regions. You must have an AWS China account that is
separate from your global AWS account to access this image and use AWS resources on AWS China.

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 Make sure to review the VM-Series System Requirements before Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

VM-Series Firewall on AWS Outposts

To provide the same level of security to the workloads located on-premises as those workloads located
in the AWS cloud, you can install the VM-Series firewall on AWS on an AWS Outposts rack at your on-
premises location. Use the AWS marketplace BYOL AMIs for your AWS region to deploy the VM-Series
firewall instances in your AWS Outposts subnets.

See Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code), to create a support account and register the VM-
Series firewall on the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support website for activating your support entitlement
with Palo Alto Networks.

AWS Terminology
This document assumes that you are familiar with the networking and configuration of the AWS VPC. In
order to provide context for the terms used in this section, here is a brief refresher on the AWS terms (some
definitions are taken directly from the AWS glossary) that are referred to in this document:

Term Description

EC2 Elastic Compute Cloud

A web service that enables you to launch and manage Linux/UNIX and
Windows server instances in Amazon's data centers.

AMI Amazon Machine Image

An AMI provides the information required to launch an instance, which is a
virtual server in the cloud.
The VM-Series AMI is an encrypted machine image that includes the
operating system required to instantiate the VM-Series firewall on an EC2
instance.

ELB Elastic Load Balancing

ELB is an Amazon web service that helps you improve the availability and
scalability of your applications by routing traffic across multiple Elastic
Compute Cloud (EC2) instances. ELB detects unhealthy EC2 instances
and reroutes traffic to healthy instances until the unhealthy instances are
restored. ELB can send traffic only to the primary interface of the next hop
load-balanced EC2 instance. So, to use ELB with a VM-Series firewall on
AWS, the firewall must be able to use the primary interface for dataplane
traffic.

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Term Description

ENI Elastic Network Interface

An additional network interface that can be attached to an EC2 instance.
ENIs can include a primary private IP address, one or more secondary private
IP addresses, a public IP address, an elastic IP address (optional), a MAC
address, membership in specified security groups, a description, and a source/
destination check flag.

IP address types for An EC2 instance can have different types of IP addresses.
EC2 instances
• Public IP address: An IP address that can be routed across the internet.
• Private IP address: A IP address in the private IP address range as defined
in the RFC 1918. You can choose to manually assign an IP address or
to auto assign an IP address within the range in the CIDR block for the
subnet in which you launch the EC2 instance.
If you are manually assigning an IP address, Amazon reserves the first four (4)
IP addresses and the last one (1) IP address in every subnet for IP networking
purposes.
• Elastic IP address (EIP): A static IP address that you have allocated in
Amazon EC2 or Amazon VPC and then attached to an instance. Elastic IP
addresses are associated with your account, not with a specific instance.
They are elastic because you can easily allocate, attach, detach, and free
them as your needs change.
An instance in a public subnet can have a Private IP address, a Public IP
address, and an Elastic IP address (EIP); an instance in a private subnet will
have a private IP address and optionally have an EIP.

Instance type Amazon-defined specifications that stipulate the memory, CPU, storage
capacity, and hourly cost for an instance. Some instance types are designed
for standard applications, whereas others are designed for CPU-intensive,
memory-intensive applications, and so on.

VPC Virtual Private Cloud

An elastic network populated by infrastructure, platform, and application
services that share common security and interconnection.

IGW Internet gateway provided by Amazon.

Connects a network to the internet. You can route traffic for IP addresses
outside your VPC to the internet gateway.

IAM Role Identity and Access Management

Required for enabling High Availability for the VM-Series firewall on AWS.
The IAM role defines the API actions and resources the application can use
after assuming the role. On failover, the IAM Role allows the VM-Series
firewall to securely make API requests to switch the dataplane interfaces from
the active peer to the passive peer.
An IAM role is also required for VM Monitoring. See List of Attributes
Monitored on the AWS VPC.

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 Term Description

Subnets A segment of the IP address range of a VPC to which EC2 instances can be
attached. EC2 instances are grouped into subnets based on your security and
operational needs.
There are two types of subnets:
• Private subnet: The EC2 instances in this subnet cannot be reached from
the internet.
• Public subnet: The internet gateway is attached to the public subnet, and
the EC2 instances in this subnet can be reached from the internet.

Security groups A security group is attached to an ENI and it specifies the list of protocols,
ports, and IP address ranges that are allowed to establish inbound/outbound
connections on the interface.

In the AWS VPC, security groups and network ACLs control

inbound and outbound traffic; security groups regulate access
to the EC2 instance, while network ACLs regulate access
to the subnet. Because you are deploying the VM-Series
firewall, set more permissive rules in your security groups
and network ACLs and allow the firewall to safely enable
applications in the VPC.

Route tables A set of routing rules that controls the traffic leaving any subnet that is
associated with the route table. A subnet can be associated with only one
route table.

Key pair A set of security credentials you use to prove your identity electronically. The
key pair consists of a private key and a public key. At time of launching the
VM-Series firewall, you must generate a key pair or select an existing key pair
for the VM-Series firewall. The private key is required to access the firewall in
maintenance mode.

CloudWatch Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service that allows you to collect

and track metrics for the VM-Series firewalls on AWS. When enabled, the
firewalls use AWS APIs to publish native PAN-OS metrics to CloudWatch.

Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB

By default, the elastic network interface (ENI) eth0 maps to the MGT interface on the firewall and ENI eth1
maps to ethernet 1/1 on the firewall. Because the ELB can send traffic only to the primary interface of the
next hop load-balanced EC2 instance, the VM-Series firewall must be able to use the primary interface for
dataplane traffic.
The firewall can receive dataplane traffic on the primary interface in the following scenarios where the
VM-Series firewall is behind the Amazon ELB Service (for a topology diagram, see Auto Scale VM-Series
Firewalls with the Amazon ELB Service):
• The VM-Series firewall(s) is securing traffic outbound directly to the internet without the need for using
a VPN link or a Direct Connect link back to the corporate network.

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• The VM-Series firewall secures an internet-facing application when there is exactly one backend server,
such as a web server, for each firewall. The VM-Series firewalls and web servers can scale linearly, in
pairs, behind ELB.

At present, for use cases that require an ELB sandwich-type deployment to scale out
firewalls and application layer EC2 instances, swapping the management interface will
not allow you to seamlessly deploy the ELB solution. The ability to swap the management
interface only partially solves the integration with ELB.
To allow the firewall to send and receive dataplane traffic on eth0 instead of eth1, you must swap the
mapping of the ENIs within the firewall such that ENI eth0 maps to ethernet 1/1 and ENI eth1 maps to the
MGT interface on the firewall as shown below.

If possible, swap the management interface before you configure the firewall or define policy
rules.

Swapping how the interfaces are mapped allows ELB to distribute and route traffic to healthy instances of
the VM-Series firewall located in the same or different Availability Zones on AWS for increased capacity
and fault tolerance.
The interface swap is only required when the VM-Series firewall is behind the Amazon ELB Service. If your
requirement is to deploy the VM-Series firewalls in a traditional high availability set up, you don’t need to
configure the interface swap that is described in this section. Continue to High Availability for VM-Series
Firewall on AWS.
To swap the interfaces, you have the following options:
• At launch—When you launch the firewall, you can either enter the mgmt-interface-swap=enable
command in the User data field on the AWS management console (see Launch the VM-Series Firewall
on AWS) or CLI or you can include the new mgmt-interface-swap operational command in the
bootstrap configuration.
• After launch—After you launch the firewall, Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management
Interface (set system setting mgmt-interface-swap enable yes operational command) on
the firewall.

• To prevent unpredictable behavior on the firewall, pick one method to consistently

specify the interface swap setting—in the bootstrap configuration, from the CLI on the
firewall, or using the Amazon EC2 User data field on the AWS console.
• Ensure that you have access to the AWS console (management console or CLI) to
view the IP address of the eth1 interface. Also, verify that the AWS Security Group
rules allow connections (HTTPS and SSH) to the new management interface.
• If you configured the firewall or defined policy rules before interface swap, check
whether any IP address changes for eth0 or eth1 impact policy rules.

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Performance Tuning for the VM-Series on AWS
Make sure that you do the following:
• Pick the correct AWS Instance Types for your deployment. For example, you cannot deploy the
c4.xlarge EC2 instance type because the VM-Series firewall requires 9G memory with 2 or 4 vCPUs, and
the instance type only supports 4 vCPUs and 7.5G memory.

The C5 and M5 instance types that have the Elastic Network Adapter support SR-IOV
mode only on PAN-OS 9.0.3 and earlier versions. DPDK support is available starting with
PAN-OS 9.0.3.xfr.
• Select the VM-Series model and VM-Series firewall license that best suits your deployment needs. For
help with sizing, refer to this article.
• Enable DPDK using the CLI command set system setting dpdk-pkt-io on or bootstrap the
firewall to use DPDK at launch, except if deploying the firewalls in an HA configuration. See init-cfg.txt
File Components.
For SR-IOV and DPDK driver support by PAN-OS version, see SR-IOV and DPDK Drivers on VM-Series
Firewalls.

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Deployments Supported on AWS
The VM-Series firewall secures inbound and outbound traffic to and from EC2 instances within the AWS
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Because the AWS VPC only supports an IP network (Layer 3 networking
capabilities), the VM-Series firewall can only be deployed with Layer 3 interfaces.
• Deploy the VM-Series firewall to secure the EC2 instances hosted in the AWS Virtual Private Cloud.
If you host your applications in the AWS cloud, deploy the VM-Series firewall to protect and safely
enable applications for users who access these applications over the internet. For example, the following
diagram shows the VM-Series firewall deployed in the Edge subnet to which the internet gateway is
attached. The application(s) are deployed in the private subnet, which does not have direct access to the
internet.
When users need to access the applications in the private subnet, the firewall receives the request and
directs it to the appropriate application, after verifying security policy and performing Destination NAT.
On the return path, the firewall receives the traffic, applies security policy and uses Source NAT to
deliver the content to the user. See Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the AWS Cloud.

Figure 1: VM-Series for EC2 Instances

• Deploy the VM-Series firewall for VPN access between the corporate network and the EC2 instances
within the AWS Virtual Private Cloud.
To connect your corporate network with the applications deployed in the AWS Cloud, you can configure
the firewall as a termination point for an IPSec VPN tunnel. This VPN tunnel allows users on your
network to securely access the applications in the cloud.
For centralized management, consistent enforcement of policy across your entire network, and for
centralized logging and reporting, you can also deploy Panorama in your corporate network. If you need
to set up VPN access to multiple VPCs, using Panorama allows you to group the firewalls by region and
administer them with ease.

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 Figure 2: VM-Series for VPN Access

• Deploy the VM-Series firewall as a GlobalProtect gateway to secure access for remote users using
laptops. The GlobalProtect agent on the laptop connects to the gateway, and based on the request,
the gateway either sets up a VPN connection to the corporate network or routes the request to the
internet. To enforce security compliance for users on mobile devices (using the GlobalProtect App), the
GlobalProtect gateway is used in conjunction with the GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager. The
GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager ensures that mobile devices are managed and configured with
the device settings and account information for use with corporate applications and networks.

In each of the use cases above, you can deploy the VM-Series firewall in an active/
passive high availability (HA) pair. For information on setting up the VM-Series firewall in
HA, see Use Case: Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure New EC2 Instances within the
VPC.
• Deploy the VM-Series firewall with the Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) service, whereby the
firewall can receive dataplane traffic on the primary interface in the following scenarios where the VM-
Series firewall is behind the Amazon ELB:
• The VM-Series firewall(s) is securing traffic outbound directly to the internet without the need for
using a VPN link or a Direct Connect link back to the corporate network.
• The VM-Series firewall secures an internet-facing application when there is exactly one back-end
server, such as a web server, for each firewall. The VM-Series firewalls and web servers can scale
linearly, in pairs, behind ELB.
If you want to Auto Scale VM-Series Firewalls with the Amazon ELB Service, use the CloudFormation
Template available in the GitHub repository repository to deploy the VM-Series in an ELB sandwich
topology with an internet-facing classic ELB and an either an internal classic load balancer or an internal
application load balancer (internal ELB).

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Figure 3: VM-Series with ELB

You cannot configure the firewall to send and receive dataplane traffic on eth0 when the
firewall is in front of ELB. The VM-Series firewall must be placed behind the Amazon ELB.
You can either Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management Interface or enable
it on bootstrap. For details, see Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB.
If you want to deploy a load balancer sandwich topology, see Auto Scale VM-Series Firewalls
with the Amazon ELB Service.

In addition to the links above that are covered under the Palo Alto Networks official support
policy, Palo Alto Networks provides Community supported templates in the Palo Alto
Networks GitHub repository that allow you to explore the solutions available to jumpstart
your journey into cloud automation and scale on AWS. See AWS Transit VPC for a hub and
subscribing VPC deployment that enables you to secure traffic between VPCs, between a
VPC and an on-prem/hybrid cloud resource, and secure outbound traffic to the internet.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
• Obtain the AMI
• Planning Worksheet for the VM-Series in the AWS VPC
• Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
• Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS Outpost
• Create a Custom Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
• Encrypt EBS Volume for the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
• Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management Interface
• Enable CloudWatch Monitoring on the VM-Series Firewall

Obtain the AMI

Get the Amazon Machine Image for the public AWS cloud and the AWS GovCloud from the respective
Marketplace.
• AMI in the Public AWS Cloud
• AMI on AWS GovCloud
• Get the VM-Series Firewall Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ID

AMI in the Public AWS Cloud

The AMI for the VM-Series firewall is available in the AWS Marketplace for both the Bring Your Own
License (BYOL) and the usage-based pricing options.

For purchasing licenses with the BYOL option, contact your Palo Alto Networks sales engineer or reseller.

AMI on AWS GovCloud

The Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model and the usage-based model of the VM-Series firewall is
available on the AWS GovCloud Marketplace.

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With a GovCloud account, you can search for Palo Alto Networks and find the AMIs for the VM-Series
firewall on the Marketplace. Make sure to review the supported EC2 instance types before you launch the
firewall. For details, see Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

Table 1: Review System Requirements and Limitations for VM-Series on AWS

Requirement Details

EC2 instance types The EC2 instance type you select must meet the VM-Series System
Requirements for the VM-Series firewall model. If you deploy the VM-Series
firewall on an EC2 instance type that does not meet these requirements, the
firewall will boot into maintenance mode

To support VM Monitoring and high availability on AWS, the

VM-Series firewall must be able to directly reach the AWS
API service endpoints without any proxy servers between the
firewall management interface and the AWS API endpoints
(such as ec2.us-west-2.amazonaws.com).

Amazon Elastic Block The VM-Series firewall must use the Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS)
Storage (EBS) volume for storage. EBS optimization provides an optimized configuration
stack and additional, dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O.

Networking Because the AWS only supports Layer 3 networking capabilities, the
VM-Series firewall can only be deployed with Layer 3 interfaces. Layer 2

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 Requirement Details
interfaces, virtual wire, VLANs, and subinterfaces are not supported on the
VM-Series firewall deployed in the AWS VPC.

Interfaces Support for a total of eight interfaces is available—one management interface

and a maximum of seven Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) for data traffic.
The VM-Series firewall does not support hot attachment of ENIs; to detect
the addition or removal of an ENI you must reboot the firewall.

Your EC2 instance type selection determines the total

number of ENIs you can enable. For example, the c3.8xlarge
supports eight (8) ENIs.

Support entitlement For the Bring Your Own License model, a support account and a valid VM-
and Licenses Series license are required to obtain the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) file,
which is required to install the VM-Series firewall in the AWS VPC. The
licenses required for the VM-Series firewall—capacity license, support license,
and subscriptions for Threat Prevention, URL Filtering, WildFire, etc—must
be purchased from Palo Alto Networks. To purchase the licenses for your
deployment, contact your sales representative. See VM-Series Firewall
Licenses for Public Clouds.
For the usage-based licensing model, hourly and annual pricing bundles can
be purchased and billed directly to AWS. You must however, register your
support entitlement with Palo Alto Networks. For details see, Register the
Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth
code).

Get the VM-Series Firewall Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ID

Use the following instructions to find the AMI ID for the VM-Series firewall that matches the PAN-OS
version, license type, and AWS region in which you want to launch the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | Install AWS CLI on the client that you are using to retrieve the AMI ID, and login with your
AWS credentials.
Refer to the AWS documentation for instructions on installing the CLI.

STEP 2 | Find the AMI-ID with the following CLI command.

aws ec2 describe-images --filters "Name=product-code,Values=

<license-type-value>" Name=name,Values=PA-VM-AWS*
<PAN-OS-version>* --region
<region> --output table --query "Images[*].
{Name:Name,AMI:ImageId,State:State}

You need to replace the value in the angle brackets <> with the relevant information as shown below:
• Use the VM-Series product code for each license type. The values are:

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 • Bundle 1—

e9yfvyj3uag5uo5j2hjikv74n

• Bundle 2—

hd44w1chf26uv4p52cdynb2o

• BYOL—

6njl1pau431dv1qxipg63mvah

• Use the PAN-OS version— 10.0. If there are multiple feature releases within a PAN-OS version all the
AMI-IDs are listed for you. For example, in 9.0.x, you will view a listing of the AMI IDs for PAN-OS
versions 9.0, 9.0.3.xfr, 9.0.5.xfr, and 9.0.6, and you can use the AMI-ID for the PAN-OS version you
need.
• Get the AWS region details from: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html.
For example: To find the AMI-ID for the VM-Series Bundle 1 for PAN-OS 10.0.0 in US California region,
the CLI command is:

aws ec2 describe-images --filters "Name=product-

code,Values=e9yfvyj3uag5uo5j2hjikv74n" "Name=name,Values=PA-VM-AWS*10.0*"
--region us-west-1 --output json

The output is:

"ProductCodes": [

"ProductCodeId": "e9yfvyj3uag5uo5j2hjikv74n",

"ProductCodeType": "marketplace"

],

"VirtualizationType": "hvm",

"Hypervisor": "xen",

"ImageOwnerAlias": "aws-marketplace",

"EnaSupport": true,

"SriovNetSupport": "simple",

"ImageId": "ami-06f7a63d7481d0ded",

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 "State": "available",

"BlockDeviceMappings": [

"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",

"Ebs": {

"SnapshotId": "snap-0009036179b39824b",

"DeleteOnTermination": false,

"VolumeType": "gp2",

"VolumeSize": 60,

"Encrypted": false

],

"Architecture": "x86_64",

"ImageLocation": "aws-marketplace/PA-VM-AWS-10.0.0-
f1260463-68e1-4bfb-bf2e-075c2664c1d7-ami-06f7a63d7481d0ded.1",

"RootDeviceType": "ebs",

"OwnerId": "679593333241",

"RootDeviceName": "/dev/xvda",

"CreationDate": "2020-07-20T12:45:22.000Z",

"Public": true,

"ImageType": "machine",

"Name": "PA-VM-AWS-10.0.0-f1260463-68e1-4bfb-
bf2e-075c2664c1d7-ami-06f7a63d7481d0ded.1"

You can also output to a table format. For example, to see AMI for BYOL image for PAN-OS 10.0.2:

aws ec2 describe-images --filters "Name=product-

code,Values=6njl1pau431dv1qxipg63mvah" "Name=name,Values=PA-VM-
AWS*10.0.2*" --region us-west-1 --output table --query "Images[*].
{Name:Name,AMI:ImageId,State:State}"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DescribeImages
|+-----------------------
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 +-------------+| AMI | Name
| State |+-----------------------
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------+| ami-037b90bd9b630f594| PA-VM-
AWS-10.0.2-7064e142-2859-40a4-ab62-8b0996b842e9-
ami-07a0e94019f2a2001.4 | available |+-----------------------
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------+

Planning Worksheet for the VM-Series in the AWS VPC

For ease of deployment, plan the subnets within the VPC and the EC2 instances that you want to deploy
within each subnet. Before you begin, use the following table to collate the network information required to
deploy and insert the VM-Series firewall into the traffic flow in the VPC:

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

Configuration Item Value

VPC CIDR

Security Groups

Subnet (public) CIDR

Subnet (private) CIDR

Subnet (public) Route Table

Subnet (private) Route Table

Security Groups
• Rules for Management Access to
the firewall (eth0/0)
• Rules for access to the dataplane
interfaces of the firewall
• Rules for access to the interfaces
assigned to the application servers.

VM-Series firewall behind ELB

EC2 Instance 1 (VM-Series firewall) Subnet:

Instance type:
An EIP is only required
for the dataplane Mgmt interface IP:
interface that is
Mgmt interface EIP:
attached to the public
subnet. Dataplane interface eth1/1
• Private IP:
• EIP (if required):
• Security Group:

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 Configuration Item Value
Dataplane interface eth1/2
• Private IP:
• EIP (if required):
• Security Group:

EC2 Instance 2 (Application to be Subnet:

secured)
Instance type:
Repeat these set of values for
Mgmt interface IP:
additional application(s) being
deployed. Default gateway:
Dataplane interface 1
• Private IP:

Requirements for HA If you are deploying the VM-Series firewalls in a high

availability (active/passive) configuration, you must ensure the
following:
• Create an IAM role and assign the role to the VM-Series
firewall when you are deploying the instance. See IAM
Roles for HA.
• Deploy the HA peers in the same AWS availability zone.
• The active firewall in the HA pair must have at a minimum
three ENIs: two dataplane interfaces and one management
interface.
The passive firewall in the HA pair, must have one ENI
for management, and one ENI that functions as dataplane
interface; you will configure the dataplane interface as an HA2
interface.

Do not attach additional dataplane interfaces

to the passive firewall in the HA pair. On
failover, the dataplane interfaces from the
previously active firewall are moved —
detached and then attached—to the now
active (previously passive) firewall.

Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS

If you have not already registered the capacity authcode that you received with the order fulfillment email
with your support account, see Register the VM-Series Firewall. After registering, deploy the VM-Series
firewall using an AMI published in the Marketplace or Create a Custom Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in the
AWS VPC as follows:

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Access the AWS Console.

Log in to the AWS console and select the EC2 Dashboard.

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STEP 2 | Set up the VPC for your network needs.
Whether you launch the VM-Series firewall in an existing VPC or you create a new VPC, the VM-Series
firewall must be able to receive traffic from the EC2 instances and perform inbound and outbound
communication between the VPC and the internet.
Refer to the AWS VPC documentation for instructions on creating a VPC and setting it up for access.
For an example with a complete workflow, see Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the AWS Cloud.
1. Create a new VPC or use an existing VPC. Refer to the AWS Getting Started documentation.
2. Verify that the network and security components are defined suitably.
• Enable communication to the internet. The default VPC includes an internet gateway, and if you
install the VM-Series firewall in the default subnet it has access to the internet.
• Create subnets. Subnets are segments of the IP address range assigned to the VPC in which you
can launch the EC2 instances. The VM-Series firewall must belong to the public subnet so that it
can be configured to access the internet.
• Create security groups as needed to manage inbound and outbound traffic from the EC2
instances/subnets.
• Add routes to the route table for a private subnet to ensure that traffic can be routed across
subnets and security groups in the VPC, as applicable.
3. If you want to deploy a pair of VM-Series firewalls in HA, you must define IAM Roles for HA before
you can Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS.
4. (Optional) If you are using bootstrapping to perform the configuration of your VM-Series firewall,
refer to Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS. For more information about bootstrapping, see
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall and Choose a Bootstrap Method.

STEP 3 | Launch the VM-Series firewall.

Although you can add additional network interfaces (ENIs) to the VM-Series firewall when
you launch, AWS releases the auto-assigned Public IP address for the management
interface when you restart the firewall. Hence, to ensure connectivity to the management
interface you must assign an Elastic IP address for the management interface, before
attaching additional interfaces to the firewall.

If you want to conserve EIP addresses, you can assign one EIP address to the eth 1/1 interface and
use this interface for both management traffic and data traffic. To restrict services permitted on the
interface or limit IP addresses that can log in the eth 1/1 interface, attach a management profile to the
interface.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, click Launch Instance.
2. Select the VM-Series AMI. To get the AMI, see Obtain the AMI.
3. Launch the VM-Series firewall on an EC2 instance.
1. Choose the EC2 instance type for allocating the resources required for the firewall, and click
Next. See VM-Series System Requirements, for resource requirements.
2. Select the VPC.
3. Select the public subnet to which the VM-Series management interface will attach.
4. Select Automatically assign a public IP address. This allows you to obtain a publicly accessible IP
address for the management interface of the VM-Series firewall.
You can later attach an Elastic IP address to the management interface; unlike the public IP
address that is disassociated from the firewall when the instance is terminated, the Elastic IP
address provides persistence and can be reattached to a new (or replacement) instance of the
VM-Series firewall without the need to reconfigure the IP address wherever you might have
referenced it.

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 5. Select Launch as an EBS-optimized instance.
6. Add another network interface for deployments with ELB so that you can swap the management
and data interfaces on the firewall. Swapping interfaces requires a minimum of two ENIs (eth0 and
eth1).
• Expand the Network Interfaces section and click Add Device to add another network interface.
Make sure that your VPC has more than one subnet so that you can add additional ENIs at
launch.

If you launch the firewall with only one ENI:

•
The interface swap command will cause the firewall to boot into maintenance
mode.
• You must reboot the firewall when you add the second ENI.
• Expand the Advanced Details section and in the User data field enter mgmt-interface-
swap=enable as text to perform the interface swap during launch.

Bootstrap Package—If you are bootstrapping the firewall with the bootstrap package, you
can also enter a semicolon separator after mgmt-interface-swap=enable, then enter
vmseries-bootstrap-aws-s3bucket=<bucketname>.
User Data—If you are bootstrapping with user data, enter a semicolon separator after mgmt-
interface-swap=enable, and enter additional key-value pairs according to Enter a Basic
Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds).
AWS Secret—If you are bootstrapping with an AWS secret, enter a semicolon separator
after mgmt-interface-swap=enable, and enter the secret name as a key-value pair, as
described in Step 3 of Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS. For example:
7. Accept the default Storage settings. The firewall uses volume type SSD (gp2).

This key pair is required for first time access to the firewall. It is also required to
access the firewall in maintenance mode.
8. (Optional) Tagging. Add one or more tags to create your own metadata to identify and group the
VM-Series firewall. For example, add a Name tag with a Value that helps you remember that the
ENI interfaces have been swapped on this VM-Series firewall.

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 9. Select an existing Security Group or create a new one. This security group is for restricting access
to the management interface of the firewall. At a minimum consider enabling https and ssh access
for the management interface.
10.If prompted, select an appropriate SSD option for your setup.
11.Select Review and Launch. Review that your selections are accurate and click Launch.
12.Select an existing key pair or create a new one, and acknowledge the key disclaimer.
13.Download and save the private key to a safe location; the file extension is .pem. You cannot
regenerate this key, if lost.
It takes 5-7 minutes to launch the VM-Series firewall. You can view the progress on the EC2
Dashboard.When the process completes, the VM-Series firewall displays on the Instances page of
the EC2 Dashboard.

STEP 4 | Configure a new administrative password for the firewall.

On the VM-Series firewall CLI, you must configure a unique administrative password
before you can access the web interface of the firewall. To log in to the CLI, you require
the private key that you used to launch the firewall.

1. Use the public IP address to SSH into the Command Line Interface (CLI) of the VM-Series firewall.
You will need the private key that you used or created in 3 above to access the CLI.

If you added an additional ENI to support deployments with ELB, you must first create
and assign an Elastic IP address to the ENI to access the CLI, see 6.

If you are using PuTTY for SSH access, you must convert the .pem format to a .ppk format. See
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/putty.html
2. Enter the following command to log in to the firewall:
ssh-i <private_key.pem> admin@<public-ip_address>
3. Configure a new password, using the following command and follow the onscreen prompts:
configure
set mgt-config users admin password
4. If you have a BYOL that needs to be activated, set the DNS server IP address so that the firewall can
aceess the Palo Alto Networks licensing server. Enter the following command to set the DNS server
IP address:
set deviceconfig system dns-setting servers primary <ip_address>
5. Commit your changes with the command:
commit
6. Terminate the SSH session.

STEP 5 | Shutdown the VM-Series firewall.

1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Instances.
2. From the list, select the VM-Series firewall and click Actions > Stop.

STEP 6 | Create and assign an Elastic IP address (EIP) to the ENI used for management access to the
firewall and reboot the VM-Series firewall.
1. Select Elastic IPs and click Allocate New Address.
2. Select EC2-VPC and click Yes, Allocate.
3. Select the newly allocated EIP and click Associate Address.
4. Select the Network Interface and the Private IP address associated with the management interface
and click Yes, Associate.

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STEP 7 | Create virtual network interface(s) and attach the interface(s) to the VM-Series firewall. The
virtual network interfaces are called Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) on AWS, and serve as
the dataplane network interfaces on the firewall. These interfaces are used for handling data
traffic to/from the firewall.
You will need at least two ENIs that allow inbound and outbound traffic to/from the firewall. You can
add up to seven ENIs to handle data traffic on the VM-Series firewall; check your EC2 instance type to
verify the maximum number supported on it.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Network Interfaces, and click Create Network Interface.
2. Enter a descriptive name for the interface.
3. Select the subnet. Use the subnet ID to make sure that you have selected the correct subnet. You
can only attach an ENI to an instance in the same subnet.
4. Enter the Private IP address to assign to the interface or select Auto-assign to automatically assign
an IP address within the available IP addresses in the selected subnet.
5. Select the Security group to control access to the dataplane network interface.
6. Click Yes, Create.

7. To attach the ENI to the VM-Series firewall, select the interface you just created, and click Attach.

8. Select the Instance ID of the VM-Series firewall, and click Attach.

9. Repeat the steps above for creating and attaching at least one more ENI to the firewall.

STEP 8 | (Not required for the Usage-based licensing model) Activate the licenses on the VM-Series firewall.

This task is not performed on the AWS management console. Access to the Palo Alto
Networks support portal and the web interface of the VM-Series firewall is required for
license activation.

See Activate the License.

STEP 9 | Disable Source/Destination check on every firewall dataplane network interface(s). Disabling
this option allows the interface to handle network traffic that is not destined to the IP address
assigned to the network interface.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select the network interface, for example eth1/1, in the Network Interfaces
tab.
2. In the Action drop-down, select Change Source/Dest. Check.

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 3. Click Disabled and Save your changes.
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for each firewall dataplane interface.

STEP 10 | Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall.
For an example configuration, see steps 14 through 17 in Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the
AWS Cloud.

On the application servers within the VPC, define the dataplane network interface of the
firewall as the default gateway.

1. Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in using the EIP address and password
you assigned during initial configuration (https://<Elastic_IP address>). You will see a certificate
warning; that is okay. Continue to the web page.
2. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example VM_Series_untrust, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select either Static or DHCP Client.
If using the Static option, click Add in the IP section, and enter the IP address and network mask
for the interface, for example 10.0.0.10/24.
Make sure that the IP address matches the ENI IP address that you assigned earlier.
If using DHCP, select DHCP Client; the private IP address that you assigned to the ENI in the
AWS management console will be automatically acquired.
4. Click the link for ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• Security Zone: VM_Series_trust
• IP address: Select the Static or DHCP Client radio button.
For static, click Add in the IP section, and enter the IP address and network mask for the interface.
Make sure that the IP address matches the attached ENI IP address that you assigned earlier.
5. Click Commit. Verify that the link state for the interfaces are up.

For DHCP, clear the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by
server check box. For an interface that is attached to the private subnet in the VPC,
disabling this option ensures that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly
to the internet gateway on the VPC.

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STEP 11 | Create NAT rules to allow inbound and outbound traffic from the servers deployed within the
VPC.
1. Select Policies > NAT on the web interface of the firewall.
2. Create a NAT rule to allow traffic from the dataplane network interface on the firewall to the web
server interface in the VPC.
3. Create a NAT rule to allow outbound access for traffic from the web server to the internet.

STEP 12 | Create security policies to allow/deny traffic to/from the servers deployed within the VPC.
1. Select Policies > Security on the web interface of the firewall.
2. Click Add, and specify the zones, applications and logging options that you would like to execute to
restrict and audit traffic traversing through the network.

STEP 13 | Commit the changes on the firewall.

Click Commit.

STEP 14 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is securing traffic and that the NAT rules are in effect.
1. Select Monitor > Logs > Traffic on the web interface of the firewall.
2. View the logs to make sure that the applications traversing the network match the security policies
you implemented.

Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS Outpost

Follow this procedure to deploy the VM-Series firewall on an AWS Ouptost rack. If you have not already
registered the capacity authcode that you received with the order fulfillment email, with your support
account, see Register the VM-Series Firewall.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Access the AWS Outposts Console.

STEP 2 | Extend your VPC to include your AWS Outpost rack.

The VM-Series firewall must be able to receive traffic from the EC2 instances and perform inbound and
outbound communication between the VPC and the internet.
Refer to the AWS Outpost documentation for instructions on connecting your Outpost to your VPC.
1. Verify that the network and security components are defined suitably.

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 • Enable communication to the internet. The Outpost requires a local gateway to connect to your
local LAN and the internet.
• Create an Outpost subnet.
• Create security groups as needed to manage inbound and outbound traffic from the EC2
instances/subnets.
• Add routes to the route table for a private subnet to ensure that traffic can be routed across
subnets and security groups in the VPC, as applicable.
2. If you want to deploy a pair of VM-Series firewalls in HA, you must define IAM Roles for HA before
you can configure High Availability for VM-Series Firewall on AWS.
3. (Optional) If you are using bootstrapping to perform the configuration of your VM-Series firewall,
refer to Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS. For more information about bootstrapping, see
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall.

STEP 3 | Launch the VM-Series firewall.

Although you can add additional network interfaces (ENIs) to the VM-Series firewall when
you launch, AWS releases the auto-assigned Public IP address for the management
interface when you restart the firewall. Hence, to ensure connectivity to the management
interface you must assign an Elastic IP address for the management interface, before
attaching additional interfaces to the firewall.

If you want to conserve EIP addresses, you can assign one EIP address to the eth 1/1 interface and
use this interface for both management traffic and data traffic. To restrict services permitted on the
interface or limit IP addresses that can log in the eth 1/1 interface, attach a management profile to the
interface.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, click Launch Instance.
2. Select the VM-Series AMI. To get the AMI, see Obtain the AMI.
3. Launch the VM-Series firewall on an EC2 instance.
1. Choose the EC2 instance type for allocating the resources required for the firewall, and click
Next. See VM-Series System Requirements, for resource requirements.
2. Select the VPC.
3. Select the public subnet on Outpost to which the VM-Series management interface will attach.
4. Select Automatically assign a public IP address. This allows you to obtain a publicly accessible IP
address for the management interface of the VM-Series firewall.
You can later attach an Elastic IP address to the management interface; unlike the public IP
address that is disassociated from the firewall when the instance is terminated, the Elastic IP
address provides persistence and can be reattached to a new (or replacement) instance of the
VM-Series firewall without the need to reconfigure the IP address wherever you might have
referenced it.
5. Select Launch as an EBS-optimized instance.
6. Add another network interface for deployments with ELB so that you can swap the management
and data interfaces on the firewall. Swapping interfaces requires a minimum of two ENIs (eth0 and
eth1).
• Expand the Network Interfaces section and click Add Device to add another network interface.
Make sure that your VPC has more than one subnet so that you can add additional ENIs at
launch.

If you launch the firewall with only one ENI:

• The interface swap command will cause the firewall to boot into maintenance
mode.

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 • You must reboot the firewall when you add the second ENI.
• Expand the Advanced Details section and in the User data field enter mgmt-interface-
swap=enable as text to perform the interface swap during launch.

If you are bootstrapping the firewall, you can also enter vmseries-
bootstrap-aws-s3bucket=<bucketname> with a comma separator after
mgmt-interface-swap=enable.

7. Accept the default Storage settings. The firewall uses volume type SSD (gp2)

This key pair is required for first time access to the firewall. It is also required to
access the firewall in maintenance mode.
8. (Optional) Tagging. Add one or more tags to create your own metadata to identify and group the
VM-Series firewall. For example, add a Name tag with a Value that helps you remember that the
ENI interfaces have been swapped on this VM-Series firewall.
9. Select an existing Security Group or create a new one. This security group is for restricting access
to the management interface of the firewall. At a minimum consider enabling https and ssh access
for the management interface.
10.If prompted, select an appropriate SSD option for your setup.
11.Select Review and Launch. Review that your selections are accurate and click Launch.
12.Select an existing key pair or create a new one, and acknowledge the key disclaimer.
13.Download and save the private key to a safe location; the file extension is .pem. You cannot
regenerate this key, if lost.
It takes 5-7 minutes to launch the VM-Series firewall. You can view the progress on the EC2
Dashboard.When the process completes, the VM-Series firewall displays on the Instances page of
the EC2 Dashboard.

STEP 4 | Configure a new administrative password for the firewall.

On the VM-Series firewall CLI, you must configure a unique administrative password
before you can access the web interface of the firewall. To log in to the CLI, you require
the private key that you used to launch the firewall.

1. Use the public IP address to SSH into the Command Line Interface (CLI) of the VM-Series firewall.
You will need the private key that you used or created in 3 above to access the CLI.

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 If you added an additional ENI to support deployments with ELB, you must first create
and assign an Elastic IP address to the ENI to access the CLI, see 6.

If you are using PuTTY for SSH access, you must convert the .pem format to a .ppk format. See
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/putty.html
2. Enter the following command to log in to the firewall:
ssh-i <private_key.pem> admin@<public-ip_address>
3. Configure a new password, using the following command and follow the onscreen prompts:
configure
set mgt-config users admin password
4. If you have a BYOL that needs to be activated, set the DNS server IP address so that the firewall can
aceess the Palo Alto Networks licensing server. Enter the following command to set the DNS server
IP address:
set deviceconfig system dns-setting servers primary <ip_address>
5. Commit your changes with the command:
commit
6. Terminate the SSH session.

STEP 5 | Shutdown the VM-Series firewall.

1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Instances.
2. From the list, select the VM-Series firewall and click Actions > Stop.

STEP 6 | Create and assign an Elastic IP address (EIP) to the ENI used for management access to the
firewall and reboot the VM-Series firewall.
1. Select Elastic IPs and click Allocate New Address.
2. Select EC2-VPC and click Yes, Allocate.
3. Select the newly allocated EIP and click Associate Address.
4. Select the Network Interface and the Private IP address associated with the management interface
and click Yes, Associate.

STEP 7 | Create virtual network interface(s) and attach the interface(s) to the VM-Series firewall. The
virtual network interfaces are called Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) on AWS, and serve as
the dataplane network interfaces on the firewall. These interfaces are used for handling data
traffic to/from the firewall.
You will need at least two ENIs that allow inbound and outbound traffic to/from the firewall. You can
add up to seven ENIs to handle data traffic on the VM-Series firewall; check your EC2 instance type to
verify the maximum number supported on it.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Network Interfaces, and click Create Network Interface.
2. Enter a descriptive name for the interface.
3. Select the subnet. Use the subnet ID to make sure that you have selected the correct subnet. You
can only attach an ENI to an instance in the same subnet.
4. Enter the Private IP address to assign to the interface or select Auto-assign to automatically assign
an IP address within the available IP addresses in the selected subnet.
5. Select the Security group to control access to the dataplane network interface.
6. Click Yes, Create.

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 7. To attach the ENI to the VM-Series firewall, select the interface you just created, and click Attach.

8. Select the Instance ID of the VM-Series firewall, and click Attach.

9. Repeat the steps above for creating and attaching at least one more ENI to the firewall.

STEP 8 | (Not required for the Usage-based licensing model) Activate the licenses on the VM-Series firewall.

This task is not performed on the AWS management console. Access to the Palo Alto
Networks support portal and the web interface of the VM-Series firewall is required for
license activation.

See Activate the License.

STEP 9 | Disable Source/Destination check on every firewall dataplane network interface(s). Disabling
this option allows the interface to handle network traffic that is not destined to the IP address
assigned to the network interface.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select the network interface, for example eth1/1, in the Network Interfaces
tab.
2. In the Action drop-down, select Change Source/Dest. Check.

3. Click Disabled and Save your changes.

4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for each firewall dataplane interface.

STEP 10 | Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall.
For an example configuration, see steps 14 through 17 in Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the
AWS Cloud.

On the application servers within the VPC, define the dataplane network interface of the
firewall as the default gateway.

1. Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in using the EIP address and password
you assigned during initial configuration (https://<Elastic_IP address>). You will see a certificate
warning; that is okay. Continue to the web page.

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 2. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example VM_Series_untrust, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select either Static or DHCP Client.
If using the Static option, click Add in the IP section, and enter the IP address and network mask
for the interface, for example 10.0.0.10/24.
Make sure that the IP address matches the ENI IP address that you assigned earlier.
If using DHCP, select DHCP Client; the private IP address that you assigned to the ENI in the
AWS management console will be automatically acquired.
4. Click the link for ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• Security Zone: VM_Series_trust
• IP address: Select the Static or DHCP Client radio button.
For static, click Add in the IP section, and enter the IP address and network mask for the interface.
Make sure that the IP address matches the attached ENI IP address that you assigned earlier.
5. Click Commit. Verify that the link state for the interfaces are up.

For DHCP, clear the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by
server check box. For an interface that is attached to the private subnet in the VPC,
disabling this option ensures that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly
to the internet gateway on the VPC.

STEP 11 | Create NAT rules to allow inbound and outbound traffic from the servers deployed within the
VPC.
1. Select Policies > NAT on the web interface of the firewall.
2. Create a NAT rule to allow traffic from the dataplane network interface on the firewall to the web
server interface in the VPC.
3. Create a NAT rule to allow outbound access for traffic from the web server to the internet.

STEP 12 | Create security policies to allow/deny traffic to/from the servers deployed within the VPC.
1. Select Policies > Security on the web interface of the firewall.

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 2. Click Add, and specify the zones, applications and logging options that you would like to execute to
restrict and audit traffic traversing through the network.

STEP 13 | Commit the changes on the firewall.

Click Commit.

STEP 14 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is securing traffic and that the NAT rules are in effect.
1. Select Monitor > Logs > Traffic on the web interface of the firewall.
2. View the logs to make sure that the applications traversing the network match the security policies
you implemented.

Create a Custom Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

A custom VM-Series AMI gives you the consistency and flexibility to deploy a VM-Series firewall with the
PAN-OS version you want to use on your network instead of being restricted to using only an AMI that
is published to the AWS public Marketplace or to the AWS GovCloud Marketplace. Using a custom AMI
speeds up the process of deploying a firewall with the PAN-OS version of your choice because it reduces
the time to provision the firewall with an AMI published on the AWS public or AWS GovCloud marketplace,
and then performing software upgrades to get to the PAN-OS version you have qualified or want to use
on your network. Additionally, you can then use the custom AMI in the Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls
CloudFormation Templates or any other templates that you have created.
You can create a custom AMI with the BYOL, Bundle 1, or Bundle 2 licenses. The process of creating a
custom AMI requires you to remove all configuration from the firewall and reset it to factory defaults, so
in this workflow you’ll launch a new instance of the firewall from the AWS Marketplace instead of using an
existing firewall that you have fully configured.

When creating a custom AMI with a BYOL version of the firewall, you must first activate the
license on the firewall so that you can access and download PAN-OS software updates to
upgrade your firewall, and then deactivate the license on the firewall before you reset the
firewall to factory defaults and create the custom AMI. If you do not deactivate the license,
you lose the license that you applied on this firewall instance.

STEP 1 | Launch the VM-Series firewall from the Marketplace.

See 3

STEP 2 | (Only for BYOL) Activate the license.

STEP 3 | Install software updates and upgrade the firewall to the PAN-OS version you plan to use.

STEP 4 | (Only for BYOL) Deactivate the license.

STEP 5 | Perform a private data reset.

A private data reset removes all logs and restores the default configuration.
The system disks are not erased, so the content updates from Step 4 are intact.
1. Access the firewall CLI.
2. Remove all logs and restore the default configuration.

request system private-data-reset

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 Enter y to confirm.
The firewall reboots to initialize the default configuration.

STEP 6 | Create the custom AMI.

1. Log in to the AWS Console and select the EC2 Dashboard.
2. Stop the VM-Series firewall.
3. Select the VM-Series firewall instance, and click Image > Create Image.

4. Enter a custom image name, and click Create Image.

The disk space of 60GB is the minimum requirement.

5. Verify that the custom AMI is created and has the correct product code.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select AMI.
2. Select the AMI that you just created. Depending on whether you selected an AMI with the BYOL,
Bundle 1, or Bundle 2 licensing options, you should see one of the following Product Codes in the
details:
• BYOL—6njl1pau431dv1qxipg63mvah
• Bundle 1—6kxdw3bbmdeda3o6i1ggqt4km
• Bundle 2—806j2of0qy5osgjjixq9gqc6g

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STEP 7 | Encrypt EBS Volume for the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.
If you plan to use the custom AMI with EBS encryption for an Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls with the
Amazon ELB Service deployment, you must use the default master key for your AWS account.

STEP 8 | Configure the administrative password on the firewall.

See 4

Encrypt EBS Volume for the VM-Series Firewall on AWS

EBS encryption is available for all AWS EC2 Instance Types on which you can deploy the VM-Series
firewall. To securely store data on the VM-Series firewall on AWS, you must first create a copy of an AMI
that is published on the AWS public or GovCloud Marketplace, or use a custom AMI, and then encrypt the
EBS volume with a customer master key (CMK) on the AWS Key Management Service (KMS). You can use
the default master key for your AWS account or any CMK that you have previously created using the AWS
Key Management Service, and EBS the KMS interact to ensure data security.

STEP 1 | Create an encryption key on AWS or skip this step if you want to use the default master key
for your account.
You will use this key to encrypt the EBS volume on the firewall. Note that the key is region specific.

STEP 2 | Use the key to encrypt the EBS volume on the firewall.
You must create a copy of the AMI that you want to encrypt. You can copy an AMI that is published
on the AWS public or GovCloud Marketplace, or use a custom AMI (Create a Custom Amazon Machine
Image (AMI)).
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select the AMI and Copy AMI.

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2. Set the details for the AMI.
Make sure to select Encrypt target EBS snapshots.

3. Select the encryption key and Copy AMI to create an encrypted EBS snapshot.

4. Select EC2 Dashboard > Snapshots to verify that the EBS snapshot is encrypted with the key you
selected above.

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Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management
Interface
If you did not swap the management interface (MGT) with the dataplane interface (ethernet 1/1) when
deploying the firewall, you can use the CLI to enable the firewall to receive dataplane traffic on the primary
interface after launching the firewall.

STEP 1 | Complete Steps 1 through 7 in Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

Before you proceed, verify that the firewall has a minimum of two ENIs (eth0 and eth1).
If you launch the firewall with only one ENI, the interface swap command will cause the
firewall to boot into maintenance mode.

STEP 2 | On the EC2 Dashboard, view the IP address of the eth1 interface and verify that the AWS
Security Group rules allow connections (HTTPS and SSH) to the new management interface
(eth1).

STEP 3 | Log in to the VM-Series firewall CLI and enter the following command:
set system setting mgmt-interface-swap enable yes

STEP 4 | Confirm that you want to swap the interface and use the eth1 dataplane interface as the
management interface.

STEP 5 | Reboot the firewall for the swap to take effect. Use the following command:
request restart system

STEP 6 | Verify that the interfaces have been swapped. Use the following command:

debug show vm-series interfaces all

Phoenix_interface Base-OS_port Base-OS_MAC PCI-ID Driver
mgt(interface-swap) eth0 0e:53:96:91:ef:29 0000:00:04.0 ixgbevf
Ethernet1/1 eth1 0e:4d:84:5f:7f:4d 0000:00:03.0
ixgbevf

Enable CloudWatch Monitoring on the VM-Series Firewall

The VM-Series firewall on AWS can publish native PAN-OS metrics to AWS CloudWatch, which you can
use to monitor the firewalls. These metrics allow you to assess performance and usage patterns that you
can use to take action for launching or terminating instances of the VM-Series firewalls.
The firewalls use AWS APIs to publish the metric to a namespace, which is the location on AWS where
the metrics are collected at a specified time interval. When you configure the firewalls to publish metrics
to AWS CloudWatch, there are two namespaces where you can view metrics— the primary namespace

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 collects and aggregates the selected metric for all instances configured to use the namespace, and the
secondary namespace that is automatically created with the suffix _dimensions allows you to filter the
metrics using the hostname and AWS instance ID metadata (or dimensions) and get visibility into the usage
and performance of individual VM-Series firewalls.
You can monitor the metric in CloudWatch or create auto scaling policies to trigger alarms and take an
action to manually deploy a new instance of the firewall when the monitored metric reaches a threshold
value. Refer to the AWS CloudWatch and Auto Scaling Groups (ASG) documentation on best practices for
setting the alarm conditions for a scale out or scale in action.
For a description on the PAN-OS metrics that you can publish to CloudWatch, see Custom PAN-OS Metrics
Published for Monitoring.

STEP 1 | Assign the appropriate permissions for the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user
role that you use to deploy the VM-Series firewall on AWS.
Whether you launch a new instance of the VM-Series firewall or upgrade an existing VM-Series firewall
on AWS, the IAM role associated with your instance, must have permissions to publish metrics to
CloudWatch.
1. On the AWS console, select IAM.
2. Edit the IAM role to grant the following permissions:

You can copy and the paste the permissions here:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"cloudwatch:PutMetricData"
],

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 "Resource": [
"*"
]
}
]
}

STEP 2 | Enable CloudWatch on the VM-Series firewall on AWS.

1. Log in to the web interface on the VM-Series firewall
2. Select Device > VM-Series.
3. In AWS CloudWatch Setup, click Edit ( ) and select Enable CloudWatch Monitoring.

1. Enter the CloudWatch Namespace to which the firewall can publish metrics. The namespace
cannot begin with AWS.
The aggregated metrics for all VM-Series firewall in an HA pair or auto scaling deployment are
published to the namespace you entered above. The namespace with the _dimensions suffix
that is automatically created enables you to filter and view metrics for an specific VM-Series
firewall using the hostname or AWS instance ID metadata attached to the firewall.
2. Set the Update Interval to a value between 1-60 minutes. This is the frequency at which the
firewall publishes the metrics to CloudWatch. The default is 5 minutes.

4. Commit the changes.

Until the firewall starts to publish metrics to CloudWatch, you cannot configure alarms for PAN-OS
metrics.

STEP 3 | Verify that you can see the metrics on CloudWatch.

1. On the AWS console, select CloudWatch > Metrics, to view CloudWatch metrics by category.
2. From the Custom Metrics drop-down, select the namespace.

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3. Verify that you can see PAN-OS metrics in the viewing list.
To filter by hostname or AWS Instance ID of a specific firewall, select _dimensions.

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STEP 4 | Configure alarms and action for PAN-OS metrics on CloudWatch.
Refer to the AWS documentation: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/
monitoring/AlarmThatSendsEmail.html
A VM-Series firewall with bootstrap configuration will take about 7-9 minutes to be available for service.
So, here are some examples on how to set alarms that trigger auto scaling for the VM-Series firewall:
• If you have deployed 2 instances of the VM-Series firewalls as Global Protect Gateways that secure
remote users, use the GlobalProtect Gateway Active Tunnels metric. You can configure an alarm
for when the number of active tunnels is greater than 300 for 15 minutes, you can deploy 2 new
instances of the VM-Series firewall, which are bootstrapped and configured to serve as Global
Protect Gateways.
• If you are using the firewall to secure your workloads in AWS, use the Session Utilization metric to
scale in or scale out the firewall based on resource usage. You can configure an alarm for when the
session utilization metric is greater than 60% for 15 minutes, to deploy one instance of the VM-Series
instance firewall. And conversely, if Session Utilization is less than 50% for 30 minutes, terminate an
instance of the VM-Series firewall.

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VM-Series Integration with an AWS Gateway
Load Balancer
The AWS Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) is an AWS managed service that allows you to deploy a stack of
VM-Series firewalls and operate in a horizontally scalable and fault-tolerant manner. You can then expose
the AWS GWLB with the stack of firewalls as a VPC endpoint service for traffic inspection and threat
prevention. By creating Gateway Load Balancer endpoints (GWLBE) for the VPC endpoint service, you can
easily insert an auto-scaling VM-Series firewall stack in the outbound, east-west, and inbound traffic paths
of your applications. VM-Series firewalls and the GWLB use the GENEVE encapsulation to keep your traffic
packet headers and payload intact, providing complete visibility of the source’s identity to your applications.
The image below describes how the integration of GWLB with VM-Series simplifies your AWS transit
gateway (TGW) environments. You attach a centralized security VPC to your transit gateway. The
centralized security VPC includes a GWLB to scale and load-balance traffic across the stack of VM-Series
firewalls.

To ensure that the VM-Series firewall can inspect traffic that is routed between VPC attachments, you
must enable appliance mode on the transit gateway VPC attachment for the security VPC containing
the VM-Series firewall. This ensures that bidirectional traffic is routed symmetrically—both request and
response traffic are directed to the same Gateway Endpoint in the firewall VPC and the GWLB will maintain
persistence to the same VM-Series firewall for inspection before continuing to the correct destination.
When deployed with a GWLB, you can use the VM-Series firewall to protect:
• Inbound traffic—traffic originating outside the VPC and destined to resources within your application
VPC, such as web servers. VM-Series firewalls prevent malware and vulnerabilities from entering the
network in traffic allowed by AWS security groups.
• Outbound traffic—traffic originating within the application VPCs and destined to external resources
on the Internet. The VM-Series firewalls protect outbound traffic flows by ensuring that workloads in
application VPCs connect to permitted services (such as Windows Update) and allowed URL categories
and preventing data exfiltration of sensitive information. Additionally, VM-Series security profiles
prevent malware and vulnerabilities from entering the network in the return traffic.

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 • East-West traffic—in a transit gateway environment, East-West traffic refers to Inter-VPC traffic, such as
the traffic between source and destination workloads in two different application VPCs. The VM-Series
firewalls protect east-west traffic flows against malware propagation.
To protect the inbound traffic to your application VPCs, create GWLBEs endpoints (GWLBE1 and GWLBE2
in the figure above) in your spoke VPCs. Next, add route rules in the spoke VPC’s Internet gateway and
subnet route tables to route all inbound traffic to the VPC via the endpoints and through the firewalls.
The GWLBEs redirect the inbound traffic to an application VPCs is redirected to the GWLB. The GWLB
then route the traffic to one of its VM-Series targets. The firewall inspects the traffic and sends it back to
the GWLBE and then onto the destination. The traffic enters and exits the VM-Series firewall via a single
interface.
To protect the outbound traffic of the application VPCs, you create a GWLBE (GWLBE3 in the figure above)
in the centralized firewall VPC. You can then use route rules in the application VPCs that direct all outbound
traffic to the transit gateway (TGW). The TGW has a route table associated with the application VPC that
redirects all outbound traffic to the centralized security VPC for inspection. After the firewall inspects the
traffic and applies any applicable policy, the traffic is sent back to the GWLBE (GWLBE3) and then onto the
transit gateway (TGW). The TGW route table associated with the security VPC then routes the traffic to the
destination.
To protect the east-west traffic between the application VPCs, you use the same GWLBE endpoint
(GWLBE3 in the figure above) in the centralized firewall VPC. You then use route rules in the application
VPCs and transit gateways to redirect traffic to centralized security VPC for inspection.
You can integrate the VM-Series firewall with a GWLB manually, using CloudFormation templates (CFT), or
Terraform templates. The templates are available in the Palo Alto Networks GitHub repository.
• Manual Integration of the VM-Series with a Gateway Load Balancer
• VM-Series Auto Scaling Group with AWS Gateway Load Balancer

Manual Integration of the VM-Series with a Gateway Load

Balancer
Refer to the following topics to manually integrate the VM-Series firewall with an AWS gateway load
balancer.
• Enable VM-Series Integration with a Gateway Load Balancer
• Manually Integrate the VM-Series with a Gateway Load Balancer
• (Optional) Associate a VPC Endpoint with a VM-Series Interface
• (Optional) Enable Overlay Routing for the VM-Series on AWS

Enable VM-Series Integration with a Gateway Load Balancer

When integrating the VM-Series firewall with a GWLB, you must first enable the VM-Series firewall to
properly process traffic redirected to the firewall by the GWLB endpoints. You can enable this functionality
using the VM-Series firewall CLI, through the VM-Series bootstrapping package, or the user-data field in the
AWS console.
VM-Series firewall deployment with a GWLB requires:
• PAN-OS 10.0.2 or later
• VM-Series plugin 2.0.2 or later
• Panorama 10.0.2 or later if you using Panorama to manage your firewalls
The table below lists the commands required to enable GWLB traffic inspection and associate a
subinterface with a VPC endpoint. Operation commands can be used in the a bootstrapping init-cfg.txt file
or in the user-data field in the AWS console.

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 Bootstrap Parameter CLI Command Description

mgmt-interface-swap=enable set system setting mgmt- Swaps eth0 and eth1. Eth0
interface-swap enable yes becomes a data interface and
eth1 becomes the management
This command interface.
requires the
firewall to reboot
before taking
effect.

plugin-op-commands=aws-gwlb- request plugins vm_series aws Enables the VM-Series firewall

inspect:enable gwlb inspect enable <yes/no> to process traffic passing
through a GWLB.

Manually Integrate the VM-Series with a Gateway Load Balancer

Complete the following procedure to manually integrate your VM-Series firewall on AWS with a GWLB.

If you associate VPC endpoints to an interface or subinterfaces via user data while
bootstrapping and your bootstrap.xml file does not include the interface configuration, you
can configure the interfaces after the firewall boots up.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Set up the security VPC. See the AWS documentation for more information about creating
your security VPC.
• Create two subnets—one for management and one for data.
• Create two security groups—one for firewall management and one for data.
• The management subnet security groups should allow https and ssh for management access.
• Ensure that the security group(s) in your data VPC allows GENEVE-encapsulated packets (UDP port
6081).
• If your deployment includes a transit gateway and traffic that will move between VPCs, you must
enable appliance mode on security VPC attachment.

The target group of the GWLB cannot use HTTP for health checks because the VM-
Series firewall does not allow access with an unsecured protocol. Instead, use another
protocol such as HTTPS or TCP.

STEP 2 | Launch the VM-Series firewall.

1. On the EC2 Dashboard, click Launch Instance.
2. Select the VM-Series AMI. To get the AMI, see Obtain the AMI.
3. Launch the VM-Series firewall on an EC2 instance.
1. Choose the EC2 instance type for allocating the resources required for the firewall, and click
Next. See VM-Series System Requirements, for resource requirements.
2. Select the security VPC.
3. Select the data subnet to attach to eth0.
4. Select Launch as an EBS-optimized instance.

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 5. Add another network interface for eth1 to act as the management interface after the interface
swap. Swapping interfaces requires a minimum of two ENIs (eth0 and eth1).
• Expand the Network Interfaces section and click Add Device to add another network interface.
Make sure that your VPC has more than one subnet so that you can add additional ENIs at
launch.

If you launch the firewall with only one ENI:

•
The interface swap command will cause the firewall to boot into maintenance
mode.
• You must reboot the firewall when you add the second ENI.
• Expand the Advanced Details section and in the User data field enter as text to perform the
interface swap during launch.
mgmt-interface-swap=enable
plugin-op-commands=aws-gwlb-inspect:enable

If you set the target type to the IP address of a specific interface on the VM-
Series firewall, you do not need to enable management interface swap.

6. Accept the default Storage settings. The firewall uses volume type SSD (gp2).
7. If prompted, select an appropriate SSD option for your setup.
8. (Optional) Tagging. Add one or more tags to create your own metadata to identify and group the
VM-Series firewall. For example, add a Name tag with a Value that helps you remember that the
ENI interfaces have been swapped on this VM-Series firewall.
9. Select the data Security Group for eth0 (data interface). Enable traffic on UDP port 6081.
If you enable health checks to the firewall, you cannot use HTTP. Instead, use another protocol
such as HTTPS or TCP.
10.Select Review and Launch. Review that your selections are accurate and click Launch.
11.Select an existing key pair or create a new one, and acknowledge the key disclaimer.

This key pair is required for first time access to the firewall. It is also required to
access the firewall in maintenance mode.
12.Download and save the private key to a safe location; the file extension is .pem. You cannot
regenerate this key, if lost.
It takes 5-7 minutes to launch the VM-Series firewall. You can view the progress on the EC2
Dashboard.When the process completes, the VM-Series firewall displays on the Instances page of
the EC2 Dashboard.

STEP 3 | Attach the management security group to eth1 (management interface). Allow ssh and https.
See the AWS Documentation for more information.

STEP 4 | Create and assign an Elastic IP address (EIP) to the ENI used for management access (eth1) to
the firewall.
1. Select Elastic IPs and click Allocate New Address.
2. Select EC2-VPC and click Yes, Allocate.

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 3. Select the newly allocated EIP and click Associate Address.
4. Select the Network Interface and the Private IP address associated with the management interface
and click Yes, Associate.

STEP 5 | Configure a new administrative password for the firewall.

On the VM-Series firewall CLI, you must configure a unique administrative password
before you can access the web interface of the firewall. To log in to the CLI, you require
the private key that you used to launch the firewall.

1. Use the EIP to SSH into the Command Line Interface (CLI) of the VM-Series firewall. You will need
the private key that you used or created above and using the user name admin to access the CLI.
If you are using PuTTY for SSH access, you must convert the .pem format to a .ppk format. See
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/putty.html
2. Enter the following command to log in to the firewall:
ssh-i <private_key.pem> admin@<public-ip_address>
3. Configure a new password, using the following command and follow the onscreen prompts:
configure
set mgt-config users admin password
4. If you have a BYOL that needs to be activated, set the DNS server IP address so that the firewall can
aceess the Palo Alto Networks licensing server. Enter the following command to set the DNS server
IP address:
set deviceconfig system dns-setting servers primary <ip_address>
5. Commit your changes with the command:
commit
6. Terminate the SSH session.

STEP 6 | Configure the dataplane network interface as a Layer 3 interface on the firewall.

On the application servers within the VPC, define the dataplane network interface of the
firewall as the default gateway.

1. Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in using the EIP address and password
you assigned during initial configuration (https://<Elastic_IP address>). You will see a certificate
warning; that is okay. Continue to the web page.
2. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select DHCP Client.
If using DHCP, select DHCP Client; the private IP address that you assigned to the ENI in the
AWS management console will be automatically acquired.
• On the Advanced tab, create a management profile to allow health checks to be received by the
firewall.
4. Click Commit. Verify that the link state for the interface is up.

STEP 7 | Create security policies to allow/deny traffic.

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 Because the VM-Series treats traffic as intrazone when integrated with a GWLB, a default
intrazone rule allows all traffic. It is a best practice to override the default intrazone rule
with a deny action for traffic that does not match any of your other security policy rules.

1. Select Policies > Security on the web interface of the firewall.

2. Click Add, and specify the security zones, applications and logging options that you would like to
execute to restrict and audit traffic traversing through the network.

STEP 8 | Commit the changes on the firewall.

Associate a VPC Endpoint with a VM-Series Interface

You can associate one or more VPC endpoints with an interface or subinterface of the VM-Series firewall.
You can provide consistent policy enforcement by associating all the endpoints in a single VPC to the
same subinterface on the firewall. Or, if your deployment has VPCs with overlapping IP address, you can
associate endpoints in different VPCs with different subinterfaces for differentiated policy enforcement.

Associating a VPC to an interface or subinterface is not mandatory to integrate the VM-

Series firewall with a GWLB.

You can configure interfaces and associate a VPC with firewall interfaces using the following methods:
• Include the interface configuration in your bootstrap.xml file and the association commands as part
of the init-cfg.txt file or AWS user-data.
• After deploying the firewall, manually configure your interfaces and use the firewall CLI to associate
your VPCs with interfaces.
You can associate multiple VPC endpoints to a single interface on the VM-Series firewall. However,
you must associate each VPC endpoint individually. For example, to associate VPC endpoint 1 and VPC
endpoint 2 with subinterface ethernet1/1.2, you must execute the association command separately for
each VPC endpoint.

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 The table below describes the commands used to associate a VPC with an interface. You can include the
operation command in your init-cfg.txt file or in the AWS user-data.

Bootstrap Parameter CLI Command Description

plugin-op-commands= request plugins vm_series Associates a VPC endpoint with

aws gwlb associate vpc- an interface or subinterface
aws-gwlb-associate-vpce:<vpce-
endpoint <vpce-id> interface on the firewall. The specified
id>@ethernet<subinterface>
<subinterface> interface is assigned to a
security zone.

— request plugins vm_series Disassociates a VPC endpoint

aws gwlb disassociate vpc- with an interface or subinterface
endpoint <vpce-id> interface on the firewall. The specified
<subinterface> interface is assigned to a
security zone.

— show plugins vm_series aws Displays the operating state

gwlb of the firewall as it relates to
your GWLB deployment. It
does not display the firewall
configuration.
For example, if you configure an
association to an interface that
does not exist, that association
is configured but not part of the
operating state. Therefore, it is
not displayed.

When associating a VPC endpoint using the bootstrapping init-cfg.txt file or AWS user-date, you can
list multiple interfaces or subinterfaces together. All the commands must be on a single line in a comma-
separated list with no spaces as shown in the following example.

plugin-op-commands=aws-gwlb-inspect:enable,aws-gwlb-associate-
vpce:vpce-0913731043b5c0ebc@ethernet1/1.1,aws-gwlb-associate-
vpce:vpce-08207ccb4cb23a1de@ethernet1/1.1,aws-gwlb-associate-
vpce:vpce-07b66cca88821d6e1@ethernet1/1.2,aws-gwlb-associate-
vpce:vpce-0a9a583fdb928492b@ethernet1/1.3

If you are using subinterfaces to separate traffic, create a subinterface for each VPC and associate it to a
VPC.

STEP 1 | Configure the subinterface.

1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Select Network > Interface.
3. Highlight ethernet1/1 and click Add Subinterface.
4. Enter a numerical suffix (1 to 9,999) to identify the subinterface.
5. Enter a VLAN Tag (1 to 4,094) for the subinterface. This field is required but the VLAN is not used.
6. Select a Virtual Router.
7. Select a Security Zone.

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 8. On the IPv4 tab, set the Type to DHCP Client.
9. Click OK.
10.Repeat this command for each VPC endpoint.

STEP 2 | Associate the interface with a VPC endpoint.

1. Log in to the firewall CLI.
2. Execute the following command:
request plugins vm_series aws gwlb associate vpc-endpoint <vpce-id>
interface <subinterface>
For example:
request plugins vm_series aws gwlb associate vpc-endpoint
vpce-02c4e6g8ha97h7e39 interface ethernet1/1.4

You can locate the VPC endpoint ID in the AWS console.

3. Repeat this command for each interface and VPC endpoint association.

STEP 3 | Verify your interface to VPC endpoint associations.

show plugins vm_series aws gwlb

GWLB enabled: True

Overlay Routing: False
-------------------------------------------------------------
VPC endpoint Interface
--------------------------------------------------------------
vpce-0aeb1a919bd4ae609 ethernet1/1.1
vpce-0294375bfe413f04a ethernet1/1.2

STEP 4 | If necessary, you can use the following command to disassociate a VPC endpoint from a
interface.
request plugins vm_series aws gwlb disassociate vpc-endpoint <vpce-id>
interface <subinterface>

Enable Overlay Routing for the VM-Series on AWS

Overly routing requires PAN-OS 10.0.5 or later.

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 Using overlay routing in your VM-Series firewall integration the AWS GWLB allows you to use two-zone
policy to inspect traffic leaving (egressing) your AWS environment. This allows packets to leave the VM-
Series firewall through a different interface than that which they entered through.
When overlay routing is configured, the firewall is able to perform a Layer 3 route lookup a packet’s inner
header. If the destination is the same as the ingress interface, the packet will directed as normal. All future
packets in the session are treated as vwire; as if overlay routing was not enabled. If the packet is going to
an outbound destination, the firewall decapsulates the packet and forwards the packet to the IGW or NAT
gateway. When the packet returns, the firewall reapplies the encapsulation.

Use the following procedure to enable overlay routing.

STEP 1 | Before you begin, ensure that you create different subnets for the trust and untrust interfaces.

STEP 2 | Manually Integrate the VM-Series with a Gateway Load Balancer.

STEP 3 | (Optional) Associate a VPC Endpoint with a VM-Series Interface.

STEP 4 | Use overlay routing CLI command. This CLI command is not required if you included the
overlay routing op-command in the AWS user-data or the init-cfg.txt bootstrap file.
1. Log in to the firewall command line interface.
2. Execute the following command.
request plugins vm_series aws gwlb overlay-routing enable yes

STEP 5 | Log in to the firewall web interface.

STEP 6 | Ensure that you have disabled Automatically create default route pointing to default gateway
provided by server on the trust (ingress) interface.
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
2. Click on your trust interface and then the IPv4 tab.
3. Uncheck Automatically create default route pointing to default gateway provided by server.
4. Click OK.

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STEP 7 | Configure interface Ethernet 1/2.
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
2. Select the Interface Type—Layer 3.
3. On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. This zone will act as
your untrust zone and directing outbound traffic out of your security VPC. Define the new zone, such
as VM-Series-untrust, and then click OK.
4. On the IPv4 tab, select DHCP Client.
5. Select Automatically create default route pointing to default gateway provided by server.
6. Click OK.

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STEP 8 | Configure a virtual router.
1. Select Network > Virtual Routers > Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the virtual router.
3. Under Interfaces, Add Ethernet1/1, any subinterfaces under Ethernet1/1, and Ethernet1/2.
4. Click Static Routes > Add.
1. Enter a descriptive name for the static route.
2. As the Destination, enter the private IP address of the application VPC subnet.
3. Select the trust (ingress) interface from the Interface drop-down.
4. For Next Hop, select IP Address and enter the IP address of the gateway of the trust interface.
You can find the gateway IP address on Network > Interfaces > Ethernet > Dynamic-DHCP
Client.

5. Click OK.

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 5. Ensure that the static routes can reach all application VPC in your deployment. You can either make
a few large aggregated routes (covering all RFC1918) or application VPC specific routes. If you use
subinterfaces, you do not need to route back to the sub-interface. The egress check looks only for
the matching interface instead of the matching subinterface.
6. Click OK.

STEP 9 | Create a NAT policy for traffic egressing Ethernet1/2.

1. Select Policies > NAT > Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the NAT policy rule.
3. Select ipv4 from the NAT Type drop-down.
4. On the Original Packet tab, set the Source Zone to any and the Destination Zone to your untrust
(egress) zone.
5. On the Translated Packet tab, set the following parameters.
• Translation Type: Dynamic IP and Port
• Address Type: Interface Address
• Interface: Select your untrust (egress) port from the drop-down.
• IP Address: None
6. Click OK.

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STEP 10 | Commit your changes.

VM-Series Auto Scaling Group with AWS Gateway Load Balancer

The Palo Alto Networks auto scaling template for AWS help you integrate and configure the VM-Series
firewall with a GWLB to protect applications deployed in AWS. The template leverage AWS scalability
features to independently and automatically scale VM-Series firewalls deployed in AWS to meet surges in
application workload resource demand.

These templates are community supported.

This solution provides a security VPC template and an application template. The security VPC template
deploys the VM-Series firewall auto scaling group, a GWLB, a GWLBE, GWLBE subnet, security attachment
subnet, and a NAT gateway for each availability zone. Download the CloudFormation templates from the
Palo Alto Networks GitHub Repository.
The VM-Series Auto Scaling template for integration with an AWS GWLB includes the following building
blocks:

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

Building Block Description

PAN • Panorama running 10.0.2 or later

Components • PAN-OS 10.0.2 or later
• VM-Series plugin 2.0.2 or later installed on Panorama

Firewall Based on the number of availability zones (AZs) you choose, the firewall-new-
template vpc-v3.0.template deploys the following:
(Community
The template supports a maximum of four AZs.
supported
template)
• Subnets for Lambda management, transit gateway attachments, GWLB endpoints,
and NAT gateways, as well as trust subnets.
• Routes tables for each subnet
• Transit gateway attachments and route tables
• NAT and internet gateways
• An auto scaling group with one VM-Series firewall per AZ.
• One GWLB and a GWLB endpoint in each AZ.
The VPC CIDR for the firewall template should be larger than /23.

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 Building Block Description
Due to the many variations in a production environment that includes but is not
limited to a specific number components, such as subnets, availability zones,
route tables, and security groups. You must deploy the firewall-new-vpc-
v3.0.template in a new VPC.

VM-Series Auto Scaling template for AWS does not deploy a transit
gateway or Panorama. You must deploy a transit gateway and
Panorama before launching firewall-new-vpc-v3.0.template.

Application Based on the number of availability zones (AZs) you choose, the panw-aws-app-
template v3.0.template deploys the following:
(Community
The template supports a maximum of four AZs.
supported
template)
• Subnets for Lambda, transit gateway attachments, GWLB endpoints, application
load balancers.
• Routes tables for each subnet, as well as an inbound route table associated with
the internet gateway to direct inbound traffic to the GWLB endpoint.
• One application load balancer
• One internet gateway
• An auto scaling group with one Ubuntu instance per AZ.
The VPC CIDR for the application template should be larger than /23.

The application template is intended to be used as an example for

validating the security template.

Lambda AWS Lambda provides robust, event-driven automation without the need for
functions complex orchestration software. In addition to deploying the components described
in the rows above, the firewall-new-vpc-v3.0.template performs the
following functions:
• Adds or removes an interface (ENI) when a firewall is launched or terminated.
• Deletes all the associated resources when you delete a stack or terminate an
instance.
• Removes a firewall as a Panorama managed device when there is a scale-in event.
• Deactivates the license when a scale-in event results in a firewall termination.
• Monitors the transit gateway periodically for new attachments or detachments,
and updates the route tables accordingly in the security VPC.

Bootstrap files This solution requires the init-cfg.txt file and the bootstrap.xml file so that the VM-
Series firewall has the basic configuration for handling traffic.
The
bootstrap.xml • The init-cfg.txt file includes the mgmt-interface-swap operational command
file provided to enable the firewall to receive dataplane traffic on its primary interface
in the GitHub (eth0). This auto-scaling solution requires the swapping of the dataplane and
repository is management interfaces to enable the GWLB to forward web traffic to the auto-
provided for scaling tier of VM-Series firewalls.
testing and
evaluation
only. For a

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 Building Block Description
production • The bootstrap.xml file enables basic connectivity for the firewall network
deployment, interfaces and allows the firewall to connect to the AWS CloudWatch namespace
you must that matches the stack name you enter when you launch the template.
modify the
sample
credentials
in the
bootstrap.xml
prior to launch.

If you need to delete these templates from AWS, always delete the application template first.
Attempting to delete the firewall template causes the deletion to fail.

• Before Launching the Templates

• Launch the Firewall Template
• Launch the Application Template

Before Launching the Templates

Before you launch the templates to integrate a VM-Series firewall auto scaling group with an AWS GWLB,
you must complete the following procedure.

STEP 1 | Ensure that you have the following before you begin.
• Obtain the auth code for a bundle that supports the number of firewalls that might be required for
your deployment. You must save this auth code in a text file named authcodes (no extensions), and
put the authcodes file in the /license folder of the bootstrap package.
• Download the files required to launch the VM-Series Gateway Load Balancer template from the
GitHub repository.
• Create a Transit Gateway. This transit gateway connects your security and application VPCs.
• Take note of the transit gateway ID; you will need it later when deploying the template.
• You must add a 0.0.0.0/0 route to the application attachment route table pointing to the security
attachment to protect east-west and outbound traffic.
• Ensure that Default route table association and Default route table propagation are disabled.
• The recommended VPC CIDR for the firewall and application templates should be larger than /23.

The target group of the gateway GWLB cannot use HTTP for health checks because the
VM-Series firewall does not allow access with an unsecured protocol. Instead use HTTPS
or TCP.

STEP 2 | Deploy Panorama running 10.0.2 and configure the following.

Panorama must allow AWS public IP addresses. The VM-Series firewall accesses Panorama using the
external IP address of the NAT gateway created by the template.

STEP 3 | Download and install the VM-Series plugin on Panorama.

1. Select Panorama > Plugins and use Check Now to look for new plugin packages. The VM-Series
plugin name is vm_series.
2. Consult the plugin release notes to determine which version provides upgrades useful to you.
3. Select a version of the plugin and select Download in the Action column.
4. Click Install in the Action column. Panorama alerts you when the installation is complete.

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 5. To view the plugin, select Device > VM-Series.

STEP 4 | Configure the template.

1. Log in to the Panorama web interface.
2. Select Panorama > Templates and click Add.
1. Enter a descriptive Name.
2. Click OK.
3. Configure the virtual router.
1. Select Network > Virtual Routers.
2. Ensure that you have selected the template you create above from the Template drop-down.
3. Click Add.
4. Name the virtual router using the following format: VR-<tempstackname>.
5. Enable ECMP on the virtual router.
6. Click OK.
4. Configure the interface and create the zone.
1.Select Network > Interfaces and click Add Interface.
2.Select Slot 1.
3.Set Interface Type to Layer 3.
4.On the Config tab, select New Zone from the Security Zone drop-down. In the Zone dialog,
define a Name for new zone, for example Internet, and then click OK.
5. In the Virtual Router drop-down, select virtual router your created above.
6. Select IPv4 and click DHCP Client.
7. Click OK.
5. Create a management profile that allows HTTPS on the interface created above to support Health
Checks.
1. Select Network > Network Profiles > Interface Mgmt and click Add.
2. Select the protocols that the interface permits for management traffic: Ping, Telnet, SSH, HTTP,
HTTP OCSP, HTTPS, or SNMP.

Don’t enable HTTP or Telnet because those protocols transmit in cleartext and
therefore aren’t secure.
6. Assign the Interface Management profile to an interface.
1. Select Network > Interfaces, select the type of interface (Ethernet, VLAN, Loopback, or Tunnel),
and select the interface.
2. Select Advanced > Other info and select the Interface Management Profile you just added.
3. Click OK.
7. Configure the DNS server and FQDN refresh time.
1. Select Device > Setup > Services and click the Edit icon.
2. Set the Primary DNS Server to 169.254.169.253. This is the AWS DNS address.
3. Set the Minimum FQDN Refresh Time to 60 seconds.
4. Click OK.
8. Commit your changes. This is required before proceeding to the next step.
9. Create an administrator.
1. Select Device > Administrators.
2. Enter pandemo as the Name.
3. Set the Password to demopassword and Confirm.
4. Click OK.

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 10.Commit your changes.

STEP 5 | Configure a template stack and add the template to the template stack.
1. Select Panorama > Templates and Add Stack.
2. Enter a unique Name to identify the stack.
3. Click Add and select the template.
4. Click OK to save the template stack.

STEP 6 | Create the Device Group.

1. Select Panorama > Device Groups.
2. Ensure that you have selected the device group you create above from the Device Group drop-down.
3. Click Add.
4. Enter a descriptive Name.
5. Click OK.
6. Add an allow all security pre-rule.
1. Select Policies > Security > Pre Rules and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name.
3. Under Source, User, Destination, Application, and Service/URL Category, select any.
4. Under Actions, select Allow.
5. Click OK.
7. Commit your changes.

STEP 7 | Add the license deactivation API key for the firewall to Panorama.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal.
2. Select Assets > Licensing API.
3. Copy the API key.
4. Use the CLI to install the API key copied in the previous step.
request license api-key set key <key>

STEP 8 | After deploying Panorama, you must open the following ports as described below on the
Panorama security group in AWS.
• Port 443 (HTTPS)—Upon initial deployment of the firewall template, leave HTTPS open so Lambda
can connect to Panorama.
When you secure port 443 you specify an IP address range from which you will allow connections,
as well as the EIPs assigned to the NAT gateways. The number of NAT gateways in your deployment
depends on the number of availability zones you configure. To find NAT gateway EIPs in AWS, go to
VPC > NAT Gateways. Note the EIP information for the security group for HTTPS.
Additionally, to allow Panorama to release the firewall license after stack deletion, you must allow
traffic from the CIDR range of the region where you deployed the firewall template. You can find the
CIDR for your region at this link.
• Port 3978—Port 3978 must be able to receive traffic from any IP address.

Launch the Firewall Template

This workflow describes how to deploy the firewall template.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

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STEP 1 | Modify the init-cfg.txt file and upload it to the /config folder.
Because you use Panorama to bootstrap the VM-Series firewalls, your init-cfg.txt file should be
modified as follows. No bootstrap.xml file is needed.
Ensure that you use the device group and template names you created above in the init-cfg.txt file.

type=dhcp-client
ip-address=
default-gateway=
netmask=
ipv6-address=
ipv6-default-gateway=
hostname=
vm-auth-key=
panorama-server=
panorama-server-2=
tplname=
dgname=
dhcp-send-hostname=yes
dhcp-send-client-id=yes
dhcp-accept-server-hostname=yesdhcp-accept-server-domain=yes
plugin-op-commands=aws-gwlb-inspect:enable

Your init-cfg.txt file must include plugin-op-commands=aws-gwlb-inspect:enable. This is

required when integrating the VM-Series firewall with a GWLB.
You must add the device certificate auto-registration PIN to the init-cfg.txt file to automatically install a
device certificate when your VM-Series firewall instance is deployed.

STEP 2 | Add the license auth code in the /license folder of the bootstrap package.
1. Use a text editor to create a new text file named authcodes (no extension).
2. Add the authcode for your BYOL licenses to this file, and save. The authcode must represent a
bundle, and it must support the number of firewalls that might be required for your deployment. If
you use individual authcodes instead of a bundle, the firewall only retrieves the license key for the
first authcode in the file.

STEP 3 | Upload Lambda code for the firewall template (panw-aws.zip) and the Application template
(app.zip) to an S3 bucket. You can use the same S3 bucket that you use for bootstrapping.
If the Application stack is managed by a different account than the firewall, use the Application account
to create another s3 bucket in the same AWS region as the firewall template and copy app.zip to that
s3 bucket.

STEP 4 | Select the firewall template.

1. In the AWS Management Console, select CloudFormation > Create Stack.
2. Select Upload a template to Amazon S3, to choose the application template to deploy the resources
that the template launches within the same VPC as the firewalls, or to a different VPC. Click Open
and Next.
3. Specify the Stack name. The stack name allows you to uniquely identify all the resources that are
deployed using this template.

STEP 5 | Enter a descriptive Name for your stack. The name must be 28 characters or less.

STEP 6 | Configure the parameters for the VPC.

1. Enter the number of availability zones and select the region from the availability zone drop-down.

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 2. Look up the AMI ID for the VM-Series firewall and enter it. Make sure that the AMI ID matches the
AWS region, PAN-OS version and the BYOL or PAYG licensing option you opted to use. See Get the
Amazon Machine Image IDs for more information.
3. Select the EC2 Key pair (from the drop-down) for launching the firewall. To log in to the firewalls,
you must provide the name of this key pair and the private key associated with it.
4. Select Yes if you want to Enable Debug Log. Enabling the debug log generates more verbose logs
that help with troubleshooting issues with the deployment. These logs are generated using the stack
name and are saved in AWS CloudWatch.
By default, the template uses CPU utilization as the scaling parameter for the VM-Series
firewalls. Custom PAN-OS metrics are automatically published to the CloudWatch namespace that
matches the stack name you specified earlier.

STEP 7 | Specify the name of the Amazon S3 bucket(s).

1. Enter the name of the S3 bucket that contains the bootstrap package.
If the bootstrap bucket is not set up properly or if you enter the bucket name incorrectly, the
bootstrap process fails, and you cannot log in to the firewall. Health checks for the load balancers
also fail.
2. Enter the name of the S3 bucket that contains the panw-aws.zip file. As mentioned earlier you can
use one S3 bucket for the Bootstrap and Lambda code.

STEP 8 | Specify the keys for enabling API access to the firewall and Panorama.
1. Enter the key that the firewall must use to authenticate API calls. The default key is based on the
sample file and you should only use it for testing and evaluation. For a production deployment, you
must create a separate PAN-OS login just for the API call and generate an associated key.
2. Enter the API Key to allow AWS Lambda to make API calls to Panorama. For a production
deployment, you should create a separate login just for the API call and generate an associated key.

STEP 9 | Add your AWS account number(s). You must provide the account number used to deploy any
VPC that is connected to your GWLB. Add these values as a comma-separated list. You can
add additional account numbers after deploying the template.
To locate your account number, click your AWS username in the top right of the AWS console and select
My Security Credentials.

STEP 10 | Enter the transit gateway ID. The transit gateway ID is required to secure east-west and
outbound traffic. If you do not enter a transit gateway ID, the template assumes that only
inbound traffic should be inspected by firewalls integrated with the GWLB.

STEP 11 | Enter the CIDR for the security VPC.

STEP 12 | Review the template settings and launch the template.

1. Select I acknowledge that this template might cause AWS CloudFormation to create IAM resources.
2. Click Create to launch the template. The CREATE_IN_PROGRESS event displays.
3. On successful deployment the status updates to CREATE_COMPLETE.

STEP 13 | Verify that the template has launched all required resources.

STEP 14 | Create rules allowing the NAT gateway IP address(es) on the security group where your
Panorama appliance is deployed. This is required to allow your firewalls to connect to
Panorama. You can find the list of NAT gateway IP addresses in the CFT security stack
output.

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 1. Access the AWS VPC console.
2. Select Security Groups on the navigation pane.
3. Select the security where Panorama is deployed.
4. Select Actions > Edit Inbound Rules > Add rule.
5. Add rules allowing the NAT gateway IP addresses for Custom TCP Rule for port range 3978.
6. Click Save rules.

Launch the Application Template

Complete the following procedure to launch the application template.

STEP 1 | Create an S3 bucket from which you will launch the application template.
• If this is a cross-account deployment, create a new bucket.
• If there is one account you can create a new bucket or use the S3 bucket you created earlier (you can
use one bucket for everything).

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STEP 2 | Upload the app.zip file into the S3 bucket.

STEP 3 | Select the application launch template you want you launch.
1. In the AWS Management Console, select CloudFormation > CreateStack
2. Select Upload a template to Amazon S3, to choose the application template to deploy the resources
that the template launches within the same VPC as the firewalls, or to a different VPC. Click Open
and Next.
3. Specify the Stack name. The stack name allows you to uniquely identify all the resources that are
deployed using this template.

STEP 4 | Select the Availability Zones (AZ) that your setup will span in Select list of AZ.

STEP 5 | Enter a descriptive VPC Name.

STEP 6 | Configure the parameters for Lambda.

1. Enter the S3 bucket name where app.zip is stored.
2. Enter the name of the zip file name.

STEP 7 | Select the EC2 instance type for the Ubuntu web server launched by this template.

STEP 8 | Enter your Amazon EC2 key pair.

STEP 9 | Enter the name of the service configuration (Service Name) for the GWLB endpoint in the
security VPC.
1. Select DynamoDB from the Services drop-down in the AWS console.
2. Select Tables and locate your security VPC table. The table name will be <stack name>-gwlb-
<region>. For example—cft-deployment-gwlb-us-east-1.
3. Click the Items tab and copy the Service Name.
4. Paste the Service Name into the application template configuration parameters.

STEP 10 | Enter the transit gateway ID. This is the same transit gateway you created before deploying
the firewall template.

STEP 11 | Review the template settings and launch the template.

STEP 12 | After the application has been deployed, you must add a route to the transit gateway route
table to enable east-west and outbound traffic inspection.
1. Log in to the AWS VPC console.
2. Select Transit Gateway Route Tables and choose your transit gateway route table. This route table is
created by the template and is called <app-stack-name>-<region>-PANWAppAttRt.

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 3. Select Routes and click Create static route.
4. Enter 0.0.0.0/0 in the CIDR field.
5. From the Choose attachment drop-down, select the VM-Series firewall VPC attachment.
6. Click Create static route.

STEP 13 | (Optional) Create a bastion host (also called a jump box) to access the web server created by
the application template.
1. Create a public-facing subnet in your application VPC.
2. Add a route to this subnet from your IP address to the internet gateway.
3. Create a new EC2 instance in the public subnet with a public IP address.
4. Create a security group for this EC2 instance that allows SSH from your IP address.

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High Availability for VM-Series Firewall on
AWS
The VM-Series firewall on AWS supports active/passive HA only; if it is deployed with Amazon Elastic Load
Balancing (ELB), it does not support HA (in this case ELB provides the failover capabilities).
• Overview of HA on AWS
• IAM Roles for HA
• HA Links
• Heartbeat Polling and Hello Messages
• Device Priority and Preemption
• HA Timers
• Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS Using a Secondary IP
• Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS Using Interface Move
• Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS

Overview of HA on AWS
To ensure redundancy, you can deploy the VM-Series firewalls on AWS in an active/passive high availability
(HA) configuration. The active peer continuously synchronizes its configuration and session information
with the identically configured passive peer. A heartbeat connection between the two devices ensures
failover if the active device goes down. There are two options for deploying the VM-Series firewall on AWS
in HA—Secondary IP move and Dataplane Interface (ENI) move.
To ensure that all traffic to your internet-facing applications passes through the firewall, you have two
options. You can either configure the application’s public IP address on the Untrust interface (E1/2 in the
illustration above) of the VM-Series firewall, or you can configure AWS ingress routing. The AWS ingress
routing capability allows you to associate route tables with the AWS Internet gateway and add route rules
to redirect the application traffic through the VM-Series firewall. This redirection ensures that all internet
traffic passes through the firewall without having to reconfigure the application endpoints.

Secondary IP Move
When the active peer goes down, the passive peer detects this failure and becomes active. Additionally,
it triggers API calls to the AWS infrastructure to move the configured secondary IP addresses from the
dataplane interfaces of the failed peer to itself. Additionally, AWS updates the route tables to ensure that
traffic is directed to the active firewall instance. These two operations ensure that inbound and outbound
traffic sessions are restored after failover. This option allows you to take advantage of DPDK to improve
the performance of your VM-Series firewall instances and provides better failover time than interface-move
HA, while supporting all the features provided by interface-move.

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 Secondary IP Move HA requires VM-Series plugin 2.0.1 or later.

Dataplane Interface Move

When the active peer goes down, the passive peer detects the failure and becomes active. Additionally, it
triggers API calls to the AWS infrastructure to move all the dataplane interfaces (ENIs) from the failed peer
to itself.

IAM Roles for HA

AWS requires that all API requests must be cryptographically signed using credentials issued by them. In
order to enable API permissions for the VM-Series firewalls that will be deployed as an HA pair, you must
create a policy and attach that policy to a role in the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service.
The role must be attached to the VM-Series firewalls at launch. The policy gives the IAM role permissions
for initiating API actions required to move interfaces or secondary IP addresses from the active peer to the
passive peer when failover is triggered.
For detailed instructions on creating policy, refer to the AWS documentation on Creating Customer
Managed Polices. For detailed instructions on creating an IAM role, defining which accounts or AWS
services can assume the role, defining which API actions and resources the application can use upon
assuming the role, refer to the AWS documentation on IAM Roles for Amazon EC2.
The IAM policy, which is configured in the AWS console, must have permissions for the following actions
and resources (at a minimum):

The following IAM actions, permissions, and resources are required to enable HA. To enable
AWS Cloudwatch monitoring, see Enable CloudWatch Monitoring on the VM-Series Firewall
for the required IAM action.

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IAM Action, Permission, Description Interface Move Secondary IP
or Resource Move

AttachNetworkInterface For permission to attach an ENI to an

instance.

DescribeNetworkInterfaces
For fetching the ENI parameters in
order to attach an interface to the
instance.

DetachNetworkInterface For permission to detach the ENI

from the EC2 instance.

DescribeInstances For permission to obtain information

on the EC2 instances in the VPC.

AssociateAddress For permissions to move public IP

addresses associated with the primary
IP addresses from the passive to
active interfaces.

AssignPrivateIpAddressesFor permissions to assign secondary

IP addresses and associated public IP
addresses to interfaces on the passive
peer.

DescribeRouteTables For permission to retrieve all route

tables associated to the VM-Series
firewall instances.

ReplaceRoute For permissions to update the AWS

route table entries.

GetPolicyVersion For permission to retrieve AWS policy

version information.

GetPolicy For permission to retrieve AWS policy

information.

ListAttachedRolePolicies For permission to retrieve the list of

all managed policies attached to a
specified IAM role.

ListRolePolicies For permission to retrieve a list of the

names of inline policies embedded in
a specified IAM role.

GetRolePolicy For permission to retrieve a specified

inline policy embedded in a specified
IAM role.

policy For permission to access the IAM

policy Amazon Resource Name (ARN).

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 IAM Action, Permission, Description Interface Move Secondary IP
or Resource Move

role For permission to access the IAM

roles ARN.

route-table For permission to access the route

table Amazon Resource Name (ARN)
to update it upon failover.

Wild card (*) In the ARN field use the * as a wild

card.

The following screenshot shows the access management settings for the IAM role described above for
secondary-IP HA:

The minimum permissions you need for interface move HA are: {"Version":
"2012-10-17","Statement": [{"Sid": "VisualEditor0","Effect": "Allow","Action":
["ec2:AttachNetworkInterface","ec2:DetachNetworkInterface","ec2:DescribeInstances","ec2:D
"*"}]}

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 The minimum permissions you need for secondary IP move HA are: {"Version":
"2012-10-17","Statement": [{"Sid": "VisualEditor0","Effect": "Allow","Action":
["ec2:AttachNetworkInterface","ec2:DetachNetworkInterface","ec2:DescribeInstances","ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces"
“ec2:AssignPrivateIpAddresses”,“ec2:AssociateAddress”,“ec2:DescribeRouteTables”],"Resource": "*"}{"Sid":
"VisualEditor1","Effect": "Allow","Action": "ec2:ReplaceRoute", "Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*:*:route-table/*"}]}

HA Links
The devices in an HA pair use HA links to synchronize data and maintain state information. on AWS, the
VM-Series firewall uses the following ports:
• Control Link—The HA1 link is used to exchange hellos, heartbeats, and HA state information, and
management plane sync for routing and User-ID information. This link is also used to synchronize
configuration changes on either the active or passive device with its peer.
The Management port is used for HA1. TCP port 28769 and 28260 for cleartext communication; port
28 for encrypted communication (SSH over TCP).
• Data Link—The HA2 link is used to synchronize sessions, forwarding tables, IPSec security associations
and ARP tables between devices in an HA pair. Data flow on the HA2 link is always unidirectional
(except for the HA2 keep-alive); it flows from the active device to the passive device.
Ethernet1/1 must be assigned as the HA2 link; this is required to deploy the VM-Series firewall on AWS
in HA. The HA data link can be configured to use either IP (protocol number 99) or UDP (port 29281) as
the transport.
The VM-Series firewall on AWS does not support backup links for HA1 or HA2.

Heartbeat Polling and Hello Messages

The firewalls use hello message and heartbeats to verify that the peer device is responsive and operational.
Hello messages are sent from one peer to the other at the configured Hello Interval to verify the state of
the device. The heartbeat is an ICMP ping to the HA peer over the control link, and the peer responds
to the ping to establish that the devices are connected and responsive. For details on the HA timers that
trigger a failover, see HA Timers. (The HA timers for the VM-Series firewall are the same as that of the
PA-5200 Series firewalls).

Device Priority and Preemption

The devices in an HA pair can be assigned a device priority value to indicate a preference for which device
should assume the active role and manage traffic upon failover. If you need to use a specific device in the
HA pair for actively securing traffic, you must enable the preemptive behavior on both the firewalls and
assign a device priority value for each device. The device with the lower numerical value, and therefore
higher priority, is designated as active and manages all traffic on the network. The other device is in a
passive state, and synchronizes configuration and state information with the active device so that it is ready
to transition to an active state should a failure occur.
By default, preemption is disabled on the firewalls and must be enabled on both devices. When enabled, the
preemptive behavior allows the firewall with the higher priority (lower numerical value) to resume as active
after it recovers from a failure. When preemption occurs, the event is logged in the system logs.

Preemption is not recommended for HA in the VM-Series firewall on AWS.

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HA Timers
High availability (HA) timers are used to detect a firewall failure and trigger a failover. To reduce the
complexity in configuring HA timers, you can select from three profiles: Recommended, Aggressive, and
Advanced. These profiles auto-populate the optimum HA timer values for the specific firewall platform to
enable a speedier HA deployment.
Use the Recommended profile for typical failover timer settings and the Aggressive profile for faster
failover timer settings. The Advanced profile allows you to customize the timer values to suit your network
requirements.

HA Timer on the VM-Series on Default values for Recommended/Aggressive profiles

AWS

Promotion hold time 2000/500 ms

Hello interval 8000/8000 ms

Heartbeat interval 2000/1000 ms

Max number of flaps 3/3

Preemption hold time 1/1 min

Monitor fail hold up time 0/0 ms

Additional master hold up time 500/500 ms

Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS Using a Secondary IP

Complete the following procedure to deploy new VM-Series firewalls as an HA pair with secondary IP
addresses.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Before you deploy the VM-Series firewalls for you HA pair, ensure the following:
• Refer to the VPC Planning Worksheet to ensure that your VPC is prepared for the VM-Series firewall.
• Secondary IP Move HA requires VM-Series plugin 2.0.1 or later.
• Deploy both HA peers in the same AWS availability zone.
Starting with VM-Series plugin 2.0.3, you can deploy the HA peers in different availability zones.
However, during an HA failover event, the route tables are updated but the secondary IP is not
moved. This type of deployment is not recommended.
• Create an IAM role and assign the role to the VM-Series firewalls when you deploy the instances.
• The active and passive firewalls must have at least four interfaces each—a management interface,
an HA2 interface, an untrust interface, and a trust interface. Additionally, the trust and untrust
interfaces on the active firewall must assigned a secondary IP address.
The management interface must be used as the HA1 interface.
• Verify that the network and security components are defined suitably.

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 • Enable communication to the internet. The default VPC includes an internet gateway, and if you
install the VM-Series firewall in the default subnet it has access to the internet.
• Create subnets. Subnets are segments of the IP address range assigned to the VPC in which you
can launch the EC2 instances. The VM-Series firewall must belong to the public subnet so that it
can be configured to access the internet.
• Create a data security group that includes the firewall data interfaces. Additionally, configure the
security to allow all traffic (0.0.0.0/0), so security is enforced by the firewalls. This is required to
maintain existing sessions during failover.
• Add routes to the route table for a private subnet to ensure that traffic can be routed across
subnets and security groups in the VPC, as applicable.
• If you are bootstrapping the firewall, create the necessary S3 bucket containing the required
bootstrap files.

STEP 2 | Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

1. If your VM-Series firewalls do not have the VM-Series plugin 2.0.1 or later installed, upgrade the
plugin before continuing.
2. Configure ethernet 1/1 as the HA2 interface on each HA peer.
1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.
2. Select Network Interface and then choose then select your network interface.
3. Select Actions > Manage IP Addresses.
4. Leave the field blank to allow AWS to assign an IP address dynamically or enter an IP address
within the subnet range for the VM-Series firewall.
5. Click Yes and Update.
6. Select Actions > Change Source/Dest. Check and select Disable.
7. Repeat this process on the second (to be passive) HA peer.
3. Add a secondary IP address to your dataplane interfaces on the first (to be active) HA peer.
1. Select Network Interface and then choose then select your network interface.
2. Select Actions > Manage IP Addresses > IPv4 Addresses > Assign new IP.
3. Leave the field blank to allow AWS to assign an IP address dynamically or enter an IP address
within the subnet range for the VM-Series firewall.
4. Click Yes and Update.
4. Associate a secondary Elastic (public) IP address with the untrust interface of the active peer.
1. Select Elastic IPs and then choose then select the Elastic IP address to associate.
2. Select Actions > Associate Elastic IP.
3. Under Resource Type, select Network Interface.
4. Chose the network interface with which to associate the Elastic IP address.
5. Click Associate.
5. For outbound traffic inspection, add an entry to the subnet route table that sets the next hop as the
firewall trust interface.
1. Select VPC > Route Tables.
2. Choose your subnet route table.
3. Select Actions > Edit routes > Add route.
4. Enter the Destination CIDR Block or IP address.
5. For Target, enter the network interface of the firewall trust interface.
6. Click Save routes.
6. To use AWS Ingress Routing, create a route table and associate the internet gateway to it. Then add
an entry with the next hop set as the active firewall untrust interface.
1. Select Route Tables > Create route table.

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 2. (Optional) Enter a descriptive Name tag for your route table.
3. Click Create.
4. Click your route table and select Actions > Edit edge associations.
5. Select Internet gateways and choose your VPC internet gateway.
6. Click Save.
7. Click your route table and select Actions > Edit routes.
8. For the Target, select Network Interface and choose the untrust interface of the active firewall.
9. Click Save routes.

STEP 3 | Configure the interfaces on the firewall. You must configure the HA2 data link and at least two
Layer 3 interfaces for your untrust and trust interfaces. Complete this workflow on the first HA
peer and then repeat the steps on the second HA peer.
1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet and click on your untrust interface. In this example, the HA2
interface is 1/1, the trust interface is ethernet 1/2, and the untrust interface is ethernet 1/3.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: HA
4. Click the link for ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example trust-zone, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select DHCP Client.
• Check Enable.
• On the untrust interface, check Automatically create default route pointing to default gateway
provided by server. This option tells the firewall to create a static route to a default gateway.
• Repeat these steps for ethernet 1/3.
5. Repeat the above steps on the passive peer.

STEP 4 | Enable HA.

1. Select Device > High Availability > General.
2. Edit the Setup settings.
3. Enter the private IP address of the passive peer in the Peer HA1 IP address field.
4. Click OK.

5. Edit the Election Settings to specify a particular firewall to be the active peer. Enter a lower
numerical Device Priority value on the active firewall. If both firewalls have the same Device Priority
value, the firewall with the lowest MAC value on the HA1 control becomes the active firewall.

Enabling preemption is not recommended.

6. Click OK.
7. Commit your changes.
8. Repeat the above steps on the passive peer.

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STEP 5 | Set up the Control Link (HA1) to use the management port.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General, and edit the Control Link (HA1) section.

2. (Optional) Select Encryption Enabled, for secure HA communication between the peers. To enable
encryption, you must export the HA key from a device and import it into the peer device.
1. Select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates.
2. Select Export HA key. Save the HA key to a network location that the peer device can access.
3. On the peer device, navigate to Device > Certificate Management > Certificates, and select
Import HA key to browse to the location that you saved the key and import it in to the peer
device.

STEP 6 | Set up the Data Link (HA2) to use ethernet1/1.

1. Select Device > High Availability > General, edit the Data Link (HA2) section.
2. Select Port ethernet1/1.
3. Enter the IP address for ethernet1/1. This IP address must be the same that assigned to the ENI on
the EC2 Dashboard.
4. Enter the Netmask.
5. Enter a Gateway IP address if the HA1 interfaces are on separate subnets.
6. Select IP or UDP for Transport. Use IP if you need Layer 3 transport (IP protocol number 99). Use
UDP if you want the firewall to calculate the checksum on the entire packet rather than just the
header, as in the IP option (UDP port 29281).

7. (Optional) Modify the Threshold for HA2 Keep-alive packets. By default, HA2 Keep-alive is enabled
for monitoring the HA2 data link between the peers. If a failure occurs and this threshold (default
is 10000 ms) is exceeded, the defined action will occur. A critical system log message is generated
when an HA2 keep-alive failure occurs.

You can configure the HA2 keep-alive option on both devices, or just one device in the
HA pair. If you enable this option on one device, only that device will send the keep-
alive messages.

STEP 7 | After your finish configuring HA on both firewalls, verify that the firewalls are paired in active/
passive HA.
1. Access the Dashboard on both firewalls and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active HA peer, click Sync to peer.
3. Confirm that the firewalls are paired and synced.

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 • On the passive firewall: the state of the local firewall should display Passive and the Running
Config should show as Synchronized.
• On the active firewall: the state of the local firewall should display Active and the Running Config
should show as Synchronized.
4. From the firewall command line interface, execute the following commands:
• To verify failover readiness:
show plugins vm_series aws ha state
• To show secondary IP mapping:
show plugins vm_series aws ha ips

Configure Active/Passive HA on AWS Using Interface Move

Complete the following procedure to configure active-passive HA using interface move mode.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Make sure that you have followed the prerequisites.

For deploying a pair of VM-Series firewalls in HA in the AWS cloud, you must ensure the following:
• Select the IAM role you created when launching the VM-Series firewall on an EC2 instance; you
cannot assign the role to an instance that is already running. See IAM Roles for HA.
For detailed instructions on creating an IAM role, defining which accounts or AWS services can
assume the role, and defining which API actions and resources the application can use upon assuming
the role, refer to the AWS documentation.
• DPDK is not supported on the VM-Series firewall on AWS in an interface-move HA deployment. If
your have VM-Series plugin 2.0.1 or later on your firewalls, you must disable DPDK.
Disabling DPDK requires the firewall to reboot. If you are using bootstrapping to deploy the VM-
Series firewall, you can avoid rebooting the firewall by disabling DPDK in the initi-cfg.txt file by using
op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=off. See Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS for more information.
• The active firewall in the HA pair must have at a minimum three ENIs: two dataplane interfaces and
one management interface.
The passive firewall in the HA pair, must have one ENI for management, and one ENI that functions
as dataplane interface; you will configure the dataplane interface as an HA2 interface.

Do not attach additional dataplane interfaces to the passive firewall in the HA pair.
On failover, the dataplane interfaces from the previously active firewall are moved —
detached and then attached—to the now active (previously passive) firewall.
• The HA peers must be deployed in the same AWS availability zone.

STEP 2 | Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

STEP 3 | (VM-Series plugin 2.0.1 or later) Disable DPDK on the active and passive firewalls. DPDK is
enabled by default and interface-move HA mode does not support DPDK, so you must disable
it; enabling Packet MMAP.
1. Log in to the passive firewall CLI.
2. Disable DPDK using the following command. Executing this command restarts the firewall.
admin@PA-VM> set system setting dpdk-pkt-io off

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STEP 4 | Enable HA.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General, and edit the Setup section.
2. Select Enable HA.

STEP 5 | Configure ethernet 1/1 as an HA interface. This interface must be used for HA2
communication.
1. Select Network > Interfaces.
2. Confirm that the link state is up on ethernet1/1.
3. Click the link for ethernet1/1 and set the Interface Type to HA.

STEP 6 | Set up the Control Link (HA1) to use the management port.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General, and edit the Control Link (HA1) section.

2. (Optional) Select Encryption Enabled, for secure HA communication between the peers. To enable
encryption, you must export the HA key from a device and import it into the peer device.
1. Select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates.
2. Select Export HA key. Save the HA key to a network location that the peer device can access.
3. On the peer device, navigate to Device > Certificate Management > Certificates, and select
Import HA key to browse to the location that you saved the key and import it in to the peer
device.

STEP 7 | Set up the Data Link (HA2) to use ethernet1/1.

1. Select Device > High Availability > General, edit the Data Link (HA2) section.
2. Select Port ethernet1/1.
3. Enter the IP address for ethernet1/1. This IP address must be the same that assigned to the ENI on
the EC2 Dashboard.
4. Enter the Netmask.
5. Enter a Gateway IP address if the HA1 interfaces are on separate subnets.
6. Select IP or UDP for Transport. Use IP if you need Layer 3 transport (IP protocol number 99). Use
UDP if you want the firewall to calculate the checksum on the entire packet rather than just the
header, as in the IP option (UDP port 29281).

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 7. (Optional) Modify the Threshold for HA2 Keep-alive packets. By default, HA2 Keep-alive is enabled
for monitoring the HA2 data link between the peers. If a failure occurs and this threshold (default
is 10000 ms) is exceeded, the defined action will occur. A critical system log message is generated
when an HA2 keep-alive failure occurs.

You can configure the HA2 keep-alive option on both devices, or just one device in the
HA pair. If you enable this option on one device, only that device will send the keep-
alive messages.

STEP 8 | Set the device priority and enable preemption.

Use this setting if you want to make sure that a specific device is the preferred active device. For
information, see Device Priority and Preemption.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General and edit the Election Settings section.
2. Set the numerical value in Device Priority. Make sure to set a lower numerical value on the device
that you want to assign a higher priority to.

If both firewalls have the same device priority value, the firewall with the lowest MAC
address on the HA1 control link will become the active device.
3. Select Preemptive.
You must enable preemptive on both the active and the passive device.
4. Modify the failover timers. By default, the HA timer profile is set to the Recommended profile and is
suited for most HA deployments.

STEP 9 | (Optional) Modify the wait time before a failover is triggered.

1. Select Device > High Availability > General and edit the Active/Passive Settings.
2. Modify the Monitor fail hold up time to a value between 1-60 minutes; default is 1 minute. This is
the time interval during which the firewall will remain active following a link failure. Use this setting
to avoid an HA failover triggered by the occasional flapping of neighboring devices.

STEP 10 | Configure the IP address of the HA peer.

1. Select Device > High Availability > General, and edit the Setup section.
2. Enter the IP address of the HA1 port on the peer. This is the IP address assigned to the management
interface (ethernet 0/0), which is also the HA1 link on the other firewall.
3. Set the Group ID number between 1 and 63. Although this value is not used on the VM-Series
firewall on AWS, but cannot leave the field blank.

STEP 11 | Configure the other peer.

Repeat steps 3 to 9 on the HA peer.

STEP 12 | After you finish configuring both devices, verify that the devices are paired in active/passive
HA.

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 1. Access the Dashboard on both devices, and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active device, click the Sync to peer link.
3. Confirm that the devices are paired and synced, as shown below:
• On the passive device: The state of the local device should display passive and the configuration is
synchronized.
• On the active device: The state of the local device should display active and the configuration is
synchronized.

STEP 13 | Verify that failover occurs properly.

1. Verify the HA mode.
show plugins vm_series aws ha failover-mode
2. Verify that the packet IO mode is set to packet MMAP.
show system setting dpdk-pkt-io
3. Shut down the active HA peer.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Instances.
2. From the list, select the VM-Series firewall and click Actions > Stop.
4. Check that the passive peer assumes the role of the active peer and that the dataplane interfaces
have moved over to the now active HA peer.

Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS

Both high availability modes are supported, allowing you to migrate between each mode if your deployment
requires it. Because interface-move mode does not support DPDK, you must disable it on the VM-Series
firewall before completing the migration. Disabling DPDK requires you to reboot the VM-Series firewall,
which will impact any traffic sessions on the active firewall.
• Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS to Secondary IP Mode
• Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS to Interface Move Mode

Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS to Secondary IP Mode

Complete the following procedure to migrate your existing VM-Series firewall HA pair from interface-move
HA to secondary-IP HA.

Secondary IP Move HA requires VM-Series plugin 2.0.1 or later.

STEP 1 | Upgrade the VM-Series Plugin on the passive HA peer and then the active peer.

STEP 2 | Create secondary IP address for all data interfaces on the active peer.
1. Log in to the AWS EC2 console.
2. Select Network Interface and then choose then select your network interface.
3. Select Actions > Manage IP Addresses > IPv4 Addresses > Assign new IP.
4. Leave the field blank to allow AWS to assign an IP address dynamically or enter an IP address within
the subnet range for the VM-Series firewall.
5. Click Yes and Update.

STEP 3 | Associate a secondary Elastic (public) IP address with the untrust interface of the active peer.
1. Log in to the AWS EC2 console.
2. Select Elastic IPs and then choose then select the Elastic IP address to associate.
3. Select Actions > Associate Elastic IP.

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 4. Under Resource Type, select Network Interface.
5. Chose the network interface with which to associate the Elastic IP address.
6. Click Associate.

STEP 4 | Create a route table pointing the subnet containing the trust interface.
1. Select Route Tables > Create route table.
2. (Optional) Enter a descriptive Name tag for your route table.
3. Select your VPC.
4. Click Create.
5. Select Subnet Associations > Edit subnet associations.
6. Select the Associate checkbox for the subnet containing the trust interface.
7. Click Save.

STEP 5 | Update the IAM roles with additional actions and permissions required to migrate to secondary
IP move HA.

IAM Action, Permission, or Resource Description

AssociateAddress For permissions to move public IP addresses associated

with the primary IP addresses from the passive to active
interfaces.

AssignPrivateIpAddresses For permissions to move secondary IP addresses and

associated public IP addresses from the passive to active
interfaces.

UnassignPrivateIpAddress For permissions to unassign secondary IP addresses and

associated public IP addresses from interfaces on the
active peer.

DescribeRouteTables For permission to retrieve all route tables associated to

the VM-Series firewall instances.

ReplaceRoute For permission to update the AWS route table entries.

GetPolicyVersion For permission to retrieve AWS policy version

information.

GetPolicy For permission to retrieve AWS policy information.

ListAttachedRolePolicies For permission to retrieve the list of all managed policies

attached to a specified IAM role.

ListRolePolicies For permission to retrieve a list of the names of inline

policies embedded in a specified IAM role.

GetRolePolicy For permission to retrieve a specified inline policy

embedded in a specified IAM role.

policy For permission to access the IAM policy Amazon

Resource Name (ARN).

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 IAM Action, Permission, or Resource Description

role For permission to access the IAM roles ARN.

route-table For permission to access the route table ARN.

Wild card (*) In the ARN field use the * as a wild card.

STEP 6 | Create new interfaces (ENIs) on the passive firewall in the same subnet as the active firewall
data interfaces.

Do not assign secondary IP addresses to these new interfaces.

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

2. Select Network Interfaces > Create Network Interfaces.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your new interface.
4. Under Subnet, select the subnet of the untrust interface of the active firewall.
5. Under Private IP, leave the field blank to allow AWS to assign an IP address dynamically or enter an
IP address within the subnet range for the untrust interface of the active firewall.
6. Under Security groups, select one or more security groups.
7. Select Yes and Create.
8. Select Actions > Change Source/Dest. Check and select Disable.
9. Repeat these steps for the subnet of the trust interface of the active firewall.

STEP 7 | Attach the new ENIs to the passive firewall instance. You must attach these ENIs to the
passive firewall in the correct order because the secondary IP HA method is based on the
network interface index assigned by AWS. For example, if eth1/2 on the active firewall is part
of subnet A and eth1/3 is part of subnet B, then you must attach the interface that is part
of subnet A and the interface that is part of subnet B. In this example, AWS has assigned an
index value of 2 to eth1/2 and a value of 3 to eth1/3. This indexing must be maintained for the
failover to occur successfully.
1. To attach the ENIs created above, select the untrust interface your created and click Attach.
2. Select the Instance ID of the of the passive firewall and click Attach.
3. Repeat these steps for the trust interface.

STEP 8 | Log into the passive and set the interfaces to get their IP addresses through DHCP.
1. Log in to the passive VM-Series firewall web interface.
2. Select Network > Interfaces.
3. Click on the first data interface.
4. Select IPv4.
5. Select DHCP Client.
6. On the untrust interface only, select Automatically create default route pointing to default gateway
provided by server.
7. Click OK.
8. Repeat this process for each data interface.

STEP 9 | If you have configure any NAT policies on the VM-Series firewall that reference the private
IP addresses of the data interfaces, those policies must be updated to reference the newly
assigned secondary IP addresses instead.

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 1. Access the web interface of the active VM-Series firewall.
2. Select Policies > NAT.
3. Click on the NAT policy rule to be modified and then Translated Packet.
4. Under Translated Address, click Add and enter the secondary IP address created in AWS.
5. Delete the primary IP address.
6. Click OK.
7. Repeat these steps as necessary.
8. Commit your changes.

STEP 10 | Enable secondary IP HA failover mode.

1. Access the VM-Series firewall CLI on the active peer.
2. Execute the following command.
request plugins vm_series aws ha failover-mode secondary-ip
3. Commit your changes.
4. Comfirm your HA mode by executing the following command.
show plugins vm_series aws ha failover-mode
5. Repeat this command on the passive peer.

STEP 11 | After your finish configuring HA on both firewalls, verify that the firewalls are paired in
active/passive HA.
1. Access the Dashboard on both firewalls and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active HA peer, click Sync to peer.
3. Confirm that the firewalls are paired and synced.
• On the passive firewall: the state of the local firewall should display Passive and the Running
Config should show as Synchronized.
• On the active firewall: the state of the local firewall should display Active and the Running Config
should show as Synchronized.
4. From the firewall command line interface, execute the following commands:
• To verify failover readiness:
show plugins vm_series aws ha state
• To show secondary IP mapping :
show plugins vm_series aws ha ips

Migrate Active/Passive HA on AWS to Interface Move Mode

Complete the following procedure to migrate your existing VM-Series firewall HA pair from secondary-IP
HA to interface-move HA.

STEP 1 | Disable DPDK support on the passive HA peer. Interface-move HA mode does not support
DPDK, so you must disable it; enabling Packet MMAP.
1. Log in to the passive firewall CLI.
2. Disable DPDK using the following command. Executing this command restarts the firewall.
admin@PA-VM> set system setting dpdk-pkt-io off

STEP 2 | Disable DPDK support on the active HA peer.

1. Log in to the active firewall CLI.
2. Disable DPDK using the following command. Executing this command restarts the firewall.

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 admin@PA-VM> set system setting dpdk-pkt-io off

Restarting the firewall will impact traffic.

STEP 3 | Change the HA mode on the active peer from secondary-IP mode to interface-move mode.
1. Access the VM-Series firewall CLI on the active peer.
2. Execute the following command.
request plugins vm_series aws ha failover-mode interface-move
3. Commit your changes.
4. Comfirm your HA mode by executing the following command.
show plugins vm_series aws ha failover-mode
5. Repeat this command on the passive peer.

STEP 4 | Delete the data interfaces from the passive firewall instance.
1. Log in to the AWS EC2 console.
2. Select Network Interfaces.
3. Select a data interface on the passive firewall instance and click Delete.
4. In the Delete Network Interface window, click Yes, Delete.
5. Repeat this process for each data interface on the passive firewall instance.

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Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the
AWS Cloud
In this example, the VPC is deployed in the 10.0.0.0/16 network with two /24 subnets: 10.0.0.0/24 and
10.0.1.0/24. The VM-Series firewall will be launched in the 10.0.0.0/24 subnet to which the internet
gateway is attached. The 10.0.1.0/24 subnet is a private subnet that will host the EC2 instances that need
to be secured by the VM-Series firewall; any server on this private subnet uses NAT for a routable IP
address (which is an Elastic IP address) to access the internet. Use the Planning Worksheet for the VM-
Series in the AWS VPC to plan the design within your VPC; recording the subnet ranges, network interfaces
and the associated IP addresses for the EC2 instances, and security groups, will make the setup process
easier and more efficient.

The following image depicts the logical flow of traffic to/from the web server to the internet. Traffic to/
from the web server is sent to the data interface of the VM-Series firewall that is attached to the private
subnet. The firewall applies policy and processes incoming/outgoing traffic from/to the internet gateway of
the VPC. The image also shows the security groups to which the data interfaces are attached.

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STEP 1 | Create a new VPC with a public subnet (or select an existing VPC).
1. Log in to the AWS console and select the VPC Dashboard.
2. Verify that you’ve selected the correct geographic area (AWS region). The VPC will be deployed in
the currently selected region.
3. Select Start VPC Wizard, and select VPC with a Single Public Subnet.
In this example, the IP CIDR block for the VPC is 10.0.0.0/16, the VPC name is Cloud DC, the public
subnet is 10.0.0.0/24, and the subnet name is Cloud DC Public subnet. You will create a private
subnet after creating the VPC.

4. Click Create VPC.

STEP 2 | Create a private subnet.

Select Subnets, and click Create a Subnet. Fill in the information.
In this example, the Name tag for the subnet is Web/DB Server Subnet, it is created in the Cloud
Datacenter VPC and is assigned a CIDR block of 10.0.1.0/24.

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STEP 3 | Create a new route table for each subnet.

Although a main route table is automatically created on the VPC, we recommend creating
new route tables instead of modifying the default route table.

To direct outbound traffic from each subnet, you will add routes to the route table associated with each
subnet, later in this workflow.
1. Select Route Tables > Create Route Table.
2. Add a Name, for example CloudDC-public-subnet-RT, select the VPC you created in Step 1, and click
Yes, Create.
3. Select the route table, click Subnet Associations and select the public subnet.

4. Select Create Route Table.

5. Add a Name, for example CloudDC-private-subnet-RT, select the VPC you created in Step 1, and
click Yes, Create.
6. Select the route table, click Subnet Associations and select the private subnet.

STEP 4 | Create Security Groups to restrict inbound/outbound internet access to the EC2 instances in
the VPC.
By default, AWS disallows communication between interfaces that do not belong to the same security
group.
Select Security Groups and click the Create Security Group button. In this example, we create three
security groups with the following rules for inbound access:

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 • CloudDC-Management that specifies the protocols and source IP addresses that can connect to the
management interface of the VM-Series firewall. At a minimum you need SSH, and HTTPS. In this
example, we enable SSH, ICMP, HTTP, and HTTPS on the network interfaces that are attached to
this security group.
The management interface (eth 0/0) of the VM-Series firewall will be assigned to CloudDC-
management-sg.
• Public-Server-CloudDC that specifies the source IP addresses that can connect over HTTP, FTP, SSH
within the VPC. This group allows traffic from the external network to the firewall.
The dataplane interface eth1/1 of the VM-Series firewall will be assigned to Public-Server-CloudDC.
• Private-Server-CloudDC that has very limited access. It only allows other EC2 instances on the same
subnet to communicate with each other, and with the VM-Series firewall.
The dataplane interface eth1/2 of the VM-Series firewall and the application in the private subnet
will be attached to this security group.
The following screenshot shows the security groups for this use case.

STEP 5 | Deploy the VM-Series firewall.

Only the primary network interface that will serve as the management interface will be
attached and configured for the firewall during the initial launch. The network interfaces
required for handling data traffic will be added in Step 6.

See Step 3 in Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

STEP 6 | Create and attach virtual network interface(s), referred to as Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs),
to the VM-Series firewall. These ENIs are used for handling data traffic to/from the firewall.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Network Interfaces, and click Create Network Interface.
2. Enter a descriptive name for the interface.
3. Select the subnet. Use the subnet ID to make sure that you have selected the correct subnet. You
can only attach an ENI to an instance in the same subnet.
4. Enter the Private IP address that you want to assign to the interface or select Auto-assign to
automatically assign an IP address within the available IP addresses in the selected subnet.
5. Select the Security group to control access to the network interface.
6. Click Yes, Create.
In this example, we create two interfaces with the following configuration:

• For Eth1/1 (VM-Series-Untrust)

• Subnet: 10.0.0.0/24
• Private IP:10.0.0.10

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 • Security group: Public-Server-CloudDC
• For Eth1/2 (VM-Series-Trust)
• Subnet: 10.0.1.0/24
• Private IP: 10.0.1.10
• Security group: Private-Server-CloudDC
7. To attach the ENI to the VM-Series firewall, select the interface you just created, and click Attach.

8. Select the Instance ID of the VM-Series firewall, and click Attach.

9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 to attach the other network interface.

STEP 7 | Create an Elastic IP address and attach it to the firewall dataplane network interface that
requires direct internet access.
In this example, VM-Series_Untrust is assigned an EIP. The EIP associated with the interface is the
publicly accessible IP address for the web server in the private subnet.
1. Select Elastic IPs and click Allocate New Address.
2. Select EC2-VPC and click Yes, Allocate.
3. Select the newly allocated EIP and click Associate Address.
4. Select the Network Interface and the Private IP address associated with the interface and click Yes,
Associate.

In this example, the configuration is:

STEP 8 | Disable Source/Destination check on each network interface attached to the VM-Series
firewall. Disabling this attribute allows the interface to handle network traffic that is not
destined to its IP address.
1. Select the network interface in the Network Interfaces tab.
2. In the Action drop-down, select Change Source/Dest. Check.
3. Click Disabled and Save your changes.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for additional network interfaces, firewall-1/2 in this example.

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STEP 9 | In the route table associated with the public subnet (from step 3), add a default route to the
internet gateway for the VPC.
1. From the VPC Dashboard, select Route Tables and find the route table associated with the public
subnet.
2. Select the route table, select Routes and click Edit.
3. Add a route to forward packets from this subnet to the internet gateway. In this example, 0.0.0.0.0
indicates that all traffic from/to this subnet will use the internet gateway attached to the VPC.

STEP 10 | In the route table associated with the private subnet, add a default route to send traffic to the
VM-Series firewall.
Adding this route enables the forwarding of traffic from the EC2 instances in this private subnet to the
VM-Series firewall.
1. From the VPC Dashboard, select Route Tables and find the route table associated with the private
subnet.
2. Select the route table, select Routes and click Edit.
3. Add a route to forward packets from this subnet to the VM-Series firewall network interface that
resides on the same subnet. In this example, 0.0.0.0/0 indicates that all traffic from/to this subnet will
use eni-abf355f2 (ethernet 1/2, which is CloudDC-VM-Series-Trust) on the VM-Series firewall.

For each web or database server deployed on an EC2 instance in the private subnet,
you must define a default route to the IP address of the VM-Series firewall so that the
firewall is the default gateway for the server.

Perform steps 11 through 16 on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 11 | Configure a new administrative password for the firewall.

An SSH tool such as PuTTY is required to access the CLI on the firewall and change the
default administrative password. You cannot access the web interface until you SSH and
change the default password.

1. Use the public IP address you configured on the firewall, to SSH into the Command Line Interface
(CLI) of the VM-Series firewall.
You will need the private key that you used or created in Launch the VM-Series Firewall on AWS,
steps 3-12 to access the CLI.

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 2. Enter the following command to log in to the firewall:
ssh-i <private_key_name> admin@<public-ip_address>
3. Configure a new password, using the following command and follow the onscreen prompts:
configure
set mgt-config users admin password
commit
4. Terminate the SSH session.

STEP 12 | Access the web interface of the VM-Series firewall.

Open a web browser and enter the EIP of the management interface. For example:
https://54.183.85.163

STEP 13 | Activate the licenses on the VM-Series firewall. This step is only required for the BYOL
license; the usage-based licenses are automatically activated.
See Activate the License.

STEP 14 | On the VM-Series firewall, configure the dataplane network interfaces on the firewall as
Layer 3 interfaces.
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
2. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• Select the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example untrust, and then click OK.
• Select IPv4, select DHCP Client; the private IP address that you assigned to the network interface
in the AWS management console will be acquired automatically.
• On the Advanced > Other Info tab, expand the Management Profile drop-down, and select New
Management Profile.
• Enter a Name for the profile, such as allow_ping, and select Ping from the Permitted Services list,
then click OK.
• To save the interface configuration, click OK.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• Select the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example trust, and then click OK.
• Select IPv4, select DHCP Client.
• On the IPv4 tab, clear the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by
server check box. For an interface that is attached to the private subnet in the VPC, disabling this
option ensures that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly to the IGW on the VPC.
• On the Advanced > Other Info, expand the Management Profile drop-down, and select the
allow_ping profile you created earlier.
• Click OK to save the interface configuration.
4.

Click Commit to save the changes. Verify that the Link state for the interface is up . If the link
state is not up, reboot the firewall.

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STEP 15 | On the VM-Series firewall, create Destination NAT and Source NAT rules to allow inbound/
outbound traffic to/from the applications deployed within the VPC.
1. Select Policies > NAT.
2. Create a Destination NAT rule that steers traffic from the firewall to the web server.
1. Click Add, and enter a name for the rule. For example, NAT2WebServer.
2. In the Original Packet tab, make the following selections:
• Source Zone: untrust (where the traffic originates)
• Destination Zone: untrust (the zone for the firewall dataplane interface with which the EIP for
the web server is associated.)
• Source Address: Any
• Destination Address: 10.0.0.10
• In the Translated Packet tab, select the Destination Address Translation check box and set the
Translated Address: to 10.0.1.62, which is the private IP address of the web server.
3. Click OK.

3. Create a Source NAT rule to allow outbound traffic from the web server to the internet.
1. Click Add, and enter a name for the rule. For example, NAT2External.
2. In the Original Packet tab, make the following selections:
• Source Zone: trust (where the traffic originates)
• Destination Zone: untrust (the zone for the firewall dataplane interface with which the EIP for
the web server is associated.)
• Source Address: Any
• Destination Address: Any
3. In the Translated Packet tab, make the following selections in the Source Address Translation
section:
• Translation Type: Dynamic IP and Port
• Address Type: Translated Address
• Translated Address: 10.0.0.10 (the firewall dataplane interface in the untrust zone.)
4. Click OK.

4. Click Commit to save the NAT policies.

STEP 16 | On the VM-Series firewall, create security policies to manage traffic.

Instead of entering a static IP address for the web server, use a dynamic address group.
Dynamic address groups allow you to create policy that automatically adapts to changes

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 so that you do not need to update the policy when you launch additional web servers in
the subnet. For details, see Use Case: Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure New EC2
Instances within the VPC.

1. Select Policies > Security.

In this example, we have four rules. A rule that allows management access to the firewall traffic, a
rule to allow inbound traffic to the web server, a third rule to allow internet access to the web server,
and in the last rule we modify a predefined intrazone-default rule to log all traffic that is denied.
2. Create a rule to allow management access to the firewall.
1. Click Add and enter a Name for the rule. Verify that the Rule Type is universal.
2. In the Source tab, add untrust as the Source Zone.
3. In the Destination tab, add trust as the Destination Zone.
4. In the Applications tab, Add ping and ssh.
5. In the Actions tab, set the Action to Allow.
6. Click OK.

3. Create a rule to allow inbound traffic to the web server.

1. Click Add and enter a Name for the rule and verify that the Rule Type is universal.
2. In the Source tab, add untrust as the Source Zone.
3. In the Destination tab, add trust as the Destination Zone.
4. In the Applications tab, Add web-browsing.
5. In the Service/URL Category tab, verify that the service is set to application-default.
6. In the Actions tab, set the Action to Allow.
7. In the Profile Settings section of the Actions tab, select Profiles and then attach the default
profiles for antivirus, anti-spyware, and vulnerability protection.
8. Click OK.

4. Create a rule to allow internet access to the web server.

1. Click Add and enter a Name for the rule and verify that the Rule Type is universal.
2. In the Source tab, add trust as the Source Zone.
3. In the Source Address section of the Source tab, add 10.0.1.62, the IP address of the web server.
4. In the Destination tab, add untrust as the Destination Zone.
5. In the Service/URL Category tab, verify that the service is set to application-default.
6. In the Actions tab, set the Action to Allow.
7. In the Profile Settings section of the Actions tab, select Profiles and then attach the default
profiles for antivirus, anti-spyware, and vulnerability protection.
8. Click OK.

5. Edit the interzone-default rule to log all traffic that is denied. This predefined interzone rule is
evaluated when no other rule is explicitly defined to match traffic across different zones.
1. Select the interzone-default rule and click Override.
2. In the Actions tab, select Log at session end.
3. Click OK.

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 6. Review the complete set of security rules defined on the firewall.
7. Click Commit to save the policies.

STEP 17 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is securing traffic.

1. Launch a web browser and enter the IP address for the web server.
2. Log in to the web interface of the VM-Series firewall and verify that you can see the traffic logs for
the sessions at Monitor > Logs > Traffic.
• Traffic inbound to the web server (arrives at EC2 instance in the AWS VPC):

• Traffic outbound from the web server (EC2 instance in the AWS VPC):

You have successfully deployed the VM-Series firewall as a cloud gateway!

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Use Case: Use Dynamic Address Groups to
Secure New EC2 Instances within the VPC
In a dynamic environment such as the AWS-VPC where you launch new EC2 instances on demand, the
administrative overhead in managing security policy can be cumbersome. Using Dynamic Address Groups in
security policy allows for agility and prevents disruption in services or gaps in protection.
In this example, you can use the VM Information Source on the firewall to monitor a VPC and use Dynamic
Address Groups in security policy to discover and secure EC2 instances. As you spin up EC2 instances, the
Dynamic Address Group collates the IP addresses of all instances that match the criteria defined for group
membership, and then security policy is applied for the group. The security policy in this example allows
internet access to all members of the group.

Instead of using VM Information Source on the firewall, you can opt to use Panorama as
the central point for communicating with your VPCs. Using the AWS plugin on Panorama,
you can retrieve the IP address-to-tag mapping and register the information on the managed
firewalls for which you configure notification. For more details on this option, see VM
Monitoring with the AWS Plugin on Panorama.

This workflow in the following section assumes that you have created the AWS VPC and deployed the VM-
Series firewall and some applications on EC2 instances. For instructions on setting up the VPC for the VM-
Series, see Use Case: Secure the EC2 Instances in the AWS Cloud.

STEP 1 | Configure the firewall to monitor the VPC.

1. Select Device > VM Information Sources.
2. Click Add and enter the following information:
1. A Name to identify the VPC that you want to monitor. For example, VPC-CloudDC.
2. Set the Type to AWS VPC.
3. In Source, enter the URI for the VPC. The syntax is ec2.<your_region>.amazonaws.com
4. Add the credentials required for the firewall to digitally sign API calls made to the AWS services.
You need the following:
• Access Key ID: Enter the alphanumeric text string that uniquely identifies the user who owns
or is authorized to access the AWS account.
• Secret Access Key: Enter the password and confirm your entry.
5. (Optional) Modify the Update interval to a value between 5-600 seconds. By default, the firewall
polls every 5 seconds. The API calls are queued and retrieved within every 60 seconds, so updates
may take up to 60 seconds plus the configured polling interval.

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 6. Enter the VPC ID that is displayed on the VPC Dashboard in the AWS management console.
7. Click OK, and Commit the changes.
8. Verify that the connection Status displays as connected

STEP 2 | Tag the EC2 instances in the VPC.

For a list of tags that the VM-Series firewall can monitor, see List of Attributes Monitored on the AWS
VPC.
A tag is a name-value pair. You can tag the EC2 instances either on the EC2 Dashboard on the AWS
management console or using the AWS API or AWS CLI.
In this example, we use the EC2 Dashboard to add the tag:

STEP 3 | Create a dynamic address group on the firewall.

View the tutorial to see a big picture view of the feature.

1. Select Object > Address Groups.

2. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the address group.
3. Select Type as Dynamic.
4. Define the match criteria.
1. Click Add Match Criteria, and select the And operator.

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 2. Select the attributes to filter for or match against. In this example, we select the
ExternalAccessAllowed tag that you just created and the subnet ID for the private subnet of the
VPC.

5. Click OK.
6. Click Commit.

STEP 4 | Use the dynamic address group in a security policy.

To create a rule to allow internet access to any web server that belongs to the dynamic address group
called ExternalServerAccess.
1. Select Policies > Security.
2. Click Add and enter a Name for the rule and verify that the Rule Type is universal.
3. In the Source tab, add trust as the Source Zone.
4. In the Source Address section of the Source tab, Add the ExternalServerAccess group you just
created.
5. In the Destination tab, add untrust as the Destination Zone.
6. In the Service/URL Category tab, verify that the service is set to application-default.
7. In the Actions tab, set the Action to Allow.
8. In the Profile Settings section of the Actions tab, select Profiles and then attach the default profiles
for antivirus, anti-spyware, and vulnerability protection.
9. Click OK.

10.Click Commit.

STEP 5 | Verify that members of the dynamic address group are populated on the firewall.
Policy will be enforced for all IP addresses that belong to this address group, and are displayed here.
1. Select Policies > Security, and select the rule.
2. Select the drop-down arrow next to the address group link, and select Inspect. You can also verify
that the match criteria is accurate.

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3. Click the more link and verify that the list of registered IP addresses is displayed.

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Use Case: VM-Series Firewalls as
GlobalProtect Gateways on AWS
Securing mobile users from threats and risky applications is often a complex mix of procuring and setting up
the security and IT infrastructure, ensuring bandwidth and uptime requirements in multiple locations around
the globe while staying within your budget.
The VM-Series firewall on AWS melds the security and IT logistics required to consistently and reliably
protect devices used by mobile users in regions where you do not have a presence. By deploying the VM-
Series firewall in the AWS cloud, you can quickly and easily deploy GlobalProtect™ gateways in any region
without the expense or IT logistics that are typically required to set up this infrastructure using your own
resources.
To minimize latency, select AWS regions that are closest to your users, deploy the VM-Series firewalls on
EC2 instances, and configure the firewalls as GlobalProtect gateways. With this solution, the GlobalProtect
gateways in the AWS cloud enforce security policy for internet traffic so there is no need to backhaul that
traffic to the corporate network. Additionally, for access to resources on the corporate network, the VM-
Series firewalls on AWS leverage the LSVPN functionality to establish IPSec tunnels back to the firewall on
the corporate network.
For ease of deployment and centralized management of this distributed infrastructure, use Panorama to
configure the GlobalProtect components used in this solution. Optionally, to ensure that mobile devices,
such as smartphones and tablets, are safe for use on your network, use a Mobile Device Manager to
configure and manage mobile devices.

• Components of the GlobalProtect Infrastructure

• Deploy GlobalProtect Gateways on AWS

Components of the GlobalProtect Infrastructure

To block risky applications and protect mobile users from malware, you must set up the GlobalProtect
infrastructure, which includes the GlobalProtect portal, the GlobalProtect gateway, and the GlobalProtect
app. Additionally, for access to corporate resources, you must set up an IPSec VPN connection between the

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 VM-Series firewalls on AWS and the firewall in the corporate headquarters using LSVPN (a hub and spoke
VPN deployment).
• The GlobalProtect agent/app is installed on each end-user system that is allowed to access corporate
applications and resources. The agent first connects to the portal to obtain information on the gateways
and then establishes a secure VPN connection to the closest GlobalProtect gateway. The VPN
connection between the end-user system and the gateway ensures data privacy.
• The GlobalProtect portal provides the management functions for the GlobalProtect infrastructure.
Every end-user system receives configuration information from the portal, including information about
available gateways as well as any client certificates that may be required to connect to the GlobalProtect
gateway(s). In this use case, the GlobalProtect portal is a hardware-based firewall that is deployed in the
corporate headquarters.
• The GlobalProtect gateway delivers mobile threat prevention and policy enforcement based on
applications, users, content, device, and device state. In this use case, the VM-Series firewalls on
AWS function as the GlobalProtect gateways. The GlobalProtect gateway scans each user request for
malware and other threats, and, if policy allows, sends the request to the internet or to the corporate
network over the IPSec tunnel (to the LSVPN gateway).
• For LSVPN, you must configure the GlobalProtect portal, GlobalProtect gateway for LSVPN (hub), and
the GlobalProtect Satellites (spokes).
In this use case, the hardware-based firewall in the corporate office is deployed as the GlobalProtect
portal and the LSVPN gateway. The VM-Series firewalls on AWS are configured to function as
GlobalProtect satellites. The GlobalProtect satellites and gateway are configured to establish an IPSec
tunnel that terminates on the gateway. When a mobile user requests an application or resource that
resides on the corporate network, the VM-Series firewall routes the request over the IPSec tunnel.

Deploy GlobalProtect Gateways on AWS

To secure mobile users, in addition to deploying and configuring the GlobalProtect gateways on AWS, you
need to set up the other components required for this integrated solution. The following table includes the
recommended workflow:

• Deploy the VM-Series firewall(s) on AWS.

See Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

• Configure the firewall at the corporate headquarters.

In this use case, the firewall is configured as the GlobalProtect portal and the LSVPN gateway.
• Configure the GlobalProtectportal.
• Configure the GlobalProtectportal for LSVPN.
• Configure the portal to authenticateLSVPN satellites.
• Configure the GlobalProtectgateway for LSVPN.

• Set up a template on Panorama for configuring the VM-Series firewalls on AWS as

GlobalProtect gateways and LSVPN satellites.
To easily manage this distributed deployment, use Panorama to configure the firewalls on AWS.
• Create template(s) on Panorama.
Then use the following links to define the configuration in the templates.
• Configure the firewall asa GlobalProtect gateway.
• Prepare the satellite tojoin the LSVPN.

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 • Create device groups on Panorama to define the network access policies and internet access
rules and apply them to the firewalls on AWS.
See Create device groups.

• Apply the templates and the device groups to the VM-Series firewalls on AWS, and verify that
the firewalls are configured properly.

• Deploy the GlobalProtect client software.

Every end-user system requires the GlobalProtect agent or app to connect to the GlobalProtect
gateway.
See Deploy the GlobalProtectclient software.

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VM Monitoring on AWS
As you deploy or terminate virtual machines in the AWS public cloud, you can either use the Panorama
plugin for AWS or use the VM Information sources on the firewall to consistently enforce security policy
rules on these workloads. See the Compatibility Matrix for Panorama plugin version information.
The Panorama plugin for AWS is built for scale and allows you to monitor up to 1000 AWS VPCs on the
AWS public cloud. With this plugin, you use Panorama as an anchor to poll your AWS accounts for tags,
and then distribute the metadata (IP address-to-tag mapping) to many firewalls in a device group. Because
Panorama communicates with your AWS accounts to retrieve VM information, you’re able to streamline the
number of API calls made to the cloud environment. When using Panorama and the AWS plugin, you can
centralize the retrieval of tags and Security policy management to ensure consistent policies for hybrid and
cloud-native architectures. See VM Monitoring with the AWS Plugin on Panorama.

If you do not have Panorama or you have a simpler deployment and need to monitor 10 VPCs or fewer,
you can use the VM Information Source on the firewall (hardware or VM-Series firewall) to monitor your
AWS workloads. You can use the metadata, which the firewall retrieves, in Dynamic Address Groups and
reference them in Security policies to secure your VM workloads as they spin up or down and IP addresses
change frequently. See Use Case: Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure New EC2 Instances within the
VPC.

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VM Monitoring with the AWS Plugin on Panorama
As you deploy or terminate virtual machines in the AWS public cloud, you need a way to synchronously
update Security policy on your Palo Alto Networks® firewall(s) so that you can secure these EC2 instances.
To enable this capability from Panorama, you must install the AWS plugin on Panorama and enable API
communication between Panorama and your AWS VPCs. Panorama can then collect a predefined set of
attributes (or metadata elements) as tags for your EC2 instances and register the information to your Palo
Alto Networks® firewall(s). When you reference these tags in Dynamic Address Groups and match against
them in Security policy rules, you can consistently enforce policy across all assets deployed within your
AWS accounts.
• Set Up the AWS Plugin for VM Monitoring on Panorama
• List of Attributes Monitored on the AWS VPC

Set Up the AWS Plugin for VM Monitoring on Panorama

To find all the virtual machine workloads that your organization has deployed in the AWS public cloud, you
need to install the AWS plugin on Panorama and configure Monitoring Definitions that enable Panorama to
authenticate to your AWS VPC(s) and retrieve VM information on the workloads. Panorama retrieves the IP
address of the VMs that are running— public IP address, and primary and secondary private IP addresses—
and the associated tags. For a list of the metadata elements that Panorama supports, see List of Attributes
Monitored on the AWS VPC.
After Panorama fetches the attributes, to push the virtual machine information from Panorama to the
firewalls, you must add the firewalls (hardware or VM-Series) as managed devices on Panorama, and group
the firewalls into one or more Device Groups. You can then specify which device groups are part of the
Notify Group, which is a configuration element in a Monitoring Definition, that Panorama uses to register
the IP address-to-tag mapping it retrieves from AWS.
Finally, to consistently enforce Security policies across the EC2 instances, you must set up Dynamic Address
Groups and reference them in policy rules that allow or deny traffic to the IP addresses of the VMs. For
streamlining your configuration and managing policies and objects centrally from Panorama, you can define

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 the Dynamic Address Groups and Security policy rules on Panorama and push them to the firewalls instead
of managing the Dynamic Address Groups and Security policy rules locally on each firewall.

The AWS plugin version 2.0 is for monitoring EC2 instances for up to 1000 VPCs on the
AWS public cloud, AWS GovCloud, and AWS China. However, because Panorama cannot
be deployed on AWS China, the IAM role does not support instance profiles on AWS China;
you must provide the AWS credentials.

• Planning Checklist for VM Monitoring on AWS

• IAM Roles and Permissions for Panorama
• Install or Upgrade the AWS Plugin
• Configure the AWS Plugin for VM Monitoring

Planning Checklist for VM Monitoring on AWS

For Panorama to interact with the AWS APIs and collect information on your EC2 instances, you need to
create an IAM role and assign the policies that grant the permissions required to authenticate to AWS and
access the EC2 instances within your VPC. You can add 100 IAM roles to manage up to 1000 VPCs on
Panorama.
Gather the VPC ID.
Tag your EC2 instances on AWS. You can tag (define a name-value pair) the EC2 instances either on
the EC2 Dashboard on the AWS management console or using the AWS API or AWS CLI. See List of
Attributes Monitored on the AWS VPC for the list of supported attributes.
Check for duplicate IP addresses across the VPCs for which you will enable monitoring. If you have
duplicate IP addresses across AWS VPCs, the metadata will be appended together or swapped and this
may cause unexpected results in policy enforcement.

Duplicate IP addresses are written to the plugin_aws_ret.log file that you can access from
the CLI on Panorama.
Review the requirements for Panorama and the managed firewalls:
• Minimum system requirements—Panorama virtual appliance or hardware-based Panorama appliance.

Panorama Minimum Requirements

System Memory CPUs Number of Number of Tags Registered

Resources Monitored VPCs

16GB 4 1-100 Panorama 9.1 or later with AWS plugin

v 2.0 is tested to retrieve 10,000 IP
32 GB 8 100-500 addresses with 13 tags for each, or
5000 IP addresses with 25 tags for
64 GB 16 500-1000 each, and successfully register them to
the firewalls included within a device
group.The tag length—includes name
and value—for each EC2 instance
is assumed to be 64 bytes per tag.
For example, the EC2 instance name
tag is aws.ec2.tag.Name.prod-web-
app-4523-lvss6j.

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 Panorama Minimum Requirements

Panorama OS 9.1 or later

version

AWS plugin 2.0.0 or later

version

Licenses Active support license and a device management license on Panorama for
managing the firewalls.
Next-generation firewalls must also have a valid support license.

Roles and See IAM Roles and Permissions for Panorama

Permissions
to retrieve
metadata on the
EC2 instances

• You must add the firewalls as managed devices on Panorama and create Device Groups so that you
can configure Panorama to notify these groups with the VM information it retrieves. Device groups
can include VM-Series firewalls or virtual systems on the hardware firewalls.
• If your Panorama appliances are in a high availability configuration, you must manually install the
same version of the AWS plugin on both Panorama peers. Additionally, if you are using instance
profiles, you must attach the same instance profile to both Panorama peers.

You configure the AWS plugin on the active Panorama peer only. On commit, the
configuration is synced to the passive Panorama peer. Only the active Panorama peer
polls the AWS accounts you have configured for VM Monitoring.
• Set up the credentials/permissions that Panorama requires to digitally sign API calls to the AWS
services.
You can choose whether you want to provide the long-term credentials—Access Key ID and Secret
Access Key—that enable access to the resources within each AWS account, or set up an Assume
Role on AWS to allow access to defined AWS resources within the same AWS account or cross-
accounts. With an Assume Role, you must set up a trust relationship and define the permissions
while creating the role itself. This is specifically useful in a cross-account deployment where the
querying account does not have permissions to see or handle data from the queried account. For the
Panorama plugin to successfully authenticate to the VPC and retrieve the tags, you must configure
the Assume Role to use the AWS Security Token Service (STS) API to any AWS service. And a user
from the querying account must have STS permissions to query the Assume Role and obtain the
temporary security credentials to access resources. If your Panorama is deployed on AWS, you can
opt to use an instance profile instead of providing the AWS credentials for the IAM role. The instance
profile includes the role information and associated credentials that Panorama needs to digitally sign
API calls to the AWS services. See IAM Roles and Permissions for Panorama for more details.

IAM Roles and Permissions for Panorama

With the AWS plugin version 2.0, you can use IAM roles or instance profiles to enable Panorama to
authenticate and retrieve metadata on the resources deployed within your AWS account(s).
• When your Panorama is not deployed on AWS, you have two options. You can either provide the long-
term IAM credentials for the AWS accounts you want to monitor, or set up an Assume Role on AWS to

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 allow access to defined AWS resources within the same AWS account or cross-accounts. An Assume
Role is recommended as the more secure option.
• When your Panorama is deployed on AWS, in addition to the two options listed above, you can also
add an instance profile that allows the IAM role to be passed to the EC2 instance. You can use an
instance profile where all your monitored resources and Panorama are hosted within the same account,
or an instance profile with Assume Role for cross account access where your Panorama and monitored
resources are deployed across different AWS accounts. If you use the instance profile, you do not enter
your AWS credentials on Panorama.

Option 1: IAM role with long term credentials

Roles and The AWS credentials associated with the AWS account that has the VPC/EC2 instances
Permissions you want to monitor.
Required
The JSON format for the minimum permissions associated with the IAM role with long-
term credentials is as follows:

{ "Path": "/", "UserName": "panorama_vm_programmatic",

"UserId": "AIDAIZXXXXCR5JPII4XYZ",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::412383210500:user/
panorama_vm_programmatic",
"CreateDate": "2018-07-06T19:14:31Z",
"GroupList": [],
"AttachedManagedPolicies":
[
{ "PolicyName": "ReadOnlyAccess",
"PolicyArn": "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/ReadOnlyAccess"
}
]
},

Inputs on Enter the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key for the user in Panorama > Plugins >
Panorama AWS > Setup > IAM Role.

Option 2: IAM role with Assume Role

Roles and While you can use this option to monitor VPCs within the same or cross account, this
Permissions option is recommended to enable cross account access by assuming a role that allows
Required you to access resources to which you may normally have access.
To assume a role from a different account, your AWS account must be trusted by that
role and defined as a trusted entity in its trust policy. In addition, a user who wants to
access a role in a different account must have a policy with secure token service (STS)
access that specifies the role ARN.
On Account 1 that you want to monitor:
• Create an IAM role with required permissions. For VM Monitoring you need
AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess.
• Copy the Role ARN.
• Create a user and add the Account ID for Account 2 as a trusted entity. This allows
Account 2 the permissions to use this role to access the resources within your
Account 1.

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 On Account 2 that requires access to account 1
• Attach the following policy with STS permissions and modify the Role ARN to match
what you created on Account 1.

{ "Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement":
{
"Effect": “Allow",
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
"Resource":"arn:aws:iam::012347211234:role/
PAN-OS-assume-role"
}
}

Inputs on • Enter the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key for the user on Account 2 on
Panorama Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Setup > IAM Role.
• Enter the Role ARN for the AWS Account 1 which you want to monitor in the
Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Monitoring Definitions.

Option 3: Instance profile

Roles and Only when Panorama is deployed as an EC2 instance on AWS

Permissions
Required Note that when you use the AWS Management console to create an
IAM role, the console automatically creates an instance profile with the
same name as the role. Because the role and the instance profile has
the same name, when you launch tour Panorama (EC2 instance) with an
IAM role, the instance profile of the same name is associated with it.

When Panorama and the resources you want to monitor are all in a single AWS account.
Create an IAM role with AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess.

Inputs on Select Instance Profile as the option in Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Setup > IAM Role.
Panorama

Option 4: Instance profile with Assume Role

Roles and Use instance profile with Assume role when Panorama and the resources you want to
Permissions monitor are deployed across AWS accounts.
Required
For Panorama HA, make sure to attach the same instance profile to both Panorama
peers.
On Account 1, where your EC2 instances are deployed:
• Create an IAM role.
• To this role, add the AWS Account ID (Account 2) where your Panorama is deployed
as a trusted entity.
• Attach the JSON policies as detailed above for VM Monitoring.
• Copy the Role ARN.This role is required for Panorama to retrieve metadata on your
EC2 instances or EKS clusters.
On Account 2, where your Panorama is deployed:

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 • Create an IAM role and attach the JSON policy (with the STS policy and resource
ARN you got from Account 1).
• For each additional AWS account you want to monitor, copy the same STS policy and
modify the Role ARN.

Inputs on • Select Instance Profile as the option in Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Setup > IAM
Panorama Role
• Enter the Role ARN for the AWS account which you want to monitor in the
Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Monitoring Definitions.
For example Account 1 in this example.

Install or Upgrade the AWS Plugin

To get started with monitoring your EC2 instances on AWS, refer to the Compatibility Matrix for the
Panorama Plugin for AWS and VM-Series plugin versionsrequired to support VM monitoring.
To upgrade a Panorama plugin for AWS version 1.0.1 installation to version 2.0.x, you must first upgrade
to the Panorama and VM-Series plugin versions required for version 2.0.x, then install as directed below to
perform an upgrade.

After you install the AWS plugin v2.0 you cannot downgrade to v1.0.

If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat the installation/upgrade process on each Panorama peer.

Install or uninstall plugins during a planned maintenance window.

If you currently have a Panorama plugin for any cloud platform installed, installing (or
uninstalling) an additional plugin requires a Panorama reboot so commit changes.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama Web Interface, select Panorama > Plugins and click Check Now to get
the AWS plugin version that supports VM monitoring.

STEP 2 | Download and Install the plugin.

After you successfully install, Panorama refreshes and the AWS plugin displays on the Panorama >
Plugins tab.

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 On the Panorama Dashboard General Information widget you can verify the Panorama
Plugin for AWS version that is installed.

STEP 3 | (Panorama in HA) Commit > Commit to Panorama.

If your Panorama is in HA, commit the changes to the Panorama configuration to ensure that tags are
registered to the Panorama peer on failover.

Configure the AWS Plugin for VM Monitoring

To begin monitoring the virtual machines in your AWS public cloud deployment, after you Install the AWS
Plugin you must create a Monitoring Definition. This definition specifies the IAM Role that is authorized to
access the EC2 instances within the AWS VPC you want to monitor and the Notify Group that includes the
firewalls to which Panorama should push all the IP-address-to-tag mappings it retrieves. In order to enforce
policy, you must then create Dynamic Address Groups and reference them in Security policy. The Dynamic
Address Groups enable you to filter the tags you want to match on, so that the firewall can get the public
and private IP addresses registered against each tag, and then allow or deny access to traffic to and from
the workloads based on the policy rules you define.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

STEP 2 | Set up the following objects for enabling VM Monitoring on AWS.

Add an IAM Role.
An IAM role is an entity that allows you to delegate access so that Panorama can make service
requests on your behalf to the AWS resources (virtual machines that are deployed as EC2 instances).
1. Select Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Setup > IAM Role > Add.

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2. Enter a Name and optionally a Description to identify the IAM role.
3. Select Account Type—Instance Profile or AWS Account Credentials.If your Panorama is deployed
on AWS, you can choose to either attach an instance profile with the correct permissions to your
Panorama or add the credentials associated with the IAM role on Panorama. If your Panorama is
not deployed on AWS, you must enter the credentials for the IAM role locally on Panorama.
4. (For AWS Account Credentials only) Enter the Secret Access Key and re-enter it to confirm, and
click OK.
Add a notify group.
1. Select Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Setup > Notify Groups > Add.

2. Enter a Name to identify the group of firewalls to which Panorama pushes the VM information it
retrieves.
3. Select the Device Groups, which are a group of firewalls or virtual systems, to which Panorama
will push the VM information (IP address-to-tag mapping) it retrieves from your AWS VPCs. The
firewalls use the update to determine the most current list of members that constitute dynamic
address groups referenced in policy. If you are using the Panorama plugin for Azure and AWS, you
can target the same firewall or virtual system with tags from both environments.

Think through your Device Groups carefully.

• Because a Monitoring Definition can include only one notify group, make sure
to select all the relevant Device Groups within your notify group. If you want to
unregister the tags that Panorama has pushed to a firewall included in a notify
group, you must delete the Monitoring Definition.
• To register tags to all virtual systems on a firewall enabled for multiple virtual
systems, you must add each virtual system to a separate device group on
Panorama and assign the device groups to the notify group. If you assign all
the virtual systems to one device group, Panorama will register tags to only one
virtual system on the firewall.
4. Select the tags that you want to retrieve from the AWS VPCs.
You can Select All 32 Tags (the default) or pick the Custom Tags you want to retrieve for your
instances. With the Custom Tags option, you can Add the predefined tags and the user-defined

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 tags that you want to use as match criteria in Security policy. If you are monitoring a large number
of EC2 instances, reducing the number of tags you retrieve ensures more efficient use of the CPU
and memory capacity on your Panorama. Refer to Planning Checklist for VM Monitoring on AWS
for some guidelines.

Verify that monitoring is enabled on the plugin. This setting must be enabled for Panorama to
communicate with the AWS public cloud for VM Monitoring.
The checkbox for Enable Monitoring is on Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Setup > General.

STEP 3 | Create a Monitoring Definition for each VPC you want to monitor.
When you add a new Monitoring definition, it is enabled by default.
• Select Panorama > Plugins > AWS > Monitoring Definition, to Add a new definition.
• Enter a Name and optionally a Description to identify the AWS VPC for which you use this definition.
• Enter the Endpoint URI. The syntax is ec2.<your_region>.amazonaws.com;
For AWS China, it is ec2.<your region>.amazonaws.com.cn.
• (Optional) Enter the Role ARN, if you have set up role chaining and IAM roles with temporary
credentials that have permissions to use the AWS STS API to access AWS resources with the same
account or cross-account. The Role ARN must belong to the VPC you want to monitor.
• Select the IAM Role, Add the VPC ID from the VPC Dashboard on the AWS management console,
and Notify Group.

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STEP 4 | Commit the changes on Panorama.
Verify that the status for the Monitoring Definition displays as Success. If it fails, verify that you entered
the AWS VPC ID accurately and provided the correct keys and IDs for authorizing access.

Click Validate to verify that Panorama can authenticate using the IAM role and keys and
to communicate with the AWS VPCs you’ve entered above.

STEP 5 | Verify that you can view the VM information on Panorama, and define the match criteria for
Dynamic Address Groups.

On HA failover, the newly active Panorama attempts to reconnect to the AWS cloud
and retrieve tags for all monitoring definitions. If Panorama is unable to reconnect with

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 even one of the monitoring definitions that you have configured and enabled, Panorama
generates a system log message

Unable to process accounts after HA switch-over; user-intervention

required.

If this happens, you must log into Panorama and verify the monitoring definitions to fix
invalid credentials or remove invalid accounts. Although Panorama is disconnected
from the AWS cloud, all tags that were retrieved for the monitoring definitions before
the failover, are retained and the firewalls can continue to enforce policy on that list of
IP addresses. Panorama removes all tags associated with the accounts only when you
delete a monitoring definition. As a best practice, to monitor this issue, you can configure
action-oriented log forwarding to an HTTPS destination from Panorama so that you can
take action immediately.

STEP 6 | Know where to find the logs related to the AWS plugin on Panorama for troubleshooting.
• Use the CLI command less plugins-log to view a list of all available logs
plugin_aws_ret.log displays logs related to IP address and tag retrieval.
plugin_aws_proc.log displays logs related to processing of the registered IP address and tags.
plugin_aws.log displays logs related to the AWS plugin configuration and daemons.
Use show plugins aws vm-mon-status for the status of the Monitoring Definitions.

admin@Panorama> show plugins aws vm-mon-status

Mon-Def Name VPC Status Last Updated Time Error Msg
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
MD-Ins-Prof-ARN vpc-07986b091 Success 2019-12-02T10:24:56.007000
MD-gov vpc-7ea1cf1a Success 2019-12-02T10:24:56.008000
MD-IAM-ARN vpc-025a83c123 Success 2019-12-02T10:24:56.012000

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Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls with the
Amazon ELB Service
The Palo Alto Networks auto scaling templates for AWS help you deploy configure and deploy VM-Series
firewalls to protect applications deployed in AWS. The templates leverage AWS scalability features to
independently and automatically scale VM-Series firewalls deployed in AWS to meet surges in application
workload resource demand.
• VM-Series automation capabilities include the PAN-OS API and bootstrapping (using a bootstrap file for
version 2.0, and Panorama for version 2.1).
• AWS automation technology includes CloudFormation templates and scripts for AWS services such as
Lambda, auto scaling groups (ASGs), Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), S3, and SNS.
The templates are available on the Palo Alto Networks GitHub repository for Auto Scaling VM-Series
Firewalls in AWS:
• Version 2.0 provides a firewall template and an application template. These templates and the
supporting scripts deploy VM-Series firewalls, an internet facing firewall, an internal firewall, and
application ASGs in a single Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) or multiple VPCs.
In version 2.0, Palo Alto Networks supports the firewall template while the application template is
community-supported. See VM-Series Auto Scale Template for AWS Version 2.0 for deployment details.
• Version 2.1 adds support for deployment in a single VPC and adds support for a load balancer sandwich
topology that enables you to deploy the VM-Series firewalls in to a front-end VPC and the back-end
applications in to one or more application VPCs connected by VPC peering or AWS PrivateLink.
In version 2.1 you can implement both application load balancers (ALBs) and network load balancers
(NLBs) in VPCs. Version 2.1 includes two firewall templates and five application templates. See VM-
Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.1 for deployment details.

If you have an existing template deployment, there is no migration procedure.

The following table compares some high-level features of each template version.

Features / Requirements Version 2.0 Version 2.1

Panorama running PAN-OS (Optional) If you choose to use Panorama, (Required) Deploy the
9.0.1 or a later release in you must configure VPC peering between Version 2.1 templates.
Panorama mode. the VM-Series firewall VPC and the
application VPCs. Peered traffic traverses On
Panorama the public internet. Panorama,
in a high you must
availability manually
(HA) install the
configuration VM-Series
is not plugin to
supported. enable
VM-Series
firewalls
to publish
PAN-OS
metrics

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 Features / Requirements Version 2.0 Version 2.1
for auto
scaling.

Bootstrapping bootstrap.xml config file in an S3 An init-cfg.txt file

bucket. for Panorama.

Palo Alto Networks S3 bucket Use your own S3 bucket or use the Use your own S3 bucket
sample sample in panw-aws-autoscale-v20-us- for the deployment.
west-2.

Single VPC or separate VPCs Yes Yes

(hub and spoke)

New VPC Yes Yes

Existing VPC (brown field) No Yes

Availability zones per VPC 2 2-4

External load balancer ALB only ALB or NLB

Internal load balancer NLB only ALB or NLB

AWS PrivateLink connection No Yes

to the VM-Series firewall VPC
and the backend servers.

For details on the templates see:

• VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.0
• VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.1

VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.0

To help you manage increased application scaling, version 2.0 of the auto scaling VM-Series firewall
template provides a hub and spoke architecture that simplifies deployment. This version of the solution
provides two templates that support a single and multiple-VPC deployment both within a single AWS
account and across multiple AWS accounts.
• Firewall Template—The firewall template deploys an application load balancer (ALB) and VM-Series
firewalls within auto scaling groups across two Availability Zones (AZs). This internet-facing ALB
distributes traffic that enters the VPC across a pool of VM-Series firewalls. The VM-Series firewalls
automatically publish custom PAN-OS metrics that enable auto scaling.
Palo Alto Networks officially supports the firewall template and, with a valid support entitlement, you
can request assistance from Palo Alto Networks Technical Support.

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 The following application template deploys the network load balancer depicted in the
preceding image.
• Application Template—The application template deploys a network load balancer (NLB) and one auto
scaling group (ASG) with a web server in each AZ.
The application template is community supported. This template is provided as an example to help you
get started with a basic web application. For a production environment, either use your own application
template or customize this template to meet your requirements.
These templates allow you to deploy a load balancer sandwich topology with an internet-facing ALB and
an internal NLB. The ALB is accessible from the internet and distributes traffic that enters the VPC across
a pool of VM-Series firewalls. The firewalls then route traffic using NAT policy to NLBs, which distributes
traffic to an auto scaling tier of web or application servers. The VM-Series firewalls are enabled to publish
custom PAN-OS metrics to AWS CloudWatch where you can monitor the health and resource load on the
VM-Series firewalls and then use that information to trigger auto scaling events in the appropriate ASGs on
firewalls.

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 • What Components Does the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0) Leverage?
• How Does the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0) Enable Dynamic Scaling?
• Plan the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0)
• Customize the Firewall Template Before Launch (v2.0)
• Launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0)
• Customize the Bootstrap.xml File (v2.0)
• Stack Update with VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0)
• Modify Administrative Account and Update Stack

What Components Does the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS
(v2.0) Leverage?

The VM-Series Auto Scaling template for AWS includes the following building blocks:

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Building Block Description

Firewall template The firewall-v2.0.template deploys a new VPC with subnets, route
tables, an AWS NAT gateway, two Availability Zones (AZs), and security
(Palo Alto Networks
groups required for routing traffic across these AZs. This version 2.0 template
officially supported
also deploys an external ALB, and an ASG with a VM-Series firewall in each
template)
AZ.
Due to the many variations in a production environment that includes but
is not limited to a specific number components, such as subnets, availability
zones, route tables, and security groups. You must deploy the firewall-
v2.0.template in a new VPC.

VM-Series Auto Scaling template for AWS does not deploy

Panorama and Panorama is optional. Panorama provides
ease of policy management and central visibility. If you want
to use Panorama to manage the VM-Series firewalls that the
solution deploys, you can either use an M-Series appliance or
Panorama virtual appliance inside your corporate network or
you can use a Panorama virtual appliance on AWS.

This solution includes an AWS NAT gateway that the firewalls use to initiate
outbound requests for retrieving updates, connecting to Panorama, and
publishing metrics to AWS CloudWatch.

Application template The application template deploys an NLB and an ASG with a web server
in each AZ. Because the NLB has a unique IP address for each AZ and the
(Community supported
NAT policy rule on the firewalls must reference a single IP address, there
template)
is one ASG for each of the two AZs. All firewalls in an ASG use an identical
configuration.
Version 2.0 of the auto scaling solution includes two application templates:
• The panw_aws_nlb-v2.0.template allows you to deploy the
application template resources within the same VPC as the one in which
you deployed the firewall template (same AWS account).
• The panw_aws_nlb_vpcv-2.0.template allows you to deploy the
application template resources in a separate VPC using the same AWS
account or multiple AWS accounts.

Lambda functions AWS Lambda provides robust, event-driven automation without the need
for complex orchestration software. In the firewall-v2.0.template,
AWS Lambda monitors a Simple Queue Service (SQS) to learn about NLBs
that publish to the queue. When the Lambda function detects a new NLB, it
creates a new NAT policy rule and applies it to the VM-Series firewalls within
the ASG. The firewalls have a NAT policy rule for each application and the
firewalls use the NAT policy rule (that maps the port to NLB IP address) to
forward traffic to the NLB in front of the application web servers.

You need to create the Security policy rule to allow or

deny application traffic for your deployment. The sample
bootstrap.xml file does not include any Security policy
rules. You should use Panorama to centrally manage your
firewalls and simplify creating Security policy rules.

There are additional functions:

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 Building Block Description
• Adds or removes an interface (ENI) when a firewall is launched or
terminated.
• Deletes all the associated resources when you delete a stack or terminate
an instance.
• Removes a firewall as a Panorama managed device when there is a scale-in
event.
• Deactivates the BYOL license when a scale-in event results in a firewall
termination.
To learn more about the Lambda functions, refer to http://paloaltonetworks-
aws-autoscale-2-0.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Bootstrap files This solution requires the init-cfg.txt file and the bootstrap.xml file so that the
VM-Series firewall has the basic configuration for handling traffic.
The bootstrap.xml
file provided in the • The init-cfg.txt file includes the mgmt-interface-swap operational
GitHub repository is command to enable the firewall to receive dataplane traffic on its primary
provided for testing and interface (eth0). This auto-scaling solution requires the swapping of the
evaluation only. For a dataplane and management interfaces to enable the ALB to forward web
production deployment, traffic to the auto-scaling tier of VM-Series firewalls. For details, see
you must modify the Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB.
sample credentials in • The bootstrap.xml file enables basic connectivity for the firewall
the bootstrap.xml prior network interfaces and allows the firewall to connect to the AWS
to launch. CloudWatch namespace that matches the stack name you enter when you
launch the template.

To deploy the solution, see Launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0).

How Does the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0 and v2.1)
Enable Dynamic Scaling?
VM-Series firewall scale in and scale out using VM-Series firewalls that are deployed using auto scaling
templates based on custom PAN-OS metrics. The VM-Series firewalls natively publish these metrics to
the Amazon CloudWatch console and, based on the metrics you choose for the scaling parameters, you
can define CloudWatch alarms and policies to dynamically deploy or terminate instances for managing the
application traffic in your AWS deployment.
The firewalls publish metrics to AWS CloudWatch every five minutes (by default). When a monitored metric
reaches the configured threshold for the defined time interval, CloudWatch triggers an alarm and initiates
an auto-scaling event.
When the auto-scaling event triggers the deployment of a new firewall, the new instance bootstraps at
launch and an AWS Lambda function configures the firewall with NAT policy rules. A NAT policy rule is
created for each application and the rule references the IP addresses for each network load balancer in
your deployment. When the application load balancer receives a request, it forwards the request to the
firewall on the assigned TCP port. The firewall then inspects the traffic and forwards it to the corresponding
network load balancer, which then forwards the request to a web server in its target group.

Plan the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0 and v2.1)
The items in this checklist are actions and choices you must make to implement this solution.

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Planning Checklist for Templates v2.0 and v2.1

Verify the The auto scaling template requires AWS Lambda and S3 Signature versions
requirements for 2 or 4, and can deploy VM-Series firewalls running supported PAN-OS
deploying the VM- versions. You need to look up the list of supported regions and the AMI IDs,
Series Auto Scaling to provide as an input in the firewall template.
template.

Assign the The user who deploys the VM-Series Auto Scaling template must either have
appropriate administrative privileges or have the permissions listed in the iam-policy.json
permissions for the to launch this solution successfully. Copy and paste the permissions from this
IAM user role. file in to a new IAM policy and then attach the policy to a new or existing IAM
role.
For a cross-account deployment, to access resources that are in a different
AWS accounts, the IAM role for the user who deploys the application
template must have full SQS access permissions and a trust relationship
that authorizes her to write to the SQS queue that belongs to the firewall
template.

Collect the details For a deployment where the firewall template and the application template
required for a are in different accounts, the account that hosts the firewall template
cross-account resources is the trusting account and the other AWS account(s) that hold
deployment. the application template resources are the trusted accounts. To launch the
application template in a cross-account deployment, you need the following
information:
• Cross-account Role Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the account in
which you are deploying the application template.
• External ID, which you defined when creating the IAM role that grants full
SQS access to the trusting account.
• The 10-digit account number for every AWS account in which you plan
to launch the application template. Because the account that hosts the
firewall template resources serves as a trusting account, and it owns the
resources that the users of the application template need, you need to list
the account number for each trusted account that can access the firewall
resources.

Create a Support You can opt for the BYOL or PAYG licenses.
Account on the
• For BYOL, you must register an auth code to your Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks
support account prior to launching the VM-Series Auto Scaling template
Support portal, if
and add the auth-code to the /license folder with filename as
you don’t already
authcodes in the bootstrap package. See Launch the VM-Series Auto
have one.
Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0) or Launch the Firewall Template (v2.1) for
details.
• For PAYG, you must register the VM-Series firewalls to activate your
support entitlement.

(For PAYG only) In the AWS Marketplace, search for Palo Alto Networks, and select the
Review and accept bundle you plan to use. The VM-Series firewalls will fail to deploy if you have
the End User not accepted the EULA for the bundle you plan to use.
License Agreement
• Search for VM-Series Next Generation Firewall Bundle 2, for example.
(EULA).

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 Planning Checklist for Templates v2.0 and v2.1
Required, if you are
launching a VM-
Series firewall in an
AWS account for
the first time.

• Click Continue, and select Manual Launch. Review the agreement and
click Accept Software Terms to accept the EULA.

You can now close the browser.

Decide whether Palo Alto Networks provides public S3 buckets in all AWS regions included in
you plan to use the supported regions list. These S3 buckets include all the templates, AWS
the public S3 Lambda code, and the bootstrap files that you need.
buckets or your
private S3 bucket Palo Alto Networks recommends using the bootstrap files in
for AWS Lambda, the public S3 bucket only for evaluating this solution. For a
Python scripts, and production deployment, you must create a private S3 bucket
templates. for the bootstrap package.

The naming convention for the S3 bucket is panw-aws-autoscale-

v20-<region_name>. For example, the bucket in the AWS Oregon region is
panw-aws-autoscale-v20-us-west-2.
To use your private S3 bucket, you must download and copy the templates,
AWS Lambda code, and the bootstrap files to your private S3 bucket. You can
place all the required files for both the firewall template and the application
template in one S3 bucket or place them in separate S3 buckets.

Download the • Get the files for deploying the firewall template (application load balancer
templates, AWS and the VM-Series firewalls) from the GitHub repository.
Lambda code, and
the bootstrap files. Do not mix and match files across VM-Series Auto Scaling
template versions.

• Templates and Lambda code:

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Planning Checklist for Templates v2.0 and v2.1
• panw-aws.zip
• firewall-v2.X.template
• Bootstrap files:
• init-cfg.txt
• bootstrap.xml
The bootstrap.xml file bundled with this solution is designed to help
you get started, and is provided for testing and evaluation only. For
a production deployment, you must modify the bootstrap.xml prior
to launch.
• iam-policy: The user who deploys the VM-Series Auto Scaling template
must have either the administrative privileges or the permissions listed
in this file to successfully launch this solution.

The firewall template is supported by Palo Alto Networks

Technical Support.
• Get the files for deploying the NLB and the web servers from the GitHub
repository versions 2.0 or 2.1.
• Templates:
• pan_aws_nlb-2.X.template—Use this template to deploy the
application template resources within same VPC as the one in which
you deployed the firewall template (same AWS account).
• pan_aws_nlb_vpc-2.X.template—Use this template to deploy the
application template resources in a different VPC. This template
allows you to deploy the resources within the same AWS account
or in a different AWS account as long as you have the appropriate
permissions to support a cross-account deployment.
• pan_nlb_lambda.template—Creates an AWS Network Load balancer,
which multiplexes traffic to register scaled-out backend web
servers.
• Lambda code and Python scripts.

Customize the To ensure that your production environment is secure, you must customize
bootstrap.xml file the bootstrap.xml file with a unique administrative username and password
for your production for production deployments. The default username and password are
environment. pandemo/demopassword. You can also use this opportunity to create an
optimal firewall configuration with interfaces, zones, and security policy rules
that meet your application security needs.

Decide whether Panorama is an option for administrative ease and is the best practice for
you want to managing the firewalls. It is not required to manage the auto scaling tier of
use Panorama VM-Series firewalls deployed in this solution.
for centralized
If you want to use Panorama, you can either a Panorama virtual appliance on
logging, reporting,
AWS or use an M-Series appliance or a Panorama virtual appliance inside your
and firewall
corporate network.
management.
The Panorama must be in Panorama mode and not
Management Only mode.

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 Planning Checklist for Templates v2.0 and v2.1
To successfully register the firewalls with Panorama, you must collect the
following details:
• API key for Panorama—So that AWS Lambda can make API requests to
Panorama, you must provide an API key when you launch the VM-Series
Auto Scaling template. As a best practice, in a production deployment,
create a separate administrative account just for the API call and generate
an associated API key.
• Panorama IP address—You must include the IP address in the
configuration (init-cfg.txt) file. The firewalls must be able to access this IP
address from the VPC; to ensure a secure connection, use a direct connect
link or an IPSec tunnel.
• VM auth key—Allows Panorama to authenticate the firewalls so that it can
add each firewall as a managed device. You must include this key in the
configuration (init-cfg.txt) file.
The vm auth key is required for the lifetime of the deployment. Without a
valid key in the connection request, the VM-Series firewall will be unable
to register with Panorama. For details on the key, see Generate the VM
Auth Key on Panorama.
• Template stack name and the device group name to which to assign the
firewalls—You must first add a template and assign it to a template stack,
create a device group on Panorama, and then include the template stack
name and the device group name in the configuration (init-cfg.txt) file.

In order to reduce the cost and scale limits of using Elastic

IP addresses, the firewalls do not have public IPs. If you
are not using Panorama to manage the firewalls, you must
deploy a jump server (a bastion host with an EIP address)
that attaches to the Untrust subnet within the VPC to enable
SSH and/or HTTPS access to the VM-Series firewalls. By
default, this solution includes an AWS NAT gateway that
the firewalls use to initiate outbound requests for retrieving
updates, connecting to Panorama, and publishing metrics to
AWS CloudWatch.

Get started Launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0).

Customize the Firewall Template Before Launch (v2.0 and v2.1)

To simplify the deployment workflow, the firewall displays a limited set of parameters for which you need
to provide inputs when launching the template. If you would like to view and customize other options
included in the template, you can use a text editing tool such as Notepad or Visual Studio Code to specify
values that you prefer before you launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling template for AWS v2.0 or 2.1.
Use the following table to view the list of parameters that you are allowed to customize for your
deployment of the auto scaling firewall template for AWS. Modifying parameters from this list is within the
official support policy of Palo Alto Networks through the support options that you've purchased.

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Parameter Description Default Value

CIDR Block for the VPC The IP address space that you want to use for 192.168.0.0/16
the VPC.

The subnets you modify

below must belong to this
VPC CIDR block and be
unique.

Management Subnet CIDR Comma-delimited list of CIDR blocks for the 192.168.0.0/24,
Block management subnet of the firewalls. 192.168.10.0/24

Untrust Subnet CIDR Block Comma-delimited list of CIDR blocks for the 192.168.1.0/24,
Untrust subnet. 192.168.11.0/24

Trust Subnet CIDR Block Comma-delimited list of CIDR blocks for the 192.168.2.0/24,
Trust subnet. 192.168.12.0/24

NAT Gateway Subnet CIDR Comma-delimited list of CIDR blocks for the 192.168.100.0/24,
Block AWS NAT Gateway. 192.168.101.0/24

Lambda Subnet CIDR Block Comma-delimited list of CIDR blocks for the 192.168.200.0/24,
Lambda functions. 192.168.201.0/24

Firewall Instance size AWS Instance Types and size that you M4.xlarge
want for the VM-Series firewalls in your
deployment.

Choose your Scaling The template publishes all the following Dataplane CPU
Parameter metrics to AWS CloudWatch: Utilization
• CPU—DataPlane CPU Utilization
You do not
need to modify • AS—Active Sessions
the template • SU—Session Utilization
for the scaling • SSPU—SSL Proxy Utilization
parameter. • GPU—GlobalProtect Gateway Utilization
You can • GPAT—GlobalProtect Gateway Utilization
set AWS ActiveTunnels
CloudWatch • DPB—Dataplane Packet Buffer Utilization
alarms on
the AWS
console for
one or more
custom PAN-
OS metrics
on which you
want to trigger
autoscaling.

Choose time in seconds for The period in seconds over which the 900
Scaling Period average statistic is applied. Must be a
multiple of 60.

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 Parameter Description Default Value

Maximum VM-Series Maximum number of VM-Series firewalls in 3

Instances the auto scaling group.

Minimum VM-Series Minimum number of VM-Series firewalls in 1

Instances the auto scaling group.

ScaleDown threshold value in Value at which a scale in event is triggered. 20

percentage/value

ScaleUp threshold value in Value at which scale out event is triggered. 80

percentage/value

Launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0)

You can choose to deploy the firewall template in one VPC and the sample application template in the same
VPC as the one in which you deployed the firewalls, or in a different VPC.
If the applications that you want to secure belong to a separate AWS account, the sample application
template includes support for cross-account deployments. The solution supports a hub and spoke
architecture whereby you can deploy the firewall template in one AWS account and use it as a hub to
secure your applications (spokes) that belong to the same or to different AWS accounts.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

• Launch the VM-Series Firewall Template

• Launch the Application Template
• (Required only if you deploy more than one internal load balancer) Enable Traffic to the ELB Service
(v2.0 and v2.1)
Launch the VM-Series Firewall Template
This workflow tells you how to deploy the application load balancer and the VM-Series firewalls using the
firewall template.

This firewall template includes an AWS NAT gateway that the firewalls use to initiate
outbound requests for retrieving updates, connecting to Panorama, and publishing metrics to
AWS CloudWatch. If you are not using Panorama to manage the firewalls, you must deploy
a jump server (a bastion host with an EIP address) that attaches to the Untrust subnet within
the VPC to enable SSH and/or HTTPS access to the VM-Series firewalls. This jump server
is required because the management interface on the VM-Series firewalls has a private IP
address only.

STEP 1 | Review the checklist for Plan the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0).
Make sure that you have completed the following tasks:
• (For PAYG only) Reviewed and accepted the EULA for the PAYG bundle you plan to use.
• (For BYOL only) Obtained the auth code. You need to enter this auth code in the /license folder of
the bootstrap package.
• Downloaded the files required to launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling template from the GitHub
repository.

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STEP 2 | Modify the init-cfg.txt file. You must add the device certificate auto-registration PIN to the init-
cfg.txt file to automatically install a device certificate when your VM-Series firewall instance is
deployed.
vm-series-auto-registration-id=
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=
For more details read about the bootstrapping process and the init-cfg.txt file.
If you’re using Panorama to manage the firewalls, complete the following tasks:
1. Generate the VM Auth Key on Panorama. The firewalls must include a valid key in the connection
request to Panorama. Set the lifetime for the key to 8760 hours (1 year).
2. Open the init-cfg.txt file with a text editor, such as Notepad. Make sure that you do not alter the
format as this causes a failure in deploying the VM-Series Auto Scaling template. Add the following
information as name-value pairs:
• IP addresses for the primary Panorama and optionally a secondary Panorama. Enter:
panorama-server=
panorama-server-2=
• Specify the template stack name and the device group to which you want to assign the firewall.
Enter:
tplname=
dgname=
• VM auth key. Enter:
vm-auth-key=
3. Verify that you have not deleted the command for swapping the management interface (mgmt) and
the dataplane interface (ethernet 1/1) on the VM-Series firewall on AWS. For example, the file must
include name-value pairs as shown here:
op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap
vm-auth-key=755036225328715
panorama-server=10.5.107.20
panorama-server-2=10.5.107.21
tplname=FINANCE_TG4
dgname=finance_dg
4. Save and close the file.

STEP 3 | (For BYOL only) Add the license auth code in the /license folder of the bootstrap package. For
more information see Prepare the Bootstrap Package.
1. Create a new .txt file with a text editor, such as Notepad.
2. Add the authcode for your BYOL licenses to this file,then save the file with authcodes (no file
extension) and upload it to the /license folder. The auth code must support the number of firewalls
that may be required for your deployment. You must use an auth code bundle instead of individual
auth codes so that the firewall can simultaneously fetch all license keys associated with a firewall. If
you use individual auth codes instead of a bundle, the firewall retrieves only the license key for the
first auth code included in the file.

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STEP 4 | Change the default credentials for the VM-Series firewall administrator account defined in the
bootstrap.xml file.
Required for using the VM-Series Auto Scaling template in a production environment.
The bootstrap.xml file in the GitHub repository is provided for testing and evaluation only. For a
production deployment, you must Customize the Bootstrap.xml File (v2.0) prior to launch.

STEP 5 | Prepare the Amazon Simple Storage (S3) buckets for launching the VM-Series Auto Scaling
template to a production environment.

Make sure to create the S3 buckets in the same region in which you plan to deploy the
template; the bootstrapping files hosted in the public S3 bucket are provided only to make
it easier for you to evaluate the template.

1. Create a new S3 bucket for the bootstrap files.

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the S3 console.
2. Click Create Bucket.
3. Enter a Bucket Name and a Region, and click Create. The bucket must be at the S3 root level. If
you nest the bucket, bootstrapping fails because you cannot specify a path to the location of the
bootstrap files.
2. Upload the bootstrap files to the S3 bucket. The bootstrap folders must be in the root folder of the
S3 bucket.
1. Click the name of bucket and then click Create folder.
2. Create the following folder structure for bootstrapping.

3. Click the link to open the config folder.

4. Select Actions > Upload and Add Files, browse to select the init-cfg.txt file and bootstrap.xml file,
and click Open.

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 5. Click Start Upload to add the files to the config folder. The folder can contain only two files: init-
cfg.txt and the bootstrap.xml.

6. (For BYOL only) Click the link to open the license folder and upload the txt file with the auth code
required for licensing the VM-Series firewalls.

3. Upload the AWS Lambda code (panw-aws.zip file) to an S3 bucket. In this example, the AWS Lambda
code is in the same S3 bucket as the bootstrap package.
1. Click the bucket name.
2. Click Add Files to select the panw-aws.zip file, click Open.
3. Click Start Upload to add the zip file to the S3 bucket.

STEP 6 | Select the firewall template.

If you need to Customize the Firewall Template Before Launch (v2.0), do that now and select the
modified template.
1. In the AWS Management Console, select CloudFormation > Create Stack.
2. Select Upload a template to Amazon S3, choose the firewall-v2.0.template and click Open and Next.
3. Specify the Stack name. The stack name allows you to uniquely identify all the resources that this
template deploys.

STEP 7 | Configure the parameters for the VPC.

1. Enter the parameters for the VPC Configuration as follows:
1. Enter a VPCName.
2. Select the two Availability Zones that your setup spans in Select two AZs.

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STEP 8 | Select your preferences for the VM-Series firewalls.

1. Look up the AMI ID for the VM-Series firewall and enter it. Make sure that the AMI ID matches the
AWS region, PAN-OS version and the BYOL or PAYG licensing option you opted to use.
2. Select the EC2 Key pair (from the drop-down) for launching the firewall. To log in to the firewalls,
you must provide the name of this key pair and the private key associated with it.
3. Restrict SSH access to the firewall’s management interface. Make sure to supply a CIDR block that
corresponds to your dedicated management IP addresses or network. Do not make the allowed
source network range larger than necessary and do not ever configure the allowed source as
0.0.0.0/0. Verify your IP address before configuring it on the template to make sure that you do not
lock yourself out.
4. Select Yes if you want to Enable Debug Log. Enabling the debug log generates more verbose logs
that help with troubleshooting issues with the deployment. These logs are generated using the stack
name and are saved in AWS CloudWatch.
By default, the template uses CPU utilization as the scaling parameter for the VM-Series firewalls.
Custom PAN-OS metrics are automatically published to the CloudWatch namespace that matches the
stack name you specified earlier.

STEP 9 | Specify the name of the Amazon S3 bucket(s).

You can use one S3 bucket for the bootstrap package and the zip file.

1. Enter the name of the S3 bucket that contains the bootstrap package.
If the bootstrap bucket is not set up properly or if you enter the bucket name incorrectly, the
bootstrap process fails and you cannot be able to log in to the firewall. Health checks for the load
balancers also fail.
2. Enter the name of the S3 bucket that contains the panw-aws.zip file.

STEP 10 | Specify the keys for enabling API access to the firewall and Panorama.

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 1. Enter the key that the firewall must use to authenticate API calls. The default key is based on the
sample bootstrap.xml file and you should only use it for testing and evaluation. For a production
deployment, you must create a separate PAN-OS login just for the API call and generate an
associated key.
2. Enter the API Key to allow AWS Lambda to make API calls to Panorama, if you are using Panorama
for centralized management. For a production deployment, you should create a separate login just for
the API call and generate an associated key.
3. Copy and paste the license deactivation API key for your account. This key is required to successfully
deactivate licenses on your firewalls when a scale-in event occurs. To get this key:
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal.
2. From the Go To drop-down, select License API.
3. Copy the API key.

STEP 11 | Enter the name for the application load balancer.

STEP 12 | (Optional) Apply tags to identify the resources associated with the VM-Series Auto Scaling
template.
Add a name-value pair to identify and categorize the resources in this stack.

STEP 13 | Review the template settings and launch the template.

1. Select I acknowledge that this template might cause AWS CloudFormation to create IAM resources.
2. Click Create to launch the template. The CREATE_IN_PROGRESS event displays.
3. On successful deployment the status updates to CREATE_COMPLETE.

Unless you customized the template, the VM-Series Auto Scaling template launches an ASG that
includes one VM-Series firewall in each AZ, behind the application load balancer.

STEP 14 | Verify that the template has launched all required resources.
1. On the AWS Management Console, select the stack name to view the Output for the list of
resources.

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 2. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Auto Scaling Groups. Verify that in each AZ, you have one ASG for the
VM-Series firewalls with the one firewall in each ASG. The ASG name prefix includes the stack name.
3. Log in to the VM-Series firewall. You must deploy a jump server or use Panorama to access the web
interface on the firewall.

• It can take up to 20 minutes for the firewalls to boot up and be available to handle
traffic.
• When you finish testing or a production deployment, the only way to ensure
charges stop occurring is to completely delete the stack. Shutting down instances,
or changing the ASG maximum to 0 is not sufficient.

STEP 15 | Save the following information. You need to provide these values as inputs when deploying
the application template.
• IP addresses of the NAT Gateway in each AZ. You need this IP address to restrict HTTP access
to the web servers if you deploy the application in a different VPC. Specifying this IP address
ensures that the firewall secures access your applications in a different VPC, and that nobody
can bypass the firewall to directly access the web server. The sample application template
(panw_aws_nlb_vpc-2.0.template) displays a template validation error if you do not enter the NAT
Gateway IP addresses; you must enter the IP addresses as a comma-separated list.
• Network Load Balancer SQS URL. An AWS Lambda function in the firewall stack monitors this
queue so that it can learn about any network load balancers that you deploy, and create NAT policy
rules (one per application) on the VM-Series firewalls that enable the firewalls to send traffic to the
network load balancer IP address.

Launch the Application Template

The application template allows you to complete the sandwich topology and is provided so that you can
evaluate the auto scaling solution. This application template deploys a network load balancer and a pair of
web servers behind the auto scaling group of VM-Series firewalls, which you deployed using the firewall
template. The web servers in this template have a public IP address for direct outbound access to retrieve
software updates. Use this template to evaluate the solution, but build your own template to deploy to
production. For a custom template, make sure to enable SQS Messaging Between the Application Template
and Firewall Template.
When launching the application template, you must select the template based on whether you want to
deploy the application template within the same VPC (panw_aws_nlb-2.0.template) in which you deployed
the firewall template or in a separate VPC (panw_aws_nlb_vpc-2.0.template). For a separate VPC, the

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 template provides supports for cross-account deployments. A cross-account deployment requires you to
create an IAM role and enable permissions and trust relationship between the trusting AWS account and
the trusted AWS account, and the account information is required as input when launching the template.

STEP 1 | (Required only for a cross-account deployment) Create the IAM role. Refer to AWS documentation.
This role grants access to a user who belongs to a different AWS account. This user requires permissions
to access the Simple Queue Service (SQS) resource in the firewall template. The firewall uses this queue
to learn about each network load balancer that you deploy so that it can create NAT policy to send
traffic to the web servers that are behind the network load balancer.
• For Account ID, type the AWS account ID of the account into which you are deploying the
application template. Specifying that account ID allows you to grant access to the resources in your
account that hosts the firewall template resources.
• Select Require external ID and enter a value that is a shared secret. Specifying an external ID allows
the user to assume the role only if the request includes the correct value.
• Choose Permissons to allow Amazon SQS Full Access.

STEP 2 | Use the Palo Alto Networks public S3 bucket or prepare your private (S3) bucket for launching
the application template.
1. Create a zip file with all the files in the GitHub repository, excluding the three .template files, named
nlb.zip in the screenshot below.
2. Upload the zip file to the S3 bucket you created earlier or to a new bucket.

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 3. Copy the pan_nlb_lambda template into the same bucket to which you copied the nlb.zip file.

STEP 3 | Select the application template to launch.

1. In the AWS Management Console, select CloudFormation > Create Stack.
2. Select Upload a template to Amazon S3, to choose the panw_aws_nlb-2.0.template to
deploy the resources that the template launches within the same VPC as the firewalls, or the
panw_aws_nlb_vpc-2.0.template to deploy the resources in to a different VPC. Click Open and Next.
3. Specify the Stack name. The stack name allows you to uniquely identify all the resources that are
deployed using this template.

STEP 4 | Configure the parameters for the VPC and network load balancer.
1. Select the two Availability Zones that your setup will span in Select list of AZ. If you are deploying
within the same VPC make sure to select the same Availability Zones that you selected for the
firewall template.
2. Enter a CIDR Block for the VPC. The default CIDR is 192.168.0.0/16.

3. (Only if you are using the panw_aws_nlb-2.0.template to deploy the applications within the same
VPC)

Select the VPC ID and the Subnet IDs associated with the trust subnet on the firewalls in each AZ.
The network load balancer is attached to the trust subnet on the firewalls, to complete the load
balancer sandwich topology.
4. Enter a name for the network load balancer.

STEP 5 | Configure the parameters for AWS Lambda.

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 1. Enter the S3 bucket name where nlb.zip and the pan_nlb_lambda.template is stored.
2. Enter the name of the pan_nlb_lambda.template and the zip file name.
3. Paste the SQS URL that you copied earlier.
4. Enter a unique TableName. This table stores a mapping of the port and IP address for the
applications associated with the network load balancer in your deployment.
When you delete the application stack this table is deleted. Therefore, if multiple instances of the
network load balancer write to the same table and the table is deleted, the NAT rules on the firewalls
not function properly and the application traffic maybe be inaccurately forwarded to the wrong port/
network load balancer.

STEP 6 | Modify the web server EC2 instance type to meet your deployment needs.

STEP 7 | Select the EC2 Key pair (from the drop-down) for launching the web servers. To log in to the
web servers, you must provide the key pair name and the private key associated with it.

STEP 8 | (Only if you are using the panw_aws_nlb_vpc-2.0.template) Lock down access to the web
servers.

1. Restrict SSH From access to the web servers. Only the IP addresses you list here can log in to the
web servers.
2. Restrict HTTP access to the web servers. Enter the public IP addresses of the NAT gateway from the
firewall template output, and make sure to separate IP addresses with commas. Entering the NAT
gateway IP address allows you to ensure that all web traffic to the application servers are secured by
the VM-Series firewalls.

STEP 9 | (Only if you are using the panw_aws_nlb_vpc-2.0.template) Configure the other parameters
requires to launch the application template stack in a different VPC.

1. Select SameAccount true if you are deploying this application template within the same AWS
account as the firewall template, and leave the cross account role and external ID blank; select false
for a cross-account deployment.
For a cross-account deployment, enter the Amazon Resource Number (ARN) for the
CrossAccountRole and ExternalId that you defined in (Required only for a cross-account deployment)

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 Create the IAM role. Refer to AWS documentation.You can get the ARN from Support > Support
Center on the AWS Management Console.
2. Enter the VPC Namein which you want to deploy the application template resources.
3. Optional Change the NLBSubnetIPBlocks for the Management subnet for the network load balancer.

STEP 10 | Review the template settings and launch the template.

STEP 11 | Verify that the network load balancer is deployed and in a ready state.

STEP 12 | Get the DNS name for the application load balancer, and enter it into a web browser.
For example: http://MVpublic-elb-123456789.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com/
When the web page displays, you have successfully launched the auto scaling template.

STEP 13 | Verify that each firewall has a NAT policy rule to the IP address of each network load
balancer.
When you deploy the application template to launch another instance of a network load balancer and
pair of web servers, the firewall learns about the port allocated for the next network load balancer
instance and creates another NAT policy rule. So, if you deploy the application template three times, the
firewall has three NAT policy rules for ports 81, 82, and 83.

STEP 14 | If you have launched the application template more than once, you need to Enable Traffic to
the ELB Service.

Enable Traffic to the ELB Service (v2.0 and v2.1)

If you add a second or additional internal load balancers (ILBs) in your deployment, you must complete
additional configuration so that the internal load balancer, the VM-Series firewalls auto scaling groups, and
the web servers can report as healthy and traffic is load balanced across all your AWS resources.

In v2.0, the ILB can only be a network load balancer. In v2.1 the ILB can be an application
load balancer or a network load balancer.

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STEP 1 | On the AWS management console, verify the ports allocated for each network balancer on the
DynamoDB table.
When you launch a new internal load balancer, the application template must send an SQS message to
the SQS URL you provided as input when you launched the template. The AWS Lambda function in the
firewall template monitors the SQS and adds the port mapping to the DynamoDB table for the firewall
template. Starting at port 81, the port allocated for every additional internal load balancer you deploy
increments by 1. So, the second internal load balancer uses port 82, and the third port uses port 83.
1. Select the DynamoDB service on the AWS management console.
2. Select Tables and click the table that matches the stack name for your firewall template. For example,
MV-CFT20-firewall-us-east-2.
In the Items list, view the ports used by the internal load balancers that are publishing to the SQS
associated with the firewall template.

STEP 2 | Create a target group. The internal load balancer sends requests to registered targets using the
port and protocol that you specify for the servers in the target group.
When you add a new target group, use the port information that you verified on the DynamoDB table.

STEP 3 | Edit the listener rules on the internal load balancer to route requests to the target web servers.
1. On the AWS management console, select Load Balancers in the Load Balancing section, and select
the internal load balancer that matches your stack name.
2. Select View/edit rules to modify the rules for the listener.

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 3. Select Insert rule and add a path-based route to forward traffic to the target group you defined
above as follows:

STEP 4 | Attach the target group to both VM-Series firewalls auto scaling groups.
1. Select Auto Scaling Groups in the Auto Scaling section and select an auto scaling group that matches
the stack name.
2. Select Details > Editand select the new target group from the Target Groups drop-down.

STEP 5 | Log in to each web server that was deployed by the application template, create a new
directory with the target group name and copy the index.html file into the directory. Until you
set up the path to the index.html file, the health check for this web server reports as unhealthy.
sudo su
cd/var/www/html
mkdir <target-groupname>
cp index.html <target-groupname>

STEP 6 | Verify the health status of the web servers.

Select Auto Scaling Groups, and use the application stack name to find the webserver auto scaling group
to verify that the web servers are reporting healthy.

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Customize the Bootstrap.xml File (v2.0)
The bootstrap.xml file provided in the GitHub repository uses a default username and password for the
firewall administrator. Before deploying the VM-Series Auto Scaling template in a production environment,
at a minimum, you must create a unique username and password for the administrative account on the VM-
Series firewall. Optionally, you can fully configure the firewall with zones, policy rules, security profiles and
export a golden configuration snapshot. You can then use this configuration snapshot as the bootstrap.xml
file for your production environment.
You have two ways to customize the bootstrap.xml file for use in a production environment:
• Option 1: Launch a VM-Series firewall on AWS using the bootstrap files provided in the GitHub
repository, modify the firewall configuration and export the configuration to create a new bootstrap.xml
file for the VM-Series Auto Scaling template. See Use the GitHub Bootstrap Files as Seed.
• Option 2: Launch a new VM-Series firewall on AWS without using the bootstrap files, add a NAT policy
rule to ensure that the VM-Series firewall handles traffic properly, and export the configuration to create
a new bootstrap.xml file for the VM-Series Auto Scaling template. See Create a new Bootstrap File from
Scratch.

If you have deployed the template and now need to change the credentials for the
administrative user or add a new administrative user and update the template stack, see
Modify Administrative Account and Update Stack.
Create a new Bootstrap File from Scratch
Launch a new VM-Series firewall on AWS using the AMI for a supported PAN-OS version (see the
compatibility matrix for Panorama plugins), without using the sample bootstrap.xml file, and export the
configuration to create a new bootstrap.xml file for use with the VM-Series Auto Scaling template v2.0.

STEP 1 | Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on AWS (no bootstrapping required) and use the public IP
address to SSH into the Command Line Interface (CLI) of the VM-Series firewall. You will need
to configure a new administrative password for the firewall.

STEP 2 | Log in to the firewall web interface.

STEP 3 | (Optional) Configure the firewall. You can configure the dataplane interfaces, zones and policy
rules.

STEP 4 | Commit the changes on the firewall.

STEP 5 | Export the configuration file and name it as bootstrap.xml. (Device > Setup > Operation >
Export Named Configuration Snapshot).

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STEP 6 | Download the bootstrap.xml file from the GitHub repository, open it with a text editing tool,
and copy lines 353 to 356. These lines define the AWS CloudWatch namespace to which the
firewall publishes custom PAN-OS metrics that are required for the firewalls to auto scale.

STEP 7 | Edit the configuration file you exported earlier to include the AWS CloudWatch information.
Search for </management> and paste the lines 353 to 356 after </management>.

STEP 8 | Delete the management interface configuration.

1. Search for </service> and delete the ip-address, netmask and default gateway that follow.
2. Search for </type> and delete the ip-address, netmask, default gateway, and public-key that follow.

STEP 9 | Save the file. You can now proceed with Launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for
AWS (v2.0).

Use the GitHub Bootstrap Files as Seed

Launch a VM-Series firewall on AWS from the AWS Marketplace using the bootstrap files provided in
the GitHub repository, modify the firewall configuration for your production environment. Then, export
the configuration to create a new bootstrap.xml file that you can now use for the VM-Series Auto Scaling
template.

STEP 1 | To launch the firewall see Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

STEP 2 | Add an elastic network interface (ENI) and associate an elastic IP address (EIP) to it, so that you
can access the web interface on the VM-Series firewall. See Launch the VM-Series Firewall on
AWS for details.

STEP 3 | Use the EIP address to log in to the firewall web interface with admin as the username and
password.

STEP 4 | Add a secure password for the administrative user account (Device > Local User Database >
Users).

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STEP 5 | (Optional) Configure the firewall for securing your production environment.

STEP 6 | Commit the changes on the firewall.

STEP 7 | Generate a new API key for the administrator account. Copy this new key to a new file. You
will need to enter this API key when you launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling template; the
AWS services use the API key to deploy the firewall and to publish metrics for auto scaling.

STEP 8 | Export the configuration file and save it as bootstrap.xml. (Device > Setup > Operation >
Export Named Configuration Snapshot).

STEP 9 | Open the bootstrap.xml file with a text editing tool and delete the management interface
configuration.

STEP 10 | (Required if you exported a PAN-OS 8.0 configuration) Ensure that the setting to validate the
Palo Alto Networks servers is disabled. Look for <server-verification>no</server-
verification>.

STEP 11 | If the check is yes, change it to no.

STEP 12 | Save the file. You can now proceed with Launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for
AWS (v2.0).

SQS Messaging Between the Application Template and Firewall Template

So that the VM-Series firewalls deployed using the firewall-v2.0.template can detect and send traffic to the
network load balancers to which you want to automatically distribute incoming traffic, the firewall template
includes a lambda function that monitors a Simple Queue Service for messages. The message allows the
lambda function to learn about a new network load balancer and then automatically create a NAT policy
rule on the firewall to send traffic to the IP address of the network load balancer. In order to route traffic
properly within the AWS infrastructure, the message must also include basic information on the DNS, VPC
ID, and the AZ to which the network load balancer belongs.
If you are building your own application template, you must set up your application template to post two
types of messages to the SQS URL that the firewall template in the VM-Series autoscaling template version
2.0 uses to learn about network load balancers to which it must distribute traffic in your environment:
• ADD-NLB message that informs the firewalls when a new network load balancer is available.
• DEL-NLB message that informs the firewalls when a network load balancer has been terminated and is
no longer available.

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 The following examples of each message type includes sample values. You need to modify these message
with values that match your deployment.
ADD-NLB Message

msg_add_nlb= { 'MSG-TYPE': 'ADD-NLB', 'AVAIL-ZONES': [{'NLB-

IP':'192.168.2.101', 'ZONE-NAME':'us-east-2a', 'SUBNET-ID':
'subnet-2a566243'}, {'NLB-IP':'192.168.12.101', 'ZONE-NAME':'us-east-2b',
'SUBNET-ID': 'subnet-2a566243 '}], 'DNS-NAME': 'publicelb1-2119989486.us-
east-2.elb.amazonaws.com', 'VPC-ID': 'vpc-42ba9f2b', 'NLB-NAME':
'publicelb1' }

DEL-NLB Message

msg_del_nlb= { 'MSG-TYPE': 'DEL-NLB', 'DNS-NAME': 'publicelb1-2119989486.us-

east-2.elb.amazonaws.com', }

Refer to the AWS documentation for details on how to send a message to an Amazon SQS Queue, or
review the describe_nlb_dns.py in the sample application template package to see how the application
template constructs the messages.

Stack Update with VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0)
A stack update allows you to modify the resources that the VM-Series Auto Scaling template—firewall-
v2.0.template—deploys. Instead of deleting your existing deployment and redeploying the solution, use the
stack update to modify the following parameters:
• License—Switch from BYOL to PAYG and vice versa or switch from one PAYG bundle to another.
• Other stack resources— Change the launch configuration parameters such as the Amazon Machine
Image (AMI) ID, the AWS instance type, key pair for your auto scaling groups. You can also update the
API key associated with the administrative user account on the firewall.

Changing the AMI-ID allows you to deploy new instances of the VM-Series firewalls with a
different PAN-OS version.
When you deploy the VM-Series Auto Scaling template, the auto scaling groups and the launch
configuration are automatically created for you. The launch configuration is a template that an auto scaling
group uses to launch EC2 instance, and it specifies parameters such as the AMI ID, the instance type,
key pair for your auto scaling group. To launch VM-Series firewalls with your updated parameters, you
must first update the stack and then delete the existing auto scaling groups in each AZ. To prevent service
disruption, delete the auto scaling group in one AZ first, and wait for the new firewall instances to launch
with the updated stack parameters. Then, verify that the firewalls have inherited the updates you made
before you proceed to complete the changes in the other AZ.

For critical applications, perform a stack update during a maintenance window.

You can update stack directly or create change sets. The workflow in this document takes you through the
manual stack update.

STEP 1 | In the AWS CloudFormation console, select the parent stack that you want to update and
choose Actions > Update Stack.

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STEP 2 | Modify the resources that you want to update.
• PAN-OS version—To modify the PAN-OS version look up the AMI ID for the version you want to use
and enter the ID.
• License option—Switch from BYOL to PAYG or across PAYG bundles 1 and 2.
If you’re switching to BYOL, make sure to include the auth code in the bootstrap package (See steps 3
and 5).
If you’re switching between PAYG bundle version 1 and 2, look up the AMI ID for the VM-Series
firewall.
• Other stack resources— You can modify the AMI ID, the instance type, security group, key pair for
the stack resources, or the API key associated with the administrative user account on the firewall.
If you create a new administrative user account or modify the credentials of the existing administrator
on the firewall, in order to update that stack and deploy new firewalls with the updated API key, you
need to follow the workflow in Modify Administrative Account and Update Stack.

STEP 3 | Acknowledge the notifications and review the changes and click Update to initiate the stack
update.

STEP 4 | On the EC2 dashboard > Auto Scaling Groups and pick an AZ in which to delete the ASG.
Deleting an ASG automatically triggers the process of redeploying a new ASG. The firewalls in the new
ASG use the updated stack configuration.

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STEP 5 | Verify that the updated parameters are used to launch the VM-Series firewalls in the new ASG.
Use a phased rollout process, where you test the new ASG thoroughly and ensure that the firealls are
properly handling traffic. Then, wait one hour before continuing to the next ASG.

STEP 6 | Repeat steps 4 and 5 to replace the ASG in the other AZ.

Modify Administrative Account and Update Stack (v2.0)

If you have already deployed the template and now want to change the password for the administrative
account or create a new administrative user account on the VM-Series firewall, you must generate a new
API key and update the template stack with the new API key for the administrative user account. And in
order to ensure that new firewall instances are configured with the updated administrative user account,
you need to export the firewall configuration and rename it to bootstrap.xml, then upload it to the S3
bootstrap folder that the VM-Series AutoScaling template uses.

STEP 1 | Log in to the web interface of the firewall and change the credentials for an existing
administrative user or create a new account.

STEP 2 | Generate the API key.

STEP 3 | Export the current running configuration and rename it to bootstrap.xml.

STEP 4 | Upload this bootstrap.xml file to the S3 bootstrap folder; see Customize the Bootstrap.xml File
(v2.0).

STEP 5 | Update the API key in the stack to ensure that newly launched firewalls will have the updated
administrator account.
See Stack Update with VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0).

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VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS Version 2.1
The VM-Series Auto Scaling templates enable you to deploy a single auto scaling group (ASG) of VM-Series
firewalls to secure inbound traffic from the internet to your application workloads on AWS. You can deploy
the VM-Series firewall ASG and the application workloads within a single VPC as shown below.

You can also deploy the firewall ASG in a centralized VPC and your application workloads in separate VPCs
within the same region, forming a hub and spoke architecture, as shown below.

With the hub and spoke architecture you can streamline the delivery of centralized security and
connectivity for AWS deployments with many applications, VPCs, or accounts. This architecture can

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 increase agility. Your network security administrators manage the firewall VPC, and DevOps administrators
or application developers can manage the application VPCs.

Ensure that the application VPCs connected to the firewall VPC, do not have an Internet
Gateway (IGW), and use a continuous monitoring and security compliance service such as
Prisma Public Cloud.

You can use a single AWS account or multiple AWS accounts to monitor and secure traffic between VPCs
and the internet. Centralizing firewalls in a single VPC can reduce costs for deployments with multiple VPCs
and/or multiple accounts.
To provide flexibility with securing your application workloads, version 2.1 allows you to deploy an
application load balancer or a network load balancer for both the external load balancer that fronts your
VM-Series firewall ASG, and the internal load balancer (ILB) that fronts your application workloads.
When an application load balancer fronts the application workloads, you can connect the firewall VPC to
the application VPC using VPC peering. When an NLB fronts the application workloads you can use VPC
Peering or an AWS Private Link to connect the firewall and application VPCs, as summarized below:

Firewall VPC LB(External) Application VPC LB (Internal) Connection Method

ALB NLB AWS Private Link

NLB NLB AWS Private Link

NLB ALB VPC Peering

ALB ALB VPC Peering

If you deploy in a single VPC you can use all the load balancing combinations in the previous table.
You can deploy the templates in both and greenfield (new VPC and applications) and brownfield (existing
VPC and applications) use cases.

Template New Existing

Firewall firewall-new-vpc-v2.1.template firewall-existing-vpc-v2.1.template

panw-aws-same-vpc-v2.1.template panw-aws-same-vpc-v2.1.template

Application panw-aws-nlb-new-vpc-v2.1.template panw-aws-alb-existing-vpc-v2.1.template

panw-aws-alb-new-vpc-v2.1.template panw-aws-nlb-existing-vpc-v2.1.template

What Components Do the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS

(v2.1) Leverage?
The VM-Series Auto Scaling template for AWS includes the following building blocks.

• VM-Series Firewall Templates

• Application Templates
• Lambda Functions
• Panorama
• Bootstrap Files

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VM-Series Firewall Templates
The firewall templates deploy an internet-facing external load balancer and VM-Series firewalls within
an auto scaling group that spans a minimum of two Availability Zones (AZs). The external load balancer
distributes incoming VPC traffic across the pool of VM-Series firewalls. It can be an application load
balancer (ALB) or a network load balancer (NLB). The VM-Series firewalls automatically publish custom
PAN-OS metrics that enable auto scaling.

Template Description

firewall-new-vpc-v2.1.template Deploys a firewall stack with two to four availability zones in a

new VPC.

firewall-existing-vpc-v2.1.template Deploys a firewall stack with two to four availability zones in

an existing VPC.
To deploy in an existing VPC you must enter:
• VPC ID
• Internet Gateway ID. This is an existing gateway.
• Subnet CIDR lists for the Management, Untrust, Trust,
NAT Gateway and Lambda subnets. The template uses the
CIDRs to create these subnets.
If you choose to create a new ELB, the template connects the
firewall ASG to the ELB backend pool. If you use an existing
ELB, you must manually connect the firewall ASG to the
existing load balancer backend.

See Customize the Firewall Template Before Launch (v2.0 and v2.1) for more on these parameters.
Application Templates
The application template deploys an internal load balancer (ILB) and one auto scaling group with a web
server in each availability zone (AZ).

Template Description

panw-aws-same-vpc-v2.1.template Deploy application in same VPC as the firewall VPC.

You can choose a network or application load balancer.

panw-aws-alb-new-vpc-v2.1.template Deploy application in a new VPC, using ALB as the

internal load balancer, and using VPC Peering between
the firewall VPC and application VPC. Supports both
same account and cross-account deployments.
You must supply the following parameters:
• Hub account ID
• Hub VPC ID for VPC peering
• Hub VPC trust subnet CIDRs. The template uses
these for route table construction after VPC
peering is established, one CIDR per availability
zone.
• StsAssumeRoleARN (output from the Hub template
for SQS access)

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 Template Description

panw-aws-nlb-new-vpc-v2.1.template Deploy application in a new VPC, using NLB as

the internal load balancer, and using NLB Endpoint
Services/Interfaces to communicate between the
firewall VPC and application VPC.
You must supply these parameters.
• Hub account ID
• StsAssumeRoleARN (output from the Hub template
for SQS access)

panw-aws-alb-existing-vpc-v2.1.template Deploy ALB in an existing Application VPC. You must

supply the VPC ID for your application, and an existing
Subnet ID.
This template deploys the load balancer in the
application VPC and establishes the lambda resources.
You must detach your target workload from any
existing load balancer, and connect it to the new load
balancer.

panw-aws-nlb-existing-vpc-v2.1.template Deploy NLB in an existing Application VPC. Deploy

application in a new VPC, using NLB as the internal
load balancer, and using NLB Endpoint Services/
Interfaces to communicate between the firewall VPC
and application VPC.

Lambda Functions
AWS Lambda provides robust, event-driven automation without the need for complex orchestration
software. AWS Lambda monitors a Simple Queue Service (SQS) to learn about load balancers (ALBs or
NLBs) that publish to the queue. When the Lambda function detects a new load balancer, it creates a new
NAT policy rule and applies it to the VM-Series firewalls within the ASG. The firewalls have a NAT policy
rule for each application, and the firewalls use the NAT policy rule (that maps the port to the load balancer
IP address) to forward traffic to the load balancer in front of the application web servers.
The Lambda functions also delete all the configuration items that Lambda added to the device group and
template stack in Panorama. This includes the NAT rule, Address Object, and Static Routes that were
pushed to the VM-Series firewall. The Lambda function handles delicensing as well.
To learn more about the Lambda functions, refer to the
Palo Alto Networks AWS AutoScale Documentation.
Panorama
You must have Panorama management server in Panorama mode to configure Auto Scaling v2.1.
The Panorama management server provides centralized monitoring and management of multiple Palo
Alto Networks next-generation firewalls from a single location. Panorama allows you to oversee all
applications, users, and content traversing your network, and use this knowledge to create application
enablement policies that protect and control the network. If you are not familiar with Panorama please see
the Panorama Administrator’s Guide.
Managed firewalls are bootstrapped with an init-config.txt file. A sample file is included in the
GitHub repository so that you can copy the configuration from the template stack and device group when
you create them in your existing Panorama.

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 The untrust and trust zones created in Panorama must be all lower case.

In Panorama you must configure your network interfaces using DHCP.

• Only eth1/1 should automatically create default route trust and untrust zones.
• The Security Policy zones are named untrust and trust.

All zone names must be lower case

• The templates configure an Administrator account named pandemo and the password demopassword.
• Create a virtual router with the naming convention VR-<TemplateStackName>. On the virtual router
ECMP tab, enable ECMP.
• To set the DNS server address on Panorama, select Device > Setup > Services. Set the Primary DNS
Server to 169.254.169.253, the Secondary DNS Server to 8.8.8.8, and the FQDN Refresh Time (sec)
to 60. Panorama requires the AWS DNS server IP address to resolve the FQDN of the internal load
balancer on AWS. The FQDN refresh time is the interval at which Panorama commits newly detected
internal load balancers.
After the application template has launched, Lambda populates the following in Panorama:
• NAT policy
• Address object for LB in Application Template
• Static routes in the virtual router
• Tcp81 service object
The v2.1 firewall template includes an AWS NAT gateway that the firewalls use to initiate outbound
requests for retrieving updates, connecting to Panorama, and publishing metrics to AWS CloudWatch. The
NAT Gateways also have Elastic IP addresses attached to them for each zone.
You need the following Panorama resources to work with the Auto Scale templates for AWS.

Panorama API Key You need a Panorama API key to authenticate the API. Lambda uses your API
key to autoconfigure template and device group options. To generate the API
key, see Get Your API Key.

Panorama License The template requires a license deactivation API key and the “Verify Update
Deactivation Key Server Identity” to be enabled to deactivate the license keys from Panorama.
The license deactivation key should be obtained from Palo Alto Customer
Support Portal as described in Install a License Deactivation API Key.

Panorama VM-Auth- You need a vm-auth-key to enable bootstrapped firewalls to connect to

Key Panorama and receive their bootstrap configuration. See Generate the VM
Auth Key on Panorama.

Panorama Management • Port 443 (HTTPS)—Upon initial deployment of the firewall template, leave
Interface Access HTTPS open so Lambda can connect to Panorama. Wait to receive the
following confirmation of connection in Panorama:

When you secure port 443 you specify an IP address range from which
you will allow connections, as well as the EIPs assigned to the NAT

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 gateways. There are two NAT gateways and the EIPs associated with
them. To find NAT gateway EIPs in AWS, go to VPC > NAT Gateways.
Note the EIP information for the security group for HTTPS.
• Port 3978—Port 3978 must be able to receive traffic from any IP address.

Bootstrap Files
The GitHub auto scaling repository includes an init-cfg.txt file so that the VM-Series firewall has the
basic configuration to:
• Perform interface swap so the VM-Series firewall untrust traffic uses AWS ENI for eth0.
• Communicate to Panorama for device group and template configuration.
The auto scaling GitHub repository has the basic configuration to get started. This auto scaling solution
requires swapping the dataplane and management interfaces to enable the load balancer to forward web
traffic to the VM-Series firewall auto scaling tier. For details on management interface mapping with the
Amazon ELB as shown in Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB.

Plan to Deploy VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS (v2.1)

Before starting the deployment, review the following resources.
See Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls with the Amazon ELB Service for an overview of template
features, and account planning.
Customize the Firewall Template Before Launch (v2.0 and v2.1). The basic parameters in this topic apply
to all template versions.
How Does the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0 and v2.1) Enable Dynamic Scaling?
These concepts apply to all template versions.

Launch the Firewall Template (v2.1)

You can choose to deploy the firewall and application templates in the same VPC or in separate VPCs.
The templates support a hub and spoke architecture in which you can deploy the firewall template in one
AWS account and use it as a hub to secure applications (spokes) that belong to the same or to different
AWS accounts.
This workflow tells you how to deploy the external load balancer and the VM-Series firewalls using the
firewall template. The vm-auth-key must be configured on Panorama prior to launching this template.

STEP 1 | Review the checklists in Plan to Deploy VM-Series Auto Scaling Templates for AWS (v2.1) and
Plan the VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0 and v2.1).
Verify that you have completed the following tasks:
• (For PAYG only) Review and accept the EULA for the PAYG bundle you plan to use.
• (For BYOL only) Obtain the auth code for a bundle that supports the number of firewalls that might
be required for your deployment. You must save this auth code in a text file named authcodes (no
extensions), and put the authcodes file in the /license folder of the bootstrap package.

If you use individual auth codes instead of a bundle, the firewall only retrieves the
license key for the first auth code in the file.
• Download the files required to launch the VM-Series Auto Scaling v2.1 template from the GitHub
repository.

STEP 2 | Modify the init-cfg.txt file and upload it to the /config folder.

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Because you use Panorama to bootstrap the VM-Series firewalls, your init-cfg.txt file should be
modified as follows. No bootstrap.xml file is needed.

type=dhcp-client

ip-address=

default-gateway=

netmask=

ipv6-address=

ipv6-default-gateway=

hostname=

vm-auth-key=

panorama-server=

panorama-server-2=

tplname=AWS-tmplspoke1

dgname=AWS-dgspoke1

dns-primary=169.254.169.253

dns-secondary=8.8.8.8

op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap

dhcp-send-hostname=yes

dhcp-send-client-id=yes

dhcp-accept-server-hostname=yesdhcp-accept-server-domain=yes

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 vm-series-auto-registration-id=

vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=

Verify that op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap exists. This is the command for swapping

the management interface (mgmt) and the dataplane interface (ethernet 1/1) on the VM-Series firewall
on AWS. Use the AWS DNS server IP address of 169.254.169.253 for faster load balancer DNS name
resolution.
You must add the device certificate auto-registration PIN to the init-cfg.txt file to automatically install a
device certificate when your VM-Series firewall instance is deployed.

STEP 3 | (For BYOL only) Add the license auth code in the /license folder of the bootstrap package.
1. Use a text editor to create a new text file named authcodes (no extension).
2. Add the authcode for your BYOL licenses to this file, and save. The authcode must represent a
bundle, and it must support the number of firewalls that might be required for your deployment. If
you use individual authcodes instead of a bundle, the firewall only retrieves the license key for the
first authcode in the file.

STEP 4 | Upload Lambda code for the firewall template (panw-aws-zip) and the Application template
(ilb.zip) to an S3 bucket. You can use the same S3 bucket that you use for bootstrapping.

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 If the Application stack is managed by a different account than the firewall, use the Application account
to create another s3 bucket in the same AWS region as the firewall template and copy ilb.zip to that
s3 bucket.

STEP 5 | Select the firewall template.

1. In the AWS Management Console, select CloudFormation > Create Stack.
2. Select Upload a template to Amazon S3, to choose the application template to deploy the resources
that the template launches within the same VPC as the firewalls, or to a different VPC. Click Open
and Next.
3. Specify the Stack name. The stack name allows you to uniquely identify all the resources that are
deployed using this template.

STEP 6 | Configure the parameters for the VPC.

1. Be sure to select at least two availability zones

2. Look up the AMI ID for the VM-Series firewall and enter it. Make sure that the AMI ID matches the
AWS region, PAN-OS version and the BYOL or PAYG licensing option you opted to use.
3. Select the EC2 Key pair (from the drop-down) for launching the firewall. To log in to the firewalls,
you must provide the name of this key pair and the private key associated with it.

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 4. For the SSH from field, the firewalls will be managed by Panorama and do NOT have an EIP for the
management interface. But just in case you decide to assign an EIP configure the IP range you would
connect from.
5. Select Yes if you want to Enable Debug Log. Enabling the debug log generates more verbose logs
that help with troubleshooting issues with the deployment. These logs are generated using the stack
name and are saved in AWS CloudWatch.
By default, the template uses CPU utilization as the scaling parameter for the VM-Series
firewalls. Custom PAN-OS metrics are automatically published to the CloudWatch namespace that
matches the stack name you specified earlier.

STEP 7 | Specify the name of the Amazon S3 bucket(s).

1. Enter the name of the S3 bucket that contains the bootstrap package.
If the bootstrap bucket is not set up properly or if you enter the bucket name incorrectly, the
bootstrap process fails, and you cannot log in to the firewall. Health checks for the load balancers
also fail.
2. Enter the name of the S3 bucket that contains the panw-aws.zip file. As mentioned earlier you can
use one S3 bucket for the Bootstrap and Lambda code.

STEP 8 | Specify the keys for enabling API access to the firewall and Panorama.

1. Enter the key that the firewall must use to authenticate API calls. The default key is based on the
sample file and you should only use it for testing and evaluation. For a production deployment, you
must create a separate PAN-OS login just for the API call and generate an associated key.
2. Enter the API Key to allow AWS Lambda to make API calls to Panorama. For a production
deployment, you should create a separate login just for the API call and generate an associated key.

STEP 9 | Enter the name for the application load balancer.

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STEP 10 | Review the template settings and launch the template.
1. Select I acknowledge that this template might cause AWS CloudFormation to create IAM resources.
2. Click Create to launch the template. The CREATE_IN_PROGRESS event displays.
3. On successful deployment the status updates to CREATE_COMPLETE.

STEP 11 | Verify that the template has launched all required resources.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select Auto Scaling Groups. Verify that in each AZ, you have one ASG for the
VM-Series firewalls. The ASG name prefix includes the stack name.
2. On the AWS Management Console, select the stack name to view the Output for the list of
resources.
3. Your output should look similar to the output in the following image.
• Take note of the Network Load Balancer Queue name.
• Take note of the Elastic Load Balancer public DNS name.

It may take up to 20 minutes for the firewalls to boot up and be available to handle traffic.

When you are finished with a testing or a production deployment, the only way to ensure
charges stop occurring is to completely delete the stack. Shutting down instances, or
changing the ASG maximum to 0 is not sufficient.

STEP 12 | Save the following firewall template information. You must provide these values as inputs
when deploying the application template.
• IP addresses of the NAT Gateway in each AZ—You need this IP address to restrict HTTPS access
to your Panorama so that Lambda can use the EIPs for the NAT Gateway to communicate with
Panorama when needed.

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 • Network Load Balancer SQS URL—A Lambda function in the firewall stack monitors this queue so
that it can learn about any network load balancers that you deploy and create NAT policy rules (one
per application) in the Panorama that enable the firewalls to send traffic to the network load balancer
IP address.

Launch the Application Template (v2.1)

The application templates allow you to complete the sandwich topology and are provided so that you
can evaluate the auto scaling solution. This application template deploys either an application or network
load balancer and a pair of web servers behind the auto scaling group of VM-Series firewalls, which you
deployed using the firewall template.
Use this template to evaluate the solution but customize your own template to deploy to production.
For a custom template, make sure to enable SQS messaging between the Application template and
the Firewall template.
When launching the application template, you must select the template based on whether you want to
deploy the application template within the same VPC in which you deployed the firewall template or in a
separate VPC. See Enable Traffic to the ELB Service (v2.0 and v2.1).

STEP 1 | Create an S3 bucket from which you will launch the application template.
• If this is a cross-account deployment, create a new bucket.
• If there is one account you can create a new bucket or use the S3 bucket you created earlier (you can
use one bucket for everything).

STEP 2 | Upload the ilb.zip file into the S3 bucket.

STEP 3 | Select the application launch template you want you launch.
1. In the AWS Management Console, select CloudFormation > CreateStack
2. Select Upload a template to Amazon S3, to choose the application template to deploy the resources
that the template launches within the same VPC as the firewalls, or to a different VPC. Click Open
and Next.
3. Specify the Stack name. The stack name allows you to uniquely identify all the resources that are
deployed using this template.

STEP 4 | Configure the parameters for the VPC and network load balancer.
1. Select the two Availability Zones that your setup will span in Select list of AZ. If you are deploying
within the same VPC make sure to select the same Availability Zones that you selected for the
firewall template.
2. If deploying to a new VPC enter a CIDR Block for the VPC. The default CIDR is 192.168.0.0/16.
3. If deploying to the same VPC you will select the previous VPC and use the Trust subnets.

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STEP 5 | Select the load balancer type.

STEP 6 | Configure the parameters for Lambda.

1. Enter the S3 bucket name where ilb.zip is stored.
2. Enter the name of the zip file name.
3. Paste the SQS URL that you copied earlier.

STEP 7 | Modify the web server EC2 instance type to meet your needs.

STEP 8 | Select the EC2 Key pair (from the drop-down) for launching the web servers. To log in to the
web servers, you must provide the key pair name and the private key associated with it.

STEP 9 | Select the IP address of the network you will be accessing the servers from for management
access only. Web traffic comes through the ELBDNS name you copied when you launched the
firewall template.

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STEP 10 | Review the template settings and launch the template.

STEP 11 | After completion of the application template it can take up to 20 minutes for the web pages
to become active.
1. Verify that the application template load balancer is marked active.

2. Verify that Panorama has a NAT object in the device group.

3. Verify that Panorama has an address object in the device group.

4. Verify that Panorama has static routes in the template stack.

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STEP 12 | Get the DNS name you saved earlier for the application load balancer and enter it into a web
browser.

STEP 13 | Upon successful launch your browser should look like this output.

Create a Custom Amazon Machine Image (v2.1)

A custom VM-Series AMI gives you the consistency and flexibility to deploy a VM-Series firewall with
the PAN-OS version you want to use on your network instead of being restricted to using only an AMI
that is published to the AWS public Marketplace or to the AWS GovCloud Marketplace. Using a custom
AMI speeds up the process of deploying a firewall with the PAN-OS version of your choice because it
reduces the time to provision the firewall with an AMI published on the AWS public or AWS GovCloud
marketplace, and then perform software upgrades to get to the PAN-OS version you want to use on your
network. Additionally, you can use the custom AMI in the Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls CloudFormation
Templates or any other templates that you have created.
You can create a custom AMI with the BYOL, Bundle 1, or Bundle 2 licenses. The process of creating a
custom AMI requires you to remove all configuration from the firewall and perform a private data reset, so
in this workflow you’ll launch a new instance of the firewall from the AWS Marketplace instead of using an
existing firewall that you have fully configured.

When creating a custom AMI with a BYOL version of the firewall, you must first activate the
license on the firewall so that you can access and download PAN-OS content and software
updates to upgrade your firewall, and then deactivate the license on the firewall before
performing the private data reset and creating the custom AMI. If you do not deactivate the
license, you lose the license that you applied on this firewall instance.

STEP 1 | Launch the VM-Series firewall from the Marketplace.

See Launch the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 2 | (Only for BYOL) Activate the license.

STEP 3 | Install latest content on the firewall.

STEP 4 | (Only for BYOL) Deactivate the license.

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STEP 5 | Perform a private data reset.
A private data reset removes all logs and restores the default configuration.
The system disks are not erased, so the content updates from Step 4 are intact.
1. Access the firewall CLI.
2. Export a copy of the configuration.
3. Remove all logs and restore the default configuration.

request system private-data-reset

Enter y to confirm.
The firewall reboots to initialize the default configuration.

STEP 6 | Create the custom AMI.

1. Log in to the AWS Console and select the EC2 Dashboard.
2. Stop the VM-Series firewall.
3. Select the VM-Series firewall instance, and click Image > Create Image.

4. Enter a custom image name, and click Create Image.

The disk space of 60GB is the minimum requirement.

5. Verify that the custom AMI is created and has the correct product code.
1. On the EC2 Dashboard, select AMI.
2. Select the AMI that you just created. Depending on whether you selected an AMI with the BYOL,
Bundle 1, or Bundle 2 licensing options, you should see one of the following Product Codes in the
details:
• BYOL—6njl1pau431dv1qxipg63mvah

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 • Bundle 1—6kxdw3bbmdeda3o6i1ggqt4km
• Bundle 2—806j2of0qy5osgjjixq9gqc6g

STEP 7 | Encrypt EBS Volume for the VM-Series Firewall on AWS.

If you plan to use the custom AMI with EBS encryption for an Auto Scaling VM-Series Firewalls with the
Amazon ELB Service deployment, you must use the default master key for your AWS account.

VM-Series Auto Scaling Template Cleanup (v2.1)

If you deployed the templates as a test, delete them to save resources and lower costs.

STEP 1 | In the AWS Management Console, select Cloud Formation > Create Stack.

STEP 2 | Locate the firewall template and application template you launched previously and delete both
templates.
For more information on deleting template stacks see, “What is AWS CloudFormation?“

Failure to delete your template stack incurs charges from AWS.

SQS Messaging Between the Application Template and Firewall Template

(v2.1)
VM-Series firewalls deployed using one of the firewall templates can detect and send traffic to the load
balancers to which you want to automatically distribute incoming traffic. To accomplish this, the firewall
template includes a lambda function that monitors a Simple Queue Service for messages. The message
allows the lambda function to learn about a new load balancer and then automatically create a NAT policy
rule on the firewall to send traffic to the load balancer’s IP address. To route traffic properly within the
AWS infrastructure, the message must also include basic information on the DNS, VPC ID, and the AZ to
which the load balancer belongs.
If you are building your own application template, you must set up your application template to post ADD
and DEL messages to the SQS URL that the firewall template uses to learn about load balancers to which it
must distribute traffic in your environment:
• ADD-NLB message that informs the firewalls when a new network load balancer is available.
• DEL-NLB message that informs the firewalls when a network load balancer has been terminated and is
no longer available.
• ADD-ALB message that informs the firewalls when a new application load balancer is available.

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 • DEL-ALB message that informs the firewalls when a application load balancer has been terminated and is
no longer available.
The following examples of each message type include sample values. You must modify these messages with
values that match your deployment.
ADD-NLB Message

msg_add_nlb= {

"MSG-TYPE": "ADD-NLB",

"AVAIL-ZONES": [

"NLB-IP":"192.168.2.101",

"ZONE-NAME":"us-east-2a",

"SUBNET-ID": "subnet-2a566243"

},

"NLB-IP":"192.168.12.101",

"ZONE-NAME":"us-east-2b",

"SUBNET-ID": "subnet-2a566243 "

],

"DNS-NAME": "publicelb1-2119989486.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com",

"VPC-ID": "vpc-42ba9f2b",

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 "NLB-NAME": "publicelb1"

DEL-NLB Message

msg_del_nlb= {

"MSG-TYPE": "DEL-NLB",

"DNS-NAME": "publicelb1-2119989486.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com",

ADD-ALB

{ "AVAIL-ZONES": [

"SUBNET-CIDR": "172.32.0.0/24",

"SUBNET-ID": "subnet-0953a3a8e2a8208a9",

"ZONE-NAME": "us-east-2a"

},

"SUBNET-CIDR": "172.32.2.0/24",

"SUBNET-ID": "subnet-0a9602e4fb0d88baa",

"ZONE-NAME": "us-east-2c"

},

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 "SUBNET-CIDR": "172.32.1.0/24",

"SUBNET-ID": "subnet-0b31ed16f308b3c4d",

"ZONE-NAME": "us-east-2b"

],

"VPC-PEERCONN-ID": "pcx-0538bb05dbe2e1b8e",

"VPC-CIDR": "172.32.0.0/16",

"ALB-NAME": "appILB-908-0",

"ALB-ARN":"arn:aws:elasticloadbalancing:us-
east-2:018147215560:loadbalancer/app/appILB-908-0/1997ed20eeb5bcef",

"VPC-ID": "vpc-0d9234597da6d9147",

"MSG-TYPE": "ADD-ALB",

"DNS-NAME": "internal-appILB-908-0-484644265.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com"

DEL-ALB Message

"MSG-TYPE": "DEL-ALB",

"DNS-NAME": "internal-appILB-908-0-484644265.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com"

Refer to the AWS documentation for details on how to send a message to an Amazon SQS Queue.

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Stack Update with VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.1)
A stack update allows you to modify the resources that the VM-Series Auto Scaling template firewall
template deploys. Instead of deleting your existing deployment and redeploying the solution, use the stack
update to modify launch configuration parameters.
You can modify the AWS instance type, the key pair for your auto scaling groups, and the APi key
associated with the adminstrative user account on the firewall.

You do not have to update the stack to modify default notifications or create auto scaling
alarms. See Change Scaling Parameters and CloudWatch Metrics (v2.1).

When you deploy the VM-Series Auto Scaling template, the auto scaling groups and the launch
configuration are automatically created for you. The launch configuration is a template that an auto scaling
group uses to launch EC2 instance, and it specifies parameters such as the instance type, the key pair for
your auto scaling group, or the API key associated with the administrative user account on the firewall.

For critical applications, perform a stack update during a maintenance window.

You can update your stack directly or create change sets. The workflow in this document takes you through
the manual stack update.

STEP 1 | In the AWS CloudFormation console, select the parent stack that you want to update and
choose Actions > Update Stack.

STEP 2 | Modify the resources that you want to update.

You can modify the instance type, security group, key pair for the stack resources, or the API key
associated with the administrative user account on the firewall.
If you create a new administrative user account or modify the credentials of the existing administrator
on the firewall, in order to update that stack and deploy new firewalls with the updated API key, you
need to follow the workflow in Modify Administrative Account (v2.1).

STEP 3 | Acknowledge the notifications and review the changes and click Update to initiate the stack
update.

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Modify Administrative Account (v2.1)
If you have already deployed the template and now want to change the password for the administrative
account or create a new administrative user account on the VM-Series firewall, you must generate a new
API key and update the template stack with the new API key for the administrative user account.

STEP 1 | Log in to the web interface of the firewall and change the credentials for an existing
administrative user or create a new account.

STEP 2 | Generate the API key.

STEP 3 | Update the API key in the stack to ensure that newly launched firewalls have the updated
administrator account.
See Stack Update with VM-Series Auto Scaling Template for AWS (v2.0).

Change Scaling Parameters and CloudWatch Metrics (v2.1)

This task describes how to use custom PAN-OS metrics as scaling parameters to trigger auto scale actions.
When you launch the firewall template, the template creates a namespace with scale-in and scale-out
policies that you can use to define auto scaling actions. The policy names include the namespace, as shown
below:
• <Custom Namespace>-scalein - Remove 1 instance
• <Custom Namespace>-scaleout - Add 1 instance
Each PAN-OS metric has a default notification that you can delete and replace with auto scale actions. For
each metric, create two actions: one that determines when to add a VM-Series firewall, and another that
determines when to remove a VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | In AWS, select Services > CloudWatch > Metrics.

STEP 2 | Choose a Custom Namespace link, and select the metrics link to view the custom PAN-OS
metrics.

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STEP 3 | Check a box to select a metric, then select the Graphed metrics tab.
1. In the Statistics column, choose a statistic criteria (such as average, minimum and maximum) and
choose a time period.
2. In the Actions column select the bell (Create alarm).

STEP 4 | Define an alarm that removes a firewall when CPU utilization meets or falls below the criteria
you set, over the time frame you set.
1. Select Edit to change the graph title.
2. Under Alarm details fill in the Name and Description, choose an operator, and set the minimum value
to maintain the current instances. If the minimum value is not maintained, an instance is removed.
3. Under Actions, delete the default notification.
4. Select +AutoScaling Action.
• Use the From the list to select your namespace.
• From Take this action, select the policy to remove an instance.

5. Select Create Alarm.

STEP 5 | Create a second alarm that adds a firewall when CPU utilization meets or exceeds the criteria
you set.

STEP 6 | To view your alarms, select Services > CloudWatch > Alarms.

To edit an alarm from this window, check the box next to the alarm and select Action > Edit.

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List of Attributes Monitored on the AWS VPC
As you provision or modify virtual machines in your AWS VPCs, you have two ways of monitoring these
instances and retrieving the tags for use as match criteria in dynamic address groups.
• VM Information Source—On a next-gen firewall, you can monitor up to a total of 32 tags—14 pre-
defined and 18 user-defined key-value pairs (tags).
• AWS Plugin on Panorama—The Panorama plugin for Microsoft AWS allows you to connect Panorama to
your AWS VPC on the public cloud and retrieve the IP address-to-tag mapping for your virtual machines.
Panorama then registers the VM information to the managed Palo Alto Networks® firewall(s) that you
have configured for notification. With the plugin, Panorama can retrieve a total of 32 tags for each
virtual machine, 11 predefined tags and up to 21 user-defined tags.

The maximum length of the tag-value (name and value included) must be 116 characters
or less. If a tag is longer than 116 characters, Panorama does not retrieve the tag and
register it on the firewalls.

Attributes VM AWS Plugin on

Monitored on the Information Panorama
AWS-VPC Source on the
Firewall

AMI ID ImageId.<ImageId string> Yes Yes

Architecture Architecture.<Architecture string> Yes No

Availability Zone AvailabilityZone.<string> Yes Yes

Guest OS GuestOS.<guest OS name> Yes No

IAM Instance Iam-instance-profile.<instanceProfileArn> No Yes

Profile

Instance ID InstanceId.<InstanceId string> Yes No

Instance State InstanceState.<instance state> Yes No

Instance Type InstanceType.<instance type> Yes No

Key Name KeyName.<KeyName string> Yes Yes

Owner ID Account-number.<OwnerId> No Yes

The value for
this attribute is
fetched from the
ENI.

Placement Placement.Tenancy.<string> Yes Yes

Tenancy, Group Placement.GroupName.<string>
Name

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 Attributes VM AWS Plugin on
Monitored on the Information Panorama
AWS-VPC Source on the
Firewall

Private DNS PrivateDnsName.<Private DNS Name> Yes No

Name

Public DNS PublicDnsName.<Public DNS Name> Yes Yes

Name

Subnet ID SubnetID.<subnetID string> Yes Yes

Security Group Sg-id.<sg-xxxx> No Yes

ID

Security Group Sg-name.<SecurityGroupName> No Yes

Name

VPC ID VpcId.<VpcId string> Yes Yes

Tag (key, value) aws-tag.<key>.<value> Yes; Yes;

Up to a Up to a maximum
maximum of 21 user
of 18 user defined tags are
defined supported. The
tags are user-defined
supported. tags are sorted
The user- alphabetically, and
defined tags the first 21 tags
are sorted are available for
alphabetically, use on Panorama
and the first and the firewalls.
18 tags are
available for
use on the
firewalls.

IAM Permissions Required for Monitoring the AWS VPC

In order to enable VM Monitoring the user’s AWS login credentials tied to the AWS Access Key and Secret
Access Key must have permissions for the attributes listed above. These privileges allow the firewall to
initiate API calls for monitoring the virtual machines in the AWS VPC.
The IAM policy associated with the user must either have global read-only access such as
AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess, or must include individual permissions for all of the monitored attributes. The
following IAM policy example lists the permissions for initiating the API actions for monitoring the resources
in the AWS VPC:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",

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 "Action": [
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus",
"ec2:DescribeKeyPairs",
"ec2:DescribePlacementGroups",
"ec2:DescribeRegions",
"ec2:DescribeSubnets",
"ec2:DescribeTags",
"ec2:DescribeVpcs"
],
"Resource": [
"*"
]
}
]
}

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open-source virtualization module for servers
running Linux distributions. The VM-Series firewall can be deployed on a Linux server that is
running the KVM hypervisor.
This guide assumes that you have an existing IT infrastructure that uses Linux and have the
foundation for using Linux/Linux tools. The instructions only pertain to deploying the VM-
Series firewall on KVM.

> VM-Series on KVM— Requirements and Prerequisites

> Supported Deployments on KVM
> Install the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
> Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for KVM

421
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VM-Series on KVM—Requirements and
Prerequisites
• Options for Attaching the VM-Series on the Network
• Prerequisites for VM-Series on KVM

Table 2: VM-Series on KVM System Requirements

Requirements Description

Hardware Resources See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum hardware
requirements for your VM-Series model.

Software Versions See the supported KVM software versions in the Compatibility Matrix.

SR-IOV Drivers See PacketMMAP Driver Versions drivers in the Compatibility Matrix.

DPDK Drivers See DPDK Driver Versions in the Compatibility Matrix.

If you use one of the supported NIC drivers on VM-Series on KVM, DPDK is
enabled by default.

Network Interfaces The VM-Series on KVM supports a total of 25 interfaces — 1 management

—Network Interface interface and a maximum of 24 network interfaces for data traffic.
Cards and Software
VM-Series deployed on KVM supports software-based virtual switches such
Bridges
as the Linux bridge or the Open vSwitch bridge, and direct connectivity to PCI
passthrough or an SR-IOV capable adapter.
If you plan to establish connectivity using PCI-passthrough or SR-IOV, you
cannot configure a vSwitch on the physical port used for SR-IOV or PCI-
passthrough. To communicate with the host and other virtual machines
on the network, the VM-Series firewall must have exclusive access to the
physical port and associated virtual functions (VFs) on that interface.
• On the Linux bridge and OVS, the e1000 and Virtio drivers are supported;
the default driver rtl8139 is not supported.
• For PCI passthrough/SR-IOV support, the VM-Series firewall has been
tested for the following network cards:
• Intel 82576 based 1G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux
distributions; PCI-passthrough support.
• Intel 82599 based 10G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux
distributions; PCI-passthrough support.
• Broadcom 57112 and 578xx based 10G NIC: SR-IOV support on all
supported Linux distributions; No PCI-passthrough support.
• Mellanox ConnectX5 10G/25G/50G/100G NIC: SR-IOV support on all
supported Linux distributions.
• Refer to PacketMMAP Driver Versions in the Compatibility Matrix

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 Requirements Description
SR-IOV capable interfaces assigned to the VM-Series
firewall, must be configured as Layer 3 interfaces or as
HA interfaces.

Options for Attaching the VM-Series on the Network

• With a Linux bridge or OVS, data traffic uses the software bridge to connect guests on the same host.
For external connectivity, data traffic uses the physical interface to which the bridge is attached.
• With PCI passthrough, data traffic is passed directly between the guest and the physical interface to
which it is attached. When the interface is attached to a guest, it is not available to the host or to other
guests on the host.
• With SR-IOV, data traffic is passed directly between the guest and the virtual function to which it is
attached.

Prerequisites for VM-Series on KVM

Before you install the VM-Series firewall on the Linux server, review the following sections:
• Prepare the Linux Server
• Prepare to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall

Prepare the Linux Server

Before you install the VM-Series firewall on KVM, verify that you have a working Linux environment and
that your networking infrastructure supports the connectivity a that your chosen deployment requires.
• Verify Linux Support
• Verify the Networking Infrastructure
• Install Mellanox Software Tools

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• Enable Virtual Functions for Mellanox CX5 NICs on the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
• Verify the Host Configuration
Verify Linux Support
Verify that you have the correct environment to support your installation.
Check the Linux distribution version. For a list of supported versions, see VM-Series for KVM in the
Compatibility Matrix.
Verify that you have installed and configured KVM tools and packages that are required for creating and
managing virtual machines, such as Libvirt.
If you want to use a SCSI disk controller to access the disk to which the VM-Series firewall stores data,
you must use virsh to attach the virtio-scsi controller to the VM-Series firewall. You can then edit the
XML template of the VM-Series firewall to enable the use of the virtio-scsi controller. For instructions,
see Enable the Use of a SCSI Controller.

KVM on Ubuntu 12.04 does not support the virtio-scsi controller.

Verify the Networking Infrastructure

Verify that you have set up the networking infrastructure for steering traffic between the guests and the
VM-Series firewall and ensure you have connectivity to an external server or the Internet. The VM-Series
firewall can connect using a Linux bridge, the Open vSwitch, PCI passthrough, or SR-IOV capable network
card.
Make sure that the link state for each interface you plan to use is Up—sometimes you have to manually
bring up the interface.
If using a Linux bridge or OVS, verify that you have set up the bridges required to send/receive traffic
to/from the firewall. If not, create bridge(s) and verify that they are up before you begin installing the
firewall.
If using SR-IOV or PCI-passthrough, verify the PCI ID of all the interfaces. To view the list, use the
following command:
Virsh nodedev-list –tree
See Verify PCI-ID for Ordering of Network Interfaces on the VM-Series Firewall.
If using SR-IOV or PCI-passthrough, verify that the virtualization extensions (VT-d/IOMMU) are enabled
in the BIOS. For example, to enable IOMMU, intel_iommu=on must be defined in /etc/grub.conf.
Refer to the documentation provided by your system vendor for instructions.
If using PCI-passthrough, ensure that the VM-Series firewall has exclusive access to the interface(s) that
you plan to attach to it.
To allow exclusive access, you must manually detach the interface(s) from the Linux server.
Virsh nodedev-detach <pci id of interface>
For example:
Virsh nodedev-detach pci_0000_07_10_0
In some cases, you might need to edit /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf and uncomment
relaxed_acs_check = 1.
If using SR-IOV, verify that the virtual function capability is enabled for each port that you plan to use on
the network card. With SR-IOV, a single Ethernet port (physical function) can be split into multiple virtual
functions. A guest can be mapped to one or more virtual functions.
Enable virtual functions as follows:
1. Create a new file in this location: /etc/modprobe.d/
2. Use vi to edit the file to make the functions persistent:

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 vim /etc/modprobe.d/igb.conf
3. Enable the number of number of virtual functions required:
options igb max_vfs=4
In the above example, after you save the changes and reboot the Linux server, each interface (or
physical function) will have 4 virtual functions.
Refer to the documentation provided by your network vendor for details on the actual number of virtual
functions supported, and instructions to enable virtual functions.
Install Mellanox Software Tools
If you are using a Mellanox CX5 card, install the Mellanox software tools on the host. Before installing,
verify Linux support and your networking infrastructure.

STEP 1 | From the host, download the package for Mellanox OpenFabric Enterprise Distribution for
Linux (MLNX_OFED) for your OS version from the following link:
https://www.mellanox.com/products/infiniband-drivers/linux/mlnx_ofed

STEP 2 | Run the installation command:

mlnxofedinstall
If you have all the prerequisite packages installed, the above command installs all the MLNX_OFED
packages. Continue to Step 3.
If your environment doesn’t have the required packages, the installer lists all the packages that you must
install. After you install the packages, rerun the installation command and continue to Step 3.

STEP 3 | Reboot the host.

STEP 4 | Check the status of the Mellanox software tools.

# mst status
MST modules:
------------------------------------------------------------------
MST PCI module is not loaded
MST PCI configuration module loaded

MST devices:
------------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/mst/mt4121_pciconf0 - PCI configuration cycles access.
domain:bus:dev.fn=0000:3b:00.0 addr.reg=88 data.reg=92
Chip revision is: 00

STEP 5 | Ensure Mellanox is updated on the PCI list:

# lspci | grep Mellanox

3b:00.0 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex]
3b:00.1 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex]

Enable Virtual Functions for Mellanox CX5 NICs on the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
Install the Mellanox software tools before you enable virtual functions on Mellanox Cx5 NICs.

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STEP 1 | Ensure Mellanox Software Tools (mst) are started.

STEP 2 | Enable the number of number of virtual functions required. For example:

mlxconfig -d /dev/mst/mt4121_pciconf0 set SRIOV_EN=1 NUM_OF_VFS=4

After you save the changes and reboot the Linux server, each interface (or physical function) in the
above example will have 4 virtual functions. Refer to the documentation provided by your network
vendor for details on the actual number of virtual functions supported, and the instructions to enable
virtual functions.

You might see the following error message the first time you enable virtual functions on
Mellanox Cx5 NICs:

[ 1429.841162] mlx5_core 0000:3b:00.1:

mlx5_port_module_event:1025:(pid 0): Port module event[error]:
module 1, Cable error, One or more network ports have been
powered down due to insufficient/unadvertised power on the
PCIe slot. Please refer to the card's user manual for power
specifications or contact Mellanox support

To resolve the issue, enter the following command sequence on the Linux server:

# mlxconfig -d <dev> set ADVANCED_POWER_SETTINGS=1

# mlxconfig -d <dev> set DISABLE_SLOT_POWER_LIMITER=1
# reboot

STEP 3 | Check the status of the virtual functions.

# cat /sys/class/net/enp59s0f1/device/sriov_numvfs

(Optional) If the virtual functions are not set correctly (the status is 0 or empty), run the following
command:

# echo 4 > /sys/class/net/enp59s0f1/device/sriov_numvfs

STEP 4 | List the PCI devices to accurately match the number of virtual functions loaded on the
respective physical function for Mellanox:

# lspci | grep Mellanox

3b:00.0 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex]
3b:00.1 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex]
3b:00.2 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]
3b:00.3 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]
3b:00.4 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]
3b:00.5 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]

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 3b:00.6 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]
3b:00.7 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]
3b:01.0 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]
3b:01.1 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
[ConnectX-5 Ex Virtual Function]

Verify the Host Configuration

Configure the host for maximum VM-Series performance. Refer to Performance Tuning of the VM-Series
for KVM for information about configuring each option below.
Enable DPDK. DPDK allows the host to process packets faster by bypassing the Linux kernel. Instead,
interactions with the NIC are performed using drivers and the DPDK libraries. Open vSwitch is required
to use DPDK with the VM-Series firewall.
Enable SR-IOV. Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) allows a single PCIe physical device under a single
root port to appear to be multiple separate physical devices to the hypervisor or guest.
Enable multi-queue support for NICs. Multi-queue virtio-net allows network performance to scale with
the number of vCPUs and allows for parallel packet processing by creating multiple TX and RX queues.
Isolate CPU resources in a NUMA Node. You can improve performance of VM-Series on KVM by
isolating the CPU resources of the guest VM to a single non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node.

Prepare to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall

Purchase the VM-Series model and register the authorization code on the Palo Alto Networks Customer
Support web site. See Create a Support Account and Register the VM-Series Firewall.
Obtain the qcow2 image and save it on the Linux server. As a best practice, copy the image to the
folder: /var/lib/libvirt/qemu/images.
If you plan to deploy more than one instance of the VM-Series firewall, make the required number of
copies of the image. Because each instance of the VM-Series firewall maintains a link with the .qcow2
image that was used to deploy the firewall, to prevent any data corruption issues ensure that each image
is independent and is used by a single instance of the firewall.

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Supported Deployments on KVM
You can deploy a single instance of the VM-Series firewall per Linux host (single tenant) or multiple
instances of the VM-Series firewalls on a Linux host. The VM-Series firewall can be deployed with virtual
wire, Layer 2, or Layer 3 interfaces. If you plan on using SR-IOV capable interfaces on the VM-Series
firewall, you can only configure the interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces.
• Secure Traffic on a Single Host
• Secure Traffic Across Linux hosts

Secure Traffic on a Single Host

To secure east west traffic across guests on a Linux server, the VM-Series firewall can be deployed with
virtual wire, Layer 2, or Layer 3 interfaces. The illustration below shows the firewall with Layer 3 interfaces,
where the firewall and the other guests on the server are connected using Linux bridges. In this deployment,
all traffic between the web servers and the database servers is routed through the firewall; traffic across the
database servers only or across the web servers only is processed by the bridge and is not routed through
the firewall.

Secure Traffic Across Linux hosts

To secure your workloads, more than one instance of the VM-Series firewalls can be deployed on a Linux
host. If, for example, you want to isolate traffic for separate departments or customers, you can use VLAN
tags
to logically isolate network traffic and route it to the appropriate VM-Series firewall. In the following
example, one Linux host hosts the VM-Series firewalls for two customers, Customer A and Customer B, and
the workload for Customer B is spread across two servers. In order to isolate traffic and direct it to the VM-
Series firewall configured for each customer, VLANs are used.

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 In another variation of this deployment, a pair of VM-Series firewalls are deployed in a high availability set
up. The VM-Series firewalls in the following illustration are deployed on a Linux server with SR-IOV capable
adapters. With SR-IOV, a single Ethernet port (physical function) can be split into multiple virtual functions.
Each virtual function attached to the VM-Series firewall is configured as a Layer 3 interface. The active peer
in the HA pair secures traffic that is routed to it from guests that are deployed on a different Linux server.

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Install the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
The libvirt API that is used to manage KVM includes a host of tools that allow you to create and manage
virtual machines. To install the VM-Series firewall on KVM you can use any of the following methods.
• virt-manager—Deploy the VM-Series using the virt-manager virtual machine manager. Virt-manager
provides a convenient wizard to help you through the installation process.
• virsh—Deploy the VM-Series using the KVM command line. Create an XML file that defines the virtual
machine instance and bootstrap XML file that defines the initial configuration settings of the firewall.
Then install the firewall by mounting an ISO image as a CD-ROM.
• virt-install—Another option to deploy the VM-Series firewall using the KVM command line. Use this
option to create the definition for the VM-Series firewall and install it.
This document provides steps for installing the VM-Series firewall on KVM using virt-manager and virsh.
• Install the VM-Series Firewall Using Virt-Manager
• Install the VM-Series Firewall Using an ISO

Install the VM-Series Firewall Using Virt-Manager

Use the following procedure uses virt-manager to install the VM-Series firewall on a server running KVM on
RHEL.
• Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a KVM Host
• Perform Initial Configuration of the VM-Series Firewall on KVM

Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a KVM Host

Use the following instructions to provision the KVM host for the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 1 | Create a new virtual machine and add the VM-Series Firewall for KVM image to virt-mgr.
1. On the Virt-manager, select Create a new virtual machine.
2. Add a descriptive Name for the VM-Series firewall.

3. Select Import existing disk image, browse to the image, and set the OS Type: Linux and Version: Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

If you prefer, you can leave the OS Type and Version as Generic.

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 4. To add network adapters for the data interfaces:

STEP 2 | Configure the memory and CPU settings.

1. Set the Memory to the minimum memory based on the VM-Series System Requirements of your VM-
Series model.
2. Set CPU to the minimum CPUs based on the VM-Series System Requirements of your VM-Series
model.

STEP 3 | Enable configuration customization and select the management interface bridge.
1. Select Customize configuration before install.
2. Under Advanced options, select the bridge for the management interface, and accept the default
settings.

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STEP 4 | Configure virtual disk settings.
1. Select Disk, expand Advanced options and select Storage format — qcow2; Disk Bus—Virtio or IDE,
based on your set up.

If you want to use a SCSI disk bus, see Enable the Use of a SCSI Controller.

2. Expand Performance options, and set Cache mode to writethrough. This setting improves installation
time and execution speed on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 5 | Configure network adapters.

1. Select Add Hardware > Network if you are using a software bridge such as the Linux bridge or the
Open vSwitch.
2. For Host Device, enter the name of the bridge or select it from the drop down list.
3. To specify the driver, set Device Model to e-1000 or virtio. These are the only supported virtual
interface types.

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 4. Select Add Hardware > PCI Host Device for PCI-passthrough or an SR-IOV capable device.

5. In the Host Device list, select the interface on the card or the virtual function.
6. Click Apply or Finish.

STEP 6 | Click Begin Installation . Wait 5-7 minutes for the installation to complete.

By default, the XML template for the VM-Series firewall is created and stored at etc/libvirt/
qemu.

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STEP 7 | (Optional) Bootstrap the VM-Series firewall
If you are using bootstrapping to perform the configuration of your VM-Series firewall on KVM, refer to
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM. For more information about bootstrapping, see Bootstrap the
VM-Series Firewall.

STEP 8 | Configure the network access settings for the management interface.
1. Open a connection to the console.
2. Log into the firewall with username/password: admin/admin.
3. Enter configuration mode with the following command:

configure
4. Use the following commands to configure the management interface:
1. set deviceconfig system type static

2. set deviceconfig system ip-address <Firewall-IP> netmask <netmask>

default-gateway <gateway-IP> dns-setting servers primary <DNS-IP>

where <Firewall-IP> is the IP address you want to assign to the management interface,
<netmask> is the subnet mask, <gateway-IP> is the IP address of the network gateway, and
<DNS-IP> is the IP address of the DNS server.
3. commit

STEP 9 | Verify which ports on the host are mapped to the interfaces on the VM-Series firewall. In order
to verify the order of interfaces on the Linux host, see Verify PCI-ID for Ordering of Network
Interfaces on the VM-Series Firewall.
To make sure that traffic is handled by the correct interface, use the following command to identify
which ports on the host are mapped to the ports on the VM-Series firewall.

admin@PAN-VM> debug show vm-series interfaces all

Phoenix_interface Base-OS_port Base-OS_MAC PCI-ID
mgt eth0 52:54:00:d7:91:52 0000:00:03.0
Ethernet1/1 eth1 52:54:00:fe:8c:80 0000:00:06.0

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 Ethernet1/2 eth2 0e:c6:6b:b4:72:06 0000:00:07.0
Ethernet1/3 eth3 06:1b:a5:7e:a5:78 0000:00:08.0
Ethernet1/4 eth4 26:a9:26:54:27:a1 0000:00:09.0
Ethernet1/5 eth5 52:54:00:f4:62:13 0000:00:10.0

STEP 10 | Access the web interface of the VM-Series firewall and configure the interfaces and define
security rules and NAT rules to safely enable the applications that you want to secure.
Refer to the PAN-OS Administrator’s Guide.

Perform Initial Configuration of the VM-Series Firewall on KVM

Use the virtual appliance console on the KVM server to set up network access to the VM-Series firewall.
By default, the VM-Series firewall uses DHCP to obtain an IP address for the management interface.
However, you can assign a static IP address. After completing the initial configuration, access the web
interface to complete further configurations tasks. If you have Panorama for central management, refer to
the Panorama Administrator’s Guide for more information on managing the device using Panorama.
If you are using bootstrapping to perform the configuration of your VM-Series firewall on KVM, refer to
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM.
For general information about bootstrapping, see Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall.

STEP 1 | Gather the required information from your network administrator.

• IP address for MGT port
• Netmask
• Default gateway
• DNS server IP address

STEP 2 | Access the console of the VM-Series firewall.

1. Select the Console tab on the KVM server for the VM-Series firewall, or right-click the VM-Series
firewall and select Open Console.
2. Press enter to access the login screen.
3. Enter the default username/password (admin/admin) to log in.
4. Enter configure to switch to configuration mode.

STEP 3 | Configure the network access settings for the management interface.
Enter the following commands:

set deviceconfig system type static

set deviceconfig system ip-address <Firewall-IP> netmask <netmask>

default-gateway <gateway-IP> dns-setting servers primary <DNS-IP>

STEP 4 | Commit your changes and exit the configuration mode.

Enter commit.
Enter exit.

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Install the VM-Series Firewall Using an ISO
Manually create the XML definition of the VM-Series firewall, then use virsh to import the definition as an
ISO. Virsh is the most powerful tool that allows for full administration of the virtual machine.
• Use an ISO File to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall
• Sample XML file for the VM-Series Firewall

Use an ISO File to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall

If you want to pass a script to the VM-Series firewall at boot time, you can mount a CD-ROM with an ISO
file. The ISO file allows you to define a bootstrap XML file that includes the initial configuration parameters
for the management port of the firewall. The VM-Series firewall on first boot checks for the bootstrap-
networkconfig.xml file, and uses the values defined in it.

If a single error is encountered in parsing the bootstrap file, the VM-Series firewall will reject
all the configuration in this file and boot with default values.

STEP 1 | Create the XML file and define it as a virtual machine instance.
For a sample file, see Sample XML file for the VM-Series Firewall.
In this example, the VM-Series firewall is called PAN_Firewall_DC1.
For example:

user-PowerEdge-R510:~/kvm_script$ sudo vi /etc/libvirt/qemu/

PAN_Firewall_DC1.xml
user-PowerEdge-R510:~/kvm_script$ sudo virsh define/etc/libvirt/qemu/
PAN_Firewall_DC1.xml
Domain PAN_Firewall_DC1_bootstp defined from /etc/libvirt/qemu/
PAN_Firewall_DC1.xml
user-PowerEdge-R510:~/kvm_script$ sudo virsh -q attach-interface
PAN_Firewall_DC1_bootstp bridge br1 --model=virtio --persistent
user-PowerEdge-R510:~/kvm_script$ virsh list --all
Id Name State
---------------------------------------------
- PAN_Firewall_DC1_bootstp shut off

STEP 2 | Create the bootstrap XML file.

You can define the initial configuration parameters in this file and name it bootstrap-networkconfig.

If you do not want to include a parameter, for example panorama-server-secondary.

Delete the entire line from the file. If you leave the IP address field empty, the file will not
be parsed successfully.

Use the following example as a template for the bootstrap-networkconfig file. The bootstrap-
networkconfig file can include the following parameters only:

<vm-initcfg>
<hostname>VM_ABC_Company</hostname>
<ip-address>10.5.132.162</ip-address>
<netmask>255.255.254.0</netmask>
<default-gateway>10.5.132.1</default-gateway>
<dns-primary>10.44.2.10</dns-primary>
<dns-secondary>8.8.8.8</dns-secondary>

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 <panorama-server-primary>10.5.133.4</panorama-server-primary>
<panorama-server-secondary>10.5.133.5</panorama-server-secondary>
</vm-initcfg>

STEP 3 | Create the ISO file. In this example, we use mkisofs.

Save the ISO file in the images directory (/var/lib/libvirt/image) or the qemu directory (/etc/
libvirt/qemu) to ensure that the firewall has read access to the ISO file.

For example:

# mkisofs -J -R -v -V "Bootstrap" -A "Bootstrap" -ldots -l -allow-lowercase

-allow-multidot -o <iso-filename> bootstrap-networkconfig.xml

STEP 4 | Attach the ISO file to the CD-ROM.

For example:

# virsh -q attach-disk <vm-name> <iso-filename> sdc --type cdrom --mode

readonly –persistent\

Sample XML file for the VM-Series Firewall

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<domain type="kvm">
<name>PAN_Firewall_DC1</name>
<memory>4194304</memory>
<currentMemory>4194304</currentMemory>
<vcpu placement="static">2</vcpu>
<os>
<type arch="x86_64">hvm</type>
<boot dev="hd"/>
</os>
<features>
<acpi/>
<apic/>
<pae/>
</features>
<clock offset="utc"/>
<on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
<on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
<on_crash>restart</on_crash>
<devices>
<emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
<disk type="file" device="disk">
<driver type="qcow2" name="qemu"/>
<source file="/var/lib/libvirt/images/panos-kvm.qcow2"/>
<target dev="vda" bus="virtio"/>
</disk>
<controller type="usb" index="0"/>
<controller type="ide" index="0"/>
<controller type="scsi" index="0"/>
<serial type="pty">
<source path="/dev/pts/1"/>
<target port="0"/>
<alias name="serial0"/>
</serial>

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<console type="pty" tty="/dev/pts/1">
<source path="/dev/pts/1"/>
<target type="serial" port="0"/>
<alias name="serial0"/>
</console>
<input type="mouse" bus="ps2"/>
<graphics type="vnc" port="5900" autoport="yes"/>
</devices>
</domain>

To modify the number of vCPUs assigned on the VM-Series firewall, change the value 2 to 4
or 8 vCPUs in this line of the sample XML file:

<vcpu placement="static">2</vcpu>

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Enable the Use of a SCSI Controller
If you want the VM-Series firewall to use the disk bus type SCSI to access the virtual disk, use the following
instructions to attach the virtio scsi controller to the firewall and then enable the use of the virtio-scsi
controller.

KVM on Ubuntu 12.04 does not support the virtio-scsi controller; the virtio-scsi controller can
only be enabled on the VM-Series firewall running on RHEL or CentOS.
This process requires virsh because Virt manager does not support the virtio-scsi controller.

STEP 1 | Create an XML file for the SCSI controller. In this example, it is called virt-scsi.xml.

[root@localhost~]# cat /root/virt-scsi.xml

<controller type='scsi' index='0' model='virtio-scsi'>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x0b'function='0x0'/>
</controller>

Make sure that the slot used for the virtio-scsi controller does not conflict with another
device.

STEP 2 | Associate this controller with the XML template of the VM-Series firewall.

[root@localhost~]# virsh attach-device --config <VM-Series_name> /root/virt-

scsi.xml
Device attached successfully

STEP 3 | Enable the firewall to use the SCSI controller.

[root@localhost~]# virsh attach-disk <VM-Series_name>/var/lib/libvirt/

images/PA-VM-6.1.0-c73.qcow2
sda --cache none --persistent
Disk attached successfully

STEP 4 | Edit the XML template of the VM-Series firewall. In the XML template, you must change the
target disk and the disk bus, used by the firewall.

By default, the XML template is stored at etc/libvirt/qemu.

<disk type='file' device='disk'>

<driver name='qemu' type='qcow2' cache='writeback'/>
<source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/PA-VM-7.0.0-c73.qcow2'/>
<target dev='sda' bus='scsi'/>
<address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
</disk>

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Verify PCI-ID for Ordering of Network
Interfaces on the VM-Series Firewall
Regardless of whether you use a virtual interfaces (Linux/OVS bridge) or PCI devices (PCI-passthrough
or SR-IOV capable adapter) for connectivity to the VM-Series firewall, the VM-Series firewall treats the
interface as a PCI device. The assignment of an interface on the VM-Series firewall is based on PCI-ID
which is a value that combines the bus, device or slot, and function of the interface. The interfaces are
ordered starting at the lowest PCI-ID, which means that the management interface (eth0) of the firewall is
assigned to the interface with the lowest PCI-ID.
Let's say you assign four interfaces to the VM-Series firewall, three virtual interfaces of type virtio and
e1000 and the fourth is a PCI device. To view the PCI-ID for each interface, enter the command virsh
dumpxml $ domain <name of the VM-Series firewall> on the Linux host to view the list
of interfaces attached to the VM-Series firewall. In the output, check for the following networking
configuration:

<interface type='bridge'>
<mac address='52:54:00:d7:91:52'/>
<source bridge='mgmt-br'/>
<model type='virtio'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03'
function='0x0'/>
</interface>

<interface type='bridge'>
<mac address='52:54:00:f4:62:13'/>
<source bridge='br8'/>
<model type='e1000'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x10'
function='0x0'/>
</interface>

<interface type='bridge'>
<mac address='52:54:00:fe:8c:80'/>
<source bridge='br8'/>
<model type='e1000'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x06'
function='0x0'/>
</interface>

<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='yes'>

<source>
<address domain='0x0000' bus='0x08' slot='0x10' function='0x1'/>
</source>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07'
function='0x0'/>
</hostdev>

In this case, the PCI-ID of each interface is as follows:

• First virtual interface PCI-ID is 00:03:00
• Second virtual interface PCI-ID is 00:10:00
• Third virtual interface PCI-ID is 00:06:00
• Fourth interface PCI-ID is 00:07:00

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 Therefore, on the VM-Series firewall, the interface with PCI-ID of 00:03:00 is assigned as eth0
(management interface), the interface with PCI-ID 00:06:00 is assigned as eth1 (ethernet1/1), the interface
with PCI-ID 00:07:00 is eth2 (ethernet1/2) and the interface with PCI-ID 00:10:00 is eth3 (ethernet1/3).

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Performance Tuning of the VM-Series for KVM
The VM-Series firewall for KVM is a high-performance appliance but may require tuning of the hypervisor
to achieve the best results. This section describes some best practices and recommendations for facilitating
the best performance of the VM-Series firewall.
By default, KVM uses a linux bridge for VM networking. However, the best performance in a virtual
environment is realized with dedicated I/O interfaces (PCI passthrough or SR-IOV). If a virtual switch is
required, use a performance-optimized virtual switch (such as Open vSwitch with DPDK).
• Install KVM and Open vSwitch on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
• Enable Open vSwitch on KVM
• Integrate Open vSwitch with DPDK
• Enable SR-IOV on KVM
• Enable VLAN Access Mode with SR-IOV
• Enable Multi-Queue Support for NICs on KVM
• Isolate CPU Resources in a NUMA Node on KVM

Install KVM and Open vSwitch on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS

For ease of installation, Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS is recommended for use as the KVM hypervisor platform.

STEP 1 | Install KVM and OVS.

1. Log in to the Ubuntu CLI.
2. Execute the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin ubuntu-vm-builder bridge-

utils
$ sudo apt-get install openvswitch-switch

STEP 2 | Check and compare the versions of relevant packages.

Execute the following commands:

$ virsh --version 1.3.1

$ libvirtd --version
libvirtd (libvirt) 1.3.1
$ /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 --version
QEMU emulator version 2.5.0 (Debian
1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.6), Copyright (c) 2003-2008
Fabrice Bellard
$ ovs-vsctl --version
ovs-vsctl (Open vSwitch) 2.5.0
Compiled Mar 10 2016 14:16:49
DB Schema 7.12.1

Enable Open vSwitch on KVM

Enable OVS by modifying the guest XML definition network settings.

Modify the guest XML definition as follows.

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 [...]
<interface type='bridge'>
<mac address='52:54:00:fb:00:01'/>
<source bridge='ovsbr0'/>
<virtualport type='openvswitch'/>
<model type='virtio'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03'
function='0x0'/>
</interface>
[...]

Integrate Open vSwitch with DPDK

To integrate Open vSwitch (OVS) with DPDK, you must install the required components and then configure
OVS. DPDK is enabled by default on the VM-Series firewall for KVM.
• Install QEMU, DPDK, and OVS on Ubuntu
• Configure OVS and DPDK on the Host
• Edit the VM-Series Firewall Configuration File

Install QEMU, DPDK, and OVS on Ubuntu

Before you can enable DPDK on OVS, you must install QEMU 2.5.0, DPDK 2.2.0, and OVS 2.5.1. Complete
the following procedures to install the components.

STEP 1 | Log in to the KVM host CLI.

STEP 2 | Install QEMU 2.5.0 by executing the following commands:

apt-get install build-essential gcc pkg-config glib-2.0 libglib2.0-dev

libsdl1.2-dev
libaio-dev libcap-dev libattr1-dev libpixman-1-dev
apt-get build-dep qemu
apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin
wget http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-2.5.0.tar.bz2
tar xjvf qemu-2.5.0.tar.bz2
cd qemu-2.5.0
./configure
make
make install

STEP 3 | Install dpdk-2.2.0.

1. Execute the following commands:

wget http://dpdk.org/browse/dpdk/snapshot/dpdk-2.2.0.tar.gz
tar xzvf dpdk-2.2.0.tar.gz
cd dpdk-2.2.0
vi config/common_linuxapp
2. Change CONFIG_RTE_APP_TEST=y to CONFIG_RTE_APP_TEST=n
3. Change CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_COMBINE_LIBS=n to CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_COMBINE_LIBS=y
4. Execute the following command:

vi GNUmakefile

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 5. Change ROOTDIRS-y := lib drivers app to ROOTDIRS-y := lib drivers
6. Execute the following command:

make install T=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc

STEP 4 | Install OVS 2.5.1 by executing the following commands:

wget http://openvswitch.org/releases/openvswitch-2.5.1.tar.gz
tar xzvf openvswitch-2.5.1.tar.gz
cd openvswitch-2.5.1
./configure –with-dpdk=”/root/dpdk-2.2.0/x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc/”
make
make install

Configure OVS and DPDK on the Host

After installing the necessary components to support OVS and DPDK, you must configure the host to use
OVS and DPDK.

STEP 1 | Log in to the KVM host CLI.

STEP 2 | If you are replacing or reconfiguring an existing OVS-DPDK setup, execute the following
commands to reset any previous configuration. Repeat the command for each interface.

rm /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/<interface-name>

STEP 3 | Configure initial huge pages for OVS.

echo 16384 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages

STEP 4 | Mount huge pages for QEMU:

mkdir /dev/hugepages
mkdir /dev/hugepages/libvirt
mkdir /dev/hugepages/libvirt/qemu
mount -t hugetlbfs hugetlbfs /dev/hugepages/libvirt/qemu

STEP 5 | Use the following command to kill any currently existing OVS daemon.

killall ovsdb-server ovs-vswitchd

STEP 6 | Create directories for the OVS daemon.

mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/openvswitch
mkdir -p /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch

STEP 7 | Clear old directories.

rm -f /var/run/openvswitch/vhost-user*

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 rm -f /usr/local/etc/openvswitch/conf.db

STEP 8 | Initialize the configuration database.

ovsdb-tool create /usr/local/etc/openvswitch/conf.db\

/usr/local/share/openvswitch/vswitch.ovsschema

STEP 9 | Create an OVS DB server.

ovsdb-server --remote=punix:/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock \
--remote=db:Open_vSwitch,Open_vSwitch,manager_options \
--private-key=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,private_key \
--certificate=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,certificate \
--bootstrap-ca-cert=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,ca_cert \
--pidfile --detach

STEP 10 | Initialize OVS.

ovs-vsctl --no-wait init

STEP 11 | Start the database server.

export DB_SOCK=/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock

STEP 12 | Install the igb_uio module (network device driver) for DPDK.

cd ~/dpdk-2.2.0/x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc/kmod
modprobe uio
insmod igb_uio.ko
cd ~/dpdk-2.2.0/tools/

STEP 13 | Enable DPDK on interfaces using PCI-ID or interface name.

./dpdk_nic_bind.py --bind=igb_uio <your first data interface>

./dpdk_nic_bind.py --bind=igb_uio <your second data interface>

STEP 14 | Start the OVS daemon in DPDK mode. You can change the number of cores for ovs-vswitchd.
By changing -c 0x1 to -c 0x3, you can have two core run this daemon.

ovs-vswitchd --dpdk -c 0x3 -n 4 -- unix:$DB_SOCK --pidfile --detach

echo 50000 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages

STEP 15 | Create the OVS bridge and attach ports to the OVS bridge.

ovs-vsctl add-br ovs-br0 -- set bridge ovs-br0 datapath_type=netdev

ovs-vsctl add-port ovs-br0 dpdk0 -- set Interface dpdk0 type=dpdk
ovs-vsctl add-br ovs-br1 -- set bridge ovs-br1 datapath_type=netdev
ovs-vsctl add-port ovs-br1 dpdk1 -- set Interface dpdk1 type=dpdk

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STEP 16 | Create DPDK vhost user ports for OVS.

ovs-vsctl add-port ovs-br0 vhost-user1 -- set Interface vhost-user1

type=dpdkvhostuser
ovs-vsctl add-port ovs-br1 vhost-user2 -- set Interface vhost-user2
type=dpdkvhostuser

STEP 17 | Set the number of hardware queues of the NIC used by the host.

ovs-vsctl set Open_vSwitch . other_config:n-dpdk-rxqs=8

ovs-vsctl set Open_vSwitch . other_config:n-dpdk-txqs=8

STEP 18 | Set the CPU mask used for OVS.

ovs-vsctl set Open_vSwitch . other_config:pmd-cpu-mask=0xffff

STEP 19 | Set the necessary permissions for DPDK vhost user ports. In the example below, 777 is used
to give read, write, and executable permissions.

chmod 777 /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/vhost-user1

chmod 777 /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/vhost-user2
chmod 777 /dev/hugepages/libvirt/qemu

Edit the VM-Series Firewall Configuration File

Edit the VM-Series firewall XML configuration file to support OVS and DPDK. You can access the XML
configuration file or after deploying the VM-Series firewall. If you do this after deploying the firewall, be
sure to shut down the firewall before making any changes. The values below are examples, your values for
each parameter will vary based on your VM-Series model.

STEP 1 | Log in to the KVM host CLI.

STEP 2 | Edit the XML configuration file of your VM-Series firewall.

1. Open the XML config file using virsh edit $<your-vm-series-name>.
2. Sets the memory backing for the hugepage. Ensure that you provide enough memory to support the
VM-Series firewall model you are deploying on the host. See VM-Series System Requirements for
more information.

<memory unit='KiB'>12582912</memory>
<currentMemory unit='KiB'>6291456</currentMemory>
<memoryBacking>
<hugepages/>
3. Set the necessary CPU flags for VM.

<cpu mode='host-model'>
4. Enable memory sharing between the VM and the host.

<numa>
<cell id='0' cpus='0,2,4,6' memory='6291456' unit='KiB'
memAccess='shared'/>

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 <cell id='1' cpus='1,3,5,7' memory='6291456' unit='KiB'
memAccess='shared'/>
</numa>
5. Set the DPDK vhost user ports as the VM -series firewall’s network interfaces. Additionally, set the
number of virtio virtual queues provided to the VM-Series firewall by the host.

<interface type='vhostuser'>
<mac address='52:54:00:36:83:70'/>
<source type='unix' path='/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/vhost-
user1' mode='client'/>
<model type='virtio'/>
<driver name=’vhost’ queues=’8’/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04'
function='0x0'/>
</interface>
<interface type='vhostuser'>
<mac address='52:54:00:30:d7:94'/>
<source type='unix' path='/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/vhost-
user2' mode='client'/>
<model type='virtio'/>
<driver name=’vhost’ qeueus=’8’>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05'
function='0x0'/>
</interface>

Enable SR-IOV on KVM

Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) allows a single PCIe physical device under a single root port to appear
to be multiple separate physical devices to the hypervisor or guest. To enable SR-IOV on a KVM guest,
define a pool of virtual function (VF) devices associated with a physical NIC and automatically assign VF
devices from the pool to PCI IDs.
For SR-IOV with Intel 10GB network interfaces (ixgbe driver), the driver version must be 4.2.5 or later to
support multiple queues for each NIC interface. See the Compatibility Matrix for PacketMMAP and DPDK
driver support by PAN-OS version.

STEP 1 | Define a network for a pool of VFs.

1. Generate an XML file with text similar to the following example. Change the value of pf dev to the
ethdev corresponding to your SR-IOV device’s physical function.

<network>
<name>passthrough</name>
<forward mode='hostdev' managed='yes'>
<pf dev='eth3'/>
</forward>
</network>
2. Save the XML file.
3. Execute the following commands:

$ virsh net-define <path to network XML file>

$ virsh net-autostart passthrough
$ virsh net-start passthrough

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STEP 2 | To ensure that the VM-Series firewall boots in DPDK mode, edit the guest VM XML
configuration on the KVM hypervisor to add the following:
<cpu mode='host-passthrough' check='none'/>
This ensures that the CPU flags are exposed.
To verify that the CPU flags are exposed on the VM:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
In the flags output for PAN-OS 10.0 or later with DPDK 18.11, you need AVX, or AES and SSE flags.

STEP 3 | After defining and starting the network, modify the guest XML definition to specify the
network.

<interface type='network'>
<source network='passthrough'>
</interface>

When the guest starts, a VF is automatically assigned to the guest.

STEP 4 | Add the multicast MAC address to the host.

When SR-IOV is enabled, multicast traffic is filtered by the PF. This filtering causes applications that rely
on multicast, such as OSPF, to fail. To prevent this filtering, you must manually add the multicast MAC
address to the host using the following command:

#ip maddress add <multicast-mac> dev <interface-name>

Enable VLAN Access Mode with SR-IOV

The VM-Series firewalls on KVM can operate in VLAN access mode to support use cases where it is
deployed as a virtual network function (VNF) that offers security-as-a-service in a multi-tenant cloud/data
center environment. In VLAN access mode, each VNF has dedicated virtual network interfaces (VNIs) for
each network and it sends and receives packets to/from SR-IOV virtual functions (VFs) without VLAN
tags; you must enable this capability on the physical and virtual functions on the host hypervisor. When
you, then enable VLAN access mode on the VM-Series firewall, the firewall can send and receive traffic
without VLAN tags across all its dataplane interfaces. Additionally, if you configure QoS policies, the firewall
can enforce QoS on the access interface and provide differentiated treatment of traffic in a multi-tenant
deployment.

By default, the VM-Series firewall on KVM operates in VLAN trunk mode.

STEP 1 | On the host system, set up the physical and virtual function to operate in VLAN access mode.
ip link set [inf_name] vf [vf_num] vlan [vlan_id].

For best performance on the VM-Series firewall, make sure to:

• Enable CPU pinning. See Isolate CPU Resources in a NUMA Node on KVM.
• Disable Replay Protection, if you have configured IPSec Tunnels.

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 On the firewall web interface, select Network > IPSec Tunnels select an IPSec tunnel,
and click General, and select Show Advanced Options and clear Enable Replay
Protection.

STEP 2 | Access the CLI on the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 3 | Enable VLAN access mode.

request plugins vm-series vlan-mode access-mode on
on enables VLAN access mode; to use VLAN trunk mode, enter request plugins vm-series
vlan-mode access-mode off.

STEP 4 | Reboot the firewall.

Enterrequest restart system.

STEP 5 | Verify the VLAN mode configuration.

show plugins vm-series vlan-mode

Enable Multi-Queue Support for NICs on KVM

Modify the guest XML definition to enable multi-queue virtio-net. Multi-queue virtio-net allows network
performance to scale with the number of vCPUs and allows for parallel packet processing by creating
multiple TX and RX queues.

Modify the guest XML definition. Insert a value from 1 to 256 for N to specify the number
of queues. For the best results, match the number of queues with number of dataplane cores
configured on the VM.

<interface type='network'>
<source network='default'/>
<model type='virtio'/>
<driver name='vhost' queues='N'/>
</interface>

Isolate CPU Resources in a NUMA Node on KVM

You can improve performance of VM-Series on KVM by isolating the CPU resources of the guest VM to a
single non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node. On KVM, you can view the NUMA topology virsh. The
following example is from a two-node NUMA system:

STEP 1 | View the NUMA topology. In the example below, there are two NUMA nodes (sockets), each
with a four-core CPU with hyperthreading enabled. All the even-numbered CPU IDs belong to
one node and all the odd-numbered CPU IDs belong to the other node.

% virsh capabilities
<…>
<topology>
<cells num='2'>
<cell id='0'>
<memory unit='KiB'>33027228</memory>
<pages unit='KiB' size='4'>8256807</pages>
<pages unit='KiB' size='2048'>0</pages>
<distances>

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 <sibling id='0' value='10'/>
<sibling id='1' value='20'/>
</distances>
<cpus num='8'>
<cpu id='0' socket_id='1' core_id='0' siblings='0,8'/>
<cpu id='2' socket_id='1' core_id='1' siblings='2,10'/>
<cpu id='4' socket_id='1' core_id='2' siblings='4,12'/>
<cpu id='6' socket_id='1' core_id='3' siblings='6,14'/>
<cpu id='8' socket_id='1' core_id='0' siblings='0,8'/>
<cpu id='10' socket_id='1' core_id='1' siblings='2,10'/>
<cpu id='12' socket_id='1' core_id='2' siblings='4,12'/>
<cpu id='14' socket_id='1' core_id='3' siblings='6,14'/>
</cpus>
</cell>
<cell id='1'>
<memory unit='KiB'>32933812</memory>
<pages unit='KiB' size='4'>8233453</pages>
<pages unit='KiB' size='2048'>0</pages>
<distances>
<sibling id='0' value='20'/>
<sibling id='1' value='10'/>
</distances>
<cpus num='8'>
<cpu id='1' socket_id='0' core_id='0' siblings='1,9'/>
<cpu id='3' socket_id='0' core_id='1' siblings='3,11'/>
<cpu id='5' socket_id='0' core_id='2' siblings='5,13'/>
<cpu id='7' socket_id='0' core_id='3' siblings='7,15'/>
<cpu id='9' socket_id='0' core_id='0' siblings='1,9'/>
<cpu id='11' socket_id='0' core_id='1' siblings='3,11'/>
<cpu id='13' socket_id='0' core_id='2' siblings='5,13'/>
<cpu id='15' socket_id='0' core_id='3' siblings='7,15'/>
</cpus>
</cell>
</cells>

STEP 2 | Pin vCPUs in a KVM guest to specific physical vCPUs, use the cpuset attribute in the guest xml
definition. In this example, all 8 vCPUs are pinned to physical CPUs in the first NUMA node.
If you do not wish to explicitly pin the vCPUs, you can omit the cputune block, in which case,
all vCPUs will be pinned to the range of CPUs specified in cpuset, but will not be explicitly
mapped.

<vcpu cpuset='0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14'>8</vcpu>
<cputune>
<vcpupin vcpu='0' cpuset='0'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='1' cpuset='2'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='2' cpuset='4'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='3' cpuset='6'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='4' cpuset='8'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='5' cpuset='10'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='6' cpuset='12'/>
<vcpupin vcpu='7' cpuset='14'/>
</cputune>

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
The VM-Series firewall can be deployed on a server running Microsoft Hyper-V. Hyper-V is
packaged as a standalone hypervisor or as an add-on/role for Windows Server.

> Supported Deployments on Hyper-V

> System Requirements on Hyper-V
> Linux Integration Services
> Install the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V

453
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Supported Deployments on Hyper-V
You can deploy one or more instances of the VM-Series on hosts running Hyper-V. Where you place the
VM-Series firewall depends on your network topology. VM-Series supports tap, virtual wire, Layer 2, and
Layer 3 interface deployments.
• Secure Traffic on a Single Hyper-V Host
• Secure Traffic Across Multiple Hyper-V Hosts

Secure Traffic on a Single Hyper-V Host

The VM-Series firewall is deployed on a single Hyper-V host along with other guest VMs. In the example
below, the VM-Series firewall has a Layer 3 interfaces and the VM-Series and other guest VMs are
connected by Hyper-V vSwitches. All traffic between the web servers and database servers is routed
through the firewall. Traffic across the database servers only or across the web servers only is processed by
the external vSwitch and not routed through the firewall.

Secure Traffic Across Multiple Hyper-V Hosts

You can deploy your VM-Series firewall to secure the traffic of multiple Hyper-V hosts. In the example
below, the VM-Series is deployed in Layer 2 mode protecting traffic to and from the guest VMs. A single
VM-Series firewall protects traffic between four guest VMs spread across two Hyper-V hosts. VLAN
tagging is used to logically isolate traffic and direct it to the firewall. Additionally, management traffic is
decoupled from all other traffic by placing it on its own external vSwitch.

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System Requirements on Hyper-V
The VM-Series requires a minimum resource allocation on the Hyper-V host, so make sure to conform to
the requirements listed below to ensure optimal performance.
• The host CPU must be a 64-bit x86-based Intel or AMD CPU with virtualization extension.
• See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-Series
model.
• Minimum of two network adapters. The VM-Series firewall supports synthetic network adapters, which
provide better performance than emulated network adapters. Hyper-V supports up to eight synthetic
network adapters.
• Refer to the Compatibility matrix for the Windows Server versions supported.
Hyper-V Server does not have a native graphical user interface; all configuration is done through
PowerShell. However, you can use Hyper-V Manager running on a remote machine to manage the
firewall.If you use the Hyper-V role add-on, you can manage the firewall using Hyper-V Manager or
PowerShell.
• The VM-Series firewall does not support Legacy Network Adapter or SR-IOV/PCI-Passthrough.

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Linux Integration Services
Linux Integration Services (LIS) is a package of drivers and services that enhance the performance of Linux-
based virtual machines on Hyper-V. The VM-Series firewall supports the following services to improve the
integration between the host and the virtual machine:
• Graceful Shutdown—Allows you to perform a graceful shutdown of the VM-Series firewall from the
Hyper-V management interface without having to log into the guest.
• Heartbeat to Hyper-V Manager—Provides heartbeat monitoring of the running status of guest VMs
from the Hyper-V management interface.
• Firewall Management IP Address Visibility—Allows you to use Hyper-V Manager to view the IP address
assigned to the management interface on the firewall.

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Install the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
Use the instructions in this section to deploy your VM-Series firewall on a Hyper-V host. A Palo Alto
Networks support account and a valid VM-Series license are required to download the VHDX image file
and install the VM-Series on the Hyper-V host. If you have not already registered the capacity auth-code
that you received with the order fulfillment email, with your support account, see Register the VM-Series
Firewall. After completing the registration continue to the following tasks:
• Before You Begin
• Performance Tuning of the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
• Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with Hyper-V Manager
• Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with PowerShell
• Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series Firewall

Before You Begin

Before installing and configuring your VM-Series firewall, know and account for the following items as
needed when you configure your VM-Series firewall:
• Virtual Switch Types
• MAC Address Spoofing

Virtual Switch Types

Before installing the VM-Series, you must create the vSwitches required for providing external connectivity
for management access and for routing traffic from and to the virtual machines that the firewall will secure.
Hyper-V allows you to create three types of vSwitches:
• External vSwitch—binds to a physical network adapter and provides the vSwitch access to a physical
network.
• Internal vSwitch—passes traffic between the virtual machines and the Hyper-V host. This type of
vSwitch does not provide connectivity to a physical network connection.
• Private vSwitch—passes traffic between the virtual machines on the Hyper-V host only.
An external vSwitch is required for management of the VM-Series firewall. Other vSwitches connected to
the VM-Series firewall can be of any type and will depend on your network topology.

MAC Address Spoofing

If you are deploying the VM-Series firewall with interfaces enabled in Layer 3 mode, make sure to enable
use of hypervisor assigned MAC addresses so that the hypervisor and the firewall can properly handle
packets. Alternatively, use the Hyper-V Manager to enable MAC address spoofing on the virtual network
adapter for each dataplane interface on the firewall. For more information, see Hypervisor Assigned MAC
Addresses.
If you are deploying the VM-Series firewall with interfaces enabled in Layer 2 mode or virtual-wire mode,
you must enable MAC address spoofing on the virtual network adapter in Hyper-V for each dataplane
interface on the firewall. This setting is required to ensure that packets sent by the VM-Series are not
dropped by the virtual network adapter if the source MAC address does not match the outgoing interface
MAC address.

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Performance Tuning of the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
The VM-Series firewall for Hyper-V is a high-performance appliance but may require tuning of the
hypervisor to achieve the best results. This section describes some best practices and recommendations for
facilitating the best performance of the VM-Series firewall.
• Disable Virtual Machine Queues
• Isolate CPU Resources in a NUMA Node

Disable Virtual Machine Queues

Palo Alto Networks recommends disabling virtual machine queues (VMQ) for all NICs on the Hyper-V host.
This option is prone to misconfiguration and can cause reduced network performance when enabled.

STEP 1 | Login to Hyper-V Manager and select your VM.

STEP 2 | Select Settings > Hardware > Network Adapter > Hardware Acceleration.

STEP 3 | Under Virtual machine queue, uncheck Enable virtual machine queue.

STEP 4 | Click Apply save your changes and OK to exit the VM settings.

Isolate CPU Resources in a NUMA Node

You can improve performance of VM-Series for Hyper-V by isolating the CPU resources of the guest VM to
a single non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node. You can view the NUMA settings of your VM in Hyper-
V Manager by selecting Settings > Hardware > Processor > NUMA.

Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with Hyper-V

Manager
Use these instructions to deploy the VM-Series firewall on Hyper-V using Hyper-V Manager.

STEP 1 | Download the VHDX file.

Register your VM-Series firewall and obtain the VHDX file.
1. Go to https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/services/support.
2. Filter by PAN-OS for VM-Series Base Images and download the VHDX file. For example, PA-VM-
HPV-7.1.0.vhdx.

STEP 2 | Set up any vSwitch(es) that you will need.

To create a vSwitch:
1. From Hyper-V Manager, select the host and select Action > Virtual Switch Manager to open the
Virtual Switch Manager window.
2. Under Create virtual switch, select the type of vSwitch (external, internal, or private) to create and
click Create Virtual Switch.

STEP 3 | Install the firewall.

1. On the Hyper-V Manager, select the host and select Action > New > Virtual Machine. Configure the
following settings in the New Virtual Machine Wizard:
1. Choose a Name and Location for the VM-Series firewall. The VM-Series firewall stores the VHDX
file at the specified location.

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 2. Choose Generation 1. This is the default option and the only version supported.
3. For Startup Memory, assign the memory based on the VM-Series System Requirements of your
VM-Series model.

Do not enable dynamic memory; the VM-Series firewall requires static memory
allocation.

4. Configure Networking. Select an external vSwitch to connect the management interface on the
firewall.
5. To connect the Virtual Hard Disk, select Use an existing virtual hard disk and browse to the
VHDX file you downloaded earlier.
6. Review the summary and click Finish.
2. Assign virtual CPUs to the firewall.
1. Select the VM you created and navigate to Action > Settings.
2. Select Processor and enter the minimum number of CPUs based on the VM-Series System
Requirements of your VM-Series model..
3. Click OK.

STEP 4 | Connect at least one network adapter for the dataplane interface on the firewall.
1. Select Settings > Hardware > Add Hardware and select the Hardware type for your network
adapter.

Legacy Network Adapter and SR-IOV are not supported. If selected, the VM-Series
firewall will boot into maintenance mode.
2. Click OK.

STEP 5 | (Optional) Enable MAC address spoofing on Hyper-V if you are not using Layer 3 with
hypervisor assigned MAC address.
1. Double click the dataplane virtual network adapter and click Advanced Settings.
2. Click the Enable MAC address spoofing check box and click Apply.

STEP 6 | Power on the firewall.

Select the firewall from the list of Virtual Machines and navigate to Action > Start to power on the
firewall.

Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with

PowerShell
Use these instructions to deploy the VM-Series firewall on Hyper-V using PowerShell.

STEP 1 | Download the VHDX file.

Register your VM-Series firewall and obtain the VHDX file.
1. Go to https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/services/support.
2. Filter by PAN-OS for VM-Series Base Images and download the VHDX file. For example, PA-VM-
HPV-7.1.0.vhdx.

STEP 2 | Set up any vSwitch(es) that you will need.

Create a vSwitch by using the following commands. Give the vSwitch a name and choose the switch
type.

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 > New-VMSwitch -Name <"switch-name"> -SwitchType <switch-type>

STEP 3 | Install the VM-Series firewall.

1. Create the new virtual machine and set the memory based on the VM-Series System Requirements of
your VM-Series model.

> NEW-VM -Name <vm-name> -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB -VHDPath <file-path-to-

vhdx>
2. Set processor count based on the VM-Series System Requirements of your VM-Series model.

> SET-VMProcessor –VMName <vm-name> –Count 2

STEP 4 | Connect at least one network adapter for the management interface on the firewall.
Connect the default network adapter created during VM creation to management vSwitch.

> connect-VMNetworkAdapter -vmname <vm-name> -Name <"network-adapter-name">

-SwitchName <"management-vswitch">

STEP 5 | (Optional) Enable MAC address spoofing on Hyper-V if you are not using Layer 3 with
hypervisor assigned MAC address.

> Set-VMNetworkAdapter -vmname <vm-name> -Name <"network-adapter-name"> -

MacAddressSpoofing On

STEP 6 | Power on the firewall.

For example:

> Start-VM -vmname <vm-name>

Perform Initial Configuration on the VM-Series Firewall

Use these instructions to perform the initial configuration of your VM-Series firewall. By default, the VM-
Series firewall uses DHCP to obtain an IP address for the management interface. However, you can assign
a static IP address. After completing the initial configuration, access the web interface to complete further
configurations tasks. If you have Panorama for central management, refer to the Panorama Administrator’s
Guide for information on managing the device using Panorama.
If you are using bootstrapping to perform the configuration of your VM-Series firewall on Hyper-V, refer to
Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V. For general information about bootstrapping, see Bootstrap
the VM-Series Firewall.

STEP 1 | Gather the required information from your network administrator.

• Management port IP address
• Netmask
• Default gateway
• DNS server IP address

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STEP 2 | Access the console of the VM-Series firewall.
1. In Hyper-V Manager, select the VM-Series firewall and click Connect from the Actions list.
2. Log in to the firewall with the default username and password: admin/admin
3. Enter configuration mode using the following command: configure

STEP 3 | Configure the network access settings for the management interface.
Enter the following commands:

set deviceconfig system type static

set deviceconfig system ip-address <Firewall-IP> netmask <netmask>

default-gateway <gateway-IP> dns-settingservers primary <DNS-IP>

where <Firewall-IP> is the IP address you want to assign to the management interface, <netmask> is the
subnet mask, <gateway-IP> is the IP address of the network gateway, and <DNS-IP> is the IP address of
the DNS server.

STEP 4 | Commit your changes and exit the configuration mode.

1. Enter commit.
2. Enter exit.

STEP 5 | Verify that you can view the management interface IP address from the Hyper-V Manager.
1. Select the VM-Series firewall from the list of Virtual Machines.
2. Select Networking. The first network adapter that displays in the list is used for management access
to the firewall; subsequent adapters in the list are used as the dataplane interfaces on the firewall.

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STEP 6 | Verify network access to external services required for firewall management, such as the Palo
Alto Networks Update Server.
1. Use the ping utility to verify network connectivity to the Palo Alto Networks Update server as shown
in the following example. Verify that DNS resolution occurs and the response includes the IP address
for the Update server; the update server does not respond to a ping request.

admin@PA-220 > ping host updates.paloaltonetworks.com

PING updates.paloaltonetworks.com (10.101.16.13) 56(84) bytes of data.

From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.1 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable

After verifying DNS resolution, press Ctrl+C to stop the ping request.

2. Use the following CLI command to retrieve information on the support entitlement for the firewall
from the Palo Alto Networks update server:

request support
check

If you have connectivity, the update server will respond with the support status for your firewall.

STEP 7 | (Optional) Verify that your VM-Series jumbo frame configuration does not exceed the maximum
MTU supported on Hyper-V.
The VM-Series has a default MTU size of 9216 bytes when jumbo frames are enabled. However, the
maximum MTU size supported by the physical network adapter on the Hyper-V host is 9000 or 9014
bytes depending on the network adapter capabilities. To verify the configured MTU on Hyper-V:
1. In Windows Server 2012 R2, open the Control Panel and navigate to Network and Internet >
Network and Sharing Center > View network status and tasks.
2. Click on a network adapter or virtual switch from the list.
3. Click Properties.
4. Click Configure.
5. On the Advanced tab, select Jumbo Packet from the list.
6. Select 9000 or 9014 bytes from the Value drop-down menu.
7. Click OK.
If you have enabled jumbo frames on Hyper-V, Enable Jumbo Frames on the VM-Series Firewall and set
the MTU size to match that configured on the Hyper-V host.

STEP 8 | Access the web interface of the VM-Series firewall and configure the interfaces and define
security rules and NAT rules to safely enable the applications you want to secure.
Refer to the PAN-OS Administrator’s Guide.

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Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
VM-Series firewall on Azure brings the security features of Palo Alto Networks next
generation firewall as a virtual machine in the Azure Marketplace. The VM-Series firewall
provides a complete set of security functionality to ensure that your virtual machine workloads
and data are protected, and the capabilities that the firewall enables are different from native
security features such as Security Groups, Web Application Firewalls and native, port-based
firewalls.
On Azure, the VM-Series firewall is available in the bring your own license (BYOL) model or in
the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) hourly model. Microsoft Azure allows you to deploy the firewall to
secure your workloads within the virtual network in the cloud, so that you can deploy a public
cloud solution or you can extend the on-premises IT infrastructure to create a hybrid solution.

> About the VM-Series Firewall on Azure

> Deployments Supported on Azure
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure Marketplace (Solution Template)
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure China Marketplace (Solution Template)
> Panorama Orchestrated Deployments in Azure
> Create a Custom VM-Series Image for Azure
> Use Azure Security Center Recommendations to Secure Your Workloads
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Azure Stack
> Enable Azure Application Insights on the VM-Series Firewall
> VM Monitoring on Azure
> Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure
> Use the ARM Template to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall
> Deploy the VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template
> Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure

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About the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
The VM-Series firewall on Azure must be deployed in a virtual network (VNet) using the Resource Manager
deployment mode. You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on the standard Azure public cloud, Azure China,
and Azure Government—including DoD on Azure Government, which meets the security requirements for
DoD Impact Level 5 data and FedRAMP High standards.
The VM-Series firewall on the marketplace for the Azure public cloud, Azure Government, and Azure DoD
regions, supports both the Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model and the hourly Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG)
option (usage-based licensing) For licensing details, see License Types—VM-Series Firewalls, and refer to
the list of supported Azure regions in which you can deploy the VM-Series firewall.
For Azure China, the VM-Series firewall is available in the BYOL option only. See Deploy the VM-Series
Firewall from the Azure China Marketplace (Solution Template) for the workflow.
You can also deploy the VM-Series firewall on Azure Stack, Microsoft's private cloud solution that enables
you to use Azure services within your organization's datacenter. With Azure Stack, you can build out a
hybrid cloud solution that unifies your public Azure deployment with your on-premise Azure Stack set up.
You can download the VM-Series firewall BYOL offer from the Azure Marketplace and make it available to
your tenants on Azure Stack. For instructions, see Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Azure Stack.
• Azure Networking and VM-Series Firewall
• Azure Security Center Integration
• VM-Series Firewall Templates on Azure
• Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series on Azure
• Support for High Availability on VM-Series on Azure

Azure Networking and VM-Series Firewall

The Azure VNet infrastructure does not require virtual machines to have a network interface in each
subnet. The architecture includes an internal route table (called system routes) that directly connects all
virtual machines within a VNet such that traffic is automatically forwarded to a virtual machine in any
subnet. For a destination IP address that is not within the VNet, the traffic is sent to the default Internet
gateway or to a VPN gateway, if configured. In order to route traffic through the VM-Series firewall, you
must create user defined routes (UDRs) that specify the next hop for traffic leaving a subnet. This route
forces traffic destined to another subnet to go to the VM-Series firewall instead of using the system routes
to directly access the virtual machine in the other subnet. For example, in a two-tiered application with
a web tier and a database tier, you can set up UDRs for directing traffic from the web subnet to the DB
subnet through the VM-Series firewall.

On Azure, UDRs are for traffic leaving a subnet only. You cannot create user defined routes
to specify how traffic comes into a subnet from the Internet or to route traffic to virtual
machines within a subnet. UDRs allow you to direct outbound traffic to an interface on the
VM-Series firewall so that you can always ensure that the firewall secures traffic to the
internet also.
For documentation on Microsoft Azure, refer to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/
documentation/.

The solution templates for deploying the VM-Series firewall that are available in the Azure Marketplace,
have three network interfaces. To Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure, you will need to add an additional
interface for the HA2 link. If you want to customize the template, use the ARM templates that are available
in the GitHub repository.

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Azure Security Center Integration
Microsoft has deprecated Azure Security Center support for partner security solutions and replaced it with
Azure Sentinel.
The VM-Series firewall is integrated with Azure Security Center to provide a unified view for monitoring
and alerting on the security posture of your Azure workloads. On Azure Security Center, the VM-Series
firewall is available as a partner security solution that protects your Azure workloads from threats and
mitigates any gaps in securing your business and intellectual property in the public cloud. To enable this
integration and display logs as security alerts directly on the Azure Security Center dashboard, the VM-
Series firewall on Azure includes a Log Forwarding profile.
To get started, you need to enable Azure Security Center on your Azure subscription. You then have two
ways in which you can enable this integration:
• Deploy the VM-Series firewall based on a recommendation on the Azure Security Center dashboard.

When the Azure Security Center dashboard recommends that you deploy a VM-Series firewall to secure
a workload that is exposed to the internet, you can only deploy the firewall in an new resource group or
an existing resource group that is empty. This is because Azure currently restricts you from deploying
a multi NIC appliance in an existing resource group. Therefore, after you deploy the VM-Series firewall
you must manually configure it to be in the path of traffic of the workload that you need to secure.
When you deploy the firewall from Azure Security Center, the firewall is launched with three network
interfaces—management, external facing (untrust) and internal facing (trust)—and a user defined route
(UDR) that sends all outbound traffic from the trust subnet to the trust interface on the firewall so
that internet-bound traffic is always inspected by the firewall. The default configuration includes two
example Security Policy rules—the outbound-default rule allows all traffic from the trust zone to the
untrust zone on the application default port, and the inbound-default rule allows all web-browsing traffic
from the untrust zone to the trust zone, after inspecting traffic with the default Antivirus, Anti-spyware,
and Vulnerability Protection security profiles. The firewall also forwards all files that are intercepted with
the inbound or outbound rule to the WildFire public cloud for analysis. Both rules include a URL Filtering
profile that blocks all traffic to the URL categories copyright-infringement, dynamic-dns, extremism,
malware, phishing, and unknown. In addition to these security profiles, both Security policy rules are
enabled to log at session end and to forward Threat and WildFire Submissions logs as security alerts to
the Azure Security Center dashboard.
To make practical use of this integration and Deploy a VM-Series Firewall Based on an Azure Security
Center Recommendationwithin the same resource group as the workloads you want to secure, you can
stage a workload with a public IP address that is exposed to the internet. When Azure Security Center
detects the security risk, it triggers a recommendation to deploy a next-generation firewall, and you can

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 then deploy the VM-Series firewall in a new resource group into which you can add your workloads
later. You must then delete the workload that you staged to trigger the recommendation.
• Select a VM-Series firewall that you have already deployed for securing your workloads. If you have
a Standard tier of Azure Security Center subscription, Azure Security Center discovers and displays
all existing VM-Series firewalls that you have deployed either from the Azure Marketplace or using a
customized deployment with Azure CLI, PowerShell or ARM template. The firewalls within your Azure
subscription are grouped under Security Solutions on the Azure Security Center dashboard.
Microsoft Azure does not support the discovery of existing firewalls with the Free tier subscription.

To Connect an Existing VM-Series Firewall From Azure Security Center, you must set up a Linux virtual
machine and configure Syslog forwarding to forward firewall logs in the Common Event Format as alerts
to Azure Security Center. The additional configuration enables a single pane of glass view for monitoring
all your Azure assets.

Forwarding a large volume of logs to Azure Security Center, may result in additional
subscription cost to you.

VM-Series Firewall Templates on Azure

You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on Azure using templates. Palo Alto Networks provides two kinds of
templates—Solution templates and ARM templates.
• Solution Templates in the Azure Marketplace —The solution templates that are available in the Azure
Marketplace allow you to deploy the VM-Series firewall using the Azure portal. You can use an existing
resource group and storage account (or create them new) to deploy the VM-Series firewall with the
following default settings for all regions except Azure China:
• VNet CIDR 10.8.0.0/16; you can customize the CIDR to a different private IP address range.
• Three subnets— 10.8.0.0/24 (management), 10.8.1.0/24 (untrust), 10.8.2.0/24 (trust)
• Three network interfaces, one in each subnet. If you customize the VNet CIDR, the subnet ranges
map to your changes.
To use the solution template, see Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure Marketplace (Solution
Template) for Azure China, see Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure China Marketplace
(Solution Template).

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 • ARM Templates in the GitHub Repository—In addition to Marketplace based deployments, Palo Alto
Networks provides Azure Resource Manager templates in the GitHub Repository to simplify the process
of deploying the VM-Series firewall on Azure.
• Use the ARM Template to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall—The basic ARM template includes two
JSON files (a Template file and a Parameters File) to help you deploy and provision all the resources
within the VNet in a single, coordinated operation. These templates are provided under an as-is, best
effort, support policy.

If you want to use the Azure CLI to locate all the images available from Palo Alto
Networks, you the need the following details to complete the command (show vm-
image list):
• Publisher: paloaltonetworks
• Offer: vmseries-flex
• SKU: byol, bundle1, bundle 2
• Version: 10.0.0, or latest
• Deploy the VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template to support a scale out security
architecture that protects your internet-facing web applications using two VM-Series firewalls
between a pair of (external and internal) Azure load balancers VM-Series and Azure Application
Gateway. This template is currently not available for Azure China.
• Use the ARM template to deploy the VM-Series firewall in to an existing Resource Group, for
example when you want to Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure.
In addition to the ARM templates above that are covered under the Palo Alto Networks official support
policy, Palo Alto Networks provides Community supported templates in the Palo Alto Networks GitHub
repository that allow you to explore the solutions available to jumpstart your journey in to cloud automation
and scale on Azure.

Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series on Azure

You must deploy the VM-Series firewall in the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) mode only; the classic mode
(Service Management based deployments) is not supported. The VM-Series firewall on Azure must meet the
following requirements:
• Azure Linux VMs of the following types—Supported models.
These types include support for Accelerated Networking (SR-IOV).
• For memory, disk and CPU cores required to deploy the VM-Series firewall, see VM-Series System
Requirements.
You can add additional disk space of 40GB to 8TB for logging purposes. The VM-Series firewall uses
Azure managed disks where available; it does not utilize the temporary disk that Azure provides with
some instance types.
• Up to eight network interfaces (NICs). A primary interface is required for management access and up to
seven interfaces for data traffic.
On Azure, because a virtual machine does not require a network interface in each subnet, you can set up
the VM-Series firewall with three network interfaces (one for management traffic and two for dataplane
traffic). To create zone-based policy rules on the firewall, in addition to the management interface, you
need at least two dataplane interfaces so that you can assign one dataplane interface to the trust zone,
and the other dataplane interface to the untrust zone. For an HA deployment, you will need another
interface for the HA2 link between the HA peers.
Because the Azure VNet is a Layer 3 network, the VM-Series firewall on Azure supports Layer 3
interfaces only.

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Support for High Availability on VM-Series on Azure
To ensure availability, you can Set up Active/Passive HA on Azurein a traditional configuration with
session synchronization, or use a scale out architecture using cloud-native load balancers such as the Azure
Application Gateway or Azure Load Balancer to distribute traffic across a set of healthy instances of the
firewall. For details, see Deploy the VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template.

VM-Series on Azure Service Principal Permissions

For Panorama to interact with the Azure APIs and collect information on your workloads, you need to
create an Azure Active Directory application and a Service Principal that has the permissions required to
authenticate with Azure AD and access the resources within your subscription.
To create the Active Directory application and Service Principal, follow the instructions in How to: Use
the portal to create an Azure AD application and service principal that can access resources. During the
application generation process, there is a step to "Assign application to role" and assign an IAM role of
"reader" to the application.
If you don't have the necessary permissions to create and register the AD application, ask your Azure AD or
subscription administrator to create a Service Principal.
After the application has been registered, record these values so you can enter them in the Panorama plugin
for Azure at a later time:
• Application ID
• Secret Key (record it when you make the secret key; the secret key is not visible once you navigate away
from the page).
• Tenant ID

Permissions
The following table lists the minimum built-in roles required and the granular permissions if you would like
to customize the role.

To support Permissions

Azure High Availability See Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure.

Azure Application Insights “Microsoft.Authorization/*/read”,

Enable Azure Application “Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/*”,
Insights on the VM-Series
“Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/*”,
Firewall
“Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/*”,
“Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read”

Azure Monitoring Requires a minimum Role of Reader for Service Principal. Alternatively,
you can add the following custom permissions:
Set Up the Azure Plugin for
Monitoring on Panorama “Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read”,
“Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/read”,
“Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/read”,
“Microsoft.Network/locations/serviceTags/read”
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/read",

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 To support Permissions
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/read"
"Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups/
read",

Panorama Orchestrated “Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups/*”,

Deployments
“Microsoft.Resources/deployments/write”,
Create a Custom Role and
“Microsoft.Resources/deployments/operationStatuses/
Associate it with an Active
read”,
Directory
“Microsoft.Resources/deployments/read”,
“Microsoft.Resources/deployments/delete”

"Microsoft.Network/publicIPPrefixes/write",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPPrefixes/read",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPPrefixes/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/write",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/read",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/join/action",

"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/write",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/read",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/join/action",

"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/read",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/write",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/write",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/read",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/join/
action",

"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/
virtualNetworkPeerings/read",

"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/write",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/read",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/join/
action",

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To support Permissions

"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/write",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/read",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/probes/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/backendAddressPools/
join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/
frontendIPConfigurations/read",

"Microsoft.Network/locations/serviceTags/read",

"Microsoft.Network/applicationGateways/read",
"Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/read",

"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/write",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/read",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/delete",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/
virtualMachines/read",

"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read",

"Microsoft.Compute/images/read",

"Microsoft.insights/components/write",
"Microsoft.insights/components/read",
"Microsoft.insights/components/delete",

"Microsoft.insights/autoscalesettings/write"

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Deployments Supported on Azure
Use the VM-Series firewall on Azure to secure your network users in the following scenarios:
• Hybrid and VNet to VNet—The VM-Series firewall on Azure allows you to securely extend your physical
data center/private cloud into Azure using IPSec and ExpressRoute. To improve your data center
security, if you have segmented your network and deployed your workloads in separate VNets, you can
secure traffic flowing between VNets with an IPSec tunnel and policies that allow application traffic.

• Inter-Subnet —The VM-Series firewall can front your servers in a VNet and protects against lateral
threats for inter-subnet traffic between applications in a multi-tier architecture.
• Gateway—The VM-Series firewall serves as the VNet gateway to protect Internet-facing deployments in
the Azure Virtual Network (VNet). The VM-Series firewall secures traffic destined to the servers in the
VNet and it also protects against lateral threats for inter-subnet traffic between applications in a multi-
tier architecture.
• GlobalProtect—Use the Azure infrastructure to quickly and easily deploy the VM-Series firewall as
GlobalProtect™ and extend your gateway security policy to remote users and devices, regardless of
location.
You can continue with Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure Marketplace (Solution Template),
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Azure Stack, or Orchestrate a VM-Series Firewall Deployment in Azure.
You can also learn about the VM-Series Firewall Templates on Azure that you can use to deploy the
firewall.
For information on bootstrapping, see Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Azure.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure
Marketplace (Solution Template)
The following instructions describe how to deploy the solution template for the VM-Series firewall that
is available in the Azure® Marketplace and the Azure Government Marketplace. To use the customizable
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates available in the GitHub repository, see Use the ARM Template to
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Set up an Azure account.

1. If you don’t have one already, create a Microsoft® account.
2. Log in to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com or https://portal.azure.us) using
your Microsoft account credentials.

If you are using a trial subscription, you may need to open a support request (Help +
Support > New Support Request) to increase the quota of allocated VM cores.

STEP 2 | Find the VM-Series solution template in the Azure Marketplace.

1. Select Marketplace > Virtual Machines.
2. Search for Palo Alto Networks® and a list of offerings for the VM-Series firewall will display. For the
differences in the BYOL (bring your own license) and PAYG (pay as you go) models, see VM-Series
Firewall Licenses for Public Clouds.

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 3. Select an offering to Create a new VM-Series firewall.

STEP 3 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Configure basic settings for the firewall.
1. Select your Azure Subscription.
2. Create a new resource group or select an existing resource group that is empty. The resource
group will hold all the resources associated with the VM-Series firewall for this deployment.

Azure has removed the option to select an existing resource group for Marketplace
solutions that enable multiple network interface controllers (NICs). To deploy
the firewall into an existing resource group, use the ARM template in the GitHub
Repository or use your own custom ARM template.
3. Select the Azure Region in which you are deploying the firewall.
4. Enter a Username for the firewall administrator.
5. Select the Authentication type—Password or SSH Public Key.

You must enable SSH key authentication if you plan to use the firewall in FIPS-
CC operational mode. Although you can deploy the VM-Series firewall using a
username and password, you will be unable to authenticate using the username
and password after changing the operational mode to FIPS-CC. After resetting
to FIPS-CC mode, you must use the SSH key to log in and can then configure
a username and password that you can use for subsequently logging in to the
firewall web interface. For details on creating the SSH key, refer to the Azure
documentation.
6. Enter a Password (up to 31 characters) or copy and paste an SSH public key for securing
administrative access to the firewall.
2. Configure networking.
1. Select an existing Azure Virtual Network (VNet) or create a new one and enter the IP address
space for the VNet. By default, the Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) IP address is
10.8.0.0/16.
2. Configure the subnets for the network interfaces.

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 If you use the default subnets, you must review the configuration. If you use an existing VNet,
you must have set up three subnets: one each for the management,trust, and untrust interfaces.
If you create a new VNet, verify or change the prefixes for each subnet. The default subnets are
10.8.0.0/24 for the management subnet, 10.8.1.0/24 for the untrust subnet, and 10.8.2.0/24 for
the trust subnet.
3. Enter the source IP address or IP range (include the CIDR block) that can access the VNet.
Network Security Group: inbound source IP allows you to restrict inbound access to the Azure
VNet.

Restrict access to the firewall. Make sure to supply a CIDR block that corresponds
to your dedicated management IP addresses or network. Do not make the allowed
source network range larger than necessary and never configure the allowed
source as 0.0.0.0/0. Verify your IP address before you configure it on the template
to make sure that you do not lock yourself out.

3. Define management access to the firewall.

1. Use the default variable ((new) fwMgmtPublicIP)) to assign a Public IP address to the management
interface (eth0) of the firewall.

Azure accelerated networking is not supported on the management interface.

2. Enter a prefix to access the firewall using a DNS name. You must combine the prefix you enter
with the suffix displayed on screen to access the web interface of the firewall. For example:
<yourname><your-region>.cloudapp.azure.com
3. Select latest VM-Series Version.
4. Enter a display name to identify the VM-Series firewall within the resource group.

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 4. Add the information to configure the firewall at launch. See Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on
Azure.
1. Select yes to Enable Bootstrap.
2. Enter the Storage Account Name that holds the Bootstrap Package.
3. Enter the Storage Account Access Key. This firewall needs this access key to authenticate to the
storage account and access the files stored within.
4. Add the File share name to which you have uploaded the files required for bootstrapping the
firewall. The storage account must be in the same region in which you are deploying the firewall
and it must have the correct folder structure for bootstrapping.
5. Select the Azure virtual machine tier and size to meet your needs. Use the Change size link to
view supported instance types, and to review the Minimum System Requirements for the VM-
Series on Azure.
5. Review the summary, and OK. Then accept the terms of use and privacy policy, and Create to launch
the firewall.

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 6. Verify that you have successfully deployed the VM-Series firewall.
1. Select Dashboard > Resource Groups and select the resource group.
2. Select your resource group and see the Overview for detailed status on which resources are
deployed successfully.

STEP 4 | Attach a public IP address for the untrust interface of the VM-Series firewall. When you create
a new public IP address, you get one from the block of IP addresses that Microsoft owns, so
you can’t choose a specific one. The maximum number of public IP addresses you can assign to
an interface is based on your Azure subscription.
1. On the Azure portal, select the network interface for which you want to add a public IP address (such
as the eth1 interface).
2. Select IP Configurations > Add and, for Public IP address, select Enabled. Create a new public IP
address or select one that you have available.
3. Verify that you can view the secondary IP address associated with the interface.

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 When you attach a secondary IP address to a network interface, the VM-Series firewall
does not automatically acquire the private IP address assigned to the interface. You
will need to manually configure the private IP address using the VM-Series firewall web
interface. See Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the
firewall.

STEP 5 | Log in to the web interface of the firewall.

1. On the Azure portal, in All Resources, select the VM-Series firewall and view the full DNS name for
the firewall.

1. Using a secure (https) connection from your web browser, log in to the DNS name for the firewall.
2. Enter the usernamepassword that you defined in the parameters file. You will see a certificate
warning but that is OK—continue to the web page.

STEP 6 | Activate the licenses on the VM-Series firewall.

For the BYOL version
1. Create a Support Account.
2. Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code).
3. On the firewall web interface, select Device > Licenses and select Activate feature using
authentication code.
4. Enter the capacity authentication code (auth-code) that you registered on the support portal. The
firewall will connect to the update server (updates.paloaltonetworks.com), and download the
license and reboot automatically.
5. Log back in to the web interface and confirm the following on the Dashboard:
• A valid serial number displays in Serial#.

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 If the term Unknown displays, it means the firewall is not licensed. To view traffic logs on the
firewall, you must install a valid capacity license.
• The VM Mode displays as Microsoft Azure.
For the PAYG version
1. Create a Support Account.
2. Register the Usage-Based Model of the VM-Series Firewall for Public Clouds (no auth code).

STEP 7 | Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall.
If you are hosting multiple websites or services with different IP addresses and SSL certificates on
a single server, you might need to configure more than one IP address on the VM-Series firewall
interfaces.
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
2. Click ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Set Interface Type to Layer3 (default).
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• Also on the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone called UnTrust, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select DHCP Client if you plan to assign only one IP address on the interface
—the firewall will automatically acquire the private IP address assigned in the ARM template. If
you plan to assign more than one IP address, select Static and manually enter the primary and
secondary IP addresses assigned to the interface on the Azure portal.
• Disable (clear) the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by server to
ensure that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly to the default gateway in the
VNet.
3. Click ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Set Interface Type to Layer3 (default).
• Set Security Zone to Trust.
• Set IP address DHCP Client or Static.
• Disable (clear) the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by serverto
ensure that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly to the default gateway in the
VNet.
4. Commit your changes and verify that the link state for the interfaces is up.
5. Add a static route on the virtual router of the VM-Series firewall for any networks that the firewall
needs to route.
For example, to add a default route to the destination subnets for the servers that the firewall
secures:
• Select Network > Virtual Router > default >
• Select Static Routes > IPv4, and add the next hop IP address for the destination servers. You
can set x.x.x.1 as the next hop IP address for all traffic (destined to 0.0.0.0/0 from interface
ethernet1/1).

STEP 8 | Configure the firewall for your specific deployment.

• Gateway—Deploy a third-party load balancer in front of the UnTrust zone.
• Hybrid and Inter-VNet—Deploy an Azure VPN Gateway or a NAT virtual machine in front the
UnTrust zone.
• Inter-Subnet—On the VM-Series firewall, add an intrazone Security policy rule to allow traffic based
on the subnets attached to the Trust interface.
• GlobalProtect™—Deploy a NAT virtual machine in front of the UnTrust zone.

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STEP 9 | Direct traffic to the VM-Series firewall.
1. To ensure that the VM-Series firewall secures all traffic within the Azure resource group, configure
static routes on the firewall.
2. Configure user defined routes to direct all traffic through the interfaces on the VM-Series firewall.
Refer to the Azure documentation on UDRs for details.
The user defined routes on the internal subnets must send all traffic through the Trust interface.
The user defined routes on the UnTrust side direct all traffic from the Internet through the UnTrust
interface on the VM-Series firewall. The traffic from the Internet may be coming from an Azure
Application Gateway or Azure Load Balancer, or through the Azure VPN Gateway in the case of a
hybrid deployment that connects your on-premise network with the Azure cloud.

STEP 10 | To publish PAN-OS® metrics to Azure Application Insights, see Enable Azure Application
Insights on the VM-Series Firewall.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure
China Marketplace (Solution Template)
The following instructions show you how to deploy the solution template for the VM-Series firewall that
is available in the Azure China Marketplace. The Azure China Marketplace supports only the BYOL model
of the VM-Series firewall. You can deploy the firewall in a existing resource group that is empty or into a
new resource group. The default VNet in the template is 10.0.0.0/16, and it deploys a VM-Series firewall
has 3 network interfaces, one management and two dataplane interfaces as shown below. To use the
customizable ARM templates available in the GitHub repository, see Use the ARM Template to Deploy the
VM-Series Firewall.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Set up an Azure account.

1. Create a Microsoft account.
2. Log in to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com) using your Microsoft account
credentials.

If you are using a trial subscription, you may need to open a support request (Help +
Support > New Support Request) to increase the quota of allocated VM cores.

STEP 2 | Find the VM-Series solution template in the Azure Marketplace.

1. Search for Palo Alto Networks on the Azure China marketplace (https://market.azure.cn). The
offering for the different PAN-OS versions of the VM-Series firewalls displays.

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 2. Select an offering and click Immediate deployment of.

STEP 3 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Select your Azure Subscription.
2. Select a resource group for holding all the resources associated with the VM-Series firewall in this
deployment.

You can deploy the VM-Series firewall into a new Resource Group, or an existing
Resource Group that is empty. To deploy the firewall into an existing resource group
that has other resources, use the ARM template in the GitHub Repository or your own
custom ARM template. Ensure that the existing resources match the parameter values
you provide in the ARM template.

1. If you create a new resource group, enter a name for the resource group and select the Azure
China region where you want to deploy the firewall.
2. If you select an existing resource group, select the Azure China region for this resource group, and
select complete deployment.
3. Configure basic settings for the firewall.
1. Enter the storage account name for an existing account or create a new one.
2. Enter the name for the blob storage container to which the firewall vhd mage will be copied and
saved.
3. Enter a DNS name for accessing the Public IP address on the management interface (eth0) of the
firewall. To access the web interface of the firewall, you must combine the prefix you enter with
the suffix, for example <yourDNSname><china_region>.cloudapp.azure.com.
4. Enter a Username for the firewall administrator.
5. Enter a Password for securing administrative access to the firewall.
6. Select the Azure virtual machine tier and size to meet your needs. See Minimum System
Requirements for the VM-Series on Azure.
7. Enter a VmName, which is a display name to identify the VM-Series firewall within the resource
group.
8. Use a PublicIPAddressName to label the firewall management interface within the resource
group. Microsoft Azure binds the DNS name that you defined with this name so that you can
access the management interface on the firewall from the public internet.
9. Enter a VirtualNetworkName to identify your VNet. The default IP Address Prefix for the VNet is
10.0.0.0/16. You can change this to meet your IP addressing needs.
10.Configure the subnets for the network interfaces. If you use an existing VNet, you must have
defined three subnets, one each for the management, trust and untrust interfaces. If you create
a new VNet, verify or change the prefixes for each subnet. The default subnets are 10.0.1.0/24,
10.0.2.0/24, and 10.0.3.0/24. You can allocate these subnets to the management, trust, and
untrust interfaces as you would like.
4. Review the summary, accept the terms of use and privacy policy, and click Immediate deployment to
deploy the firewall. The deployment maybe take 20 minutes and you can use the link on the page to
verify progress.

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 5. Verify that you have successfully deployed the VM-Series firewall.
1. Log in to the Azure China portal (https://portal.azure.cn) using your Microsoft account credentials.
2. Select Dashboard > Resource Groups, select the resource group.
3. Select All Settings > Deployments > Deployment History for detailed status

STEP 4 | Attach a public IP address for the untrust interface of the VM-Series firewall. This allows you
to access the interface from the public internet and is useful for any internet-facing application
or service.
1. On the Azure portal, select the network interface for which you want to add a public IP address. For
example the eth1 interface.
2. Select IP Configurations > Add and for Public IP address, select Enabled. Create a new public IP
address or select one that you have available.
3. Verify that you can view the secondary IP address associated with the interface.

When you attach a secondary IP address to a network interface, the VM-Series firewall
does not automatically acquire the private IP address assigned to the interface. You
will need to manually configure the private IP address using the VM-Series firewall web
interface. See Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the
firewall.

Each interface on the VM-Series firewall on Azure can have one dynamic (default) or static private IP
address, and multiple public IP addresses (static or dynamic) associated with it. The maximum number of
public IP addresses you can assign to an interface is based on your Azure subscription. When you create
a new public IP address you get one from the block of IP addresses Microsoft owns, so you can’t choose
a specific one.

STEP 5 | Log in to the web interface of the firewall.

1. On the Azure portal, in All Resources, select the VM-Series firewall and view the full DNS name for
the firewall.

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 2. Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in to the DNS name for the firewall.
3. Enter the username/password you defined earlier. You will see a certificate warning; that is okay.
Continue to the web page.

STEP 6 | Activate the licenses on the VM-Series firewall.

1. Create a Support Account.
2. Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code).
3. On the firewall web interface, select Device > Licenses and select Activate feature using
authentication code.
4. Enter the capacity auth-code that you registered on the support portal. The firewall will connect
to the update server (updates.paloaltonetworks.com), and download the license and reboot
automatically.
5. Log back in to the web interface and confirm the following on the Dashboard:
• A valid serial number displays in Serial#.
If the term Unknown displays, it means the device is not licensed. To view traffic logs on the
firewall, you must install a valid capacity license.
• The VM Mode displays as Microsoft Azure.

STEP 7 | Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall.
If you are hosting multiple websites or services with different IP addresses and SSL certificates on
a single server, you might need to configure more than one IP address on the VM-Series firewall
interfaces.
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
2. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3 (default).
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone called UnTrust, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select DHCP Client if you plan to assign only one IP address on the interface.
The private IP address assigned in the ARM template will be automatically acquired. If you plan
to assign more than one IP address select Static and manually enter the primary and secondary IP
addresses assigned to the interface on the Azure portal.
• Clear the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by server check box.
Disabling this option ensures that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly to the
default gateway in the VNet.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Set Interface Type to Layer3 (default).
• Security Zone: Trust
• IP address: Select DHCP Client or Static.

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 • Clear the Automatically create default route to default gateway provided by server check box.
Disabling this option ensures that traffic handled by this interface does not flow directly to the
default gateway in the VNet.
4. Click Commit. Verify that the link state for the interfaces is up.

STEP 8 | Configure the firewall for your specific deployment.

• Gateway—Deploy a 3rd party load balancer in front of the UnTrust zone.
• Hybrid and Inter-VNet—Deploy an Azure VPN Gateway or a NAT virtual machine in front the
UnTrust zone.
• Inter-Subnet—On the VM-Series firewall, add an intra-zone security policy rule to allow traffic based
on the subnets attached to the Trust interface.
• GlobalProtect—Deploy a NAT virtual machine in front of the UnTrust zone.

STEP 9 | Direct traffic to the VM-Series firewall.

1. To ensure that the VM-Series firewall secures all traffic within the Azure resource group, configure
static routes on the firewall.
2. Configure UDRs to direct all traffic through the interfaces on the VM-Series firewall. Refer to the
Azure documentation on UDRs for details.
The UDRs on the internal subnets must send all traffic through the Trust interface. The UDRs on
the UnTrust side direct all traffic from the Internet through the UnTrust interface on the VM-Series
firewall. The traffic from the Internet may be coming from an Azure Application Gateway or Azure
Load Balancer, or through the Azure VPN Gateway in case of a hybrid deployment that connects
your on-premises network with the Azure cloud.

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Panorama Orchestrated Deployments in Azure
The Panorama plugin for Azure centrally deploys, configures, and monitors your security posture in Azure
cloud. It orchestrates VM-Series deployments in your Azure network so that you can enable security
policies for managed firewalls. The plugin links to your Azure ARM deployment and Azure Monitor pages,
providing visibility into the deployment status, usage, and performance of your VM-Series firewalls.
In Azure, the plugin orchestrates the deployment of Azure resources such as load balancers, subnets
and NAT gateways as well as VM-Series firewall autoscaling sets. In Panorama the plugin automatically
configures Panorama device groups, template stacks, and NAT policies. It reads the tags from your Azure
resources, then centrally enables tag-based policies on a group of firewalls.
The Panorama plugin can orchestrate deployments in one or more regions in your Azure environment. A
deployment can consist of a hub stack or an inbound stack or both, depending on the traffic that needs to
be secured for your deployment:
• A Hub firewall stack protects outbound traffic and East-West traffic between your application
workloads.
• An Inbound firewall stack secures traffic to and from your public facing applications.
You can configure the number of firewalls in each stack. You have the option to configure a static amount
of firewalls in your deployment or a range for the VMSS to use for scaling. Both stacks in the deployment
create a VMSS of VM-Series firewalls and they can each scale up to as many as 25 firewalls.
Hub Stack
A deployment uses a Hub stack and leverages the Azure Internal Standard Load Balancer (with HA ports)
to scale and load balance across a set of firewalls. You can then use the Standard Load balancer’s private IP
address (2, “Hub/Egress Private IP” in the following figure) to route traffic to the firewalls for inspection and
threat prevention. The Hub stack secures your applications’ outbound and East-West traffic.

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To protect your outbound traffic and East-West traffic, add route rules in your application VNETs to
redirect traffic to the Hub stack for inspection.
Inbound Stack
An Inbound firewall stack scales independently and adds visibility and security to your applications’ Inbound
traffic.
To protect your inbound HTTP traffic, add UDRs in the Application Gateway’s subnet route tables to
route all traffic to the Inbound stack (3, Ingress Private IP in the following figure). To protect the non-
HTTP inbound traffic, use the Panorama plugin to create front-end entries for your application endpoints
(4, Ingress Public IP Front Ends in the following figure). To enable inspection, the Panorama plugin
automatically creates load balancer rules on the Azure Public Standard Load Balancer and NAT rules on the
firewalls.
If you only have HTTP/HTTPS inbound traffic you can leave out the Inbound stack and protect that traffic
with just the hub stack.

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 See Prepare for an Orchestrated Deployment and Orchestrate a VM-Series Firewall Deployment in Azure.

Prepare for an Orchestrated Deployment

Complete the following tasks before you orchestrate a VM-Series firewall on Azure.
• Configuration Prerequisites
• Orchestration Permissions
• Create a Custom Role and Associate it with an Active Directory
• Find Your Azure Directory Domain Name

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

Configuration Prerequisites
Complete the following basic tasks on Panorama and Azure.
• Azure
• Create a service principal to enable the plugin to make API calls.
• Plan a CIDR block specifically dedicated to VM-Series firewall Transit VNet. The plugin manages this
CIDR block and uses it to deploy the initial firewall VNet and perform as future upgrades to new
template stacks.

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 The minimum CIDR range is /22.
• Panorama
• Ensure that you have a valid license API key configured on Panorama. This allows the plugin to
manage delicensing on scale-in autoscaling events. See Install a License Deactivation API Key.
• Install the latest version of the VM-series plugin on Panorama to allow Application Insight
configuration to be added to template stack.
While planning your deployment please note that if you are currently running a Panorama Plugin for Azure
version 2.x, upgrading to the current version is not allowed. Along with this, once the current version
is installed, downgrading to a version 2.x plugin is not allowed. See Panorama Plugin for Azure in the
Compatibility Matrix.

Orchestration Permissions
The is a sample JSON file with permissions for the Template Deployer role. In the AssignableScopes
section, include all relevant subscriptions that must be queried, including the subscription into which the
deployment is deployed and EVERY subscription containing an application VNET that is peered to the VM-
Series firewall VNet where protected resources exist.

{
"Name": "Template Deployment",
"IsCustom": true,
"Description": "Manage template deployments.",
"Actions": [
"Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups/*",
"Microsoft.Resources/deployments/write",
"Microsoft.Resources/deployments/operationStatuses/read",
"Microsoft.Resources/deployments/read",
"Microsoft.Resources/deployments/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPPrefixes/write",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPPrefixes/read",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPPrefixes/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/write",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/read",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/write",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/read",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/natGateways/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/read",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/write",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/write",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/read",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/virtualNetworkPeerings/read",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/write",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/read",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/write",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/read",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/delete",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/probes/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/backendAddressPools/join/action",
"Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/frontendIPConfigurations/read",

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 "Microsoft.Network/locations/serviceTags/read",
"Microsoft.Network/applicationGateways/read",
"Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/read",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/write",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/read",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/delete",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets/virtualMachines/read",
"Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read",
"Microsoft.Compute/images/read",
"Microsoft.insights/components/write",
"Microsoft.insights/components/read",
"Microsoft.insights/components/delete",
"Microsoft.insights/autoscalesettings/write"
]
"NotActions": [
],
"AssignableScopes": [
"/subscriptions/{deployment-subscription}",
"/subscriptions/{app1-subscription}",
"/subscriptions/{app2-subscription}",
.
.
.
]
}

Create a Custom Role and Associate it with an Active Directory

STEP 1 | To create an Active Directory in Azure, Navigate to Azure Active Directory and click on App
Registrations on the left. Create a custom role using the permissions the plugin requires.
An example JSON is included below.
1. Click add and provide a name. Select the role created from the above JSON file, leave "Assign access
to" as Active Directory user, and then select the active directory created in the first step and click
Save.
2. Select the type.
Do not modify anything under Redirect URI.

STEP 2 | Create a custom role with the permissions the plugin requires.
See Orchestration Permissions.
1. Log in to the Azure CLI.

az login
2. Create a custom role from the file in Orchestration Permissions.

az role definition create --role-definition <role-json-file>

STEP 3 | Associate the role with Active Directory you created in Step 1. You can use the console or the
CLI.

You must repeat this step in every subscription defined in the assignableScope section
of the custom role in Orchestration Permissions.

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 Console
1. On the Azure portal, navigate to Subscriptions and select your subscription.
2. On the left select Access Control (IAM) and then Role Assignments on the top bar.
3. Select Add and chose add role assignment.
• Select the role created you created in Step 3 and leave "Assign access to" as Active Directory user.
• Select the active directory created in Step 1 and click Save.
CLI:
In the following command, <role-name> refers to the name in the sample JSON file, in the earlier
example, Template Deployment.

az ad sp create-for-rbac --name <name-of-service-principal>

--role <role-name>
--output json

Find Your Azure Directory Domain Name

For the plugin to provide links to your Azure deployment and Application Insights instance in Azure Portal,
you must identify the directory domain for your subscription, as shown below:

Orchestrate a VM-Series Firewall Deployment in Azure

You can create a maximum of ten orchestrated deployments.

Azure China and Azure Government are not supported.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Create a service principal.

Onboard your created service principal credentials to give the Panorama Plugin permissions to make
necessary API calls to orchestrate your deployment
1. Select Setup > Service Principal > Add.
2. Enter a Name and an optional Description to identify the service account.
3. Enter the Subscription ID for the Azure subscription you want to monitor.
You must login to your Azure portal to get this subscription ID.

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 4. Enter the Client ID.The client ID is the Application ID associated with your Azure Active Directory
application.
5. Enter the Client Secret and re-enter it to confirm.
6. Enter the Tenant ID.
The tenant ID is the Directory ID you saved when you set up the Active Directory application.
7. Click Validate to verify that the keys and IDs you entered are valid, and Panorama can communicate
with the Azure subscription using the API.
It can take up to a minute to validate. You can update the page to check your progress.
8. When the service principal is valid, commit your changes.
The commit ensures the service principal is available when you configure the deployment.

STEP 2 | Configure your Azure deploymenet.

1. Select Deployments and Add a configuration.
2. Select Build > General.

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 • Supply a Name and an optional Description.
• Choose a service principal from the drop list.
You must select a valid service principal to enable the Azure tab.
If you don’t see your service principal, return to Step 1 and ensure the service principal is valid and
committed.

3. On the Build > Azure tab, select a region.

The drop list is dynamic—it lists all regions that have a Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Next
Generation Firewall image.
• Existing VNET.
• Select No to create a new VNET.
The plugin uses the VNET CIDR and Directory Domain to create a VNET for you.
• Select Yes to indicate an existing VNET.
• VNET CIDR—Enter your CIDR range. The prefix must be smaller than or equal to /22. For
example, 192.168.0.0/22.
• Directory Domain—See Find Your Azure Directory Domain Name. This string is part of the URL
for all resources in the subscription, and it helps the plugin link to your deployments.

If you selectYes the plugin asks for the VNET Resource Group, the VNET Name, the Security CIDR,
and the Directory Domain.
• VNET Resource Group—Choose from a list of all resource groups in your selected region.
• VNET Name—Choose from a list of VNETS in your chosen resource group.
• Security CIDR—Enter your CIDR range. The prefix must be smaller than or equal to /22. For
example, 192.168.0.0/22.
• Directory Domain—See Find Your Azure Directory Domain Name. This string is part of the URL
for all resources in the subscription, and it helps the plugin link to your deployments.

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 The VNET Resource Group and VNET name help the plugin locate your existing VNET. Anything the
plugin deploys goes into a resource group that the plugin manages.

STEP 3 | Configure the VM-Series firewall stacks for your deployment.

You can deploy the Hub stack to protect Outbound/East-West traffic. You can deploy the Inbound stack
to protect inbound traffic. You can also deploy both stacks if all traffic flows need to be protected.
The configuration parameters are the same for both stacks.
• License Type—Select BYOL, Bundle 1, or Bundle 2.
• License Authcode—(BYOL only). Enter the authcode sent in your Welcome letter.
• VM Size
• The drop list displays the VM sizes that correlate with the authcode you entered.
• Bundle1 or Bundle2—Choose any VM size.
Existing Device Group—The device group must be unique across both stacks and deployments. That is,
you need a separate dedicated device group for each stack in each deployment.
If you select No the plugin creates a device group.
If you select Yes, select an existing device group from the dropdown list.
• Min Firewalls— A value between 1 and 25 for a VMSS.
• Max Firewall— A value between 1 and 25 for a VMSS.

STEP 4 | Select Build > Firewall > Basic to configure information common to both Stacks.
For Image Type, select Marketplace Image or Custom Image.
• Image Resource Group—(custom image only) Choose the resource group containing your custom
image. For a custom image, the list displays all resource groups that contain an image from the region
you selected in Step 2.b.
• Image—(custom image only) The dropdown list displays all images in your chosen resource group.
• Software Version—(Marketplace Image) Only valid software versions are displayed. Consult the
Compatibility Matrix for the minimum PAN-OS version.
• Username—The administrator user name for the firewall you create. The name must be legal for both
VM-Series firewall and Azure. Refer to What are the user name requirments when creating a VM?
• Password—The administrator password for the firewall you create. The password must meet the
character and length requirements (31 characters) for both VM-Series firewall and Azure. Refer to
What are the password requirements when creating a VM?.
• Confirm Password—Re-enter your password.

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 • Primary Panorama IP—Specify the Panorama IP address the firewall can use to connect to the
Panorama when it boots up. Choose between the public or private IP address displayed in the
dropdown list, or type in the Panorama IP address.
• Secondary Panorama IP—(Only if Panorama is in HA setup.) Specify the Secondary Panorama IP the
firewall can use to connect to the Panorama when it boots up. Choose from dropdown list or type in
the correct IP.
• Configure Device Certificate PIN. Because these values are encrypted you must enter and confirm
each value.
• Device Certificate PIN ID—The device certificate ID.
• Confirm Device Certificate PIN ID
• Device Certificate PIN Value—The certificate PIN value.
• Confirm Device Certificate PIN Value

STEP 5 | Select Build > Firewall > Advanced optional default values.
Check Advanced to edit the default values.
• Autoscaling Metric—Default is Data Plane CPU Util Percent.
• Scale In Threshold—Accept the default or define a scale in thresholdt.
• Scale Out Threshold—Accept the default or define a scale in threshold.
• Jumbo Frame—Disabled by default.
Click OK and commit your changes. Refresh the page until you can see the Deploy button, and
click Deploy to launch the deployment. Once the deployment starts, information is written to the
Deployments page.

Deployment takes 15-20 minutes to complete.

STEP 6 | Select Azure > Deployments to view deployment status.

• The Resource Group column displays resource groups the plugin has created.
• The firewall’s management interface uses the Firewall Access IP to connect to Panorama. You
must whitelist this address to ensure that Panorama can connect with Panorama to get the needed
configuration.

If Panorama is deployed in a Public Cloud, make sure to add the Firewall Access IP to
the Panorama security group.

See Ports Used for Panorama to determine which ports you need to open to allow traffic.
• Open the link in the Deployment Status column for additional details for each stack.
• Hub-Stack—The Hub stack Public IP matches the Firewall Access IP in the deployment
summary because the NAT gateway is the same for egress traffic from the deployment and the
management traffic from the firewalls.
All outbound and East-West traffic should be routed to the Egress Private IP for inspection. You
can direct traffic to this address if you configured UDRs.
• Inbound-Stack—The Private IP is the address on the Azure internal load balancer that fronts the
firewalls. You can direct traffic to this address if you are configuring UDRs.
• Follow the links to view deployment information and Application Insights on Azure.
• The Deployment details can show Success, Warning, and Failure messages

STEP 7 | Configure inbound protection for backend TCP/UDP applications.

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 The public load balancer that fronts the inbound firewall stack is the entry point for any back-end UDP
or TCP applications. Add the following configuration to allow the plugin to manage the necessary load
balancer and firewall configuration to route to your backend application.
1. Select Azure > Deployments and select your deployment.
2. Select the Protect tab and click Add.
3. Supply the application Name and choose a Protocol.
Enter the protection details:
• Frontend IP Type—Select one of New Public IP, Existing Frontend, and Existing Public IP.
If you select Existing Frontend, the Frontend Name lists all known front ends on the load
balancer.
• Resource Group—(Existing Public IP only) From the dropdown list, select the resource group
where your desired frontend IP address exists.
• IP Name—(Existing Public IP only) Use to map IP to a frontend on the load balancer, configure the
load balancer, and create a NAT rule.
• Frontend Port—Add the frontend port that should be configured to receive traffic on the public
load balancer.
• Backend IP—Add the IP address of your backend application.
• Backend Port—Add the port your backend application is expecting to receive traffic on.
Click OK.
4. Commit to add the configuration on the load balancer and push to the firewalls.

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Create a Custom VM-Series Image for Azure
You can create a custom VM-Series firewall image for later use in your Azure deployment. A custom image
gives you the flexibility and consistency to deploy the VM-Series firewall with the PAN-OS version you
want to use instead of being restricted to using only an image available though the Azure marketplace.
Additionally, your custom image can include the latest content and antivirus updates.
Creating a custom image requires that you remove all private data—user configuration, users, plugin
configuration, etc—before creating the VHD. Additionally, Complete the following procedure to prepare and
create a custom image.

If the VM-Series firewall used to create your custom image was deployed using a premium
disk type, any VM-Series firewall deployed using the custom image must be deployed using
the same premium disk type. However, if you create an image using firewall deployed with a
standard disk type, you can deploy the firewall using a standard or premium disk type.

STEP 1 | Log in to Azure.

STEP 2 | Deploy the VM-Series firewall from the Azure Marketplace.

STEP 3 | (BYOL license only) Activate your license.

STEP 4 | Upgrade the VM-Series Firewall to PAN-OS 10.0.3. Upgrading to PAN-OS 10.0.3 also
upgrades the VM-Series plugin to 2.0.3.

STEP 5 | Access the VM-Series firewall command line interface via SSH using the username and
password provided in the Azure Marketplace template.

STEP 6 | Verify that you VM-Series firewall has the correct PAN-OS, VM-Series plugin, content, and
antivirus versions.
show system info

STEP 7 | ( BYOL license only) Deactivate your license.

STEP 8 | Perform a private data reset on the VM-Series firewall. This command requires the firewall to
reboot. You must wait for the VM-Series firewall to reboot complete before continuing; the
reboot can take five to seven minutes.
request system private-data-reset

STEP 9 | Create a new VHD image from the VM-Series instance.

1. Log in to the Azure CLI.
2. Verify that you are using the correct subscription.
az account set --subscription <subscription-id>
3. Execute the following commands to generalize the VM, allowing it to be imaged for multiple
deployments, and create the new VHD.
az vm deallocate --resource-group <myResourceGroup> --name <myVM>
az vm generalize --resource-group <myResourceGroup> --name <myVM>

STEP 10 | Create a new VM-Series firewall from your custom image.

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 az image create --resource-group <myResourceGroup> --name <myImage> --source
<resource-id-of-VM>

STEP 11 | After deploying a VM-Series firewall with your custom image, verify your deployment.
1. You should log in to the firewall using the credentials you used previously.
2. After logging in successfully, verify that your firewall is running the correct PAN-OS version and has
the correct content and antivirus versions.
show system info

STEP 12 | ( Optional) Copy the custom image to another region.

az image copy –source-resource-group <source-rg> –source-object-name <pa-
vm-image-name> –target-location <target-region> –target-resource-group
<destination-rg>

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Use Azure Security Center Recommendations
to Secure Your Workloads
Microsoft has deprecated Azure Security Center support for partner security solutions and
replaced it with Azure Sentinel.

When you deploy new workloads within your Azure subscription that is enabled for Azure Security Center,
Azure Security Center enables you to secure these workloads in two ways. In one workflow, Azure Security
Center recommends you to deploy a new instance of the VM-Series firewall to secure an internet-facing
application workload. In the other workflow, Azure Security Center discovers VM-Series firewalls (partner
security solutions) that you have deployed within the Azure subscription and you have to then perform
additional configuration to connect the VM-Series firewall to Azure Security Center so that you can view
alerts on the dashboard. See Azure Security Center Integration for details on the integration and the pros
and cons of each workflow:
• Deploy a VM-Series Firewall Based on an Azure Security Center Recommendation
• Connect an Existing VM-Series Firewall From Azure Security Center

Deploy a VM-Series Firewall Based on an Azure Security Center

Recommendation
Azure Security Center scans your Azure resources and provides recommendations to secure workloads that
need a next-generation firewall. The recommendation displays on the dashboard and you can then either
deploy a new instance of the VM-Series firewall from the Azure marketplace or you can use the Azure
CLI, Powershell, or an ARM template. The advantage of using a customized deployment using Azure CLI,
Powershell, or an ARM template is that you can deploy the VM-Series firewall within the same resource
group as the workload that you need to secure. When you deploy the VM-Series firewall using the Azure
marketplace, Azure requires that you deploy the firewall into a new resource group or an empty resource
group only. Therefore, the marketplace deployment requires you to then ensure that the traffic from the
workload you want to secure is steered to the firewall that is in a different resoource group.

STEP 1 | Log in to your Azure portal and access the Security Center dashboard.

STEP 2 | Select Recommendations.

STEP 3 | Select Add a Next Generation Firewall, select the workload you want to secure.

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STEP 4 | Choose whether you want to deploy a new instance of the VM-Series firewall or use an
existing instance of the VM-Series firewall.
To use this workflow, stage a workload with a public IP address that is exposed to the internet and
deploy an instance of the VM-Series firewall in a new resource group. Then, delete the workload you
staged, and deploy your production workloads within the resource group in which you deployed the
VM-Series firewall.
• To Create New, see Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure Marketplace (Solution Template).
• To Use existing solution, select the VM-Series firewall that you have previously deployed.

Connect an Existing VM-Series Firewall From Azure Security

Center
When Azure Security Center detects that you have deployed the VM-Series firewall within the Azure
subscription, it displays the firewall as a security solution. You can then connect the VM-Series firewall to
Security Center using the Common Event Format (CEF) over Syslog, and view firewall logs as alerts on the
Security Center dashboard.

STEP 1 | Log in to your Azure portal and access the Security Center dashboard.

STEP 2 | Select Security Solutions to view all available VM-Series firewalls within this Azure
subscription.

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STEP 3 | Expand Discovered solutions, and select the VM-Series firewall instance that is in the same
resource group as the workload you want to secure and click Connect.
To view firewall logs as alerts on the Security Center dashboard, you need to follow the four-step
process that displays on screen.

STEP 4 | On successfully connecting the VM-Series firewall to Security Center, the VM-Series firewall
displays in the Connected solutions list.
Click View to verify that the firewall is protecting the workload that you need to secure.

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Use Panorama to Forward Logs to Azure Security Center
If you are using Panorama to manage your firewalls, you can use templates and device groups to forward
firewall logs to Azure Security Center. With the default Azure Security Center Log Forwarding profile,
Threat and WildFire Submissions logs of low, medium, high, or critical severity generated on the firewall are
displayed as security alerts on the Azure Security Center dashboard. So that you can focus and triage alerts
more efficiently, you can set up granular log filters to only forward logs of interest to you, or forward high
and critical severity logs only. You can also selectively attach the log forwarding profile to a few Security
policy rules based on your applications and security needs.
To enable the Azure Security Center integration from Panorama, use the following workflow.

STEP 1 | Add the firewall as a managed device on Panorama.

STEP 2 | From Panorama, create a template and a device group to push log forwarding settings to the
firewalls that will be forwarding logs to Azure Security Center.

STEP 3 | Specify the log types to forward to the Logging Service.

The way you enable forwarding depends on the log type. For logs that are generated based on a policy
match, you use a log forwarding profile within a device group, and for other logs types you use the Log
Settings configuration within a template.
1. Configure forwarding of System, Configuration, User-ID, and HIP Match logs.
1. Select Device > Log Settings.
2. Select the Template that contains the firewalls you want to forward logs to the Logging Service.
3. For each log type that you to forward to the Logging Service, Add a match list filter. Give it a
Name, optionally define a Filter.
4. Add Built-in Actions and enter a Name. The Azure-Security-Center-Integration action will be auto
selected. Click OK.

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 5. Click OK.
2. Configure forwarding of all other log types that are generated when a policy match occurs such
as Traffic, Threat, WildFire Submission, URL Filtering, Data Filtering, and Authentication logs. To
forward these logs, you must create and attach a log forwarding profile to each policy rule for which
you want to forward logs.
1. Select the Device Group, and then select Objects > Log Forwarding to Add a profile. In the log
forwarding profile match list, add each log type that you want to forward.
2. Select Add in Built-in Actions to enable the firewalls in the device group to forward the logs to
Azure Security Center.

3. Create basic security policy rules in the device group you just created and select Actions to attach
the Log Forwarding profile you created for forwarding logs to Azure Security Center. Until the
firewall has interfaces and zones and a basic security policy, it will not let any traffic through, and
only traffic that matches a security policy rule will be logged (by default).
4. For each rule you create, select Actions and select the Log Forwarding profile that allows the
firewall to forward logs to Azure Security Center.

STEP 4 | Commit your changes to Panorama and push them to the template and device group you
created.

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STEP 5 | Verify that the firewall logs are being forwarded to Azure Security Center.
1. Log in the Azure portal, select Azure Security Center.
2. Verify that you can see firewall logs as Security alerts on the Azure Security Center dashboard.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Azure Stack
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on Azure Stack to secure inter-subnet traffic between applications in
a multi-tier architecture and outbound traffic from servers within your Azure Stack deployment. If you want
to use the VM-Series firewall as a gateway that secures inbound traffic destined to the servers within your
Azure Stack deployment, you must deploy a NAT appliance in front of the firewall that receives inbound
traffic and forwards it to the firewall. The NAT appliance is required because on Azure Stack you cannot
assign a public IP address to a non-primary interface of a virtual machine, such as the VM-Series firewall.

The VM-Series firewall on Azure stack does not have support for bootstrapping, Azure
Application Insights, or the Azure Security Center integration.

Unlike on public Azure, you do not have a solution template to deploy the VM-Series firewall on Azure
Stack. Therefore, you must use an ARM template to deploy the VM-Series firewall. To get started, you can
use the community supported sample ARM template on GitHub, and then develop your own ARM template
for production deployments.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Download marketplace items from Azure to AzureStack.

To deploy the VM-Series firewall on Azure Stack, you need access to the BYOL offer of the VM-Series
firewall PAN-OS image (8.1 or later). You can download the image directly from the Azure Marketplace
to Azure Stack in a connected deployment.

STEP 2 | Access the Azure Stack portal.

Your Azure Stack operator (either a service provider or an administrator in your organization), should
provide the correct URL to access the portal.

STEP 3 | Deploy the VM-Series firewall.

A solution template for the VM-Series firewall is not available on Azure Stack. Therefore, you must
reference the image that you downloaded in the previous step, in an ARM template to deploy the VM-
Series firewall. To get started, you can deploy the sample ARM template that is available on GitHub
under the community supported policy:
1. Get the sample Azure Stack GitHub template.
• Select azurestackdeploy.json to view the contents.
• Click Raw and copy the contents of the JSON file.
2. Deploy the sample GitHub template.
You can deploy the firewall in a existing resource group that is empty or into a new resource group.
The default VNet in the template is 192.168.0.0/16, and it deploys a VM-Series firewall has three
network interfaces, one management interface on 192.168.0.0/24 subnet and two dataplane
interfaces on 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24 subnets. You can customize these subnets to
match your needs.
• Log in to the Azure Stack portal.
• Select New > Custom > Template deployment.

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 • Edit template, delete all existing content in the template, and paste the JSON template contents
you copied earlier andSave.

• Edit parameters, enter the values for the required parameters and modify the defaults if you need
to, then click OK.

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 • Choose the Subscription you want to use, and then click OK.
• Choose an existing Resource Group that is empty or create a new one, and click OK.
• Click Create. A new tile on the dashboard displays the progress of the template deployment.

STEP 4 | Next Steps:

1. Log in to the web interface of the firewall.
Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in to the DNS name for the firewall.
Enter the username/password you defined earlier. You will see a certificate warning; that is okay.
Continue to the web page.
2. Activate the licenses on the VM-Series firewall.
1. Create a Support Accountand Register the VM-Series Firewall (with auth code)
2. On the firewall web interface, select Device > Licenses and select Activate feature using
authentication code.
3. Enter the capacity auth-code that you registered on the support portal. The firewall will connect
to the update server (updates.paloaltonetworks.com), and download the license and reboot
automatically.
4. Log back in to the web interface on the Dashboard, confirm that a valid Serial# displays.
The VM Mode displays as Microsoft Azure.
If the term Unknown displays, it means the device is not licensed. To view traffic logs on the
firewall, you must install a valid capacity license.

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STEP 5 | 7

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Enable Azure Application Insights on the VM-
Series Firewall
The VM-Series firewall on Azure can publish custom PAN-OS metrics natively to Azure Application Insights
that you can use to monitor the firewalls directly from the Azure portal. These metrics allow you to assess
performance and usage patterns that you can use to set alarms and take action to automate events such as
launching or terminating instances of the VM-Series firewalls. See Custom PAN-OS Metrics Published for
Monitoring for a description on the metrics that are available.

STEP 1 | On the Azure portal, create your Application Insights instance to monitor the firewall and copy
the Instrumentation Key from Configure > Properties.
The firewall needs this key to authenticate to the Application Insights instance and publish metrics to it.
See VM-Series on Azure Service Principal Permissions for the permissions required.

STEP 2 | Enable the firewall to publish metrics to your Application Insights instance.
1. Log in to the VM-Series firewall on Azure.
2. Select Device > VM-Series > Azure.
3. Edit Azure Application Insights and enter the Instrumentation Key you copied earlier.
The default interval for publishing metrics is five minutes. You can change this to vary from 1-60
minutes.

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 4. Commit your changes.
The firewall generates a system log to it record the success or failure to authenticate to Azure
Application Insights.

STEP 3 | Verify that you can view the metrics on the Azure Application Insights dashboard.
1. On the Azure portal, select the Application Insights instance, and select Monitoring > Metrics to view
the PAN-OS custom metrics.

2. Select the metric(s) that you want to monitor for trends and trigger alerts. Refer to the Microsoft
Azure documentation for details on exploring metrics on Application Insights.

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Monitoring on Azure
Monitoring on Microsoft® Azure® enables you to dynamically update security policy rules to consistently
enforce Security policy across all assets deployed within your Azure subscription. To enable this capability,
you need to install the Panorama plugin for Azure and enable API communication between Panorama and
your Azure subscriptions. Panorama can then collect the IP address-to-tag mapping for all your Azure assets
and push or distribute Azure resources information to your Palo Alto Networks® firewall(s).
• About Monitoring on Azure
• Set Up the Azure Plugin for Monitoring on Panorama
• Attributes Monitored Using the Panorama Plugin on Azure

About Monitoring on Azure

As you deploy or terminate virtual machines in the Azure public cloud, you can use the Panorama plugin for
Azure to consistently enforce security policy rules on these workloads.
The Panorama plugin for Azure is built for scale and allows you to monitor up to 100 Azure subscriptions on
the Azure public cloud. With this plugin, you use Panorama as an anchor to poll your subscriptions for tags,
and then distribute the metadata (IP address-to-tag mapping) to many firewalls in a device group. Because
Panorama communicates with your Azure subscriptions to retrieve Azure resource information, you’re able
to streamline the number of API calls made to the cloud environment. Although you can define Security
policy locally on the firewall, using Panorama and the plugin centralizes Security policy management,
ensuring consistent policies for hybrid and cloud-native architectures.
See the Panorama plugin version information in the Compatibility Matrix.

Set Up the Azure Plugin for Monitoring on Panorama

To find all the workloads that your organization has deployed in the Azure cloud, you need to install the
Azure plugin on Panorama and configure Monitoring Definitions that enable Panorama to authenticate to
your Azure subscription(s) and retrieve information on the Azure workloads. Panorama retrieves the primary
private IP address of Azure resources and the associated tags. For a list of the metadata elements that
Panorama supports, see Attributes Monitored Using the Panorama Plugin on Azure.
After Panorama fetches the attributes, to push the resource information from Panorama to the firewalls,
you must add the firewalls (hardware or VM-Series) as managed devices on Panorama, and group the
firewalls into one or more Device Groups. You can then specify which device groups are part of the Notify
Group, which is a configuration element in a Monitoring Definition, that Panorama uses to register the IP
address-to-tag mapping it retrieves from Azure.
Finally, to consistently enforce Security policies across your Azure workloads, you must set up Dynamic
Address Groups and reference them in policy rules that allow or deny traffic to the IP addresses of the
Azure resources. For streamlining your configuration and managing policies and objects centrally from
Panorama, you can define the Dynamic Address Groups and Security policy rules on Panorama and push
them to the firewalls instead of managing the Dynamic Address Groups and Security policy rules locally on
each firewall.

The Azure plugin is for monitoring Azure resources on the Azure public cloud. Azure
Government or Azure China are not supported.

• Planning Checklist for VM Monitoring with the Azure Plugin

• Install the Azure Plugin

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 • Configure the Azure Plugin for Monitoring

Planning Checklist for Monitoring with the Azure Plugin

• Set up the Active Directory application and a Service Principal to enable API access—For Panorama to
interact with the Azure APIs and collect information on your workloads, you need to create an Azure
Active Directory Service Principal. This Service Principal has the permissions required to authenticate to
the Azure AD and access the resources within your subscription.
To complete this set up, you must have permissions to register an application with your Azure AD
tenant, and assign the application to a role in your subscription. If you don't have the necessary
permissions, ask your Azure AD or subscription administrator to create a Service Principal with an IAM
role of reader or the custom permissions specified in VM-Series on Azure Service Principal Permissions.
• Make sure that the subscription ID is unique across Service Principals. Panorama allows you to use only
one service principal to monitor an Azure subscription. You can monitor up to 100 Azure subscriptions,
with 100 Service principal resources.
• Panorama can push up to 8000 IP address-to tag mappings to the firewalls or virtual system assigned to
a device group. Review the requirements for Panorama and the managed firewalls:
• Minimum system requirements (see the Panorama Plugin information in the Compatibility Matrix):
Panorama virtual appliance or hardware-based Panorama appliance running Panorama 8.1.3 or later,
with an active support license and a device management license for managing firewalls.
Licensed next-generation firewalls running PAN-OS 8.0 or 8.1.
• You must add the firewalls as managed devices on Panorama and create Device Groups so that you
can configure Panorama to notify these groups with the information it retrieves. Device groups can
include VM-Series firewalls or virtual systems on the hardware firewalls.
• The number of tags that the Panorama plugin can retrieve and register is as follows:
On Panorama running 8.1.3 or later managing firewalls running PAN-OS 8.1.3 or lower, the firewalls
or virtual systems included within a device group can have 7000 IP addresses with 10 tags each, or
6500 IP addresses with 15 tags each.
On Panorama 8.1.3 or later managing firewalls running PAN-OS 8.0.x, 2500 IP addresses with 10 tags
each.
• If your Panorama appliances are in a high availability configuration, you must manually install the
same version of the Azure plugin on both Panorama peers.

You configure the Azure plugin on the active Panorama peer only. On commit, the
configuration is synced to the passive Panorama peer. Only the active Panorama
peer polls the Azure subscriptions you have configured for Monitoring.

Install the Azure Plugin

To get started with Monitoring on Azure, you need to download and install the Azure plugin on Panorama.
If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer.

If you currently have installed a Panorama plugin, the process of installing (or uninstalling)
another plugin requires a Panorama reboot to enable you to commit changes. So, install
additional plugins during a planned maintenance window to allow for a reboot.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama Web Interface, select Panorama > Plugins and click Check Now to get
the list of available plugins.

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STEP 2 | Select Download and Install the plugin.
After you successfully install, Panorama refreshes and the Azure plugin displays on the Panorama tab.

STEP 3 | Restart Panorama.

Select Panorama > Setup > Operations > Reboot Panorama

Configure the Azure Plugin for Monitoring

To begin monitoring the resources in your Azure public cloud deployment, after you Install the Azure Plugin
you must create a Monitoring Definition. This definition specifies the Service Principal that is authorized to
access the resources within the Azure subscription you want to monitor and the Notify Group that includes
the firewalls to which Panorama should push all the IP-address-to-tag mappings it retrieves. In order to
enforce policy, you must then create Dynamic Address Groups and reference them in Security policy. The
Dynamic Address Groups enable you to filter the tags you want to match on, so that the firewall can get the
primary private IP address registered for the tags, and then allow or deny access to traffic to and from the
workloads based on the policy rules you define.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

STEP 2 | Set up the following objects for enabling Monitoring on Azure.

Add a Service Principal.
The Service Principal is the service account that you created on the Azure portal. This account is
attached to the Azure AD and has limited permissions to access and monitor the resources in your
Azure subscription.
1. Select Panorama > Plugins > Azure > Setup > Service Principal > Add.

2. Enter a Name and optionally a Description to identify the service account.

3. Enter the Subscription ID for the Azure subscription you want to monitor. You must login to your
Azure portal to get this subscription ID.

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 4. Enter the Client Secret and re-enter it to confirm.
5. Enter the Tenant ID. The tenant ID is the Directory ID you saved when you set up the Active
Directory application.
6. Click Validate to verify that the keys and IDs you entered are valid ,and Panorama can
communicate with the Azure subscription using the API.
Add a notify group.
1. Select Panorama > Plugins > Azure > Setup > Notify Groups > Add.

2. Enter a Name and optionally a Description to identify the group of firewalls to which Panorama
pushes the information it retrieves.
3. Select the Device Groups, which are a group of firewalls or virtual systems, to which Panorama
will push the information (IP address-to-tag mapping) it retrieves from your Azure subscriptions.
The firewalls use the update to determine the most current list of members that constitute
dynamic address groups referenced in policy.

Think through your Device Groups carefully.

• Because a Monitoring Definition can include only one notify group, make sure to select all
the relevant Device Groups within your notify group. If you want to deregister the tags that
Panorama has pushed to a firewall included in a notify group, you must delete the Monitoring
Definition.
• To register tags to all virtual systems on a firewall enabled for multiple virtual systems, you
must add each virtual system to a separate device group on Panorama and assign the device
groups to the notify group. Panorama will register tags to only one virtual system, if you assign
all the virtual systems to one device group.
4. Verify that monitoring is enabled on the plugin. This setting must be enabled for Panorama to
communicate with the Azure public cloud for Monitoring.
The checkbox for Enable Monitoring is on Panorama > Plugins > Azure > Setup > General.

STEP 3 | Create a Monitoring Definition.

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 When you add a new Monitoring definition, it is enabled by default.
• Select Panorama > Plugins > Azure > Monitoring Definition, to Add a new definition.
• Enter a Name and optionally a Description to identify the Azure subscription for which you use this
definition.
• Select the Service Principal and Notify Group.
Panorama requires the keys and IDs that you specify in the Service Principal configuration to
generate an Azure Bearer Token which is used in the header of the API call to collect information on
your workloads.

STEP 4 | Commit the changes on Panorama.

Verify that the status for the Monitoring Definition displays as Success. If it fails, verify that you entered
the Azure Subscription ID accurately and provided the correct keys and IDs for the Service Principal.

STEP 5 | Verify that you can view the information on Panorama, and define the match criteria for
Dynamic Address Groups.

Some browser extensions may block API calls between Panorama and Azure which
prevents Panorama from receiving match criteria. If Panorama displays no match criteria
and you are using browser extensions, disable the extensions and Synchronize Dynamic
Objects to populate the tags available to Panorama.

On HA failover, the newly active Panorama attempts to reconnect to the Azure cloud and
retrieve tags for all monitoring definitions. If there is an error with reconnecting even one
monitoring definition, Panorama generates a system log message

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 Unable to process subscriptions after HA switch-over; user-
intervention required.

When you see this error, you must log in to Panorama and fix the issue, for example
remove an invalid subscription or provide valid credentials, and commit your changes to
enable Panorama to reconnect and retrieve the tags for all monitoring definitions. Even
when Panorama is disconnected from the Azure cloud, the firewalls have the list of all
tags that had been retrieved before failover, and can continue to enforce policy on that list
of IP addresses. Panorama removes all tags associated with the subscription only when
you delete a monitoring definition. As a best practice, to monitor this issue, configure
action-oriented log forwarding to an HTTPS destination from Panorama so that you can
take immediate action.

Attributes Monitored Using the Panorama Plugin on Azure

When using the Panorama plugin for Azure, Panorama gathers the following set of metadata elements or
attributes on the virtual machines in your Microsoft® Azure® deployment. Panorama can retrieve a total of
32 tags for each VM, 11 predefined tags and up to 21 user-defined tags.

The maximum length of a tag can be 127 characters. If a tag is longer than 127 characters,
Panorama does not retrieve the tag and register it on the firewalls. Also the tags should not
include non-ASCII special characters such as { or ".

The following attributes are monitored in all Panorama plugin for Azure versions.
Virtual Machine

VM Monitoring Example

VM Name azure-tag.vm-name.web_server1

Network Security Group Name azure-tag.nsg-name.myNSG

OS Type azure-tag.os-type.Linux

OS Publisher azure-tag.os-publisher.Canonical

OS Offer azure-tag.os-offer.UbuntuServer

OS SKU azure-tag.os-sku.14.04.5-LTS

Subnet azure-tag.subnet.webtier

VNet azure-tag.vnet.untrustnet

Azure Region azure-tag.region.east-us

Resource Group Name azure-tag.resource-group.myResourceGroup

Subscription ID azure.sub-id.93486f84-8de9-44f1-b4a8-f66aed312b64

User Defined Tags azure-tag.mytag.value

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VM Monitoring Example
Up to a maximum of 21 user defined tags
are supported. The user-defined tags are
sorted alphabetically, and the first 21 tags
are available for use on Panorama and the
firewalls.

Load Balancer
Panorama plugin on Azure version 3.0 or later supports tags for each application gateway and standard load
balancer (both public and private IP addresses). Each load balancer has predefined tags for resource group,
load balancer name and region, and supports up to 21 user-defined tags specific to load balancing.

Load Balancer Tags Example

Load Balancer azure.<type>.myLoadBalancer

Azure Region azure-tag.region.east-us

Resource Group Name azure-tag.resource-group.myResourceGroup

User Defined Tags azure-tag.mytag.value

Up to a maximum of 21 user defined tags
are supported. The user-defined tags are
sorted alphabetically, and the first 21 tags
are available for use on Panorama and the
firewalls.

Subnet/VNET
Panorama plugin on Azure version 3.0 or later supports tags for each Subnet and VNET in your subscription.
Each subnet and VNET tag is associated with the full IP CIDR range so you can create policies based
on a CIDR range rather than individual IP addresses. The plugin queries every subnet and VNET in your
subscription and creates tags for them.

Subnet and VNET Tags Example

Subnet Name azure.subnet-name.web

VNET Name azure.vnet-name.myvnet

Service Tag Monitoring

Panorama plugin on Azure version 3.0 supports service tags.
Azure Service tags simplify security for Azure virtual machines and Azure virtual networks because you can
restrict network access to just the Azure services you want to use. A service tag represents a group of IP
address prefixes for a particular Azure service. For example, a tag can represent all storage IP addresses.
The plugin makes a daily API call (at 5:00 am UTC) to retrieve all service tags from the Azure Portal, parses
the payload to form IP-Service Mappings, and stores the mappings in the plugin database. The mappings are
passed to configd, then on to Panorama. If the API call fails to return service information, the plugin forms

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 the IP-Service mappings from the contents of service_tags_public.json. Plugin logs report the origin
of the IP-Service mappings, the daily retrieval or the JSON file.
The plugin also updates service tags for a new installation of the plugin, commit events, and monitoring
definition addition or deletion.
A sample IP-Service mapping is shown below:

Service Name: AppServiceManagementazure.svc-tag.<service-name>

Example:
azure.svc-tag.AppServiceManagement.WestUS2
Public IP CIDRs:
13.166.40.0/26
54.179.89.0/18

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Set up Active/Passive HA on Azure
You can configure a pair of VM-Series firewalls on Azure in an active/passive high availability (HA)
configuration. For HA on Azure, you must deploy both firewall HA peers within the same Azure Resource
Group and you must install the same version of the VM-Series Plugin on both HA peers.
• Set Up Active/Passive HA on Azure (North-South & East-West Traffic)—If you have an internet-facing
application deployed on your Azure infrastructure, and you need to secure north-south traffic, you
require a floating IP address to secure traffic on failover. This floating IP address, which enables external
connectivity, is always attached to the active peer. On failover, the process of detaching the IP address
and reattaching it to the now active peer can take a few minutes.
• Set Up Active/Passive HA on Azure (East-West Traffic Only)—If your application access and security
requirements are contained within the Azure infrastructure and you need to secure east-west traffic
only, you do not need a floating IP address. Instead, the HA implementation automatically reconfigures
the UDRs in the Azure routing tables to provide a faster failover time.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

To enable HA on the VM-Series firewall on Azure, you must create an Azure Active Directory application
and Service Principal that includes the permissions listed in the table below.

Azure HA Type Permissions Role Scope

Secondary IP Move “Microsoft.Authorization/*/read”, • Virtual network in which the

HA VMs are deployed
“Microsoft.Compute/
virtualMachines/read”, • Two VM-Series firewalls
• NICs of both VM-Series
“Microsoft.Network/ firewalls
networkSecurityGroups/join/
• Network Security Group
action”,
• Public IP addresses of the
Microsoft.Network/ VM-Series firewalls
networkInterfaces/*”,
“Microsoft.Network/
virtualNetworks/join/action”
The following permissions are required only
if you have assigned a public IP address to
any of your data interfaces. Standard SKU
interface is recommended.
“Microsoft.Network/
publicIPAddresses/read”,
“Microsoft.Network/
publicIPAddresses/write”,
“Microsoft.Network/
publicIPAddresses/join/action”,

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 Azure HA Type Permissions Role Scope

UDR HA “Microsoft.Authorization/*/read”, • Two VM-Series firewalls

“Microsoft.Compute/ • NICs of both VM-Series
virtualMachines/read”, firewalls
• Route tables associated with
“Microsoft.Network/routeTables/*”, UDR
“Microsoft.Network/
networkInterfaces/*”

Secondary IP Move “Microsoft.Authorization/*/read”, • Virtual network in which the

and UDR VMs are deployed
“Microsoft.Compute/
virtualMachines/read”, • Two VM-Series firewalls
• NICs of both VM-Series
“Microsoft.Network/ firewalls
networkSecurityGroups/join/
• Network Security Group
action”,
• Public IP addresses of the
“Microsoft.Network/ VM-Series firewalls
networkInterfaces/*”, • Route tables associated with
“Microsoft.Network/ UDR
virtualNetworks/join/action”,
“Microsoft.Network/routeTables/*”
The following permissions are required only
if you have assigned a public IP address to
any of your data interfaces. Standard SKU
interface is recommended.
“Microsoft.Network/
publicIPAddresses/read”,
“Microsoft.Network/
publicIPAddresses/write”,
“Microsoft.Network/
publicIPAddresses/join/action”

Set Up Active/Passive HA on Azure (North-South & East-West

Traffic)
If you want to secure north-south traffic to your applications in your Azure infrastructure, use this workflow
with floating IP addresses that can quickly move from one peer to the other. Because you cannot move the
IP address associated with the primary interface of the firewall on Azure, you need to assign a secondary
IP address that can function as a floating IP address. When the active firewall goes down, the floating IP
address moves from the active to the passive firewall so that the passive firewall can seamlessly secure
traffic as soon as it becomes the active peer. In addition to the floating IP address, the HA peers also need
HA links—a control link (HA1) and a data link (HA2)—to synchronize data and maintain state information.

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 • Set up the Firewalls for Enabling HA
• Configure Active/Passive HA on the VM-Series Firewall on Azure

Set up the Firewalls for Enabling HA

Gather the following details for configuring HA on the VM-Series firewalls on Azure.

• Set up the Active Directory application and a Service Principal to enable programmatic API
access.
• For the firewall to interact with the Azure APIs, you need to create an Azure Active Directory
Service Principal. This Service Principle has the permissions required to authenticate to the Azure
AD and access the resources within your subscription.To complete this set up, you must have
permissions to register an application with your Azure AD tenant, and assign the application to a role
in your subscription. If you don't have the necessary permissions, ask your Azure AD or subscription
administrator to create a Service Principal. See the table above for the required permissions. Copy
the following details for use later in this workflow:
• Client ID—The Application ID associated with the Active Directory (Azure Active Directory > App
registrations, select your application and copy the ID).
• Tenant ID—The Directory ID (Azure Active Directory > Properties > Directory ID on the Azure
portal).
• Azure Subscription ID—The Azure subscription in which you have deployed the firewalls. You
must login to your Azure portal to get this subscription ID.
• Resource Group Name— The resource group name in which you have deployed the firewalls that
you want to configure as HA peers. Both firewalls must be in the same resource group.
• Secret Key—The authentication key associated with the Active Directory application. To log in as
the application, you must provide both the key value and the Application ID.

• Know where to get the templates you need to deploy the VM-Series firewalls within the same
Azure Resource Group.
For an HA configuration, both HA peers must belong to the same Azure Resource Group. If you deploy
the first instance of the firewall from the Azure Marketplace, and must use your custom ARM template
or the Palo Alto Networks sample GitHub template for deploying the second instance of the firewall into
the existing Resource Group. The reason you need a custom template or the Palo Alto Networks sample
template is because Azure does not support the ability to deploy the firewall in to an Resource Group
that is not empty.

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 Copy the deployment information for the first firewall instance. For example:

• Match the VM Name of VM-Series firewall as shown in the screenshot above with the
Hostname on the firewall web interface. You must add the same name on Device > Setup >
Management, because the hostname of the firewall is used to trigger failover.

• Plan the network interface configuration on the VM-Series firewalls on Azure.

To set up HA, you must deploy both HA peers within the same Azure Resource Group and both firewalls
must have the same number of network interfaces. A minimum of four network interfaces is required on
each HA peer:
• Management interface (eth0)—Private and public IP address associated with the primary interface.
The public IP address enables access to the firewall web interface and SSH access.
You can use the private IP interface on the management interface as the HA1 peer IP address for
the control link communication between the active/passive HA peers. If you want a dedicated HA1
interface, you must attach an additional network interface on each firewall, and this means that you
need five interfaces on each firewall.
• Untrust interface (eth1/1)—Primary private IP address with /32 netmask, and secondary IP
configuration with both a private IP address (any netmask) and a public IP address.
On failover, when the passive peer transitions to the active state, the public IP address associated
with the secondary IP configuration is detached from the previously active peer and attached to the
now active HA peer.
• Trust interface (eth1/2)—Primary and secondary private IP addresses. On failover, when the passive
peer transitions to the active state, the secondary private IP address is detached from the previously
active peer and is attached to the now active HA peer.
• HA2 (eth 1/3)—Primary private IP address. The HA2 interface is the data link that the HA peers use
for synchronizing sessions, forwarding tables, IPSec security associations and ARP tables.

Interface Active firewall peer Passive firewall peer Description

Trust Secondary IP address — The trust interface

of the active peer
requires a secondary
IP configuration that
can float to the other
peer on failover.
This secondary IP

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Interface Active firewall peer Passive firewall peer Description
configuration on the
trust interface must
be a private IP address
with the netmask of
the servers that it
secures. On failover,
the VM-Series plugin
calls the Azure API to
detach this secondary
private IP address from
the active peer and
attach it to the passive
peer. Attaching this
IP address to the now
active peer ensures that
the firewall can receive
traffic on the floating IP
on the untrust interface
and send it through to
the floating IP on the
trust interface and on to
the workloads.

Untrust Secondary IP address — The untrust interface

of the firewall requires
a secondary IP
configuration that
includes a static private
IP address with a
netmask for the untrust
subnet, and a public IP
address for accessing
the back-end servers
or workloads over the
internet. On failover,
the VM-Series plugin
calls the Azure API to
detach the secondary IP
configuration from the
active peer and attach
it to the passive peer
before it transitions to
the active state. This
process of floating
the secondary IP
configuration, enables
the now active firewall
to continue processing
inbound traffic that
is destined to the
workloads.

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 Interface Active firewall peer Passive firewall peer Description

HA2 Add a NIC to the Add a NIC to the On the active and
firewall from the Azure firewall from the passive peers, add a
management console. Azure management dedicated HA2 link
console. to enable session
synchronization.
The default interface for
HA1 is the management
interface, and you
can opt to use the
management interface
instead of adding an
additional interface
to the firewall. For
enabling data flow over
the HA2 link, you need
to add an additional
network interface on
the Azure portal and
configure the interface
for HA2 on the firewall.

Configure Active/Passive HA on the VM-Series Firewall on Azure

In this workflow, you deploy the first instance of the VM-Series firewall using the VM-Series firewall
solution template in the Azure marketplace, and the second instance of the firewall using the sample
GitHub template.

The authentication key (client secret) associated with the Active Directory application
required for setting up the VM-Series firewall in an HA configuration, is encrypted with VM-
Series plugin version 1.0.4 on the firewall and on Panorama. Because the key is encrypted
in VM-Series plugin version 1.0.4, you must install the same version of the plugin on
Panorama and the managed VM-Series firewalls in order to centrally manage the firewalls
from Panorama.

STEP 1 | Deploy the VM-Series firewall using a solution template and set up the network interfaces for
HA.
1. Add a secondary IP configuration to the untrust interface of the firewall.

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 You must attach the secondary IP configuration—with a private IP address (any netmask) and a public
IP address—to the firewall that will be designated as the active peer. The secondary IP configuration
always stays with the active HA peer, and moves from one peer to the another when a failover
occurs.
In this workflow, this firewall will be designated as the active peer. The active HA peer has a lower
numerical value for device priority that you configure as a part of the HA configuration on the
firewall, and this value indicates a preference for which firewall assumes the role of the active peer.
2. Add a secondary IP configuration to the trust interface of the firewall.

The secondary IP configuration for the trust interface requires a static private IP address only. This IP
address moves from the active firewall to the passive firewall on failover so that traffic flows through
from the untrust to the trust interface and to the destination subnets that the firewall secures.
3. Attach a network interface for the HA2 communication between the firewall HA peers.
1. Add a subnet within the virtual network.
2. Create and attach a network interface to the firewall.
4. Set up your route table on Azure.

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 Your next hop should point to the floating IP address as shown here:

STEP 2 | Configure the interfaces on the firewall.

Complete these steps on the active HA peer, before you deploy and set up the passive HA peer.
1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Configure ethernet 1/1 as the untrust interface and ethernet 1/2 as the trust interface.
Select Network > Interfaces and configure as follows:

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 3. Configure ethernet 1/3 as the HA interface.
To set up the HA2 link, select the interface and set Interface Type to HA. Set link speed and duplex
to auto.

STEP 3 | Configure the VM-Series plugin to authenticate to the Azure resource group in which you have
deployed the firewall.
Set up the Azure HA configuration on the VM-Series plugin.
To encrypt the client secret, use the VM-Series plugin version 1.0.4 or later. If using Panorama to
manage your firewalls, you must install the VM-Series plugin version 1.0.4 or later.
1. Select Device > VM-Series to enable programmatic access between the firewall plugin and the Azure
resources.

2. Enter the Client ID. The client ID is the Application ID associated with your Azure Active Directory
application.
3. Enter the Subscription ID for the Azure subscription you want to monitor.
4. Enter the Client Secret and re-enter it to confirm.
5. Enter the Tenant ID. The tenant ID is the Directory ID you saved when you set up the Active
Directory application.
6. Click Validate to verify that the keys and IDs you entered are valid, and that VM-Series plugin can
successfully communicate with the Azure resources using the API.

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STEP 4 | Enable HA.

1. Select Device > Setup > HA.

2. Enter Peer HA1 IP address as the private IP address of the passive peer.
3. (Optional) Edit the Control Link (HA1). If you do not plan to use the management interface for the
control link and have added an additional interface (for example ethernet 1/4), edit this section to
select the interface to use for HA1 communication.
4. Edit the Data Link (HA2) to use Port ethernet 1/3 and add the IP address of this peer and the
Gateway IP address for the subnet.

STEP 5 | Commit the changes.

STEP 6 | Set up the passive HA peer within the same Azure Resource Group.
1. Deploy the second instance of the firewall.
• Download the custom template and parameters file from GitHub.
• Log in to the Azure Portal.
• Search for custom template and select Deploy from a custom template.
• Select Build your own template in the editor > Load file.
• Select the azuredeploy.json that you downloaded earlier, and Save.
• Complete the inputs, agree to the terms and Purchase.
Make sure to match the following inputs to that of the firewall instance you have already
deployed— Azure subscription, name of the Resource Group, location of the Resource Group,
name of the existing VNet into which you want to deploy the firewall, VNet CIDR, Subnet names,
Subnet CIDRs, and start the IP address for the management, trust and untrust subnets.
2. Repeat Step 1and Step 2to set up the interfaces and configure the firewall as the passive HA peer.
3. Skip Step 3 and complete Enable HA (Step 5). In Step 4 modify the IP addresses as appropriate for
this passive HA peer.

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STEP 7 | After you finish configuring both firewalls, verify that the firewalls are paired in active/passive
HA.
1. Access the Dashboard on both firewalls, and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active firewall, click the Sync to peer link.
3. Confirm that the firewalls are paired and synced, as shown as follows:

• On the passive firewall: the state of the local firewall should display passive and the Running
Config should show as synchronized.
• On the active firewall: The state of the local firewall should display active and the Running Config
should show as synchronized.
4. On the passive peer, verify that the VM-Series plugin configuration is now synced.
Select Device > VM-Series and validate that you can view the Azure HA configuration that you had
omitted configuring on the passive peer.

Set Up Active/Passive HA on Azure (East-West Traffic Only)

If your resources are all deployed within the Azure infrastructure and you do not need to enforce security
for north south traffic to the Azure VNet, you can deploy a pair of VM-Series firewalls in an active/passive
high availability (HA) configuration without floating IP addresses. The HA peers will still need HA links—a
control link (HA1) and a data link (HA2)—to synchronize data and maintain state information.
You must have the VM-Series Plugin version 1.0.9 or later, and you must deploy both firewall HA peers
within the same Azure Resource Group.

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 • Set up the Firewalls for Enabling HA
• Configure Active/Passive HA on the VM-Series Firewall on Azure

Set up the Firewalls for Enabling HA

Gather the following details for configuring HA on the VM-Series firewalls on Azure.

• Set up the Active Directory application and a Service Principal to enable programmatic API
access.
• For the firewall to interact with the Azure APIs, you need to create an Azure Active Directory
Service Principal. This Service Principle has the permissions required to authenticate to the Azure
AD and access the resources within your subscription.To complete this set up, you must have
permissions to register an application with your Azure AD tenant, and assign the application to a role
in your subscription. If you don't have the necessary permissions, ask your Azure AD or subscription
administrator to create a Service Principal. See the table above for the required permissions. Copy
the following details for use later in this workflow:
• Client ID—The Application ID associated with the Active Directory (Azure Active Directory > App
registrations, select your application and copy the ID).
• Tenant ID—The Directory ID (Azure Active Directory > Properties > Directory ID on the Azure
portal).
• Azure Subscription ID—The Azure subscription in which you have deployed the firewalls. You
must login to your Azure portal to get this subscription ID.
• Resource Group Name— The resource group name in which you have deployed the firewalls that
you want to configure as HA peers. Both firewalls must be in the same resource group.

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 • Secret Key—The authentication key associated with the Active Directory application. To log in as
the application, you must provide both the key value and the Application ID.

• Know where to get the templates you need to deploy the VM-Series firewalls within the same
Azure Resource Group.
For an HA configuration, both HA peers must belong to the same Azure Resource Group. If you deploy
the first instance of the firewall from the Azure Marketplace, and must use your custom ARM template
or the Palo Alto Networks sample GitHub template for deploying the second instance of the firewall into
the existing Resource Group. The reason you need a custom template or the Palo Alto Networks sample
template is because Azure does not support the ability to deploy the firewall in to an Resource Group
that is not empty.

Copy the deployment information for the first firewall instance. For example:

• Match the VM Name of VM-Series firewall as shown in the screenshot above with the
Hostname on the firewall web interface. You must add the same name on Device > Setup >
Management, because the hostname of the firewall is used to trigger failover.

• Plan the network interface configuration on the VM-Series firewalls on Azure.

To set up HA, you must deploy both HA peers within the same Azure Resource Group and both firewalls
must have the same number of network interfaces. A minimum of four network interfaces is required on
each HA peer:
• Management interface (eth0)—Private and public IP address associated with the primary interface.
The public IP address enables access to the firewall web interface and SSH access.
You can use the private IP interface on the management interface as the HA1 peer IP address for
the control link communication between the active/passive HA peers. If you want a dedicated HA1
interface, you must attach an additional network interface on each firewall, and this means that you
need five interfaces on each firewall.
• Untrust interface (eth1/1)—Primary private IP address with /32 netmask.
On failover, when the passive peer transitions to the active state, the VM-Series plugin automatically
sends traffic to the primary private IP address of the passive peer. The Azure UDRs enable the traffic
flow.
• Trust interface (eth1/2)—Primary private IP address. On failover, when the passive peer transitions to
the active state, the VM-Series plugin automatically sends traffic to the primary private IP address of
the passive peer.

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 • HA2 (eth 1/3)—Primary private IP address. The HA2 interface is the data link that the HA peers use
for synchronizing sessions, forwarding tables, IPSec security associations and ARP tables.

Interface Active firewall peer Passive firewall peer Description

HA2 Add a NIC to the Add a NIC to the On the active and
firewall from the Azure firewall from the passive peers, add a
management console. Azure management dedicated HA2 link
console. to enable session
synchronization.
The default interface for
HA1 is the management
interface, and you
can opt to use the
management interface
instead of adding an
additional interface
to the firewall. For
enabling data flow over
the HA2 link, you need
to add an additional
network interface on
the Azure portal and
configure the interface
for HA2 on the firewall.

Configure Active/Passive HA on the VM-Series Firewall on Azure

In this workflow, you deploy the first instance of the VM-Series firewall using the VM-Series firewall
solution template in the Azure marketplace, and the second instance of the firewall using the sample
GitHub template.

The authentication key (client secret) associated with the Active Directory application
required for setting up the VM-Series firewall in an HA configuration, is encrypted with VM-
Series plugin version 1.0.9 on the firewall and on Panorama. Because the key is encrypted
in VM-Series plugin version 1.0.9, you must install the same version of the plugin on
Panorama and the managed VM-Series firewalls in order to centrally manage the firewalls
from Panorama.

STEP 1 | Deploy the VM-Series firewall using a solution template and set up the network interfaces for
HA.
For securing east west traffic within an Azure VNet, you only need a primary IP address for the trust and
untrust firewall interfaces. When a failover occurs, the UDR changes and the route points to the primary
IP address of the peer that transitions to the active state.
1. Add a Primary IP configuration to the trust interface of the active firewall peer.
In this workflow, this firewall will be designated as the active peer. The active HA peer has a lower
numerical value for device priority that you configure as a part of the HA configuration on the
firewall, and this value indicates a preference for which firewall assumes the role of the active peer.

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2. Add a Primary IP configuration to the untrust interface of the active firewall peer.

3. Attach a network interface for the HA2 communication between the firewall HA peers.
1. Add a subnet within the virtual network.
2. Create and attach a network interface to the firewall.
4. Set up your route table on Azure.
Create a route to the Next hop of Primary IP address of the trust and untrust interfaces of the active
firewall peer.

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 After failover, the next hop for the Database server to Frontend server route will change from
10.9.2.5 to 10.9.2.4. Similarly, the next hop of Frontend server to Database server route will change
from 10.9.1.5 to 10.9.1.4.

STEP 2 | Configure the interfaces on the firewall.

Complete these steps on the active HA peer, before you deploy and set up the passive HA peer.
1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Configure ethernet 1/1 as the untrust interface and ethernet 1/2 as the untrust interface.
Select Network > Interfaces and configure as follows:

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 3. Configure ethernet 1/3 as the HA interface.
To set up the HA2 link, select the interface and set Interface Type to HA. Set link speed and duplex
to auto.

STEP 3 | Configure the VM-Series plugin to authenticate to the Azure resource group in which you have
deployed the firewall.
Set up the Azure HA configuration on the VM-Series plugin.
To encrypt the client secret, use the VM-Series plugin version 1.0.4 or later. If using Panorama to
manage your firewalls, you must install the VM-Series plugin version 1.0.4 or later.
1. Select Device > VM-Series to enable programmatic access between the firewall plugin and the Azure
resources.

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 2. Enter the Client ID. The client ID is the Application ID associated with your Azure Active Directory
application.
3. Enter the Subscription ID for the Azure subscription you want to monitor.
4. Enter the Client Secret and re-enter it to confirm.
5. Enter the Tenant ID. The tenant ID is the Directory ID you saved when you set up the Active
Directory application.
6. Click Validate to verify that the keys and IDs you entered are valid, and that VM-Series plugin can
successfully communicate with the Azure resources using the API.

STEP 4 | Enable HA.

1. Select Device > Setup > HA.

2. Enter Peer HA1 IP address as the private IP address of the passive peer.
3. (Optional) Edit the Control Link (HA1). If you do not plan to use the management interface for the
control link and have added an additional interface (for example ethernet 1/4), edit this section to
select the interface to use for HA1 communication.
4. Edit the Data Link (HA2) to use Port ethernet 1/3 and add the IP address of this peer and the
Gateway IP address for the subnet.

STEP 5 | Commit the changes.

STEP 6 | Set up the passive HA peer within the same Azure Resource Group.
1. Deploy the second instance of the firewall.
• Download the custom template and parameters file from GitHub.
• Log in to the Azure Portal.
• Search for custom template and select Deploy from a custom template.
• Select Build your own template in the editor > Load file.
• Select the azuredeploy.json that you downloaded earlier, and Save.

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 • Complete the inputs, agree to the terms and Purchase.
Make sure to match the following inputs to that of the firewall instance you have already
deployed— Azure subscription, name of the Resource Group, location of the Resource Group,
name of the existing VNet into which you want to deploy the firewall, VNet CIDR, Subnet names,
Subnet CIDRs, and start the IP address for the management, trust and untrust subnets.
2. Repeat Step 1and Step 2to set up the interfaces and configure the firewall as the passive HA peer.
3. Skip Step 3 and complete Enable HA (Step 5). In Step 4 modify the IP addresses as appropriate for
this passive HA peer.

STEP 7 | After you finish configuring both firewalls, verify that the firewalls are paired in active/passive
HA.
1. Access the Dashboard on both firewalls, and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active firewall, click the Sync to peer link.
3. Confirm that the firewalls are paired and synced, as shown as follows:

• On the passive firewall: the state of the local firewall should display passive and the Running
Config should show as synchronized.
• On the active firewall: The state of the local firewall should display active and the Running Config
should show as synchronized.
4. On the passive peer, verify that the VM-Series plugin configuration is now synced.
Select Device > VM-Series and validate that you can view the Azure HA configuration that you had
omitted configuring on the passive peer.

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Use the ARM Template to Deploy the VM-
Series Firewall
In addition to Marketplace based deployments, Palo Alto Networks provides a GitHub repository which
hosts sample ARM templates that you can download and customize for your needs. ARM templates are
JSON files that describe the resources required for individual resources such as network interfaces, a
complete virtual machine or even an entire application stack with multiple virtual machines.
ARM templates are for advanced users, and Palo Alto Networks provides the ARM template under the
community supported policy. To learn about ARM templates, refer to the Microsoft documentation on ARM
Templates.
To simplify the deployment of all the required resources, the two-tier sample template (https://github.com/
PaloAltoNetworks/azure/tree/master/two-tier-sample) includes two json files:
• Template File—The azureDeploy.json is the main resources file that deploys all the components within
the resource group.
• Parameters File—The azureDeploy.parameters.json is the file that includes the parameters required to
successfully deploy the VM-Series firewall in the VNet. It includes details such as the virtual machine tier
and size, username and password for the firewall, the name of the storage container for the firewall. You
can customize this file for your Azure VNet deployment.
To help you deploy the firewall as a gateway for Internet-facing applications, the template provisions the
VM-Series firewall, a database server, and a web server. The VNet uses the private non-routable IP address
space 192.168.0.0/16. You can modify the template to use 172.16.0.0/12, or 10.0.0.0/8.
The ARM template also provides the necessary user-defined rules and IP forwarding flags to enable the
VM-Series firewall to secure the Azure resource group. For the five subnets—Trust, Untrust, Web, DB, and
NAT—included in the template, you have five route tables, one for each subnet with user defined rules for
routing traffic to the VM-Series firewall and the NAT virtual machine.
For the four subnets—Trust, Untrust, Web, and DB—included in the template, you have four route tables,
one for each subnet with user defined rules for routing traffic to the VM-Series firewall.

Figure 4: Deploying VM-Series Firewall using the ARM Template

STEP 1 | Download the two-tier sample ARM template from the GitHub repository.
Download and save the files to a local client: https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/azure/tree/master/
two-tier-sample

STEP 2 | Create a Resource Group on Azure.

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 1. Log in to the Azure CLI using the command: azurelogin
If you need help, refer to the Azure documentation on installing the CLI, or for details on how to
access the CLI on Azure Government or Azure China.
2. Switch to Resource Manager mode using the command:azureconfig mode arm
3. Create a resource group.

STEP 3 | Deploy the ARM template.

1. Open the Parameters File with a text editor and modify the values for your deployment:

In Azure China, you must edit the path for the storage account that hosts the VHD
image required to deploy the VM-Series firewall. In the variables section of the
template file, find the parameter called userImageNameURI and replace the value with
the location where you saved the VHD image.
2. Deploy the template in the resource group you created.

azure group create -v -n “<YourResourceGroupName>”

-l “<YourAzureLocation>” -d “<GiveASmallDeploymentLabel>”

-f azureDeploy.json -e azureDeploy.parameters.json
3. Check the progress/status of the deployment from the Azure CLI:

azure group deployment show "<YourResourceGroupName>"

“<YourDeploymentLabel>“

When the template is successfully deployed the ProvisioningStateis Running.

If the ProvisioningStateis Failed, you must check for errors on the Azure
portal at Resource Group > Events. Filter for only events in the last one hour, select
the most recent events, and drill down to find the errors.
4. Verify that you have successfully deployed the VM-Series firewall.
1. Select Dashboard > Resource Groups, select the resource group.
2. Select All Settings > Deployments > Deployment History for detailed status.

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 The address space within the VNet uses the prefix 192.168, which is defined in the
ARM template.
5. Attach a public IP address to the untrust interface on the firewall.

STEP 4 | Configure the firewall as a VNet gateway to protect your Internet-facing deployment.
1. Log in to the management interface IP address on the firewall.
2. Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall (Network >
Interfaces > Ethernet).
3. Add static rules to the virtual router on the firewall. To route traffic through the firewall in this
example, you need three static routes on the firewall (Network > Virtual Routers, select the router
and click Static Routes):
1. Route all outbound traffic through the UnTrust zone, ethernet1/1 to the Azure router at
192.168.1.1.
2. Route all inbound traffic destined to the web server subnet through the Trust zone, ethernet1/2
to the Azure router at 192.168.2.1.
3. Route all inbound traffic destined to the database server subnet through the Trust zone,
ethernet1/2 to the Azure router at 192.168.2.1.
4. Create security policy rules (Policies > Security) to allow inbound and outbound traffic on the
firewall. You also need security policy rules to allow appropriate traffic from the web server subnet to
the database server subnet and vice versa.
5. Commit the changes on the firewall.
6. Verify that the VM-Series firewall is securing traffic (Monitor > Logs > Traffic).

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Deploy the VM-Series and Azure Application
Gateway Template
The VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway template is a starter kit that you can use to deploy VM-
Series firewalls to secure web workloads for internet-facing deployments on Microsoft Azure (currently not
available for Azure China).
This template deploys two VM-Series firewalls between a pair of (external and internal) Azure load
balancers. The external load balancer is an Azure Application Gateway, which is an HTTP (Layer 7) load
balancer that also serves as the internet-facing gateway, which receives traffic and distributes it through
the VM-Series firewall on to the internal load balancer. The internal load balancer is an Azure Load Balancer
(Layer 4) that fronts a pair of web servers. The template supports the BYOL and the Azure Marketplace
versions of the VM-Series firewall.
As demand on your web workloads increases and you increase capacity for the web server tier you can
manually deploy additional VM-Series firewalls to secure your web server tier.

• VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template

• Start Using the VM-Series & Azure Application Gateway Template

VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template

The VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway template launches an Azure Application Gateway (Layer 7
load balancer) and an Azure (Layer 4) load balancer. Nested between the Application gateway and the load
balancer are a pair of VM-Series firewalls in an Availability Set, and a pair of sample web servers running

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 Apache2 on Ubuntu in another Availability Set. The Availability Sets provide protection from planned and
unplanned outages. The following topology diagram shows the resources that the template deploys:

You can use a new or an existing storage account and resource group in which to deploy all the resources
for this solution within an Azure location. It does not provide default values for the resource group name
and storage account name, you must enter a name for them. While you can create a new or use an existing
VNet, the template creates a default VNet named vnet-FW with the CIDR block 192.168.0.0/16, and
allocates five subnets (192.168.1.0/24 - 192.168.5.0/24) for deploying the Azure Application Gateway, the
VM-Series firewalls, the Azure load balancer and the web servers. Each VM-Series firewall is deployed with
three network interfaces—ethernet0/1 in Mgmt subnet (192.168.0.0/24), ethernet1/1 in Untrust subnet
(192.168.1.0/24), and ethernet1/2 in the Trust subnet (192.168.2.0/24).
The template creates a Network Security Group (NSG) that allows inbound traffic from any source IP
address on ports 80,443, and 22. It also deploys the pair of VM-Series firewalls and the web server pair in
their respective Availability Sets to ensure that at least one instance of each is available during a planned
or unplanned maintenance window. Each Availability Set is configured to use three fault domains and five
update domains.
The Azure Application Gateway acts as a reverse-proxy service, which terminates a client connection and
forwards the requests to back-end web servers. The Azure Application Gateway is set up with an HTTP
listener and uses a default health probe to test that the VM-Series firewall IP address (for ethernet1/1) is
healthy and can receive traffic.

The template does not provide an auto-scaling solution; you must plan your capacity needs
and then deploy additional resources to Adapt the Template for your deployment.

The VM-Series firewalls are not configured to receive and secure web traffic destined to the web servers.
Therefore, at a minimum, you must configure the firewall with a static route to send traffic from the VM-
Series firewalls to the default router, configure destination NAT policy to send traffic back to the IP address
of the load balancer, and configure Security policy rules. The NAT policy rule is also required for the firewall
to send responses back to the health probes from the HTTP listener on the Azure Application Gateway.
To assist you with a basic firewall configuration, the GitHub repository includes a sample configuration file
called appgw-sample.xml that you can use to get started.

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Start Using the VM-Series & Azure Application Gateway Template
The VM-Series & Azure Application Gateway template launches all the resources you need to deploy and
secure your web workloads for Internet facing deployments on Microsoft Azure, excluding Azure China.
This section provides details on how to deploy the template, configure the firewalls to route and secure
traffic destined to the web servers, and extend the capabilities and resources that this template provides to
accommodate your deployment needs.
• Deploy the Template to Azure
• VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template Parameters
• Sample Configuration File
• Adapt the Template

Deploy the Template to Azure

Use the following instructions to deploy the template to Azure.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Deploy the template.

Currently not available for deploying in Azure China.

1. Access the template from https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/azure-applicationgateway

2. Click Deploy to Azure.
3. Fill in the details for deploying the template. See VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template
Parameters for a description and the default values, if any, for each parameter.
At a minimum, you have to pick the Azure Subscription, Resource Group, Location, Storage Account
Name, and a Username/password or SSH Key for the administrative account on the VM-Series
firewalls.
4. Click Purchase to accept the terms and conditions and deploy the resources.
If you have validation errors, click to view the details and fix your errors.
5. On the Azure portal, verify that you have successfully deployed the template resources, including the
VM-Series firewalls.
1. Select Dashboard > Resource Groups, select the resource group.
2. Select Overview to review all the resources that have been deployed. The deployment status
should display Succeeded.

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 3. Note the Public IP address or the DNS name assigned to eth0-VM-Series0 and eth0-VM-Series1
to access the management interface of the VM-Series firewalls.

STEP 2 | Log in to the firewalls.

1. Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in to the IP address for eth0-VM-
Series0 or the DNS name for the firewall.
2. Enter the username/password you defined in the parameters file. You will see a certificate warning;
that is okay. Continue to the web page.

STEP 3 | Configure the VM-Series firewall.

You can either configure the firewall manually or import the Sample Configuration File provided in the
GitHub repository and customize it for your security needs.
• Configure the firewall manually—You must do the following at a minimum:
1. Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall (Network >
Interfaces > Ethernet).

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 2. Add a static rule to the virtual router on the firewall. This static rule specifies the firewall’s untrust
interface IP address as the nexthop address for any traffic destined for ethernet1/1. (Network >
Virtual Routers, select the router and click Static Routes).
3. Create security policy rules (Policies > Security) to allow inbound and outbound traffic on the
firewall.
4. Add NAT policies (Policies > NAT). You must create destination NAT and source NAT rules on the
firewall to send traffic to the web servers and back out to the client who initiated the request.
The destination NAT rule is for all traffic that arrives on the firewall’s untrust interface. This rule is
required to translate the destination IP address on the packet to that of the internal load balancer so
that all traffic is directed to the internal load balancer and on to the backend web servers.
The source NAT rule is for all traffic from the backend web server and destined to the untrust
interface on the firewall. This rule translates the source address to the IP address of the trust
interface on the firewall
5. Commit your changes.
• Import the sample configuration file:
6. Download and save the Sample Configuration File to your local client.
7. Select Device > Setup > Operations, click Import named configuration snapshot, Browse to the
sample configuration file that you have saved locally, and click OK.
8. Click Load named configuration snapshot, select the Name of the sample configuration file you just
imported, and click OK.
9. Change the IP address of the address objects and the static route to match the IP address from the
CIDR block you used. Update address objects to use the private IP addresses for eth1-VM-Series0
and eth1-VM-Series1.
10.Important! Create a new admin user account. Select Device > Administrators and Add a new
account.
11.Modify the Hostname in the General Settings widget in Device > Setup > Management.
12.Commit your changes, and log out. The commit overwrites the running configuration with the sample
configuration file and updates you just made. On commit, the hostname and the administrator user
account that you specified when deploying the template are overwritten. You will now need to log in
using the new admin user account and password.
• Log in to the firewall—Use the credentials you created and delete the pandemo administrative
account imported as part of the sample configuration file.

STEP 4 | Log in and configure the other instance of the VM-Series firewall.
See step Configure the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 5 | Verify that you have configured the firewalls properly.

From your web browser, use http to access the IP address or DNS name for the app gateway. You
should be able to view the default Apache 2 Ubuntu web page.

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 If you have used the sample configuration firewall, log in to the firewall and view the Traffic logs
generated on session start in Monitor > Logs > Traffic.

VM-Series and Azure Application Gateway Template Parameters

The following table lists the required and optional parameters and the default values, if any.

Parameter Description

Resource group Create new or use existing (no default).

Subscription The type of Azure subscription you will use to cover the cost of the
resources deployed with the template.

Location Select the Azure location to which you want to deploy the template (no
default).

Network Security Group

Network Security Group The network security group limits the source IP addresses from which the
Name VM-Series firewalls and web servers can be accessed.
Default: nsg-mgmt

Network Security Group The source IP addresses that can log in to the management port of the
Inbound Src IP VMs deployed by the template.
The default value 0.0.0.0/0 means you can log into the firewall
management port from any IP address.

Storage Account

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Parameter Description

Storage Account Name Create new or enter the name of an existing Storage Account (no default).
The name must be globally unique.

Storage Account Type Choose between standard and premium storage and your data replication
needs for local redundancy, geo-redundancy, and read-access geo-
redundancy.
The default option is Locally Redundant Storage (LRS). The other options
are Standard GRS, Premium LRS, and Standard RAGRS.

VNet

Virtual Network Create new or enter the name of an existing VNet.

The default name for the VNet is vnet-FW

Virtual Network Address 192.168.0.0/16

Prefix

Azure Application Gateway

App Gateway Name myAppGw

App Gateway DNS Name Enter a globally unique DNS name for the Azure Application Gateway.

App Gateway Subnet Name Default name is AppGWSubnet and the subnet prefix is 192.168.3.0/24.
and Prefix

Azure Load Balancer and Web Servers

Internal Load Balancer myPrivateLB

Name

Internal Load Balancer Default name is backendSubnet and the subnet prefix is 192.168.4.0/24.
Subnet Name and Prefix

Backend Vm Size The default size is Standard tier D1 Azure VM. Use the drop-down in the
template to view the other Azure VM options available for the backend
web servers.

Firewalls

Firewall Model Choose from BYOL or PAYG (bundle 1 or bundle 2, each bundle includes
the VM-300 and a set of subscriptions).

Firewall Vm Name and Size The default name for the firewall is VM-Series, and the default size is
Standard tier D3 Azure VM.
Use the drop-down in the template to view the other Azure VM options
available for the VM-Series firewalls

Mgmt Subnet Name and The management subnet for the VM-Series firewalls and the web servers
Prefix deployed in this solution.

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 Parameter Description
Default name is Mgmt and the subnet prefix is 192.168.0.0/24.

Mgmt Public IP Address Enter a hostname to access the management interface on each firewall.
Name The names must be globally unique.

Trusted Subnet Name and The subnet to which eth1/1 on the VM-Series firewall is connected;
Prefix this subnet connects the VM-Series firewall to the Azure Application
gateway. The firewall receives web traffic destined to the web servers on
eth1/1.
Default name is Trust and the subnet prefix is 192.168.2.0/24.

Untrusted Subnet Name The subnet to which eth1/2 on the VM-Series firewall is connected. The
firewall receives return and outbound web traffic on this interface.
Default name is Untrust and the subnet prefix is 192.168.1.0/24. The
name must be globally unique.

Username Enter the username for the administrative account on the VM-Series
firewalls and the web servers.

Authentication Type You must either enter a password for authentication or use an SSH public
key (no default).

Sample Configuration File

To help you get started, the GitHub repository contains a sample configuration file named appgw-
sample.xml that includes the following rules/objects:
• Address objects—Two address objects, firewall-untrust-IP and internal-load-balancer-
IP, which you will need to modify to match the IP addresses in your setup. You need to modify these
address objects to use the private IP addresses assigned to eth1-VM-Series0 and eth1-VM-Series1 on
the Azure portal.
• Static route—The default virtual router on the firewall has a static route to 192.168.1.1, and this IP
address is accurate if you use the default template values. If you have changed the Untrust subnet
CIDR, you’ll need to update the IP address to match your setup. All traffic coming from the backend web
servers, destined for the application gateway, uses this IP address as the next hop for delivering packets
to the untrust interface on the firewall.
• NAT Policy Rule—The NAT policy rule enables destination NAT and source NAT.
• The destination NAT rule is for all traffic that arrives on the firewall’s untrust interface (ethernet1/2),
which is the firewall-untrust-IP address object. This rule translates the destination IP address on the
packet to that of the internal load balancer so that all traffic is directed to the internal load balancer
and thus to the backend web servers.
• The source NAT rule is for all traffic from the backend web server and destined to the untrust
network interface on the firewall. This rule translates the source address to the IP address of the
trust interface on the firewall (ethernet1/2).
• Security Policy Rule—Two Security policy rules are defined in the sample configuration file. The first rule
allows all inbound web-browsing traffic and generates a log at the start of a session on the firewall. The
second rule blocks all other traffic and generates a log at the start and end of a session on the firewall.
You can use these logs to monitor all traffic to the web servers in this deployment.
• Administrative User Credentials— The sample configuration file includes a username and password
for logging in to the firewall, which is set to pandemo/demopassword. After you import the sample

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 configuration, you must either change the password and set it to a strong, custom password or create a
new administrator account and delete the pandemo account.

Adapt the Template

As your needs evolve, you can scope your capacity needs and extend the template for your deployment
scenario. Here are some ways you can build on the starter template to meet your planned capacity needs:
• Deploy additional VM-Series firewalls behind the Azure Application Gateway. You can manually install
more VM-Series firewalls into the same Availability Set or launch a new Availability Set and manually
deploy additional VM-Seri es firewalls.
• Configure the VM-Series firewalls beyond the basic configuration provided in the sample configuration
file in the GitHub repository.
• Enable HTTPS load balancing (SSL offload) on the Azure Application Gateway. Refer to the Azure
documentation for details.
• Add or replace the sample web servers included with the template.

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Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure
To secure Azure Kubernetes services, you must first install the Azure plugin on Panorama and configure
an Azure Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure deployment. The Azure plugin for Panorama supports
tag-based VM monitoring and Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure , secures inbound traffic for Azure
Kubernetes Services (AKS) clusters, and monitors outbound traffic from AKS clusters. The Panorama
orchestrated deployment allows you to leverage Azure auto scale metrics and the scale-in and scale-out
thresholds to manage surges in demand for application workload resources by independently scaling the
VM-Series firewalls.
To secure inbound traffic for your AKS cluster, you must first Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure .
The Panorama orchestrated deployment works with Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure to gather
information about your network and resources, then create an auto-scaling tier of VM-Series firewalls
for either Secure Kubernetes Services on Azure deployments. See the Palo Alto Networks Compatibility
Matrix, to verify the minimum OS, plugin, and template versions required to secure AKS clusters.
Palo Alto Networks provides an AKS template that deploys an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster
in a new Azure VNet. The Azure plugin on Panorama helps you set up a connection which can monitor
Azure Kubernetes cluster workloads, harvesting services you have annotated as “internal load balancer” and
creating tags you can use in dynamic address groups. You can leverage Panorama dynamic address groups
to apply security policy on inbound traffic routed to services running on your AKS cluster.
• How Does the Panorama Plugin for Azure Secure Kubernetes Services?
• Secure an AKS Cluster

How Does the Panorama Plugin for Azure Secure Kubernetes

Services?
You can use VM-Series firewalls to secure inbound traffic for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters. The
VM-Series firewall can only secure services exposed by a load balancer (such as an Azure Load Balancer).
Outbound traffic can only be monitored.
This chapter reviews different components that enable the Azure Plugin for Panorama to connect to an AKS
cluster.
• Requirements
• A Sample Hub-and-Spoke Topology to Secure AKS Clusters
• User-Defined Routing
• AKS Cluster Communication
• Dynamic Address Groups with Kubernetes Labels

Requirements
This solution requires the following components. See the Panorama plugin information in the Compatibility
Matrix for the minimum version requirements.
• VM-Series firewalls.
• Panorama—Your Panorama version must be the same or higher than your VM-Series PAN-OS version.
• Panorama Plugin for Azure.
• A Panorama orchestrated deployment.
• Azure AKS template version 1.0. This template creates an AKS cluster.
You must enable AKS advanced networking (CNI) for the cluster.

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 An AKS deployment requires advanced networking to configure VNet Peering for the hub and spoke
VNets (see A Sample Hub-and-Spoke Topology to Secure AKS Clusters).

A Sample Hub-and-Spoke Topology to Secure AKS Clusters

The following diagram illustrates a sample auto scale deployment that secures inbound traffic for Azure AKS
clusters. Let’s review some of the components.

• Auto Scaling Infrastructure—The Azure Auto Scaling templates create the messaging infrastructure and
the basic hub and spoke architecture.
• AKS Clusters—The Palo Alto Networks AKS template creates an AKS cluster in a new VNet. Given the
name of the Spoke resource group, the template tags the VNet and AKS cluster with the Spoke resource
group name, so the resource group can be discovered by the Azure Auto Scaling plugin for Panorama.
The Azure plugin for Panorama queries service IP addresses on the Staging ILB to learn about AKS
cluster services.

Only one Spoke firewall scale set can be associated with an AKS Cluster; if you expose
multiple services in a single AKS cluster, they must be protected by the same Spoke.

For each resource group, create a subnet-based address group. In the above diagram,
for example, create an address group for 10.240.0.0/24 (AKS Cluster 1).
• VNet Peering—You must manually configure VNET peering to communicate with other VNets in the
same region.

Cross-region peering is not supported.

You can use other automation tools to deploy AKS clusters. If you deploy in an existing
VNet (the Hub Firewall VNet, for example) you must manually configure VNet peering to

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 the inbound and outbound hub and spoke resource groups, and manually tag the VNet
and AKS cluster with the resource group name.
• User Defined Routes and Rules—You must manually configure user-defined routes and rules (see User-
Defined Routing). In the diagram above, incoming traffic can be redirected, according to UDR rules, to
the Firewall ILB for inspection. Outbound traffic exiting an AKS Cluster is redirected to the Hub Firewall
ILB with Azure user-defined routing (UDR) rules. The solution assumes Allow All as a default policy for
Kubernetes orchestration to function as-is, but to apply policy you can use an allowlist or a denylist to
allow or deny outbound traffic.

User-Defined Routing
You must manually create user-defined routing and routing rules to govern inbound or outbound traffic.
Inbound
In the above diagram, inbound traffic from the Application gateway is driven to the backend pool, and based
on UDR rules, redirected to the Firewall ILB. For example, create a UDR pointing to the VNet subnet so that
the traffic for Kubernetes services is pointed to the firewall ILB.
Outbound
On the Hub firewall set, for each AKS cluster being protected, you must create static routes for the cluster
subnet CIDR, with the next hop being the gateway address of the Hub VNet trust subnet.
All outbound traffic for an AKS cluster is directed to the Hub firewall set with a single UDR rule.

AKS Cluster Communication

The Panorama plugin for Azure can only communicate with the AKS controller node for a given AKS cluster.
For Outbound AKS traffic, the next hop is the Hub Firewall ILB. Because Outbound traffic is monitored,
you must Allow All traffic. The following topics emphasize common practices that help you establish
connectivity. Keep them in mind when you plan your networks and subnets.
• Create AKS Cluster Authentication
• Use An Address Group to Identify Traffic
• Add the Subnet Address Group to the Top-Level Policy
• Prevent Application Disruption when Workload and AKS Cluster VNets Are Peered
Create AKS Cluster Authentication
When you connect the AKS cluster in Azure plugin for Panorama you must enter a secret authorization
token. Use Kubernetes commands to perform the following steps.

STEP 1 | Create a ClusterRole.

STEP 2 | Create a ClusterRoleBinding.

1. Create a .yaml file for the ClusterRoleBinding. For example, create a text file named crb.yaml.

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
name: default-view
roleRef:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: ClusterRole
name: view
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: default

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 namespace: default
2. Use Azure Cloud Shell to apply the crb.yaml role binding.
kubectl apply -f crb.yaml
3. View the service account you just created.
kubectl get serviceaccounts

STEP 3 | Save the service account credential to a .json file.

1. On your local machine, change to the directory in which you want to save the credential.
2. Use kubectl commands to create the token.
MY_SA_TOKEN=‘kubectl get serviceaccounts default -o
jsonpath=’{.secrets[0].name}’‘
3. View the token name.
$ echo $MY_SA_TOKEN
4. Display the credential.
kubectl get secret $MY_SA_TOKEN -o json
You need the token when you connect the AKS cluster in Azure plugin for Panorama, in Step 3.d.

Use An Address Group to Identify Traffic

To create some granularity for monitored Outbound traffic, create an address group specifically for the
AKS cluster VNet subnet (for example, 10.240.0.97/32 in the above diagram). You can then write rules that
allow incoming or returning traffic rather than using Allow All.
If you create an address group, be careful to maintain the communication between the AKS controller and
any worker nodes. See Add the Subnet Address Group to the Top-Level Policy.

If communication is interrupted, application traffic can be lost or your application deployment

might have problems.

Add the Subnet Address Group to the Top-Level Policy

To maintain connectivity, the address group must be part of the top-level policy in Panorama. You can
configure the cluster address group, or bootstrap the cluster to configure the cluster address group.

Add the address group to the top-level policy before you configure VNet peering or User-
Defined Routing.

Prevent Application Disruption when Workload and AKS Cluster VNets Are Peered
If an AKS cluster co-exists with VM workloads that run in separate VNets, and the VNet is peered with both
the workload spoke (Inbound) and the Hub (Outbound), you must create address groups to differentiate the
workloads and the AKS traffic, and add the address group to Top-Level Policy as described above.

Dynamic Address Groups with Kubernetes Labels

When monitoring an AKS cluster resource, the Azure plugin automatically generates the following IP tags
for AKS services.

aks.<aks cluster name>.<aks service name>

Tags are not generated for nodes, pods, or other resources.

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 If the AKS service has any labels, the tag is as follows (one per label):

aks.<aks cluster name>.svc.<label>.<value>

If a labelSelector tag is defined for a cluster, the plugin generates the following IP tag:

aks_<labelSelector>.<aks cluster name>.<aks service name>

Secure an AKS Cluster

To enable Panorama to connect to the load balancers in an Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) cluster, you
must enable the Azure plugin on Panorama to establish a connection with your AKS cluster. Then, you
must configure the device groups and templates to which the firewalls belong so that Panorama can push
configuration objects and policy rules to your managed firewalls.
• Before You Begin
• Use the Template to Deploy an AKS Cluster
• Connect the AKS Cluster in Azure Plugin for Panorama
• Set Up VNet Peering
• Redirect Traffic to a Firewall ILB
• Apply Policy to Relevant AKS Service
• Deploy and Secure AKS Services

Before You Begin

To secure AKS you must first deploy the Azure Auto Scaling solution available on GitHub.
To secure a web application running as a service within a Kubernetes cluster you must plan the VNets,
subnets, and UDRs. VM-Series firewalls and Panorama provide you security and visibility of your
Kubernetes services.
Review “How Does the Panorama Plugin for Azure Secure Kubernetes Services?”.
You must have AKS advanced networking to use the Palo Alto Networks AKS template.
Design your AKS subnets before you deploy AKS clusters. Review A Sample Hub-and-Spoke Topology
to Secure AKS Clusters, and AKS Cluster Communication.
The template creates a single AKS cluster (Service) as a sample. You must specify CIDR ranges for the
VNet, VNet subnet, and the service. The CIDR ranges must not overlap
Size your subnets to your requirements. Avoid unnecessarily large ranges, as they can affect
performance.
See User-Defined Routing. Specify specific UDR routes rather than broad subnet-specific routes.
Plan how you want to peer your VNets. If you are peering AKS clusters, be sure you have read AKS
Cluster Communication.
Think about the ways in which you want to identify traffic.
If you plan to use an address group on Outbound AKS traffic, see Add the Subnet Address Group to
the Top-Level Policy.
If you have service names or tags that are not unique across namespaces, use the label selector to
filter both a tag and a namespace so that you get a unique result.

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Use the Template to Deploy an AKS Cluster
The Azure AKS template is a sample that provisions a cluster in a new VNet.

STEP 1 | On GitHub, go to PaloAltoNetworks/azure-aks and locate the build package in the repository.

STEP 2 | Unzip the build package. Edit the files azuredeploy.json and parameters.json for your own
deployment, and save.

STEP 3 | Issue the following Azure CLI commands to deploy the template.

az group deployment validate --resource-group RG_NAME

--template-file azuredeploy.json
--parameters @parameters.json

az group deployment create --name DEPLOYMENT_NAME

--resource-group RG_NAME
--template-file azuredeploy.json
--parameters @parameters.json

STEP 4 | Deploy your applications or services on the AKS Cluster.

1. Annotate your service YAML file so that the type is load balancer, and annotate it as
service.beta.kubernetes.io/azure-load-balancer-internal: "true". For example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: azure-vote-front
labels:
service: "azure-vote-front"
tier: "stagingapp"
annotations:
service.beta.kubernetes.io/azure-load-balancer-internal: "true"
spec:
type: LoadBalancer
ports:
- port: 80
selector:
app: azure-vote-front
2. If you have not done so, create AKS cluster authentication before continuing.
3. Deploy your service on your AKS cluster.
For example, you can deploy your application through kubectl:
kubectl apply -f myapplication.yaml
For a sample, see: https://github.com/Azure-Samples/azure-voting-app-redis/blob/master/azure-
vote-all-in-one-redis.yaml
4. Use kubectl to get the service IP for the deployed service.

kubectl get services -o wide

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 In the EXTERNAL-IP column 10.240.0.97 is for the ILB, according to your annotation in Step a. Use
the service IP to create a user defined route on Azure.

STEP 5 | Create a UDR rule to point your service to the Firewall ILB behind the Application Gateway.
In Azure, go to your inbound spoke resource group, view the route table and add a new route based
on the destination service IP. In the following screen, the value in the tov1service ADDRESS PREFIX
column is the service IP.

Connect the AKS Cluster in Azure Plugin for Panorama

This task assumes you have deployed a Panorama orchestrated deployment, and that you have created
templates, template stacks and device groups.
See the Panorama online help for more on filling out each form.

STEP 1 | Select Panorama > Azure > Deployments to view the monitoring definition you created when
you configured the deployment. As shown below, if Auto Program Routes is enabled, the
firewall routes are programmed for you.

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STEP 2 | In AKS, tag your Resource Groups. The tags are name/value pairs.
1. Select Home > Resource groups and choose a resource group.
2. Select Tags and define name/value pairs. As shown in the following figure, the tag names must be
inboundgrouprg and HubRG:
• inboundgrouprg—your spoke resource group name
• HubRG—your hub resource group name

The template takes the name of the Spoke resource group as a parameter, and tags the VNet and
AKS cluster with the Spoke resource group name so that it can be discovered by the Panorama plugin
for Azure.

The templates deploy resources in separate VNets. If you manually deploy the AKS
cluster and service in the same VNet as the Spoke firewall set, you must manually create
tags for the spoke resource group name.

STEP 3 | In Panorama, select Panorama > Azure > Setup.

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 1. On the General tab, enable monitoring.
2. On the Notify Groups tab, Add a notification group and select the device groups to be notified.

3. On the Service Principal tab, Add and Validate a service principal.

Use the Service Principal you created for the orchestrated deployment.

4. On the AKS Cluster tab, Add an AKS cluster.

• Enter the exact name of the AKS cluster.
• Enter the API server address. To find the address in Azure, view your AKS service and select
Overview.
• Upload the AKS credential JSON file (see Create AKS Cluster Authentication).
5. Fill in the remaining fields and Add one or more tags.

If you have service names or tags that are not unique across namespaces, use the
label selector to filter both a tag and a namespace so that you get a unique result.

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STEP 4 | Select Panorama > Azure > Monitoring Definition
1. Add a Monitoring definition.
2. Enter a name and description, and select AKS Cluster Monitoring.
3. Select an AKS Cluster and a Notify Group, check Enable, and click OK.

Set Up VNet Peering

If you plan to use an address group to identify traffic, be sure to add the subnet address group to your top-
level Panorama plicy before you configure peering.
After deploying an AKS cluster, set up VNet Peering from the Inbound VNet to your cluster, and from your
cluster to the Firewall VNet.

Redirect Traffic to a Firewall ILB

You must manually create user defined routes (UDRs) and routing rules to redirect traffic to a particular
ILB. For an example, see how the diagram in “How Does the Panorama Plugin for Azure Secure Kubernetes
Services?” depicts an inbound UDR.

STEP 1 | Create URL routing rules that redirect web traffic to the appropriate backend pool.

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STEP 2 | Update the UDR rules for the application gateway subnet to add a route for the service CIDR,
with the next hop being the Inbound Firewall Load Balancer from the Spoke firewall resource
group.

Apply Policy to Relevant AKS Service

STEP 1 | In Panorama, select Policies.

STEP 2 | In the Device Group list, choose the device group for your AKS service.

STEP 3 | Add a Security Policy rule. Fill out the form, and on the Destination tab Add the destination
address or address group.

Deploy and Secure AKS Services

These steps outline how you can secure inbound and outbound traffic traversing to Kubernetes services
using VM-Series firewall and the Azure Plugin for Panorama.

STEP 1 | In the application deployment environment, create a YAML file for the application or use a file
that already exists. The following is a sample application YAML file:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: azure-vote-back
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
matchLabels:
app: azure-vote-back
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: azure-vote-back
spec:

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 containers:
- name: azure-vote-back
image: redis
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 128Mi
limits:
cpu: 250m
memory: 256Mi
ports:
- containerPort: 6379
name: redis
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: azure-vote-back
labels:
service: backend
spec:
ports:
- port: 6379
selector:
app: azure-vote-back
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: azure-vote-front
spec:
replicas: 5
selector:
matchLabels:
app: azure-vote-front
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: azure-vote-front
spec:
containers:
- name: azure-vote-front
image: microsoft/azure-vote-front:v1
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 128Mi
limits:
cpu: 250m
memory: 256Mi
ports:
- containerPort: 80
env:
- name: REDIS
value: "azure-vote-back"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: azure-vote-front
labels:
service: "azure-vote-front"

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 type: "production"
providesecurity: "yes"
a: "value"
b: "value"
c: "value"
tier: "stagingapp"
annotations:
service.beta.kubernetes.io/azure-load-balancer-internal: "true"
spec:
type: LoadBalancer
ports:
- port: 80
selector:
app: azure-vote-front

STEP 2 | Edit your YAML file to label Kubernetes services.

Labels enable the corresponding tag-to-IP mapping to be created when you use the Panorama plugin for
AKS to connect to the cluster. For example, in the above sample file look for the application labels in the
service metadata. They are: azure-vote-back and azure-vote-front.

STEP 3 | In your AKS cluster, apply the YAML file.

STEP 4 | In Panorama, create an Address Group using a resource group tag.

1. On the Objects tab, select a device group from the Device Group list.
2. Select Address Groups and Add an Address Group.
1. Specify a name, and select the Dynamic type.
2. Add addresses. Adding spawns a window that lists detected addresses. Populating the list can
take several minutes.
3. You can choose one or more addresses for the Match Criteria. Select AND or OR for the criteria
relationship.
4. If you have many addresses, enter a string in the search box to filter the output, as shown in the
following figure.
5. In the address list, click the + to include the address in the address group match criteria.
6. When the match criteria is complete, click OK.

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STEP 5 | Show Policy using the address group.

STEP 6 | View secured AKS services.

In Panorama > Azure > Deployments, view your monitoring definition, and in the Action column select
the Protected Applications and Services link.
The Protected? column summarizes the security status of your resource groups. It might take several
minutes for the window to populate. If you have many resource groups, enter a string in the search box
to filter the output.
This output is based on the Azure resource group configuration; it does not query the device group or
template stack membership.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
OpenStack
The VM-Series firewall for OpenStack allows you to provide secure application delivery along
with network security, performance and visibility.

> VM-Series Firewall for OpenStack

> Components of the VM-Series for OpenStack Solution
> Heat Template for a Basic Gateway Deployment
> Heat Templates for Service Chaining and Service Scaling
> Install the VM-Series Firewall in a Basic Gateway Deployment
> Install the VM-Series Firewall with Service Chaining or Scaling

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VM-Series Deployments in OpenStack
The Heat Orchestration templates provided by Palo Alto Networks allow you to deploy the VM-Series
firewall individually, through service chaining, or dynamically with service scaling.
• Basic Gateway
• Service Chaining and Service Scaling

Basic Gateway
The VM-Series firewall for OpenStack allows you to deploy the VM-Series firewall on the KVM hypervisor
running on a compute node in your OpenStack environment. This solution uses Heat Orchestration
Templates and bootstrapping to deploy the VM-Series firewall and a Linux server. The VM-Series firewall
protects the deployed Linux server by inspecting the traffic going in and out of the server. The sample
bootstrap files allow the VM-Series firewall to boot with basic configuration for handling traffic.
These heat template files and the bootstrap files combine to create two virtual machines, the VM-Series
firewall and Linux server, in a network configuration similar to that shown below.

Service Chaining and Service Scaling

Deploying the VM-Series firewall through service chaining or service scaling is not supported
on OpenStack Queens.

Service chaining is a Contrail feature that deploys a VM-Series firewall as a service instance in your
OpenStack environment. A service chain is a set of service virtual machines, such as firewalls or load
balancers, and each virtual machine in the service chain is a service instance. Service scaling allows you to
dynamically deploy additional instances of the VM-Series firewall. Using CPU utilization or incoming bytes
per second metrics gathered by Ceilometer, OpenStack deploys or shuts down additional instances of the
VM-Series firewall to meet the current needs of your network.
The VM-Series firewall in OpenStack solution leverages heat orchestration templates to configure and
deploy the components required for service chaining and service scaling. The heat templates provided by
Palo Alto networks create a service template, service instance, and service policy (to direct traffic to the
VM-Series firewall) to deploy two Linux servers and the VM-Series firewall service instance between them.

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Components of the VM-Series for OpenStack
Solution
The VM-Series firewall in an OpenStack environment has been tested with the following components.

Component Description

Software See the Compatibility Matrix for details about supported software
versions.

VM-Series Hardware See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum hardware
Resources requirements for your VM-Series model.
In OpenStack, flavors define the CPU, memory, and storage capacity of
a compute instance. When setting up your Heat template, choose the
compute flavor that meets or exceeds the hardware requirements for the
VM-Series model.

Fuel Master Fuel is a web UI-driven deployment and management tool for OpenStack.

OpenStack Controller This node runs most of the shared OpenStack services, such API and
scheduling. Additionally, the Horizon UI runs on this node.

OpenStack Compute The compute node contains the virtual machines, including the VM-Series
firewall, in the OpenStack deployment. The compute node that houses
the VM-Series must meet the following criteria:
• Instance type OS::Nova::Server
• Allow configuration of at least three interfaces
• Accept the VM-Series qcow2 image
• Accept the compute flavor parameter

Install the OpenStack compute node on a bare-metal

server because the VM-Series firewall does not support
nested virtualization.

Contrail Controller The Contrail controller node is a software-defined networking controller

used for management, control, and analytics for the virtualized network.
It provides routing information to the compute and gateway nodes.
Additionally, the Contrail controller provides the necessary support for
service chaining and service scaling.

Contrail Gateway The Contrail gateway node provides IP connectivity to external networks
from virtual networks. MPLS over GRE tunnels from the virtual machines
terminate at the gateway node, where packets are decapsulated and sent
to their destinations on IP networks.

Ceilometer (OpenStack In the case of the VM-Series firewall for OpenStack, Ceilometer monitors
Telemetry) CPU utilization for service scaling. When CPU utilization meets the

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 Component Description
defined thresholds, a new service instance of the VM-Series firewall is
deployed or shut down.

Heat Orchestration Palo Alto Networks provides a sample Heat template for deploying the
Template Files VM-Series firewall. This template is made up of a main template and an
environment template. These files instantiate one VM-Series instance
with one management interface and two data interfaces.
In a basic gateway deployment, the template instantiates a Linux server
with one interface. The interface of the server attaches to the private
network created by the template.
In a service chaining or service scaling deployment, the templates
instantiate two Linux servers with one server attached to each data
interface of the firewall.

VM-Series Firewall The VM-Series firewall bootstrap files consist of a init-cfg.txt file,
Bootstrap Files bootstrap.xml file, and VM-Series auth codes. Along with the Heat
template files, Palo Alto Networks provides a sample init-cfg.txt and
bootstrap.xml files. You must provide your own auth codes to license
your VM-Series firewall and activate any subscriptions. See Bootstrap the
VM-Series Firewall for more information about VM-Series bootstrap files.

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Heat Template for a Basic Gateway
Deployment
The heat template file includes the following four files to help you launch the VM-Series firewall on KVM in
OpenStack. All four files are required to deploy the VM-Series firewall and Linux server.
• pan_basic_gw.yaml—Defines the resources created to support the VM-Series firewall and Linux server
on the compute node, such as interfaces and IP addresses.
• pan_basic_gw_env.yaml—Defines the environment that the VM-Series firewall and Linux server exist
in. Many parameters in the pan_basic_gw.yaml file reference the parameters defined in this file, such as
flavor for the VM-Series and the Linux server.
• init-cfg.txt—Includes the operational command to enable DHCP on the firewall management interface.
• bootstrap.xml—Provides basic configuration for the VM-Series firewall. The bootstrap.xml file configures
the data interfaces and IP addresses. These values must match the corresponding values in the
pan_basic_gw.yaml file.
Additionally, the bootstrap.xml file includes a NAT rule called untrust2trust. This rule translate the trust
port on the server to the untrust port of the VM-Series firewall.
You have two options for passing bootstrapping files to OpenStack—file injection (personality files) or user
data.

File injection is no longer supported beginning with OpenStack Queens; you must use user
data instead.

The table below describes resources that the pan_basic_gw.yaml template file creates and provides the
default value, if applicable.

Resource Description

pan_fw_instance VM-Series firewall with a management interface and two data

interfaces.

server_instance A Linux server with a single interface.

pan_trust_net A connection to the internal network to which the trust interface of the
firewall and trust interface of the server are attached.

pan_trust_subnet Subnet attached to the trust interface on the firewall (pan_trust_net) and
has a CIDR value of 192.168.100.0/24.

pan_untrust_net Untrust network to which the untrust port of the firewall is attached.

pan_untrust_subnet Subnet attached to the untrust interface of the firewall

(pan_untrust_net) and has a CIDR value of 192.168.200.0/24.

allow_ssh_https_icmp_secgroup Security group that allows TCP on ports 22 and 443 and ICMP traffic.

pan_untrust_port The untrust port of the VM-Series firewall deployed in Layer 3 mode.
The Heat template provides a default IP address of 192.168.200.10 to
this port.

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 Resource Description
If you change this IP address in the heat template, you must change the
IP address in the bootstrap.xml file.

pan_untrust_floating_ip A floating IP address assigned from the public_network.

pan_untrust_floating_ip_assoc This associates the pan_untrust_floating_ip to the pan_untrust_port.

pan_trust_port The trust port of the VM-Series firewall Layer 3 mode.

server_trust_port The trust port of the Linux server Layer 3 mode. The Heat template
provides a default IP address of 192.168.100.10 to this port.
If you change this IP address in the heat template, you must change the
IP address in the bootstrap.xml file.

The pan_basic_gw.yaml file references the pan_basic_gw_env.yaml for many of the values needed to create
the resources need to deploy the VM-Series firewall and Linux server. The heat template environment file
contains the following parameters.

Parameter Description

mgmt_network The VM-Series firewall management interface attaches to the network

specified in this parameter. The template does not create the management
network; you must create this before deploying the heat templates. The
default value is mgmt_ext_net.

public_network Addresses that the OpenStack cluster and the virtual machines in the cluster
use to communicate with the external or public network. The public network
provides virtual IP addresses for public endpoints, which are used to connect
to OpenStack services APIs. The template does not create the public network;
you must create this before deploying the heat templates. The default value is
public_net.

pan_image This parameter specifies the VM-Series base image used by the Heat
template when deploying the VM-Series firewall. The default value is pa-
vm-7.1.4.

pan_flavor This parameter defines the hardware resources allocated to the VM-Series
firewall. The default value is m1.medium. This value meets the VM-Series on
KVM System Requirements described in the Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
KVM chapter.

server_image This parameter tells the Heat template which image to use for the Linux
server. The default value is Ubuntu-14.04.

server_flavor This parameter defines the hardware resources allocated to the Linux server.
The default value is m1.small.

server_key The server key is used for accessing the Linux server through ssh. The default
value is server_key. You can change this value by entering a new server key in
the environment file.

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Heat Templates for Service Chaining and
Service Scaling
Deploying the VM-Series firewall through service chaining or service scaling is not supported
on OpenStack Queens.

The heat template environment file defines the parameters specific to the VM-Series firewall instance
deployed through service chaining or service scaling. The parameters defined in the environment file are
divided into sections described below. There are two versions of the heat templates for service chaining—
vwire and L3— and one for service scaling.
Service chaining requires the heat template files and two bootstrap files to launch the VM-Series firewall
service instance and two Linux servers in the left and right networks.
• Template files—This template defines the resources created to support the VM-Series firewall and two
Linux servers, such as interfaces and IP addresses.
• service_chaining_template_vm.yaml for vwire deployments.
• service_chaining_template_L3.yaml for L3 deployments.
• service_scaling_template.yaml for service scaling deployments.
• Environment file—This environment file defines the environment that the VM-Series firewall and Linux
servers exist in. Many parameters in the template reference the parameters defined in this file, such as
flavor for the VM-Series and the names of the Linux servers.
• service_chaining_env_vm.yaml for vwire deployments.
• service_chaining_env_L3.yaml for L3 deployments.
• service_scaling_env.yaml for service scaling deployments.
• service_instance.yaml—(Service Scaling only) This is a nested heat template that is reference by
Service_Scaling_template.yaml to deploy the service instance. It provides the necessary information to
deploy service instances for scaling events.
• init-cfg.txt—Provides the minimum information required to bootstrap a VM-Series firewall. The init-
cfg.txt provided only includes the operational command to enable DHCP on the firewall management
interface.
• <file_name>_bootstrap.xml—Provides basic configuration for the VM-Series firewall. The bootstrap.xml
file configures the data interfaces. These values must match the corresponding values in the heat
templates files.
For more information about the init-cfg.txt and bootstrap.xml files, see Bootstrap Configuration Files.
The following tables describe the parameters of the environment file.
• Virtual Network
• Virtual Machine
• Service Template
• Service Instance
• IPAM
• Service Policy
• Alarm

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Virtual Network
The virtual network configuration paramaters in the heat template environment file define the virtual
network that connects the VM-Series firewall and the two Linux servers deployed by the heat template.

Virtual Network (VN Config)

management_network The VM-Series firewall management interface attaches to the network

specified in this parameter.

left_vn or left_network Name of the left virtual network.

right_vn or Name of the right virtual network.

right_network

left_vn_fqdn Fully qualified domain name of the left virtual network.

right_vn_fqdn Fully qualified domain name of the right virtual network

route_target Edit this value so route target configuration matches that of your external
gateway.

Virtual Machine
The virtual machine parameters define the left and right Linux servers. The name of the port tuple is defined
here and referenced by the heat template. In Contrail, a port tuple is an ordered set of virtual network
interfaces connected to the same virtual machine. With a port tuple, you can create ports and pass that
information when creating a service instance. The heat template creates the left, right, and management
ports and adds them to the port tuple. The port tuple is then linked to the service instance. When you
launch the service instance using the heat templates, the port tuple maps the service virtual machine to the
virtual machine deployed in OpenStack.

Virtual Machine (VM Config)

flavor The flavor of the left and right virtual machines. The default value is m1.small.

left_vm_image or The name of the software image for the left and right virtual machines.
right_vm_image or Change this value to match the file name of the image you uploaded.
image
The default is TestVM, which is a default image provided by OpenStack.

svm_name The name applied to the VM-Series firewall.

left_vm_name and The name of the left and right virtual machines.
right_vm_name

port_tuple_name The name of the port tuple used by the two Linux servers and the VM-Series
firewall.

server_key The server key is used for accessing virtual machines through SSH. The
default value is server_key. You can change this value by entering a new
server key in the environment file.

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Service Template
The service template defines the parameters of the service instance, such as the software image, virtual
machine flavor, service type, and interfaces. Service templates are configured within the scope of a domain
and can be used on all projects within the specified domain.

Service Template (ST Config)

S_Tmp_name The name of the service template.

S_Tmp_version The service template version. The default value is 2. Do not change this
parameter because service template version 2 is required to support port
tuples.

S_Tmp_service_mode Service mode is the network mode used by the VM-Series firewall service
instance. For the L3 network template, the default value is in-network. For
the virtual wire template, the default value is transparent.

S_Tmp_service_type The type of service being deployed by the template. The default value is
firewall and should not be changed when deploying the VM-Series firewall.

S_Tmp_image_name This parameter specifies the VM-Series base image used by the Heat
template when deploying the VM-Series firewall. Edit this parameter to
match the name of the VM-Series firewall image uploaded to your OpenStack
environment.

S_Tmp_flavor This parameter defines the hardware resources allocated to the VM-Series
firewall. The default value is m1.large.

S_Tmp_interface_type_mgmt The parameters define the interface type for management, left, and right
S_Tmp_interface_type_left interfaces.
S_Tmp_interface_type_right

domain The domain where this service template is tied to. The default value is
default-domain.

Service Instance
The service instance portion of the heat template environment file provides the name of the individual
instance deployed by the heat template and service template.

Service Instance (SI Config)

S_Ins_name The service instance name. This is the name of the VM-Series firewall
instance in Contrail.

S_Ins_fq_name The fully qualified name of the service instance.

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IPAM
IP address management (IPAM) provides the IP address information for the interfaces of the service
instance. Changes these parameters to best suit your environment.

IPAM (IPAM Config)

NetIPam_ip_prefix_mgmt The IP prefix of the management interface on the VM-Series firewall. The
default value is 172.2.0.0.

NetIPam_ip_prefix_len_mgmt
The IP prefix length of the management interface on the VM-Series firewall.
The default value is /24.

NetIPam_ip_prefix_left The IP prefix of the left interface on the VM-Series firewall. The default value
is 10.10.1.0.

NetIPam_ip_prefix_len_leftThe IP prefix length of the left interface on the VM-Series firewall. The
default value is /24.

NetIPam_ip_prefix_right The IP prefix of the right interface on the VM-Series firewall. The default
value is 10.10.2.0.

NetIPam_ip_prefix_len_right
The IP prefix length of the right interface on the VM-Series firewall. The
default value is /24.

NetIPam_addr_from_start_true
This parameter determines how IP addresses are assigned to VMs on the
subnets described above. If true, any new VM takes the next available IP
address. If false, any new VM is assigned an IP address at random. The default
value is true.

Service Policy
The service policy defines the traffic redirection rules and policy that point traffic passing between the left
and right virtual machines to the VM-Series firewall service instance.

Service Policy (Policy Config)

policy_name The name of the service policy in Contrail that redirects traffic through
the VM-Series firewall. For the L3 template, the default value is
PAN_SVM_policy-L3. For the virtual wire template, the default value is
PAN_SVM_policy-vw.

policy_fq_name The fully qualified name of the service policy.

simple_action The default action Contrail applies to traffic going to the VM-Series firewall
service instance. The default value is pass because the VM-Series firewall will
apply its own security policy to the traffic.

protocol The protocols allowed by Contrail to pass to the VM-Series firewall. The
default value is any.

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 Service Policy (Policy Config)

src_port_end and Use this parameter to specify source port(s) that should be associated with
src_port_start the policy rule. You can enter a single port, a list of ports separated with
commas, or a range of ports in the form of <port>-<port>.
The default value is -1 in the provided heat templates; meaning any source
port.

direction This parameter defines the direction of traffic that is allowed by Contrail to
pass to the VM-Series firewall. The default value is <> or bidirectional traffic.

dst_port_end and Use this parameter to specify destination port(s) that should be associated
dst_port_start with the policy rule. You can enter a single port, a list of ports separated with
commas, or a range of ports in the form of <port>-<port>.
The default value is -1 in the provided heat templates; meaning any
destination port.

Alarm
The alarm parameters are used in service scaling and are not included in the service chaining environment
files. These parameters define the thresholds used by Contrail to determine when scaling should take place.
This set of parameters is only used the service scaling heat template.
The default time configured under the cooldown parameters is intended to allow the firewall enough time
to boot up. If you change the cooldown values, leave sufficient time for each new firewall instance to boot
up.

Alarm

meter_name The metric monitored by Ceilometer and used by contrail to determine when
an additional VM-Series firewall should be deployed or brought down. The
heat template uses CPU utilization or bytes per second as metrics for service
scaling.

cooldown_initial The amount time Contrail waits before launching a additional service instance
after the initial service instance is launched. The default is 1200 seconds.

cooldown_scaleup The amount of time Contrail waits between launching additional service
instance after the first scale up service instance launch. The default is 1200
seconds.

cooldown_scaledown The amount of time Contrail waits between shutting down additional service
instances after the first scale up service instance shut down. The default is
1200 seconds.

period_high The interval during which the average CPU load is calculated as high before
triggering an alarm. The default value is 300 seconds.

period_low The interval during which the average CPU load is calculated as low before
triggering an alarm. The default value is 300 seconds.

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 Alarm

threshold_high The value of CPU utilization in percentage or bytes per second that Contrail
references before launching a scale up event. The default is 40% CPU
utilization or 2800 bytes per second.

threshold_low The value of CPU utilization in percentage or bytes per second that Contrail
references before launching a scale down event. The default is 20% CPU
utilization or 12000 bytes per second.

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Install the VM-Series Firewall in a Basic
Gateway Deployment
Complete the following steps to prepare the heat templates, bootstrap files, and software images needed
to deploy the VM-Series firewall in OpenStack. After preparing the files, deploy the VM-Series firewall and
Linux server.

STEP 1 | Download the Heat template and bootstrap files.

Download the Heat template package from the GitHub repository.

STEP 2 | Download the VM-Series base image.

1. Login in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal.
2. Select Software Updates and choose PAN-OS for VM-Series KVM Base Images from the Filter By
drop-down.
3. Download the VM-Series for KVMqcow2 file.

STEP 3 | Download Ubuntu 14.04 and upload the image to the OpenStack controller.
The Heat template needs an Ubuntu image for launching the Linux server.
1. Download Ubuntu 14.04.
2. Log in to the Horizon UI.
3. Select Project > Compute > Images > Create Image.
4. Name the image Ubuntu 14.04 to match the parameter in the pan_basic_gw_env.yaml file.
5. Set Image Source to Image File.
6. Click Choose File and navigate to your Ubuntu image file.
7. Set the Format to match the file format of your Ubuntu image.
8. Click Create Image.

STEP 4 | Upload the VM-Series for KVM base image to the OpenStack controller.
1. Log in to the Horizon UI.
2. Select Project > Compute > Images > Create Image.
3. Name the image to match the image name in your Heat template.
4. Set Image Source to Image File.
5. Click Choose File and navigate to your VM-Series image file.
6. Set the Format to QCOW2-QEMU Emulator.
7. Click Create Image.

STEP 5 | Upload the bootstrap files. You have two options for passing bootstrapping files to OpenStack
—file injection (personality files) or user data. To pass the bootstrap files using user-data, you
must place the files in a tar ball (.tgz file) and encode that tar ball with base64.

File injection is no longer supported beginning with OpenStack Queens; you must use
user data instead.

• For file injection, upload the init-cfg.txt, bootstrap.xml, and your VM-Series auth codes to your
OpenStack controller or a web server that the OpenStack controller can access.
• If using the --user-data method to pass the bootstrap package to the config-drive, you can use
the following command to create the tar ball and encode the tar ball (.tgz file) with base64:

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 tar -cvzf <file-name>.tgz config/
license software content
base64 -i <in-file> -o <outfile>

STEP 6 | Edit the pan_basic_gw.yaml template to point to the bootstrap files and auth codes.
• If you are using personality files, specify the file path or web server address to the location of your
files under personality. Uncomment whichever lines you are not using.

pan_fw_instance:
type: OS::Nova::Server
properties:
image: { get_param: pan_image }
flavor: { get_param: pan_flavor }
networks:
- network: { get_param: mgmt_network }
- port: { get_resource: pan_untrust_port }
- port: { get_resource: pan_trust_port }
user_data_format: RAW
config_drive: true
personality:
/config/init-cfg.txt: {get_file: "/opt/pan_bs/init-cfg.txt"}
# /config/init-cfg.txt: { get_file: "http://web_server_name_ip/
pan_bs/init-cfg.txt" }
/config/bootstrap.xml: {get_file: "/opt/pan_bs/bootstrap.xml"}
# /config/bootstrap.xml: { get_file: "http://web_server_name_ip/
pan_bs/bootstrap.xml" }
/license/authcodes: {get_file: "/opt/pan_bs/authcodes"}
# /license/authcodes: {get_file: "http://web_server_name_ip/pan_bs/
authcodes"}
• If you are using user-data, specify the file path or web server address to the location of your files
under user_data. If you have more than one

pan_fw_instance:
type: OS::Nova::Server
properties:
image: { get_param: pan_image }
flavor: { get_param: pan_flavor }
networks:
- port: { get_resource: mgmt_port }
- port: { get_resource: pan_untrust_port }
- port: { get_resource: pan_trust_port }
user_data_format: RAW
config_drive: true
user_data:
# get_file: http://10.0.2.100/pub/repository/panos/images/
openstack/userdata/boot.tgz
get_file: /home/stack/newhot/bootfiles.tgz

STEP 7 | Edit the pan_basic_gw_env.yaml template environment file to suit your environment. Make
sure that the management and public network values match those that you created in your
OpenStack environment. Set the pan_image to match the name you assigned to the VM-Series
base image file. You can also change your server key here.

root@node-2:~# cat basic_gateway/pan_basic_gw_env.yaml

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 parameters:
mgmt_network: mgmt_ext_net
public_network: public_net
pan_image: pa-vm-image
pan_flavor: m1.medium
server_image: Ubuntu-14.04
server_flavor: m1.small
server_key: server_key

STEP 8 | Deploy the Heat template.

1. Execute the command source openrc
2. Execute the command heat stack-create <stack-name> -f <template> -e ./<env-
template>

STEP 9 | Verify that your VM-Series firewall is deployed successfully.

You can use the following commands to check the creation status of the stack.
• Check the stack status with heat stack-list
• View a detailed list of events that occurred during stack creation with heat event-list
• View details about your stack with heat stack-show

STEP 10 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is bidirectionally inspecting traffic accessing the Linux
server.
1. Log in to the firewall.
2. Select Monitor > Logs > Traffic to view the SSH session.

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Install the VM-Series Firewall with Service
Chaining or Scaling
Complete the following steps to prepare the heat templates, bootstrap files, and software images needed to
deploy the VM-Series firewall. After preparing the files, deploy the VM-Series firewall service and two Linux
servers.

Deploying the VM-Series firewall through service chaining or service scaling is not supported
on OpenStack Queens.

STEP 1 | Download the Heat template and bootstrap files.

Download the Heat template package from the GitHub repository.

STEP 2 | Download the VM-Series base image.

1. Login in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal.
2. Select Software Updates and choose PAN-OS for VM-Series KVM Base Images from the Filter By
drop-down.
3. Download the VM-Series for KVMqcow2 file.

STEP 3 | Download Ubuntu 14.04 and upload the image to the OpenStack controller.
For service chaining, you can use the default image provided by OpenStack called TestVM. Skip this step
when using TestVM. An Ubuntu image is required for service scaling.
1. Download Ubuntu 14.04.
2. Log in to the Horizon UI.
3. Select Project > Compute > Images > Create Image.
4. Name the image Ubuntu 14.04 to match the parameter in the pan_basic_gw_env.yaml file.
5. Set Image Source to Image File.
6. Click Choose File and navigate to your Ubuntu image file.
7. Set the Format to match the file format of your Ubuntu image.
8. Click Create Image.

A server key is required when using an Ubuntu image. Ensure that the server key is
added to the environment file.

STEP 4 | Upload the VM-Series for KVM base image to the OpenStack controller.
1. Log in to the Horizon UI.
2. Select Project > Compute > Images > Create Image.
3. Name the image to match the image name in your Heat template.
4. Set Image Source to Image File.
5. Click Choose File and navigate to your VM-Series image file.
6. Set the Format to QCOW2-QEMU Emulator.
7. Click Create Image.

STEP 5 | Upload the bootstrap files. The files must be uploaded to the folder structure described here.
The heat template uses this folder structure to locate the bootstrap files.
1. Log in to your OpenStack controller.
2. Create the following folder structure:

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 /root/bootstrap/config/
/root/bootstrap/license/
3. Using SCP or FTP, add the init-cfg.txt and bootstrap.xml files to the config folder and add your VM-
Series auth codes to the license folder.

STEP 6 | Edit the template environment file to suit your environment. Verify that the image names in
the environment file match the names you gave the files when you uploaded them.

parameters:
# VN config
management_network: 'mgmt_net'
left_vn: 'left_net'
right_vn: 'right_net'
left_vn_fqdn: 'default-domain:admin:left_net'
right_vn_fqdn: 'default-domain:admin:right_net'
route_target: "target:64512:20000"
# VM config
flavor: 'm1.small'
left_vm_image: 'TestVM'
right_vm_image: 'TestVM'
svm_name: 'PAN_SVM_L3'
left_vm_name: 'Left_VM_L3'
right_vm_name: 'Right_VM_L3'
port_tuple_name: 'port_tuple_L3'
#ST Config
S_Tmp_name: PAN_SVM_template_L3
S_Tmp_version: 2
S_Tmp_service_mode: 'in-network'
S_Tmp_service_type: 'firewall'
S_Tmp_image_name: 'PA-VM-8.0.0'
S_Tmp_flavor: 'm1.large'
S_Tmp_interface_type_mgmt: 'management'
S_Tmp_interface_type_left: 'left'
S_Tmp_interface_type_right: 'right'
domain: 'default-domain'
# SI Config
S_Ins_name: PAN_SVM_Instance_L3
S_Ins_fq_name: 'default-domain:admin:PAN_SVM_Instance_L3'
#IPAM Config
NetIPam_ip_prefix_mgmt: '172.2.0.0'
NetIPam_ip_prefix_len_mgmt: 24
NetIPam_ip_prefix_left: '10.10.1.0'
NetIPam_ip_prefix_len_left: 24
NetIPam_ip_prefix_right: '10.10.2.0'
NetIPam_ip_prefix_len_right: 24
NetIPam_addr_from_start_true: true
#Policy Config
policy_name: 'PAN_SVM_policy-L3'
policy_fq_name: 'default-domain:admin:PAN_SVM_policy-L3'
simple_action: 'pass'
protocol: 'any'
src_port_end: -1
src_port_start: -1
direction: '< >'
dst_port_end: -1
dst_port_start: -1

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STEP 7 | Edit the template files to point to the bootstrap files and auth codes. Under Personality, specify
the file path to the location of your files. Uncomment whichever lines you are not using.

Pan_Svm_instance:
type: OS::Nova::Server
depends_on: [ mgmt_InstanceIp, left_InstanceIp, right_InstanceIp ]
properties:
name: {get_param: svm_name }
image: { get_param: S_Tmp_image_name }
flavor: { get_param: S_Tmp_flavor }
networks:
- port: { get_resource: mgmt_VirtualMachineInterface }
- port: { get_resource: left_VirtualMachineInterface }
- port: { get_resource: right_VirtualMachineInterface }
user_data_format: RAW
config_drive: true
personality:
/config/init-cfg.txt: {get_file: "/root/bootstrap/config/init-
cfg.txt"}
# /config/init-cfg.txt: { get_file: "http://10.4.1.21/op_test/config/
init-cfg.txt" }
/config/bootstrap.xml: {get_file: "/root/bootstrap/config/
Service_Chaining_bootstrap_L3.xml"}
# /config/bootstrap.xml: { get_file: "http://10.4.1.21/op_test/
config/Service_Chaining_bootstrap_L3.xml" }
# /license/authcodes: {get_file: "/root/bootstrap/license/authcodes"}
# /license/authcodes: {get_file: "http://10.4.1.21/op_test/license/
authcodes"}

STEP 8 | Upload the heat template files.

1. Log in to your OpenStack Controller.
2. Use SCP or FTP to add the heat template file and environment file.

STEP 9 | Deploy the Heat template.

1. Execute the command source openrc
2. Execute the command heat stack-create <stack-name> -f <template> -e ./<env-
template>

STEP 10 | Verify that your VM-Series firewall is deployed successfully.

You can use the following commands to check the creation status of the stack.
• Check the stack status with heat stack-list
• View a detailed list of events that occurred during stack creation with heat event-list
• View details about your stack with heat stack-show

STEP 11 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is bidirectionally inspecting traffic between the Linux
servers.
1. Log in to the firewall.
2. Select Monitor > Logs > Traffic to view the SSH session.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google
Cloud Platform
You can deploy a VM-Series firewall on a Google Compute Engine instance on the Google
Cloud Platform.

> Supported Deployments on Google Cloud Platform

> Prepare to Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google Public Cloud
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform
> VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP
> Auto Scaling the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform

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About the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud
Platform
VM-Series firewalls bring next-generation firewall features to the Google® Cloud Platform (GCP™).
To maximize performance, VM-Series firewalls on GCP support the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK)
libraries, which provide fast packet processing and improve network performance based on specific
combinations of VM-Series firewall licenses and Google Cloud Platform virtual machine (VM) sizes.
• Google Cloud Platform and the VM-Series Firewall
• Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall

Google Cloud Platform and the VM-Series Firewall

The VM-Series firewall integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) allows you to deploy the VM-Series
firewall as a virtual machine (VM) running on a Google Compute Engine instance. This process is simplified
when you Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.
After you deploy the VM-Series firewall, you can configure the following optional services:
• Enable Google Stackdriver Monitoring on the VM Series Firewall—From the firewall, push PAN-OS
metrics to the Google Stackdriver service.
• Enable VM Monitoring to Track VM Changes on Google Cloud Platform—Set up a VM information
source that monitors the specific GCP zone containing your instances. The monitored VM metadata can
include predefined GCP properties (such as the project ID) and user-defined properties (such as labels
and network tags).

Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall

You must choose a VM-Series Firewall License for Public Clouds and a license method: bring-your-own-
license (BYOL) or pay-as-you-go (PAYG). To deploy a VM-Series firewall on a Google Compute Engine
instance, you must choose a machine type that supports the VM-Series System Requirements for your
license.
Refer to the table below for the minimum recommended predefined standard machine types for each
license. You can choose a higher performing machine type or you can create your own custom machine
type if the resource requirements are compatible with your VM-Series firewall license.
A single Google Compute Engine instance supports up to eight network interfaces. If you want to configure
eight interfaces, choose n1-standard-8 or a larger machine type.

Capacity BYOL Bundles 1 and 2

PAYG Marketplace Recommended Predefined
Machine Type

VM-100 Firewall

VM-200 Firewall n1-standard-4

VM-300 Firewall

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 Capacity BYOL Bundles 1 and 2
PAYG Marketplace Recommended Predefined
Machine Type

VM-1000-HV Firewall

VM-500 Firewall n1-standard-8

VM-700 Firewall n1-standard-16

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Supported Deployments on Google Cloud
Platform
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on a Google® Compute Engine instance in a network in your
virtual private cloud (VPC). The deployment types are:
• Internet Gateway
• Segmentation Gateway
• Hybrid IPSec VPN

Internet Gateway
The VM-Series firewall secures North/South traffic to and from the internet to protect applications from
known and unknown threats. A Google project can have up to five VPC networks. For a typical example of
an internet gateway, refer to the Google configuration examples.
In public cloud environments, it is a common practice to use a scale-out architecture (see the figure below)
rather than larger, higher performing VMs. This architecture (sometimes called a sandwich deployment)
avoids a single point of failure and enables you to add or remove firewalls as needed.

Segmentation Gateway
A segmentation gateway secures East/West traffic between virtual private clouds (VPCs) to ensure data
protection compliance and application access. The following figure shows a firewall securing both North/
South and East/West traffic.

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Hybrid IPSec VPN
The VM-Series firewall serves as an IPSec VPN termination point, which enables secure communications to
and from applications hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The deployment in the figure below shows a site-to-site VPN from an on-premises network to a VM-Series
firewall deployed on GCP and an IPSec connection from an on-premises network to a Google Cloud VPN
gateway.

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Prepare to Set Up VM-Series Firewalls on
Google Public Cloud
The process to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace requires
preparation tasks.
If you are deploying using the Google Marketplace, you must create your project networks and
subnetworks, and plan networks and IP address assignments for the VM-Series firewall interfaces in
advance. During the deployment, you must choose from existing networks and subnetworks.
Refer to the following topics when planning your deployment:
• General Requirements
• Install the VM-Series Plugin on Panorama
• Install the Panorama Plugin for GCP
• Prepare to Deploy from the GCP Marketplace

General Requirements
The components in this checklist are common to deploying a VM-Series firewall that you manage directly
or with Panorama. Additional requirements apply for Panorama plugin for services such as Stackdriver
monitoring, VM monitoring, auto scaling or securing Kubernetes deployments.
Always consult the Compatibility Matrix for Panorama plugin information for public clouds.This release
requires the following software:
• GCP account—You must have a GCP user account with a linked email address and you must know the
username and password for that email address.
• Google Cloud SDK—If you have not done so, install Google Cloud SDK, which includes Google Cloud
APIs, gcloud and other command line tools. You can use the command line interface to deploy the
firewall template and other templates.
• PAN-OS on VM-Series firewalls on GCP—VM-Series firewalls running a PAN-OS version available from
the Google Marketplace.
• VM-Series firewalls—VM-Series firewalls that you want to manage from Panorama must be deployed
in Google Cloud Platform using a Palo Alto Networks image from the Google Marketplace. Firewalls
must meet the Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall.
• VM-Series Licenses—You must license a VM-Series firewall to obtain a serial number. A serial
number is required to add a VM-Series firewall as a Panorama managed device. If you are using the
Panorama plugin for GCP to deploy VM-Series firewalls you must supply a BYOL auth code. The
Google Marketplace handles your service billing, but the firewalls you deploy will directly interface
with the Palo Alto Networks licensing server.
• VM-Series plugin on the firewall—VM-Series firewalls running PAN-OS 9.0 and later include the
VM-Series plugin, which manages integration with public and private clouds. As shown in the
Compatibility Matrix, the VM-Series plugin has a minimum version that corresponds to each PAN-OS
release.
When there is a major PAN-OS upgrade the VM-Series plugin version is automatically upgraded. For
minor releases it is up to you to determine whether a VM-Series plugin upgrade is necessary, and if
so, perform a manual upgrade. See Install the VM-Series Plugin on Panorama.
• Panorama running in Management mode—A Panorama physical or virtual appliance running a PAN-
OS version that is the same or later than the managed firewalls. Virtual instances do not need to be
deployed in GCP.

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 • You must have a licensed version of Panorama.
• Panorama must have network access to the VPCs in which the VMs you want to manage are
deployed.
• If you intend to manage VMs deployed in GCP, or configure features such as auto scaling, your
PAN-OS and VM-Series plugin versions must meet the Public Cloud requirements to support the
Panorama plugin for GCP.
• VM-Series plugin on Panorama. See Install the VM-Series Plugin on Panorama
• Panorama plugin for GCP version 2.0.0—The GCP plugin manages the interactions required to license,
bootstrap and configure firewalls deployed with the VM Monitoring or Auto Scaling templates. The GCP
plugin, in conjunction with the VM Monitoring or Auto Scaling templates, uses Panorama templates
template stacks, and device groups to program NAT rules that direct traffic to managed VM-Series
firewalls.
See Install the Panorama Plugin for GCP.

Install the VM-Series Plugin on Panorama

On Panorama, install or upgrade to the VM-Series plugin version that supports the GCP features you want
to configure, as detailed in the Compatibility Matrix table for Public Clouds.
Initial installation—Because the VM-Series plugin is optional on Panorama, the first time you install
you must download the VM-Series plugin from the Support portal, then go to Panorama > Device
Deployment > Plugins to upload and install.
Upgrade—Go to Panorama > Device Deployment > Plugins and click Check Now. Install a version that
meets the requirements in the Compatibility Matrix table for Public Clouds.

Install the Panorama Plugin for GCP

The Panorama plugin for GCP is required if you want to use Panorama to manage VM Monitoring or Auto
Scaling deployments created with Palo Alto Networks templates. Install the plugin version that supports the
GCP features you want to configure, as detailed in the Compatibility Matrix table for Public Clouds.

You cannot upgrade the Panorama Plugin for GCP from version 1.0.0 to version 2.0.x. If you
have installed version 1.0.0, remove it before installing 2.0.x.

STEP 1 | Verify your Panorama installation.

On Panorama, ensure that your PAN-OS version meets the requirements to support GCP auto scaling.

STEP 2 | Remove the Panorama plugin for GCP v1.0.

If you have the Panorama plugin v1.0 installed you must remove it.

STEP 3 | Install the Panorama plugin for GCP.

Select Panorama > Plugins, and type gcp in the search bar. Install the plugin version that supports the
features you want to configure (see the Compatibility Matrix table for Public Clouds).
After the installation you can see the plugin in the Panorama dashboard General Information list. View
Panorama > Google Cloud Platform and you see the Setup, Monitoring Definition, and AutoScaling
interfaces.

STEP 4 | (Optional) If your Panorama appliances are in a high availability configuration, you must
manually install the same version of the Google plugin on both Panorama peers.

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 Configure the Google plugin on the active Panorama peer only. On commit, the
configuration syncs to the passive Panorama peer. Only the active Panorama peer polls
Google VMs you have configured for VM Monitoring.

Prepare to Deploy from the GCP Marketplace

Review these requirements to ensure that you have proper accounts and permissions before you use the
Google Marketplace to deploy the firewall on a Google Compute Engine (GCE) instance.
• General Accounts and Permissions
• Available Google Resources
• Google Authentication Methods
• SSH Key Pair

General Accounts and Permissions

You, and any users you allow, must have the following minimal roles or equivalent
Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions to connect to the VM-Series firewall:
Compute Viewer—Compute Viewer enables you to get and list compute engine resources without
being able to read the data stored on those resources.
Storage Object Viewer—Enables you to bootstrap using a Google storage bucket in the same project.

Users in your organization might have IAM permissions or predefined roles that are
more permissive than required. Ensure that you appropriately restrict VM-Series firewall
access.

You can also restrict access with service accounts, as described in Google Authentication Methods.
Monitoring Metric Writer—Required for Stackdriver.

Available Google Resources

Your project must have sufficient resources to deploy the VM-Series firewall as a Google Compute Engine
instance. If you are deploying a GCP Marketplace solution, determine whether the solution deploys other
VMs in addition to the firewall. In the Google Cloud Console, select IAM & admin > Quotas to review the
resource quotas for your project and the networks and disk space consumed. If you are running out of
resources you can ask Google to allocate more for your organization.

Google Authentication Methods

GCP supports multiple ways to connect to an instance. You can authenticate with a service account or an
SSH key pair.

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 1. Service Accounts—Service Accounts apply to applications or VMs—not to end users. They are
commonly used to control access when you use programs or scripts, or when you access the
firewall from the gcloud command line. If you are using Google Service Accounts to authenticate
instances or applications, you must know the email address for the account(s). Refer to
Creating and Managing Service Account Keys.
Using a service account is necessary if you want to connect to the VM-Series firewall from outside the
project—either from a different project or from the command line. For example, if you want to enable
a physical next generation firewall to monitor your VM-Series firewall, you must save the VM-Series
firewall service account information to a JSON file. In the physical firewall, you upload the file when you
configure the connection.
1. Select IAM & Admin > Service accounts and choose +Create Service Account.
Enter the service account name and description, and click Create.
2. Select a role type from the drop menu, and on the right, select an appropriate access level.
For example, select Project > Editor. You can select multiple roles for a service account. When you
are finished, click Continue.
3. Grant specific users permission to access this service account. Select members from the Permissions
column on the right to give them permission to access the roles in the previous step.
2. SSH Keys—If you deploy the VM-Series firewall from the Marketplace, you must supply one Open SSH
key in RSA format for the Google Compute Engine instance metadata.

The VM-Series firewall only accepts one key at deployment.

At deployment time, you paste the public key into the Marketplace deployment, as described in SSH Key
Pair. After deployment you use the private key to SSH in to the firewall to configure the administrator
account. To add users, see Manage Firewall Administrators.
You can authenticate in several ways:
• Create service accounts for instances—You can create a service account for a specific instance or
instance group, and grant specific permissions, which in turn can be granted to users.
• Use the default service account for your project—If you are using the Google Cloud Platform (GCP™)
Console, then you logged in with your email address and can access a GCE instance based on whatever
permissions or roles the project administrator assigned to your account.
Every Google Compute Engine instance created with the Google Cloud Console or the gcloud command
line tool has a default service account with the name in email address format:
<project-number>[email protected]
To see the service account name for the firewall instance, view the instance details and scroll to the
bottom (refer to the Compute Engine default service account).
The default service account can manage authentication to VMs in the same project as a VM-Series
firewall. Access scopes allow the firewall to initiate API calls to VMs in the Google Cloud project.
• Use IAM permissions and the Google APIs—If you use the Google SDK APIs and gcloud, then you must
call the APIs to authenticate.
• You typically use the Google SDK when you want to manage the firewall from a command line or you
want to run a script to configure the firewall.
• You need to access the Google APIs if a virtual machine you connect to has a custom image with
applications that require Google APIs.

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SSH Key Pair
When you deploy the VM-Series firewall from the Google Marketplace you need an SSH key pair to
authenticate with the VM-Series firewall.

Create the key pair according to your key generator documentation. Do not edit the public
key file. Editing risks introducing illegal characters.

The VM-Series firewall manages authentication differently than GCE instances. After deployment, you
first log in with the admin user. The VM-series firewall default user name is accepted only once. After a
successful login you set an administrator username and password for the VM-Series web interface (see
Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace).
The Google Marketplace deployment interface SSH key field displays the following placeholder:
admin:ssh-rsa your-SSH-key
admin is the VM-Series firewall Administrator user name required to log in to the firewall for the first
time. You add the admin: prefix into the Marketplace field when you Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from
Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.
You cannot log in to the VM-Series firewall if you do not supply the entire public key, or your key has illegal
characters when you paste the key into the Marketplace SSH key field. When you SSH in to the VM-Series
firewall for the first time, the public key is transferred to the firewall.
If the public key is corrupted, you must delete the deployment and start over. Any networks and
subnetworks remain, but the firewall rules must be recreated.

STEP 1 | Create an SSH key pair and store the SSH Key pair in the default location for your operating
system mentioned in Locating an SSH key.
• Linux or MacOS—Use ssh-keygen to create the key pair in your .ssh directory.
• Windows—Use PuTTYgen to create the key pair.
The content of the Key comment field does not matter to the VM-Series firewall; you can accept
the default (the key creation date) or enter a comment that helps you remember the name of the key
pair. Use the Save private key button to store the private key in your .ssh directory.

STEP 2 | Select the full public key.

• Linux or MacOS—Open your public key in a text editor and copy the public key.
• Windows—You must use the PuTTY Key Generator to view the public key. Launch PuTTYgen, click
Load, and browse to private key you saved in your .ssh directory.
In PuTTYgen, scroll down to ensure you select the entire key, right click, and choose Copy.

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STEP 3 | Enter the public key in the SSH key field as detailed below.
1. In the Marketplace SSH key field, delete the placeholder text, and type:
admin:
Make sure there are no extra spaces following the colon.
2. Insert the cursor after admin: and choose Paste as plain text. The key must be on a single line, as
shown below:

3. Move the cursor to the end of the key, add a space, and type: admin
The final contents of the SSH key field must be:
admin:ssh-rsa [KEY] admin

STEP 4 | Check the key.

After the deployment, and before you attempt to log in to the firewall, view the management instance
and check the key for linefeeds or extra spaces:

If the key is all on one line and the format is admin:ssh-rsa [KEY] admin, you are finished.

STEP 5 | (optional) If something is wrong you must replace the key.

1. Click the X to delete the key, then click + Add item.
2. Enter the key as described in Step 3. Now the SSH key field must show:
admin:ssh-rsa [KEY] admin
3. Click Save to deploy the updated deployment.
4. Re-check the key.

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Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Network Planning
Before you deploy from the Google Market place, make a plan for VPC networks (referred to as networks),
subnetworks (also called subnets), and Google firewall rules. You must create networks and subnetworks
before you start to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.

The Marketplace deployment page displays only networks and subnetworks that exist when
you start the deployment. If a network is missing, you must exit the deployment, create the
network, and start over.

VPC networks—You must create a custom network specifically for each VM-Series firewall network
interface.
See VM-Series Firewall Licenses for Public Clouds to determine the number of network interfaces
needed based on your VM-Series firewall license. At a minimum, set up the three VPC networks and
subnets required to launch the VM-Series firewall.
A GCP project has a default network with preset configurations and firewall rules; you can delete the
default network, if unused.
By default, there are up to five networks in a project. Your GCP administrator can request additional
networks for your project.
To connect to the management interface you must create a GCP firewall rules that allows access.
You can do this during the deployment if you choose Enable GCP Firewall rule for connections to
Management interface then supply a CIDR block for Source IP in GCP Firewall rule for connections
to Management Interface.

Be sure your networks include all instances you want to secure.

Subnetworks—A compute engine instance can support up to eight Layer 3 interfaces on a single
instance. The Management, Trust, and Untrust interfaces consume three interfaces and you can create
up to five additional dataplane interfaces. Typically the dataplane interfaces represent application
networks.
IP address—You supply IP address ranges when you create interface subnetworks, and you have the
option to enable an external address when you deploy a subnetwork.
• When you create a network subnet, you must specify an IP address range. This range is used for your
internal network, so it cannot overlap with other subnets.
• During deployment, you can choose to enable an external IP address when you create a network
interface. By default, you are given an ephemeral IP address. You cannot supply a reserved static IP
address during the deployment, but you can promote the ephemeral address to a static IP address
after you complete the deployment process (see Promoting an ephemeral external IP address).

Network Interface Planning

When you deploy from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace, the default VM-Series firewall deployment has
three interfaces: the Management plane interface and the Untrust and Trust dataplane interfaces. You can
define additional dataplane instances, depending on the available compute resources on your VM; see VM-
Series Firewall Licenses for Public Clouds.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

During the deployment you have the opportunity to name these interfaces.

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 Interface Order
When you deploy with Marketplace, the order of the network interfaces is predefined. The Management
interface maps to eth0, Untrust to eth1, and Trust to eth2. Marketplace uses this order because mapping
the Management interface to eth0 and the Untrusted interface to eth1 is a requirement if you need to Swap
the Management Interface for load balancing.

Management Interface
The first network interface you add is mapped to eth0 on the firewall and includes the option to enable IP
forwarding. You use this network interface to manage the VM-Series firewall. Typically, this interface has an
external IP address.

An external IP address is only required if a dataplane interface is attached to the

public subnet. At creation time, you can receive an ephemeral IP address and
later promote it to a static IP address after you complete the deployment (refer to
Promoting an ephemeral external IP address).

Dataplane Interfaces (Untrust, Trust)

When you deploy from Marketplace, the order in which you add interfaces is predetermined.
• You configure the Untrust interface after the Management interface. This order means that the
untrusted interface is mapped to eth1. The Untrust interfaces are typically attached to the public subnet,
and have an external IP address.

An external IP address is only required if a dataplane interface is attached to the public

subnet. At creation time, you can receive an ephemeral IP address, then promote it to a
static IP address, as discussed in Promoting an ephemeral external IP address.
• The Trust interface follows the Untrust interface, and it is mapped to eth2. The Trust network often
does not have an external IP address. You can add any additional dataplane interfaces after the Trust
interface.

Additional Dataplane Interfaces

Plan interfaces for applications you must secure, such as web servers, databases, and other applications in
your network. You can create up to five additional dataplane interfaces in addition to the three required to
launch your firewall. Ensure that the applications you want to secure are in networks that connect to the
VM-Series firewall.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Google
Cloud Platform
To deploy the VM-Series firewall using the GCP market place template, you must first create a VPC
network for each interface on the firewall. After you deploy the firewall from the Google Marketplace, you
can log in to the firewall to adjust the configuration to work within your GCP VPC configuration. You can
also enable monitoring so you can collect metrics that enable you to improve resource management or
create Security policy rules that automatically adapt to changes in your application environment.
• Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace
• Management Interface Swap for Google Cloud Platform Load Balancing
• Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management Interface
• Enable Google Stackdriver Monitoring on the VM Series Firewall
• Enable VM Monitoring to Track VM Changes on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure Instances Within the VPC
• Use Custom Templates or the gcloud CLI to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall

Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform

Marketplace
You can use Google® Cloud Platform Marketplace to deploy the VM-Series firewall on a VM-300 capacity
license. The licensed images available from Cloud are:
• VM-Series Next-Generation Firewall Bundle 1
• VM-Series Next-Generation Firewall Bundle 2
• VM-Series Next-Generation Firewall (BYOL)
See Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace for more about these license
options.
The Marketplace deploys an instance of the VM-Series firewall with a minimum of one management
interface and two dataplane interfaces (Trust and Untrust). You can add additional dataplane interfaces for
up to five Google Compute Engine instances in your virtual private cloud (VPC).
Before you deploy the VM-Series firewall, you must create or choose a project in your organization and
create any networks and subnets that will connect to the firewall, as described in VPC Network Planning
and Network Interface Planning.
You cannot attach multiple network interfaces to the same VPC network. Every interface you create must
have a dedicated network with at least one subnet. Ensure that your networks include any additional
dataplane instances you create.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Choose a Bootstrap Method.

STEP 2 | Locate the VM-Series firewall listing in the Marketplace.

1. Log in to the Google Cloud Console.
2. From the Products and Services menu, select Marketplace.
3. Search for VM-Series.

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 4. Select one of the VM-Series firewall licensing options.

STEP 3 | Click Launch on Compute Engine.

STEP 4 | Name the instance and choose resources.

1. Enter the Deployment Name (this name is displayed in the Deployment Manager). The name must be
unique and cannot conflict with any other deployment in the project.
2. Select a Zone. See Regions and Zones for a list of supported zones.
3. Select a Machine Type based on the VM-Series System Requirements for your license and the
Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform.

STEP 5 | Specify instance metadata.

The options Bootstrap Bucket and Interface Swap affect the initial configuration the first time the VM-
Series firewall boots.
1. Bootstrap Bucket (Optional)—If you plan to use a bootstrap file, enter the name of a storage bucket,
or the path to a folder within the storage bucket, that contains the bootstrap package. You need
permission to access the storage bucket. For example:

vmseries-bootstrap-gce-storagebucket=<bucketname>

or

vmseries-bootstrap-gce-storagebucket=<bucketname/directoryname>

If you choose to bootstrap with custom metadata, continue to Step 6.

2. Interface Swap (Optional)—Swap the Management interface (eth0) and the first dataplane interface
(eth1) at deployment time. Interface swap is only necessary when you deploy the VM-Series firewall
behind Google Cloud Platform HTTP(S) Load Balancing. For details, see Management Interface Swap
for Google Cloud Platform Load Balancing.
3. SSH key—Paste in the public key from an SSH key pair. Follow the instructions for your OS in SSH
Key Pair, to create, copy, and paste the key. Windows users must view the key in PuTTY, copy from
the user interface, and paste into Marketplace deployment.

If the key is not formatted properly, the VM-Series firewall does not allow you to log in.
You must delete the deployment and start over.
4. Click More to reveal additional metadata options. The options blockProjectKeys, and
enableSerialConsole are properties of the instance; you can change these metadata values after a
successful deployment.
• blockProjectKeys (Optional)—If you Block Project Keys, you can use only the public SSH key you
supply to access the instance.
• enableSerialConsole (Optional)—Interacting with the Serial Console enables you to monitor
instance creation and perform interactive debugging tasks.

STEP 6 | Specify custom metadata.

If you choose to bootstrap with custom metadata, add any key-value pairs that you did not add in Step
5. See init-cfg.txt File Components for the list of key-value pairs. For example:

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STEP 7 | Configure the boot disk.
1. Boot disk type—Select from SSD Persistent disk or Standard Persistent Disk. See Storage Options.
2. Enter the Boot disk size—60GB is the minimum size. You can edit the disk size later but you must
stop the VM to do so.

STEP 8 | Configure the management interface.

1. Management VPC Network name—Choose an existing network
2. Management Subnet name—Choose an existing subnet.
3. Enable External IP for Management interface (Optional)—If you enable this option, you can use the
IP address assigned to the VM-Series firewall management interface to use SSH to access the VM-
Series firewall web interface.
4. Enable GCP Firewall rule for connections to Management interface (Optional)—This option
automatically creates a GCP firewall Allow rule for an external source IP address that you supply.
5. Source IP in GCP Firewall rule for connections to Management Interface—If you Enable GCP
Firewall rule for connections to Management interface, enter a source IP address or a CIDR block.
• Do not use 0.0.0.0/0. Supply an IP address or a CIDR block that corresponds to your dedicated
management IP addresses or network. Do not make the source network range larger than
necessary.
• Verify the address to ensure that you do not lock yourself out.

STEP 9 | Configure the Untrust dataplane interface.

1. Untrust VPC Network name—Choose an existing network.
2. Untrust Subnet name—Choose an existing subnet.
3. Enable External IP for Untrust—Enable GCP to provide an ephemeral IP address to act as the external
IP address.

STEP 10 | Configure the Trust dataplane interface.

1. Trust VPC Network name—Choose an existing network.
2. Trust Subnet name—Choose an existing network.
3. Enable External IP for Trust—Enable GCP to provide an ephemeral IP address to act as the external
IP address.

STEP 11 | Configure additional interfaces. You must enter the number of dataplane interfaces you want
to add; the default is 0 (none). The deployment page always displays fields for five additional
dataplanes numbered 4 through 8.
1. Additional Dataplane interfaces—Enter the number of additional dataplane instances.

If this number is 0 (default), dataplane numbers 4 through 8 are ignored even if you fill
out the interface fields. If, for example, you specify 2 and then fill out information for
three interfaces, only the first two are created.

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 2. Additional Dataplane # VPC name—Choose an existing network.
3. Dataplane # Subnet name—Choose a subnet that exists.
4. Enable External IP for dataplane # interface—Enable GCP to provide an ephemeral IP address to act
as the external IP address.

STEP 12 | Deploy the instance.

STEP 13 | Use Google Cloud Deployment Manager to view and manage your deployment.

STEP 14 | Use the CLI to change the administrator password on the firewall.
1. Log in to the VM-Series firewall from the command line. In your SSH tool, connect to the External IP
for the management interface, and specify the path to your private key.
Windows users: Use PuTTY to connect to the VM-Series firewall and issue command line
instructions. To specify the path to the private key, select Connection > SSH > Auth. In Private key
file for authentication: click Browse to select your private key.
2. Enter configuration mode:
VMfirewall> configure
3. Enter the following command:
VMfirewall# set mgt-config users admin password
4. Enter and confirm a new password for the administrator.
5. Commit your new password:
VMfirewall# commit
6. Return to command mode:
VMfirewall# exit
7. (Optional) If you used a bootstrap file for interface swap, use the following command to view the
interface mapping:
VMfirewall> debug show vm-series interfaces all

STEP 15 | Access the VM-Series firewall web interface.

1. In a browser, create a secure (https) connection to the IP address for the management interface.
If you get a network error, check to see that you have a GCP firewall rule that allows the connection.
2. When prompted, enter the username (admin) and the administrator password you specified from the
CLI.
3. (Optional) If you bootstrapped, then Verify Bootstrap Completion.
If you see problems, search the log information on the VM-Series firewall. Choose Monitor > System
and, in the manual search field, enter description contains 'bootstrap' and look for a
message in the results that indicates that the bootstrap was successful.
After you log in to the firewall, you can add administrators and create interfaces, zones, NAT rules, and
policy rules, just as you would on a physical firewall.

Management Interface Swap for Google Cloud Platform Load

Balancing
Because internal load balancing can send traffic only to the primary interface of the next hop load-balanced
Google Compute Engine instance, the VM-Series firewall must be able to use eth0 for dataplane traffic.

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 All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

The firewall can receive dataplane traffic on eth0 if the VM-Series firewall is behind the Google Cloud
Platform internal load balancing interface.
• The VM-Series firewalls secure traffic outbound directly to the internet without requiring a VPN link or a
Direct Connect link back to the corporate network.
• The VM-Series firewall secures an internet-facing application when there is exactly one back-end server,
such as a web server, for each firewall. The VM-Series firewalls and web servers can scale linearly, in
pairs, behind the Google internal load balancing address.
To allow the firewall to send and receive dataplane traffic on eth0 instead of eth1, you must swap the
mapping of the internal load balancing network interface within the firewall so that eth0 maps to ethernet
1/1, and eth1 maps to the MGT interface on the firewall.

If possible, swap the management interface mapping before you configure the firewall and
define policy rules.

Swapping how the interfaces are mapped allows Google Cloud Platform to distribute and route traffic to
healthy instances of the VM-Series firewall located in the same or different zones.

Swap the Management Interface

You can swap the interfaces when you , or you can configure the firewall after it is created.
At creation— When you deploy the VM-Series firewall, you can enable interface swap in two ways.
• Google Cloud Console — In the Create Instance form, enter a key-value pair in the Metadata field, where
mgmt-interface-swap is the key, and enable is the value.
• Bootstrap File — Create a bootstrap file the includes the mgmt-interface-swap operational
command in the bootstrap configuration, as described in Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Google
Cloud Platform. In the Create Instance form, enter a key-value pair in the Metadata field to enable the
bootstrap option.
From the VM-Series firewall—Log in to the firewall, and Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the
Management Interface. In operational mode, issue the following command:
set system setting mgmt-interface-swap enable yes

• Pick one method to specify the interface swap setting— the bootstrap configuration file,
the firewall CLI, or the Google Compute Engine instance Metadata field (accessed from
the Google Cloud Console). Using one method ensures predictable behavior on the
firewall.

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 From the Google Cloud Console you cannot confirm whether you have swapped eth0 and
eth1. After swapping, you must remember that load balancing is on eth0 and the firewall
management interface is eth1 so that you can properly configure Google Cloud Platform
load balancing, and create security policy rules to secure load balancing to one or more
VM-Series firewalls.
• If you configured the VM-Series firewall before swapping, check whether any IP address
changes for eth0 and eth1 impact policy rules.

Use the VM-Series Firewall CLI to Swap the Management

Interface
This task is only required if your architecture places the VM-Series firewall behind the
Google Cloud Platform internal load balancer.

If you did not specify metadata to swap the management interface (MGT) with the dataplane interface
when you deployed the firewall, you can use the CLI to enable the firewall to receive dataplane traffic on
the primary interface.

STEP 1 | Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.

Before you proceed, verify that the firewall has a minimum of two network interfaces (eth0
and eth1). If you launch the firewall with only one interface, the interface swap command
causes the firewall to boot into maintenance mode.

STEP 2 | On the Google Cloud Console, view the VM instance details to verify the network interface IP
addresses of the eth1 interface and verify that any security rules allow connections (HTTPS
and SSH) to the new management interface (eth1).

STEP 3 | Log in to the VM-Series firewall CLI and enter the following command:
set system setting mgmt-interface-swap enable yes
You can view the default mapping from the command line interface. The output is similar to this:

> debug show vm-series interfaces all

Interface_name Base-OS_port
mgt eth0
Ethernet1/1 eth1
Ethernet1/2 eth2

STEP 4 | Confirm that you want to swap the interface (use the eth1 dataplane interface as the
management interface).

STEP 5 | Reboot the firewall for the swap to take effect:

request restart system

STEP 6 | Verify that the interfaces have been swapped:

debug show vm-series interfaces all

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Enable Google Stackdriver Monitoring on the VM Series Firewall
A VM-Series firewall on a Google® Compute Engine instance can publish custom PAN-OS metrics to
Google Stackdriver. These metrics allow you to assess performance and usage patterns so that you can
manage your firewall resources accordingly.
• Google Stackdriver Permissions
• Enable Google Stackdriver

Google Stackdriver Permissions

Authentication requirements vary based on whether you can use the default service account to
authenticate or need to use Google APIs to authenticate.
You can authenticate in two ways:
• Use the default service account for the VM-Series firewall instance—If you are using the Google Cloud
Platform (GCP™) Console, then you logged in with your email address and can access the instance based
on whatever permissions or roles the project administrator assigned to your account.
• Use IAM permissions and the Google APIs—If you use the Google SDK APIs and gcloud, then you must
call the APIs to authenticate. You typically use the Google SDK when you want to manage the firewall
from a command line or you want to run a script to configure the firewall.
Every Google Compute Engine instance created with the Google Cloud Console or the gcloud command line
tool has a default service account with the name in email address format:
<project-number>[email protected]
To see the service account name for the firewall instance, view the instance details and scroll to the bottom
(refer to the Compute Engine default service account).
The default service account can manage authentication for monitoring VMs in the same project as a VM-
Series firewall.
• Access scopes allow the firewall to initiate API calls to monitor VMs in a Google Cloud project.
• You don’t need to access the Google APIs unless one of the monitored virtual machines has a custom
image with applications that require Google APIs.
If you want to set up monitoring from a physical firewall or from a VM-Series firewall in a different project,
you must use the Google APIs to authenticate. There are two prerequisites:
• Google APIs must be installed.
• Your account must have the roles Monitoring Metric Writer and Stackdriver Account Viewer.

Enable Google Stackdriver

For a description of the PAN-OS metrics that you can publish to Google Stackdriver, see Custom PAN-OS
Metrics Published for Monitoring.

STEP 1 | Push PAN-OS metrics from a VM-Series firewall on a Google Compute Engine instance to
Stackdriver.
1. Log in to the web interface on the VM-Series firewall.
2. Select Device > VM-Series. Under Google Cloud Stackdriver Monitoring Setup, click Edit ( ).
1. Check Publish PAN-OS metrics to Stackdriver.

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 2. Set the Update Interval (range is 1 - 60 minutes; default is 5). This is the frequency at which the
firewall publishes the metrics to Stackdriver.
3. Click OK.
3. Commit your changes.
Wait until the firewall starts to publish metrics to Stackdriver before you configure alarms for PAN-
OS metrics.

STEP 2 | Verify that you can see the metrics on Stackdriver.

1. In the Google Cloud Console, select Products and Services > Monitoring.
2. In Stackdriver, choose Resources > Metrics Explorer.
3. In the Find resource type and metric section, enter custom in the search field to filter the PAN-OS
metrics.

STEP 3 | Configure alerts and actions for PAN-OS metrics on Stackdriver. See Monitoring Quickstart for
Google Compute Engine and Stackdriver Introduction to Alerting.

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Enable VM Monitoring to Track VM Changes on Google Cloud
Platform (GCP)
You can enable any firewall that runs PAN-OS 9.0 (virtual or physical) to monitor application workloads
deployed on Google Compute Engine instances. VM Monitoring enables you to monitor a predefined set of
metadata elements or attributes on the VM-Series firewall. In the PAN-OS 9.1 Administrator’s Guide, see
Attributes Monitored on Virtual Machines in Cloud Platforms.
With an awareness of virtual machine adds, moves, and deletes within a Google VPC, you can create
Security policy rules that automatically adapt to changes in your application environment. As you deploy or
move virtual machines, the firewall collects attributes (or metadata elements). You can use this metadata
for policy matching and to define Dynamic Address Groups (see Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure
Instances Within the VPC).
You can configure up to ten VM information sources on each firewall or on each virtual system on a firewall
capable of multiple virtual systems. Information sources can also be pushed using Panorama templates.
To perform VM monitoring, you must have the IAM role Monitoring Metric Writer.

STEP 1 | Log in to your deployed firewall.

STEP 2 | Enable VM Monitoring.

1. Select Device > VM Information Sources.
2. Add a VM information source and enter the following information:
• Specify a Name to identify the instance that you want to monitor.
• Select the Google Compute Engine Type.
• Select Enabled.
• Choose the Service Authentication Type.
• If you choose VM-Series running in GCE, you are authenticating with the default service
account generated when an instance is created. This is part of the instance metadata.
• If you want to monitor from a firewall outside the current project, choose Service Account.
You must upload the service account credentials in JSON format. See Creating and Managing
Service Account Keys.
• (Optional) Modify the Update interval to a value between 5-600 seconds. By default the firewall
polls every 5 seconds. The API calls are queued and retrieved every 60 seconds, an update takes
up to 60 seconds plus the configured polling interval.

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 • (Optional) To change the number of hours before timeout, check Enable timeout when the source
is disconnected and enter the Timeout (hours) before the connection to the monitored source is
closed (range is 2 to 10; default is 2).
If the firewall cannot access the host and the specified limit is reached, the firewall closes the
connection to the source.
• Click OK and Commit your changes.

STEP 3 | Verify the connection status.

If the connection status is pending or disconnected, verify that the source is operational and that the
firewall is able to access the source. If you use a port other than the Management (MGT) port for
communicating with the monitored source, then you must change the service route (select Device >
Setup > Services, click Service Route Configuration, and modify the Source Interface for the VM
Monitor service).

Use Dynamic Address Groups to Secure Instances Within the VPC

In a dynamic environment such as the Google® Cloud Platform (GCP™), where you launch new instances on
demand, the administrative overhead in managing Security policy can be cumbersome. Using use dynamic
address groups in policy enables agility and prevents disruption in services or gaps in protection.

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 This workflow assumes that you have deployed the VM-Series firewall, configured some applications on
instances, and enabled Google Stackdriver monitoring.

STEP 1 | Configure the firewall to monitor the VPC.

STEP 2 | Label instances in the VPC.

A label is a name-value pair. You can label resources from the Google Cloud Console, from Google
API calls, or from the Google Cloud Shell. In this task we are labeling instances; however, labels can be
applied to many resources, as described in Labeling Resources.
You can also add labels from the Instance browser.

The labels you create support your strategy for differentiating your resources in ways that are useful to
your Security policy.

STEP 3 | Create a dynamic address group on the firewall.

1. Select Objects > Address Groups.
2. Add a dynamic address group and specify a Name and a Description.
3. Set Type to Dynamic.
4. Define the match criteria.
1. Add Match Criteria and select the And operator.
2. Select the attributes to filter for or to match against.

5. Click OK.

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 6. Click Commit.

STEP 4 | Use the dynamic address group in a Security policy rule.

Create a rule to allow internet access to any web server that belongs to the dynamic address group
called my-data.
1. Select Policies > Security.
2. Add a rule and a Name for the rule and verify that the Rule Type is universal.
3. In the Source tab, add trust as the Source Zone.
4. In the Source Address section, Add your new my-data group.
5. In the Destination tab, add untrust as the Destination Zone.
6. In the Service/URL Category tab, verify that the service is set to application-default.
7. In the Actions tab, set the Action to Allow.
8. In the Profile Settings, set the Profile Type to Profiles and then attach the default profiles for
Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Vulnerability Protection.
9. Click OK.
10.Click Commit.

STEP 5 | Verify that members of the dynamic address group are populated on the firewall.
Policy will be enforced for all IP addresses that belong to this address group and that are displayed here.
1. Select Policies > Security and select the rule.
2. Select Inspect from the drop-down. You can also verify that the match criteria is accurate.
3. Click more to verify that the list of registered IP addresses is displayed.

Use Custom Templates or the gcloud CLI to Deploy the VM-Series

Firewall
The official VM-Series images published on Google Cloud Platform Marketplace are available in the
paloaltonetworksgcp-public project. You need to know the secure path to these images if you want
to call them from the gcloud command line, or refer to them in a template you have written or adapted.
• BYOL: vmseries-byol-<version>
• PAYG Bundle 1: vmseries-bundle1-<version>
• PAYG Bundle 2: vmseries-bundle2-<version>
Use the gcloud CLI to find the current image names and project:

gcloud compute images list --project paloaltonetworksgcp-public

--no-standard-images
NAME PROJECT FAMILY DEPRECATED STATUS
vmseries-bundle1-810 paloaltonetworksgcp-public READY
vmseries-bundle2-810 paloaltonetworksgcp-public READY
vmseries-byol-810 paloaltonetworksgcp-public READY

Add the --uri flag to see the image paths:

gcloud compute images list --project paloaltonetworksgcp-public

--no-standard-images --uri

https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/paloaltonetworksgcp-public
/global/images/vmseries-bundle1-810

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 https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/paloaltonetworksgcp-public
/global/images/vmseries-bundle2-810
https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/paloaltonetworksgcp-public
/global/images/vmseries-byol-810

For an example, download the gcp-two-tier template from https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks.

This template separates the image name (which includes the PAN-OS version) from the URL path. In two-
tier-template.py the image variable expects the image name; for example: vmseries-byol-810. vm-
series-template.py uses the values of COMPUTE_URL_BASE and sourceImage to build the path.

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VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for
GCP
The Panorama plugin for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) version 2.0.0 enables you to create a VM monitoring
configuration that authenticates with a GCP project and monitors VM-Series firewalls and other VMs
deployed within it. Once you establish a connection to your project, the plugin can retrieve IP-address-to-
tag communication between Panorama and GCP assets. Tags can be predefined attributes, user-defined
labels for VMs, and user-defined network tags (see Review and Create Tags).
The Panorama plugin for GCP retrieves the internal and external IP addresses from running VMs, and
periodically retrieves IP-to-tag mappings from VMs in connected GCP VPCs.
You can use tags to organize VMs into dynamic address groups, and then reference your tags in Security
policy rules that allow or deny traffic to specific VM IP addresses. To consistently enforce Security policy,
you can then push rules to your VM-Series firewalls.
• Configure VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP

Configure VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP

This topic describes the steps to prepare your GCP assets for VM monitoring, review the required
Panorama elements, and describes how to configure VM Monitoring in the Panorama plugin for Google
Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Configure GCP Assets for VM Monitoring
• Review and Create Tags
• Configure VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP
• Prepare Panorama to Configure VM Monitoring
• Set Up VM Monitoring

Configure GCP Assets for VM Monitoring

You can monitor VM-Series firewalls you deployed from the GCP marketplace, firewalls you deployed
with auto scaling Firewall templates, GCE instances you created from to the GCP console or the
gcloud command line, or other virtual machines deployed in GCP. If you deploy PAN-OS VMs from the
Marketplace, follow the instructions in Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform.
Review IAM Roles
Ensure that you have the following minimum permissions for VM Monitoring tasks:
• In GCP console, create a service account for your project and grant the permission project owner or
editor.
Service account creation cannot be automated. If you do not have permission to create a service account
you can ask an administrator to create it and assign an appropriate role to you.
• View your service account: read-only.
• View PAN-OS VMs deployed from the Google Marketplace: Compute viewer.
• Assign a user-defined tag to an instance: Project owner, editor or Instance Admin.
Create a Service Account
Before you use the GCP plugin on Panorama to configure VM Monitoring, you must use the GCP console to
create a service account that grants permissions to access your GCP project, VM-Series firewalls deployed
within it, any other VMs that you want Panorama to manage, and related networks and subnetworks. The

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 GCP plugin for Panorama retrieves pre-defined attributes for Google assets, user defined VM labels, and
user-defined network tags.
Every project has a default service account that was automatically created when the project was created. If
you create a separate service account specifically for VM Monitoring you have greater control of users and
their roles. You can configure up to 100 service accounts per project.

STEP 1 | In the Google Cloud Platform console, select the project you want to monitor.

STEP 2 | Select IAM & Admin > Service accounts and choose +Create Service Account.
Enter the service account name and description, and click Create.

STEP 3 | Select a role type from the drop menu, and on the right, select an appropriate access level.
For example, select Project > Editor. You can select multiple roles for a service account.
When you are finished, click Continue.

STEP 4 | Grant specific users permission to access this service account. Select members from the
Permissions column on the right to give them permission to access the roles in the previous
step.

STEP 5 | (Optional) Click +CREATE KEY to create a credential that allows you to authenticate with the
Google Cloud CLI to access VM-Series firewalls, networks, and other VMs associated with this
service account.
The key is downloaded automatically. Be sure to store it in a secure location. The JSON format for the
generated private key is as follows:

{
"type": "service_account",
"project_id": "gcp-xxx",
"private_key_id": "252e1e7a2e9c84b5d4dbb6195b1de074594b6499",
"private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
\nMIIEvgIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAASCBKgwggSkAgEAAoIBAQDAd0i+RMKCtrsO
\n4KHnzTAPrgoBjRgpjyNcvQmdUqHr\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
"client_email": "[email protected]",
"client_id": "108932514695821539229",
"auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
"token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
"auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/
certs",
"client_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/robot/v1/metadata/
x509/dlp-vm-monit-svc-acct%40gcp-xxx.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
}

Review and Create Tags

“Tag” is a general term for predefined attributes, user-defined labels, and user-defined network tags.
• Predefined tags (attributes) are automatically created for Google VMs. When you configure VM
Monitoring you can choose to monitor all 8 of the predefined attributes, or you can create a customized
list of attributes to monitor.
• You can define your own tags for VM labels and network tags.
Tag VMs and networks so that you can identify and group them so that you can structure rules to enforce
Security policy. You can tag any VM deployed in your Google project—for example, a VM-Series firewall, a
web server, an application server, or a load balancer.

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 • Tags must be associated with a VM. This also applies to networks and subnetworks.
• If there are multiple IP addresses associated with an instance (for example if you tagged the VM-Series
firewall trust and untrust interfaces), Panorama generates multiple sets of tag information.
The total number of tags that the Panorama plugin can retrieve and register depends on the PAN-OS
version Panorama is running and the version of the managed VM-Series firewalls.
Google zone, Google region, VPC name, and Subnet name are used to tag network interfaces on VMs with
multiple interfaces. specific to network interface.
Predefined Attributes
The Google Cloud Platform plugin for Panorama retrieves the following predefined tags from any managed
VM:
• Project ID—For example: google.project-id.myProjectId.
To find your project information in the Google console, select your project, then select IAM & Admin >
Settings.
• Service account—Your service account in the form of an email address. For example: google.svc-
[email protected].
To find your Service account, view the VM instance details.
• VPC name—The name of the VPC network for a managed VM. For example: google.vpc-name.myvnet.
• Subnet name—The name of a subnet you created for a managed VM interface. For example, for the
VM-Series firewall untrust interface, the name of the subnet you created for the untrust interface:
google.subnet-name-untrust.web.
• OS SKU—The operating system you chose when you deployed the managed VM. For example:
google.os-sku.centos-7.

This attribute is not supported if the VM uses a custom image.

• Google zone—The zone you selected when you deployed the VM. For example: google.zone.us-east1-c.
• Google region—The region containing the zone you selected. For example: google.region.us-east1.
• Instance group name—For example: google.instance-group.myInstanceGroup. To view or create an
instance group in the Google console, select Compute Engine > Instance Group.
User-defined Labels
Panorama uses up to 16 user-defined labels. If you have more than 16 labels, Panorama sorts your user-
defined labels alphabetically and uses the first 16 tags.
Review the Google requirements for label key-value pairs: Keys have a minimum length of 1 character and a
maximum length of 63 characters, and cannot be empty. Values can be empty, and have a maximum length
of 63 characters.
To create or view labels in the GCP console, go to Compute Engine > VM Instances and select Show Info
Panel. Select one or more VMs and in the Info Panel, select Labels. Click +Add a label, add a key and value,
and click Save.
User-defined Network Tags
Panorama uses up to 8 user-defined network tags, If you have more than 8 tags, Panorama sorts your user-
defined labels alphabetically and uses the first 8 tags.
Note that Google limits network tags as follows:
• Maximum 63 characters per tag.
• You can use lowercase letters, numbers, and dashes; a tag must start with a lowercase letter, and end
with a number or a lowercase letter.

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 To create or view network tags in the GCP console, go to Compute Engine > VM Instances and select an
instance. Edit the instance, and scroll down to Network Tags, enter tags (separated by commas), and Save.
See Configuring Network Tags.

Configure VM Monitoring with the Panorama Plugin for GCP

After you tag your GCP assets and create a service account, make your assets available to Panorama so you
can set up VM monitoring.
Prepare Panorama to Configure VM Monitoring
Follow these steps to enable Panorama to manage and monitor your GCP assets. Any VM deployed in GCP
can be a managed device in Panorama.

STEP 1 | In Panorama, add the VM-Series firewalls and other VMs associated with your GCP project as
managed devices.

STEP 2 | Add a Device Group and assign managed devices to it. A Device Group is a group of firewalls
or virtual systems that you want to manage as a group.

A VM can be a member of only one Device Group. Plan your Device Groups carefully.

STEP 3 | Add a template. Name the template and accept the default VPC.

STEP 4 | Add a template stack. Add the stack, Add the template you just created, and select your
devices.

STEP 5 | Commit the changes.

Set Up VM Monitoring

STEP 1 | If you have not done so, Install the Panorama Plugin for GCP.

STEP 2 | Log in to the Panorama web interface and select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform.

STEP 3 | Set up VM monitoring.

1. Configure general settings.
1. Select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform > Setup > General. To edit the settings, click the gear.
• Check Enable Monitoring to permit VM monitoring on all projects for which you configure a
service account.
• Enter the Monitoring Interval in seconds. This is the length of time between tag retrieval
events.
2. Add a notify group. A notify group is a list of Device Groups to which Panorama pushes IP-address-
to-tag mappings and updates.

A project can have only one notify group.

1. Select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform > Setup > Notify Groups and click Add.
2. Enter a Name to identify the group of firewalls to which Panorama pushes the VM information (IP
address-to-tag mappings) it retrieves.

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 3. Select the Device Groups to which Panorama will push the VM information (IP address-to-tag
mappings) retrieved from your project. The VM-Series firewalls use the update to determine the
current member list for Dynamic Address Groups referenced in Security policy.

Plan your Device Groups carefully.

4. Select predefined or custom tags.

• Select All 8 Predefined Tags—Choose this option to select all predefined attributes (tags).
• Custom Tags—Choose this option to create tag lists for predefined attributes, user-defined
labels, and user-defined network tags.
5. • Make sure to include all relevant Device Groups in a single notify group.
• If you want to deregister the tags that Panorama has pushed to a firewall included in a notify
group, you must delete the monitoring definition.
• To register tags to all virtual systems on a firewall enabled for multiple virtual systems, you
must add each virtual system to a separate Device Group on Panorama and assign the Device
Groups to the notify group. Panorama will register tags to only one virtual system, if you assign
all the virtual systems to one Device Group.
3. Add a GCP Service Account Credential.
• Name the service account credential.
• (Optional) Enter a description of the service account.
• Browse to upload the JSON file generated when you created the service account.

You must use the Panorama web interface. You cannot use the CLI to add a service
account

You can only use a service account for one credential. Do not create multiple
credentials from a single JSON file.
After you add a service account credential, you can validate the credential from your Panorama
command line:

request plugins gcp validate-service-account <svc-acct-credential-name>

STEP 4 | Create a Monitoring Definition.

A monitoring definition consists of the service account credential for your project and a notify group.
All the networking assets in your project are monitored, and the tags retrieved are pushed to the Device
Groups you list in your monitoring definition. When you add a new monitoring definition, it is enabled by
default.

A project can have only one monitoring definition, and a monitoring definition can include
only one notify group.

1. Select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform > Monitoring Definition and click Add.
2. Name the monitoring definition.
3. Enter an optional Description for the project and assets you are monitoring.
4. Select the Service Account credential you created in the previous step.
5. Select a Notify Group.
6. Enable monitoring for the elements associated with this service account.

STEP 5 | Commit the changes on Panorama.

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 Verify that the status for the Monitoring Definition displays as Success. If it fails, verify that you entered
the project ID accurately and provided the correct keys and IDs for the service.

STEP 6 | Verify that you can view the VM information on Panorama, and define the match criteria for
Dynamic Address Groups.

On HA failover, the newly active Panorama attempts to reconnect to Google Cloud Platform and
retrieve tags for all monitoring definitions. If there is an error with reconnecting even one monitoring
definition, Panorama generates a system log message:

Unable to process subscriptions after HA switch-over; user-intervention

required.

If you see this error, fix the issue in Panorama. For example, remove an invalid subscription or provide
valid credentials, and commit your changes to enable Panorama to reconnect and retrieve the tags for all
monitoring definitions.

Even when Panorama is disconnected from Google Cloud Platform, the firewalls have the
list of all tags that had been retrieved before failover, and can continue to enforce policy
on that list of IP addresses. When you delete a monitoring definition, Panorama removes
all tags associated with registered VMs. As a best practice, configure action-oriented
log forwarding to an HTTPS destination from Panorama so that you can take immediate
action.

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Auto Scaling the VM-Series Firewall on Google
Cloud Platform
The Panorama plugin for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) version 2.0.0 assists you in deploying the VM-Series
firewall in GCP and enables Panorama to manage VM-Series firewalls securing VM monitoring or auto
scaling deployments in GCP. Using Panorama for centralized policy and firewall management increases
operational efficiency in managing and maintaining a distributed network of firewalls.
With Panorama maintaining your GCP managed instance groups you can create application enablement
policies that protect and control the network.
The auto scaling deployment supports using a shared VPC network configuration or VPC network peering
to create a common VPC network in which a host project contains shared VPC networks and the VM-
Series firewalls, and a service project contains a vm-based or container-based application deployment (a
Kubernetes cluster). Palo Alto networks supplies templates to help you deploy the VM-Series firewalls in
the host project and deploy an optional sample application in the service project.
BYOL and PAYG licenses can be used for the VM-Series firewalls. During licensing, VM-Series firewall
instances talk directly to the Palo Alto Networks license server.
If you choose BYOL your deployment can deactivate license instances in response to a scale-down event.
If a VM-Series firewall’s deployment information is configured in the Panorama plugin for GCP and the
firewall is automatically removed, Panorama detects the firewall status and automatically deregisters the
firewall.
• Auto Scaling Components for Google Cloud Platform
• Deploy GCP Auto Scaling Templates

Auto Scaling Components for Google Cloud Platform

Typical GCP auto scaling deployments use a host project and a service project and form a common VPC
network between the two. The Panorama plugin for GCP can secure an auto scaling deployment in a single
project with host and service VPCs, or host and service projects in a shared VPC or peered VPC network
configuration, where the host project contains the VM-Series firewalls and the shared VPC networks, and
the service project contains your application deployment. If your application is deployed in a Kubernetes
cluster, a peered VPC is required.
• Auto Scaling Requirements
• Prepare to Deploy the Auto Scaling Templates

Auto Scaling Requirements

General Requirements—Ensure your environment meets the basic requirements.
Panorama Plugin for GCP—If you have not done so, Install the Panorama Plugin for GCP.

If you previously installed the Panorama plugin for GCP version 1.0.0, remove it before
you install 2.0.X. You cannot upgrade.
Palo Alto Networks Auto Scale templates version 1.0—Palo Alto Networks provides the templates to
deploy VM-Series firewall instances in the host project and configure and deploy a sample application in
a service project. See About the Auto Scaling Templates for more about the templates.
Download the templates from GitHub. The zip file contains separate zip files for the firewall and
application templates.

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Prepare to Deploy the Auto Scaling Templates
Complete the following tasks before you deploy the auto scaling templates.
• Prepare a Host Project and Required Service Accounts
• Obtain a Licensing API Key
• Configure the Panorama Plugin for GCP to Secure an Auto Scaling Deployment
• Prepare a VM-Series Firewall Bootstrap Package for Auto Scaling
Prepare a Host Project and Required Service Accounts
You need a host project and a service project to form the shared VPC topology that supports the firewall
and application templates. You can create a new host project or prepare an existing project to act as your
host.
To set up the Shared VPC an organization administrator must grant the host project administrator the
Shared VPC Admin role. The Shared VPC Admin can enable a project to act as a host, and grant the Service
Project Admin role to the service project administrator. Review the GCP documentation on Administrators
and IAM roles.

STEP 1 | In the GCP console, create a GCP project to act as the host. If you want to use an existing
project, skip to the next step.
To create a new project, select your organization or No organization, click New Project and fill in your
project information. Note, this is your only chance to EDIT the project ID.

The Google Cloud SDK must be installed and configured so that you can authenticate
with your host project from the CLI. You will use the command line interface to deploy the
firewall template and the application template, and to attach the service project to the host
project.

STEP 2 | Enable APIs and services required for auto scaling. The required APIs are:
Cloud Pub/Sub API
Cloud Deployment Manager API
Cloud Storage API
Compute Engine API
Google Compute Engine Instance Group Manager API
Google Compute Engine Instance Group Updater API
Google Compute Engine Instance Groups API
Kubernetes Engine API
Stackdriver API
Stackdriver Logging API
Stackdriver Monitoring API
You can enable APIs from the GCP console or the GCP CLI, as shown below.
Enable APIs from the GCP console
1. Select the host project, and from the Navigation menu, select APIs & Services.
2. Search for and view each required API.
3. ENABLE any APIs that do not display the “API enabled” status.
Enable APIs from the CLI
1. In the CLI, view your configuration to ensure that you are in the correct project.

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 gcloud config list

If not, set the project as follows:

gcloud config set project <project-name>

2. Issue the following commands to enable the required APIs.

gcloud services enable pubsub.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable deploymentmanager.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable storage-component.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable replicapool.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable replicapoolupdater.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable resourceviews.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable stackdriver.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable logging.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable monitoring.googleapis.com
3. Confirm that the required APIs are enabled.

gcloud services list --enabled

STEP 3 | Create a service account for deploying the VM-Series firewall, and assign the IAM roles
required for auto scaling a service or a Kubernetes cluster.
When you configure the firewall templates you add the email address for this service account to the
VM-Series firewall .yaml file. Within the host project, the template uses credentials from this service
account to create a host VPC with subnets, deploy VM-Series firewalls in the VPC, configure Stackdriver
custom metrics, create a Pub/Sub topic, and more.
1. In the GCP console select IAM & Admin > Service accounts and select +CREATE SERVICE
ACCOUNT.
Fill in the service account details and click CREATE.
2. Give the service account permission to auto-scale resources in this project.
Select a role type from the drop menu, and on the right, select an appropriate access level. For
example, select Project > Editor. You can select multiple roles for a service account.
Compute Engine > Compute Admin
Compute Engine > Compute Network User
Pub/Sub > Admin
Monitoring > Monitoring Metric Writer
Stackdriver > Stackdriver Accounts Editor
Storage > Storage Admin
(GKE only) Kubernetes > Kubernetes Engine Cluster Admin
(GKE only) Kubernetes > Kubernetes Engine Viewer

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 Continue when you are finished adding roles.
3. Click +CREATE KEY to create a key for the host service account.
• (Optional) Add email addresses to grant other users or administrators access to this service
account.
• Click JSON to download the private key in JSON form.
• Store the key in a safe location. You will need this key when you Deploy GCP Auto Scaling
Templates.
4. Click DONE.

STEP 4 | Create a service account that a Panorama administrator can use to interact with this host
project.
1. In the GCP console select IAM & Admin > Service accounts and select +CREATE SERVICE
ACCOUNT.
2. Fill in the service account details and click CREATE.
3. Grant service account access.
Select a role type from the drop menu, and on the right, select an appropriate access level. For
example, select Project > Editor. You can select multiple roles for a service account.
Compute Engine > Compute Viewer
Deployment Manager > Viewer
Pub/Sub > Admin
Click CONTINUE.
4. Click +CREATE KEY to create a key for the host service account.
• (Optional) Add email addresses to grant other users or administrators access to this service
account.
• Select JSON to download the private key in JSON form.
• Store the key in a safe location. You will need this key when you Configure the Panorama Plugin
for GCP to Secure an Auto Scaling Deployment.

STEP 5 | (optional) In the CLI, ensure you can communicate with your new host project.
1. Set your project to the host project you just created.
gcloud set project <your-autoscale-host-project-name>

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 2. Create a configuration for auto scaling. Your new configuration is automatically activated unless you
disable activation.
gcloud config configurations create <CONFIGURATION_NAME> gcloud config
list

Obtain a Licensing API Key

You need a Licensing API key so Panorama can license and de-license managed assets in GCP.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Support portal and selectAssets > Licensing API and click Enable. The key is
displayed.

Only a Super User can view the Enable link to generate this key. See How to Enable,
Regenerate, Extend the Licensing API Key.

STEP 2 | Select the key and copy it.

STEP 3 | From the CLI, SSH in to Panorama and issue the following command, replacing <key> with the
API key you copied from the support portal:

request license api-key set key <key>

API Key is successfully set

Configure the Panorama Plugin for GCP to Secure an Auto Scaling Deployment
In Panorama, create assets to support the auto scaling firewall deployment.

STEP 1 | Create a template, and a template stack that includes the template, and Commit the changes.

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STEP 2 | In the Network context, select either the template or the template stack. Select Virtual
Routers and Add a virtual router.
When the firewall template creates static routes, they are added to this virtual router.

Define only one router for the auto scale deployment.

STEP 3 | In the Network context, select the template you created, select Interfaces and Add Interface.
• On the Config tab, select a slot, select the Interface name and select the Layer3 Interface Type. From
the Security Zone menu, select New Zone, name the zone Untrust and click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab enable DHCP Client and Automatically create default route pointing to default
gateway provided by server (enabled by default) and click OK.

STEP 4 | Add the ethernet1/2 (Trust) Layer 3 interface.

• On the Config tab, chose the same slot as the previous step, select the Interface name (ethernet1/2),
and select the Layer3 Interface Type. From the Security Zone menu, select New Zone name the zone
Trust and click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab enable DHCP Client, disable Automatically create default route pointing to default
gateway provided by server and click OK.

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STEP 5 | Return to your template stack and the virtual router you created earlier. Place the untrust and
trust interfaces (ethernet1/1 and ethernet1/2) in the virtual router, and click OK.

STEP 6 | Configure Stackdriver for your auto scaling deployment.

You must have the VM-Series plugin on Panorama to configure Stackdriver.
1. In the Device context, select the template stack you created earlier from the Template drop menu.
2. Select Device > VM-Series > Google and click the Edit cog ( ). Enable Publish PAN-OS metrics to
Stackdriver.

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 3. Commit your changes.

STEP 7 | Create a Device Group that references the template or template stack you created in step 1.
This Device Group will contain the VM-Series firewalls you create with the firewall template.
1. Add a security policy that allows web-browsing traffic from Untrust to Trust.
In the Policies context, select the Device Group you just created. Select Security > Pre Rules and Add
the following security policy.

STEP 8 | Set up the GCP service account for the host project.
1. In the Panorama context, expand Google Cloud Platform, select Setup, and click Add.
2. Supply a name and description for the host service account you created in Step 4.
3. Upload the JSON credentials file you created in Step 4.4.

After you add a service account credential, you can validate the credential from your Panorama
command line (you cannot validate from the web interface):

request plugins gcp validate-service-account gcp_service_account <svc-

acct-credential-name>

STEP 9 | Set up auto scaling on the Panorama plugin for GCP.

1. In the Panorama context, expand Google Cloud Platform, select AutoScaling, and click Add.
2. Supply the Firewall Deployment Name and an optional description for the deployment.
3. For the GCP Service Account Credential, supply the GCP service account name from Step 8.

4. Chose the Device Group you created in Step 7, and the Template Stack you created in Step 1.

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 5. Disable License Management Only to ensure traffic is secured.

STEP 10 | Commit your changes.

Prepare a VM-Series Firewall Bootstrap Package for Auto Scaling

During bootstrap, the initial request from the firewall provides the host IP address and serial number, and
the VM auth key so Panorama can validate the VM auth key and add the firewall as a managed device.
Panorama can then assign the firewall to the appropriate device group and template so that you can
centrally configure and administer the firewall using Panorama.
In this case, you must generate a VM auth key on Panorama and include the key in the init-cfg.txt file that
you use for bootstrapping. The VM auth key allows Panorama to authenticate the newly bootstrapped VM-
Series firewall. The bootstrap package must include.
• In the /config directory, an init-cfg.txt file that includes the Panorama IP address
• In the /license directory, the VM authentication key in a file named authcodes.
The lifetime of the key can vary between 1 hour and 8760 hours (1 year). After the specified time,
the key expires and Panorama will not register VM-Series firewalls without a valid auth-key in this
connection request.

STEP 1 | Set up a Google storage bucket with the folders required to Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall
on Google Cloud Platform. You can use an existing bootstrap package or create a new
bootstrap package, for these folders.

STEP 2 | Edit the values in the sample init-cfg.txt file to customize the file for your environment.
The firewall templates include a sample init-cfg.txt file.

Parameter Value Comment

type dhcp-client

hostname <pa-vm> Optional name you assigned

when you prepared the host
project. Only required if a
specific host is necessary, and
dhcp-send-hostname is no.

vm-auth-key <vmauthkey> A key that Panorama must

validate before adding a firewall
as a managed device. See
Generate the VM Auth Key On
Panorama.

panorama-server <panorama-ip> The IP address of the Panorama

management device you
configured in Configure the
Panorama Plugin for GCP
to Secure an Auto Scaling
Deployment

tplname <template-stack-name> The template stack you created

in Configure the Panorama

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 Parameter Value Comment
Plugin for GCP to Secure an
Auto Scaling Deployment.

dgname <dg-name> The name of the Device Group

you created in the Panorama
Plugin for GCP.

dns-primary Your primary DNS server.

dns-secondary Your secondary DNS server.

dhcp-send-hostname yes Leave as is.

dhcp-send-client-id yes Leave as is.

dhcp-accept-server-hostname yes Leave as is.

dhcp-accept-server-domain yes Leave as is.

STEP 3 | Upload your edited init-cfg.txt file to the /config folder in your bootstrap package.

STEP 4 | If you are using BYOL, create a text file named authcodes (no extension), add your auth code,
and upload the file to the /license folder.

Deploy GCP Auto Scaling Templates

• About the Auto Scaling Templates
• Deploy the Firewall Template
• Prepare a Service Project
• Configure the Shared VPC
• Deploy the Application Template
• Onboard a New Application
• Sample GKE Service Templates

About the Auto Scaling Templates

Download the Palo Alto Networks auto scaling templates from https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/GCP-
AutoScaling. The zip file contains separate zips for firewall and application templates. Each zip is a template
directory containing several files, but you only need to edit the YAML files.
• Firewall Templates
• Application Template
Firewall Templates
The firewall directory files create VM-Series firewalls and other deployment resources. They create new
networks and the familiar subnetworks for the VM-Series firewall: management, untrust, and trust. They
also deploy a Cloud Pub/Sub messaging service to relay information from GCP to the Panorama plugin for
GCP. With this infrastructure in place, the plugin can leverage dynamic address groups to apply security
policy on inbound traffic routed to services running on GCP, and use auto scale metrics to deploy VM-
Series firewalls to meet increased demand for application workload resources or to eliminate firewalls that
are no longer needed.

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 To configure your load balancer, edit the .yaml file for an external application load balancer (ALB) or
network load balancer (NLB).
• ALB (HTTP External Load Balancer)
To customize an ALB, edit vm-series-fw-alb.yaml.
HTTP external load balancer is a proxy-based load balancer that performs SNAT and DNAT on the
inbound traffic from Internet. The HTTP load balancer is designed to support only the 80 and 8080 TCP
ports.
To support multiple applications using HTTP load balancer in load balancer sandwich architecture, we
can use the GCP HTTP load balancer urlMap and namedPort to map different URLs to different ports in
the load balancer. In turn, the VM-Series firewall can translate the ports to different applications, each
represented by one internal load balancer per application.
• NLB (TCP Load Balancer)
To customize an NLB, edit vm-series-fw-nlb.yaml.
TCP load balancer is a non-proxy based load balancer, which means it doesn't perform NATing on
inbound traffic from the Internet.
TCP load balancer in GCP allows adding multiple frontend IP addresses with an arbitrary port, making it
possible to support multiple applications.
Another advantage of TCP load balancer is that the original client IP address is preserved, which is
desirable for some applications.
Application Template
The application directory provides a sample application. You configure and deploy an internal load balancer
(ILB) to enable your application servers to subscribe to the Pub/Sub service and communicate with your
VM-Series firewalls and the GCP plugin on Panorama.
To customize the application template, edit apps.yaml as described in Deploy the Firewall Template and
Application Template.

Deploy the Firewall Template

Edit the Firewall Templates from the host project.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Edit the vm-series-fw-nlb.yaml or vm-series-fw-alb.yaml environment variables to

reflect your cloud environment.
The sample in this workflow is for the NLB. See vm-series-fw-nlb.yaml and vm-series-fw-alb.yaml for
further explanation of the template parameters.

properties:
region: us-east1
zones:
-us-east1-b
# Do not modify the lb-type field.
lb-type: nlb
cloud-nat: yes
forwarding-rule-port: 80

# Only one app is allowed

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 urlPath-namedPort-maps:
- appName: app1

# ssh key PUBLIC:

- optional

The autoscaling firewall template requires you to enter the value in single quotes and prepend the
key with admin: followed by a space. This is the same convention used for the Google Marketplace
template, as detailed in SSH Key Pair. For example:

bootstrap-bucket: bootstrap-autoscale

image: vmseries-byol-814
machine-type: n1-standard-4

For the service-account, supply the email address for the host project service account you created
earlier (step 3).

service-account: [email protected]

The fw-instance-tag value will be the managed instance group name in the deployment.

fw-instance-tag: vm-series-fw

Choose one metric for auto scaling. Possible values are: panSessionActive, panSessionUtilization,
DataPlaneCPUUtilizationPct, DataPlanePacketBufferUtilization, or panSessionUtilization.

metric: custom.googleapis.com/VMSeries/panSessionActive

max-size: 2
min-size: 1
target-type: GAUGE
util-target: 100

# Greenfield deployment
mgmt-network-cidr: 172.22.2.0/24
untrust-network-cidr: 172.22.1.0/24
trust-network-cidr: 172.22.3.0/24
mgmt-network-access-source-range:
- 199.167.54.229/32
- 199.167.52.5/32
mgmt-network-access-ports:
- 22

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 - 443

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall template.

gcloud deployment-manager deployments create <your-template>

--config apps.yaml
--automatic-rollback-on-error

Take note of the outputs the CLI prints after the deployment—the subnet names, the deployment name,
and the Panorama Pub/Sub topic name. You need these values to configure the Shared VPC and for the
application template deployment.
The firewall deployment name must be configured in the Panorama plugin for GCP auto scaling
definition.

Prepare a Service Project

Create a separate service project, or choose an existing project, for your application.
To learn more about host and service projects in a shared VPC, see the Shared VPC Overview, and review
the Administrators and IAM roles. A host project administrator must have the proper role to set up the
Shared VPC and make the application project a service project for the host project. See the instructions in
Provisioning Shared VPC.

STEP 1 | Enable the service project APIs from the GCP console or the CLI.
The required APIs are:
Cloud Deployment Manager API
Cloud Pub/Sub API
Compute Engine API
Enable APIs from the GCP console
1. Select the service project, and from the Navigation menu, select APIs & Services.
2. Search for and view each required API.
3. ENABLE any APIs that do not display the “API enabled” status.
Enable APIs from the CLI
1. In the CLI, view your configuration to ensure that you are in the correct project.

gcloud config list

If not, set the project as follows:

gcloud config set project <project-name>

2. Issue the following commands to enable the required APIs.

gcloud services enable deploymentmanager.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable pubsub.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
3. Confirm that the required APIs are enabled.

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 gcloud services list --enabled

STEP 2 | Make the application project a service project for the host project.
Add the service account from Service/application project administrator as a member in host project with
following roles:
• Compute Network User
• Pub/Sub Admin

STEP 3 | Choose a VPC configuration.

• If the Service project will share the networks in the host project, continue to Configure the Shared
VPC.
• If the Service project has its own VPC network for the application deployment, continue to Configure
a Peered VPC.

Configure the Shared VPC

After the firewall template is deployed in the host project, configure the service project that supports your
applications. An administrator with shared VPC credentials performs these tasks from the host project. To
understand more about the host project and service projects in the context of shared VPC, see the Shared
VPC Overview.

STEP 1 | Create a shared VPC using the Trust VPC created when you deployed the firewall template.
Set up a shared VPC for the host (firewall) project:

gcloud compute shared-vpc enable HOST_PROJECT_ID

STEP 2 | Attach the service/application project to the host project.

gcloud compute shared-vpc associated-projects add [SERVICE_PROJECT_ID]--
host-project [HOST_PROJECT_ID]
Additional options are available to share only specific subnets, rather than all subnets in the host project.

STEP 3 | If you want to use the sample application template to deploy an application, continue to
Deploy the Application Template.
If you have already deployed an application and you want to secure it in your auto scaling deployment,
go to Manually Onboard an Application to an Existing Auto Scaling Deployment.
If you have deployed a service in a GKE cluster, continue to Onboard a GKE Cluster in a Shared VPC.

Configure a Peered VPC

A VPC network peering connection must be made between two VPCs. If the VPCs are in two different
projects, a connection must be created in both projects.

STEP 1 | In the host project, peer the Trust VPC network of the Firewall deployment with the
Application VPC.

gcloud beta compute networks peerings create [PEERING-NAME] \

--network=[MY-LOCAL-NETWORK] \
--peer-project [SERVICE-PROJECT-ID] \

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 --peer-network [PEER-NETWORK-NAME] \
[--import-custom-routes] \
[--export-custom-routes]

STEP 2 | In the service project, peer the Trust VPC network of the application deployment with the
Trust VPC network of the Firewall deployment.

gcloud beta compute networks peerings create [PEERING-NAME] \

--network=[MY-LOCAL-NETWORK] \
--peer-project [HOST-PROJECT-ID] \
--peer-network [PEER-NETWORK-NAME] \
[--import-custom-routes] \
[--export-custom-routes]

STEP 3 | If you want to use the sample application template to deploy an application, continue to
Deploy the Application Template.
If you have already deployed an application and you want to secure it in your auto scaling deployment,
go to Manually Onboard an Application to an Existing Auto Scaling Deployment.
If you have deployed a service in a GKE cluster, continue to Onboard a GKE Cluster in a Peered VPC.

Deploy the Application Template

The Service project administrator deploys the Application Template from the service project.

STEP 1 | Create a separate application project (service project) to deploy the application (see Prepare a
Service Project).

STEP 2 | Prepare the apps.yaml file as outlined in apps.yaml.

STEP 3 | Deploy a new application with the application template and define a label for the named port.

gcloud deployment-manager deployments create <your-template>

--config apps.yaml
--automatic-rollback-on-error

Continue to View the Onboarded Application in the Panorama Plugin for GCP.

Onboard a New Application

When you use the Application Template to deploy an application, it takes care of the connection to the host
project. You can secure applications you did not deploy with the application template, provided they are
deployed in a service project with the capabilities described in Prepare a Service Project.
• Manually Onboard an Application to an Existing Auto Scaling Deployment
• Onboard a GKE Cluster
Manually Onboard an Application to an Existing Auto Scaling Deployment
To secure an application you have deployed using an external load balancer and an auto-scaled VM-Series
firewall deployment, follow these steps. For each application you onboard, you must supply the application
name, the named ports, and the path.

STEP 1 | Prepare to add a new named port and URL path to the HTTP external load balancer created
when you deployed the firewall template.

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STEP 2 | Update all instance groups named-ports with an additional service name and port values. The
following sample onboards the applications app2 and app3.

gcloud compute instance-groups set-named-ports

fw-template2-fw-igm-us-east1-b
--zone us-east1-b
--named-ports=app1:80,app2:81,app3:82

gcloud compute instance-groups set-named-ports

fw-template2-fw-igm-us-east1-c
--zone us-east1-c
--named-ports=app1:80,app2:81,app3:82

STEP 3 | Create a new http-health-check.

gcloud compute backend-services create fw-template2-backend-app3

--protocol="HTTP"
--port-name=app3
--http-health-checks=fw-template2-healthcheck-app3
--load-balancing-scheme="EXTERNAL"
--global

STEP 4 | Create a new backend service with the port-name created earlier on the HTTP external load
balancer.

gcloud compute backend-services create fw-template2-backend-app3

--protocol="HTTP" --port-name=app3
--http-health-checks=fw-template2-healthcheck-app3 --load-balancing-
scheme="EXTERNAL"
--global

Check to see if the new backend service is visible.

gcloud compute backend-services list

STEP 5 | Edit url-maps and add new path rule. For example:

- paths:
- /app3
- /app3/*service:
https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/<project-name>/global/
backendServices/fw-template2-backend-app3

gcloud compute url-maps edit fw-template2-ext-loadbalancer

STEP 6 | To secure this application with the VM-Series firewall, manually trigger the pub/sub message
through the gcloud CLI. This sends a message to the topic created in the firewall template.

gcloud pubsub topics publish

projects/topics/hj-asg-891ca3-gcp-pavmqa-panorama-apps-deployment
--attribute ilb-ip=172.22.9.34,
app-deployment-name=hj-asg-891ca3-app1,

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 ilb-port=80,
named-port=81,
network-cidr=172.22.9.0/24,
fw-deployment-name=hj-asg-891ca3,
host-project=gcp-pavmqa,
type=ADD-APP
--message "ADD-APP"

STEP 7 | View the Onboarded Application in the Panorama Plugin for GCP.

STEP 8 | (Optional) To update application attributes, such as ilb-ip, ilb-port, or named-port, issue the
pubsub command:

gcloud pubsub topics publish projects/gcp-pavmqa/topics/hj-asg-891ca3-gcp-

pavmqa-panorama-apps-deployment
--attribute ilb-ip=172.22.9.34,
app-deployment-name=hj-asg-891ca3-app1,
ilb-port=80,
named-port=81,
network-cidr=172.22.9.0/24,
fw-deployment-name=hj-asg-891ca3,
host-project=gcp-pavmqa,
type=UPDATE-APP
--message "UPDATE-APP"

STEP 9 | (Optional) To stop securing the application, issue the following command:

gcloud pubsub topics publish projects/gcp-pavmqa/topics/hj-asg-891ca3-gcp-

pavmqa-panorama-apps-deployment
--attribute ilb-ip=172.22.3.20,app-deployment-name=fw-templ-3-app-1,
ilb-port=80,
named-port=80,
fw-deployment-name=hj-asg-891ca3,
type=DEL-APP
--message "DEL-APP"

Onboard a GKE Cluster

To onboard a private GKE cluster, the GCP plugin for Panorama requires the following information.
• In GCP, expose the ELB frontend for the cluster to the GKE service so the VM-Series firewall can get the
named port information for the service.
• The cluster API server address.
• The service account credential for the service in which the cluster is deployed, in JSON format.

The GKE cluster name must not exceed 24 characters. This ensures that if you deploy auto
scaling in a peered VPC configuration the static route name does not exceed 31 characters.

• Onboard a GKE Cluster in a Shared VPC

• Onboard a GKE Cluster in a Peered VPC
• View the Onboarded Application in the Panorama Plugin for GCP
• View the Deployment Status from the CLI

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 Onboard a GKE Cluster in a Shared VPC
To onboard the GKE cluster you must share the Host project Trust network VPC with the Service project.
See Configure the Shared VPC.

For security reasons, only private clusters should be used in an auto scaling deployment.
See Creating a private cluster.

STEP 1 | Set the Host project ID.

gcloud config set project [HOST_PROJECT_ID]

STEP 2 | (optional) Set compute zone or region for clusters.

If the cluster is zonal, enter the following:

gcloud config set compute/zone [COMPUTE_ZONE]

If the cluster is regional, enter the following:

gcloud config set compute/region [COMPUTE_REGION]

STEP 3 | In the Host project, update secondary ranges in the Trust VPC subnet.

gcloud compute networks subnets update [TRUST_SUBNETWORK_NAME]

--add-secondary-ranges
[PODS_IP_RANGE_NAME] = [POD_RANGE_CIDR],
[SERVICE_IP_RANGE_NAME]=[SERVICE_RANGE_CIDR]

Pods and service IP ranges must be within: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16,

and cannot collide with existing IP ranges in the subnetwork.

STEP 4 | In the Service project, create a private cluster in the shared VPC.
1. Set the Service project ID.

gcloud config set project [SERVicE_PROJECT_ID]

2. Create a private cluster in the shared VPC.

gcloud container clusters create [CLUSTER_NAME]

--project [SERVICE_PROJECT_ID]
--zone=[ZONE_NAME]
--enable-ip-alias
--enable-private-nodes
--network projects/[HOST_PROJECT_ID]/global/networks/[NETWORK_NAME]
--subnetwork projects/[HOST_PROJECT_ID]/regions/[REGION_NAME]
/subnetworks/[TRUST_SUBNETWORK_NAME]
--cluster-secondary-range-name=[PODS_IP_RANGE_NAME]
--services-secondary-range-name=[SERVICE_IP_RANGE_NAME]
--master-ipv4-cidr=[MASTER_IPV4_CIDR]
--enable-master-authorized-networks
--master-authorized-networks=[PANORAMA_MANAGEMENT_IP/32],
[MY_MANAGEMENT_IP/32]

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STEP 5 | Check your current cluster context:

kubectl config current-context

STEP 6 | Check all cluster contexts.

kubectl config get-context

STEP 7 | Change to another cluster.

kubectl config use-context [CONTEXT_NAME]

If you created your cluster in the GCP console, generate a kubeconfig entry:

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [CLUSTER_NAME]

STEP 8 | Create a cluster role in a .yaml file—for example, gke_cluster_role.yaml.

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: gke-plugin-role
rules:
- apiGroups:
- ""
resources:
- services
verbs:
- list

STEP 9 | Apply the cluster role.

kubectl apply -f gke_cluster_role.yaml

STEP 10 | Create a cluster role binding in a .yaml file—for example,

gke_cluster_role_binding.yaml.

kind: ClusterRoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
name: gke-plugin-role-binding
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: [SERVICEACCOUNT_NAME]
namespace: default
roleRef:
kind: ClusterRole
name: gke-plugin-role
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

STEP 11 | Apply the cluster role binding.

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 kubectl apply -f gke_cluster_role_binding.yaml

STEP 12 | Create a service account.

kubectl create serviceaccount [SERVICEACCOUNT_NAME]

STEP 13 | Export the service account secret token in JSON format.

MY_TOKEN=`kubectl get serviceaccounts [SERVICEACCOUNT_NAME]

-o jsonpath='{.secrets[0].name}'`

kubectl get secret $MY_TOKEN -o json > [FILE_NAME].json

STEP 14 | Get the API server address.

kubectl config view --minify | grep server | cut -f 2- -d ":" | tr -d " "

STEP 15 | In the Panorama plugin for GCP, add the service account information.
Select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform > Setup.
Name the credential, enter a description, and enter the API server address from step 14, and for GKE
Service Account Credential, upload the JSON file you exported in step 13.
After you add a service account credential, you can validate the credential from your Panorama
command line (you cannot validate from the web interface):

request plugins gcp validate-service-account gke_service_account <svc-acct-

credential-name>

STEP 16 | Set up auto scaling on the Panorama plugin for GCP.

1. In the Panorama context, expand Google Cloud Platform, select AutoScaling, and click Add.
2. Supply the Firewall Deployment Name and an optional description for the deployment.
3. For the GCP Service Account Credential, supply the GCP service account name created in Prepare a
Host Project and Required Service Accounts, step 4.
4. Chose the Device Group and the Template Stack you created in when you configured the Panorama
plugin.
5. Disable License Management Only to ensure traffic is secured.
6. Enter the exact GKE Cluster Name.
7. (Optional) Enter a Description of the GKE cluster.
8. Enter the Network CIDR for the GKE cluster.
9. Select the GKE Service Account corresponding to the GKE cluster.

STEP 17 | Commit your changes.

STEP 18 | (Optional) Create and deploy a service template according to Using the Sample GKE Service
Templates, or deploy a GKE service in the GCP console. .

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 Onboard a GKE Cluster in a Peered VPC
To onboard the GKE cluster you must create and peer the Service VPC with the firewall Trust network in
the Host project, as described in Configure a Peered VPC.

For security reasons, only private clusters should be used in an auto scaling deployment.
See Creating a private cluster.

STEP 1 | Set the project ID.

gcloud config set project [PROJECT_ID]

STEP 2 | Set compute zone or region for clusters.

If the cluster is zonal, enter the following:

gcloud config set compute/zone [COMPUTE_ZONE]

If the cluster is regional, enter the following:

gcloud config set compute/region [COMPUTE_REGION]

STEP 3 | Update the service project VPC network with the secondary IP ranges for the pods and
services.

gcloud compute networks subnets update [GKE_PEERED_VPC_SUBNETWORK]

--region=[REGION]
--add-secondary-ranges PODS_IP_RANGE_NAME=[ip cidr],
SERVICE_IP_RANGE_NAME=[ip cidr]

STEP 4 | Enable cloud NAT.

Cloud NAT is required to deploy a private cluster.

gcloud compute routers create [ROUTER_NAME]

--network [NETWORK_NAME]
--region [REGION_NAME]

gcloud compute routers nats create [NAT_CONFIG_NAME]

--router-region [REGION_NAME]
--router [ROUTER_NAME]
--nat-all-subnet-ip-ranges
--auto-allocate-nat-external-ip

STEP 5 | Create a new private cluster in the Service VPC.

gcloud container clusters create [CLUSTER_NAME]

--project [SERVICE_PROJECT_ID]
--zone=[ZONE_NAME]
--enable-ip-alias

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 --network [NETWORK_NAME]
--subnetwork [SUBNETWORK_NAME]
--enable-private-nodes
--cluster-secondary-range-name=[PODS_IP_RANGE_NAME]
--services-secondary-range-name=[SERVICE_IP_RANGE_NAME]
--master-ipv4-cidr=[MASTER_IPV4_CIDR]
--enable-master-authorized-networks
--master-authorized-networks=[PANORAMA_MANAGEMENT_IP/32],
[MY_MANAGEMENT_IP/32]

STEP 6 | Check your current cluster context:

kubectl config current-context

STEP 7 | Check all cluster contexts.

kubectl config get-context

STEP 8 | Change to another cluster.

kubectl config use-context [CONTEXT_NAME]

If you created your cluster in the GCP console, generate a kubeconfig entry:

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [CLUSTER_NAME]

STEP 9 | Create a cluster role in a .yaml file—for example, gke_cluster_role.yaml.

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: gke-plugin-role
rules:
- apiGroups:
- ""
resources:
- services
verbs:
- list

STEP 10 | Apply the cluster role.

kubectl apply -f gke_cluster_role.yaml

STEP 11 | Create a cluster role binding in a .yaml file—for example,

gke_cluster_role_binding.yaml.

kind: ClusterRoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
name: gke-plugin-role-binding
subjects:

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 - kind: ServiceAccount
name: [SERVICEACCOUNT_NAME]
namespace: default
roleRef:
kind: ClusterRole
name: gke-plugin-role
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

STEP 12 | Apply the cluster role binding.

kubectl apply -f gke_cluster_role_binding.yaml

STEP 13 | Create a service account.

kubectl create serviceaccount [SERVICEACCOUNT_NAME]

STEP 14 | Export the service account secret token in JSON format.

MY_TOKEN=`kubectl get serviceaccounts [SERVICEACCOUNT_NAME]

-o jsonpath='{.secrets[0].name}'`

kubectl get secret $MY_TOKEN -o json >[FILE_NAME].json

STEP 15 | Get the API server address.

kubectl config view --minify | grep server | cut -f 2- -d ":" | tr -d " "

STEP 16 | In the Panorama plugin for GCP, add the service account information.
Select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform > Setup.
Name the credential and enter the API server address from Step 15, and upload the JSON file you
exported in Step 14.
After you add a service account credential, you can validate the credential from your Panorama
command line:

request plugins gcp validate-service-account <svc-acct-credential-name>

STEP 17 | Set up auto scaling on the Panorama plugin for GCP.

1. In the Panorama context, expand Google Cloud Platform, select AutoScaling, and click Add.
2. Supply the Firewall Deployment Name and an optional description for the deployment.
3. For the GCP Service Account Credential, supply the GCP service account name from Step 16.
4. Chose the Device Group and the Template Stack you created in when you configured the Panorama
plugin.
5. Disable License Management Only to ensure traffic is secured.
6. Enter the exact GKE Cluster Name.
7. (Optional) Enter a Description of the GKE cluster.
8. Enter the Network CIDR for the GKE cluster.
9. Select the GKE Service Account corresponding to the GKE cluster.

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STEP 18 | (Optional) In your service project, create and deploy a GKE template according to Using the
Sample GKE Service Templates, or deploy a GKE service use the GCP console. Onboard a
GKE Cluster

View the Onboarded Application in the Panorama Plugin for GCP

Select Panorama > Google Cloud Platform > Autoscaling to view your onboarded application. The Details
column is only visible if you have an onboarded application.

Each link in the Details column triggers an action.

• Show Status— View the details for applications onboarded to a GCP VM-Series firewall deployment.

The following fields display information obtained from the selected deployment. You specified these
values in the pub/sub message or through GKE cluster service polling.
• Application/GKE Service Name—An application deployment name, or the name of a GKE service.
• Host Project—The name of the host project.
• Cluster/Namespace—A GKE cluster name followed by the namespace for example, mycluster/
namespace9.
• Named Port—The port assigned to the named port for the service.
• ILB IP—The ILB IP address.
• ILB Port—The ILB port number.
For autoscaling an application, this property is ilb-port in apps.yaml.
For securing a GKE cluster, this value is the port number of the GKE cluster, as specified in the
.yaml file you used to deploy the service in your cluster.
• Configuration Programmed— True if a NAT Rule exists, False if not.
• Protected— True when an application is onboarded successfully, or False if onboarding failed. If
False, see the Not Protected Reason column for an explanation.
• Not Protected Reason— If Protected is False, displays the reason the application is not protected.
Some common reasons are:
• Configuration Programmed—True if a NAT Rule exists, False if not.
• Protected—True when an application is onboarded successfully, or False if onboarding failed. If
False, see the Not Protected Reason column for an explanation.
• Not Protected Reason—If Protected is False, displays the reason the application is not protected.
Some common reasons are:

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 • You deployed a UDP service in the GKE cluster.
• You specified a named port that is already in use. Only one application can listen on a specific
named port.
• You chose the License management only option, so we do not program the configuration.
• No matching label found for GKE services.
• Delicense Inactive VMs—Answer Yes to trigger the delicensing function for inactive VMs.
• Trigger GKE Services Sync—Answer Yes to poll the services running in the clusters, and program the
NAT, address, and service objects, and static routes if necessary. By default, Panorama automatically
polls 10 minutes after the completion of the previous poll.
View the Deployment Status from the CLI
You can use the Panorama CLI to manage deployed applications. The command line actions parallel those
described in View the Onboarded Application in the Panorama Plugin for GCP. In the following commands,
the autoscaling_name is the Firewall Deployment Name you entered in the auto scaling configuration.
• List the onboarded (protected) applications.

show plugins gcp show-protected-apps autoscaling_name <fw-deployment-name>

• Trigger the delicensing function for firewalls in the specified deployment.

request plugins gcp force-delicensing autoscaling_name <fw-deployment-name>

• For a GKE deployment, force the plugin to read the pub-sub messages, and sync NAT rules that are
programmed based on the pub-sub messages.

request plugins gcp gke-service-discovery autoscaling_name <fw-deployment-

name>

Parameters in the Auto Scaling Templates for GCP

You can download the template .zip file from https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/GCP-AutoScaling.
The .zip file contains directories to support firewall templates for network load balancer and application
load balancer configurations, and the application template.
The template YAML files have the following general format:

#Copyright and license information

:
:
imports: <do not change>
:
:
resources:
-name: vm-series-fw <do not change>
-type:vm-series-fw.py <do not change
-properties:
:
:
outputs: <do not change>
:
:

In all .yaml files, you customize the resources properties for your deployment. Do not change anything
in the imports or outputs sections.

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• Firewall Templates
• Application Template
Firewall Templates
The following sections detail the parameters for the NLB and ALB .yaml files.
• vm-series-fw-nlb.yaml
• vm-series-fw-alb.yaml
vm-series-fw-nlb.yaml
In the vm-series-fw-nlb.yaml template, edit the -properties.

Parameter Sample Value Comment

region us-central1 https://cloud.google.com/

compute/docs/regions-zones

zones zones- us-central1-a If applicable, list multiple zones as

follows:
- <list of zones>
zones- us-central1-a- us-
central1-b- us-central1-c- us-
central1-f

lb-type nlb Do not change.

cloud-nat yes Do not change.

forwarding-rule-port 80 80 or 8080

urlPath-namedPort-maps- Enter your application name.

appname urlPath-namedPort-maps
-MyApplication

sshkey 'admin:ssh-rsa <PASTE KEY>' Review SSH Key Pair. In single

quotes, type admin: followed
by a space, and paste in your
key. This is the same convention
used for the Google Marketplace
template.

bootstrap-bucket bootstrap-autoscale The name of the GCP bucket that

contains your bootstrap file.

image vm-series-byol-814 The BYOL image currently

available from the Google
marketplace.
If you are using PAYG or another
license model, the image might
be different.

machine-type n1-standard-4 n1-standard-4 is default for

BYOL.

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 Parameter Sample Value Comment
If your license permits it, you
can use any machine type in
Minimum System Requirements
for the VM-Series Firewall.

service-account The unique service account name

for the host project.

fw-instance-tag vm-series-fw The instance tag you provided in

GCP.

metric custom.googleapis.com/ The custom API path for VM-

VMSeries/panSessionActive Series, and your chosen auto
scaling metric.
Supply only one of the following
metrics.

panSessionActive
panSessionUtilization
DataPlaneCPUUtilizationPct
DataPlanePacketBufferUtilization
panSessionUtilization

max-size 2

min-size 1

target-type GAUGE Currently GAUGE is the only

valid type.

util-target 100

To deploy the VM-Series firewall you need a dedicated network and subnetwork for the firewall’s
managment, untrust, and trust interfaces. Fill out the information for either a greenfield deployment
(configure the template to create new networks) or brownfield deployment (use existing networks). Be
sure to remove or comment out the network deployment parameters you are not using.

Greenfield Deployment: Enter values to create management, untrust, and trust networks and
subnetworks for the firewall.

mgmt-network-cidr 172.22.2.0/24

untrust-network-cidr 172.22.1.0/24

trust-network-cidr 172.22.3.0/24

mgmt-network-access-source-
range- <permitted-ip-range> mgmt-network-access-source-range
- <permitted-ip-range-1>
- <permitted-ip-range-2>

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Parameter Sample Value Comment

mgmt-network-access-ports-
<port-number> mgmt-network-access-
ports
- 22
- 443

Brownfield Deployment: Enter the name of each existing network or subnetwork

mgmt-network my-mgmt-network

mgmt-subnet my-mgmt-subnet

trust-network my-trust-network

trust-subnet my-trust-subnet

untrust-network my-untrust-network

untrust-subnet my-untrust-subnet

vm-series-fw-alb.yaml
In the vm-series-fw-alb.yaml template, edit the -properties.

Parameter Sample Value Comment

region us-central1 https://cloud.google.com/

compute/docs/regions-zones

zones zones- us-central1-a If applicable, list multiple zones as

follows:
- <list of zones>
zones- us-central1-a- us-central1-
b- us-central1-c- us-central1-f

lb-type alb Do not change.

cloud-nat yes Do not change.

forwarding-rule-port 80 80

connection-draining-timeout 300 The timeout value in seconds.

List your apps and the

urlPath-namedPort-maps: urlPath-namedPort- corresponding named port
- appname: maps:
namedPort: - appName: app1
urlMapPaths: namedPort: 80
- '/app1' urlMapPaths:
- '/app1/*' - '/app1'
- '/app1/*'
- appName: app2
namedPort: 81

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 Parameter Sample Value Comment
urlMapPaths:
- '/app2'
- '/app2/*'

sshkey 'admin:ssh-rsa <PASTE KEY>' Review SSH Key Pair. In single

quotes, type admin: followed
by a space, and paste in your
key. This is the same convention
used for the Google Marketplace
template.

bootstrap-bucket bootstrap-bucket-name The name of the GCP bucket that

contains your bootstrap file.

image vm-series-byol-814 The BYOL image currently

available from the Google
marketplace.
If you are using PAYG or another
license model, the image might be
different

machine-type n1-standard-4 n1-standard-4 is default for BYOL.

If your license permits it, you can
use any machine type in Minimum
System Requirements for the VM-
Series Firewall.

service-account The unique service account name for the service project.

fw-instance-tag vm-series-fw The instance tag you provided in

GCP.

metric custom.googleapis.com/ The custom API path for VM-

VMSeries/panSessionActive Series, and your chosen auto
scaling metric.
Supply only one of the following
metrics.

panSessionActive
panSessionUtilization
DataPlaneCPUUtilizationPct
DataPlanePacketBufferUtilization
panSessionUtilization

max-size 2

min-size 1

target-type GAUGE Currently GAUGE is the only valid

type.

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Parameter Sample Value Comment

util-target 100 Enter the goal utilization target

value for the auto scaling.

Greenfield Deployment: Enter values to create management, untrust, and trust networks and
subnetworks for the firewall.

mgmt-network-cidr 192.168.12.0/24

untrust-network-cidr 192.168.11.0/24

trust-network-cidr 192.168.11.0/24

mgmt-network-access-source- mgmt-network-access-source-range- <permitted-ip-

range- <permitted-ip-range> range-1>- <permitted-ip-range-2>

mgmt-network-access-ports- mgmt-network-access-
<port-number> ports- 22- 443

Brownfield Deployment: Enter the name of each existing network or subnetwork

mgmt-network existing-vpc-mgmt

mgmt-subnet existing-subnet-mgmt

trust-network existing-vpc-trust

trust-subnet existing-subnet-trust

untrust-network existing-vpc-untrust

untrust-subnet existing-subnet-untrust

Application Template
apps.yaml
The application template creates the connection between the host project (which contains the VM-Series
firewalls) and the service project, which contains the application or services that the firewall deployment
secures.

Parameter Sample Value Comment

host-project your-host-project-name The name of the project

containing the VM-Series firewall
deployment.

fw-deployment-name my-vm-series-firewall-name

region us-central1 https://cloud.google.com/

compute/docs/regions-zones

zones zones- us-central1-a If applicable, list multiple zones as

follows:

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 Parameter Sample Value Comment
- <list of zones> zones- us-central1-a-
us-central1-b-
us-central1-c-
us-central1-f

app-machine-type n1-standard-2 The machine type for the VM

running your application or
service. If your license permits it,
you can use any machine type in
Minimum System Requirements
for the VM-Series Firewall.

app-instance-tag web-app-vm You applied this tag (label) in

GCP.

sshkey 'admin:ssh-rsa <PASTE KEY>' Review SSH Key Pair. In single

quotes, type admin: followed
by a space, and paste in your
key. This is the same convention
used for the Google Marketplace
template.

trust-network <project-name>/<vpc-network-name> For a shared VPC, the <project-

name> is the host project name.
For peered VPCs the <project-
name> is the Service project
name.

trust-subnet <project-name>/<subnet-name> For a shared VPC, the <project-

name> is the host project name.
For peered VPCs the <project-
name> is the Service project
name.

trust-subnet-cidr 10.2.0.0/24 For a greenfield deployment,

the Host project Trust subnet
CIDR (the trust-network-
cidr parameter in the firewall
template).
For a brownfield deployment, the
CIDR for the Trust network.

vm-series-fw- <pubsub-topic> Enter the topic name created

template-topic by the firewall deployment. The
application template posts a
message to the topic to program
the firewall configuration to
forward traffic.

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 Parameter Sample Value Comment

ilb-port 80 Enter the port number for your

application’s internal-load-
balancer-port. output.

urlPath-namedPort 83 Enter the port number for the

urlPath-namedPort output.

Sample GKE Service Templates

These sample templates demonstrate how to configure a GKE service so it is secured by the VM-Series
firewall. For the basics on creating your own cluster services, see Creating a private cluster.
• Using the Sample GKE Service Templates
• gke_cluster_role.yaml
• gke_cluster_role_binding.yaml
• web-deployment.yaml
• web-service.yaml
• web-deployment-v2.yaml
• web-service-v2.yaml
• Multiple Ports in a Service
Using the Sample GKE Service Templates
You can create a service template based on the sample content in the .yaml files that follow. Typically you
create a single .yaml file.
To be secured by the VM-Series firewall, services in the cluster must be labeled "panw-named-
port=<named_port>" as shown in web-service.yaml or web-service-v2.yaml.
1. Deploy a .yaml file as follows:

kubectl apply -f [FILE_NAME].yaml

2. Configure the VPC deployment.
• In a shared VPC deployment, launch the GKE cluster in the shared VPC as described in Configure the
Shared VPC.
• In a peered VPC deployment, peer the GKE cluster VPC to the host project Trust network. See
Configure a Peered VPC.

After a deployment, you can delete all services deployed in the service template .yaml file
as follows:

kubectl delete -f [FILE_NAME].yaml

gke_cluster_role.yaml

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: gke-plugin-role
rules:
- apiGroups:

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 - ""
resources:
- services
verbs:
- list

gke_cluster_role_binding.yaml

kind: ClusterRoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
metadata:
name: gke-plugin-role-binding
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: hj-gke-891ca3-cluster1-sa
namespace: default
roleRef:
kind: ClusterRole
name: gke-plugin-role
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

web-deployment.yaml

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: web
namespace: default
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
run: web
template:
metadata:
labels:
run: web
spec:
containers:
- image: gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:1.0
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
name: web
ports:
- containerPort: 8080
protocol: TCP

web-service.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: web
namespace: default
annotations:
cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: "Internal"
labels:
panw-named-port-port1: "80"
spec:
ports:
# the port that this service should serve on

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 - name: port1
port: 80
protocol: TCP
targetPort: 8080
selector:
run: web
type: LoadBalancer

web-deployment-v2.yaml

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: web2
namespace: default
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
run: web2
template:
metadata:
labels:
run: web2
spec:
containers:
- image: gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:2.0
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
name: web2
ports:
- containerPort: 8080
protocol: TCP

web-service-v2.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: web2
namespace: default
annotations:
cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: "Internal"
labels:
panw-named-port-port2: "81"
spec:
ports:
# the port that this service should serve on
- name: port2
port: 81
protocol: TCP
targetPort: 8080
selector:
run: web2
type: LoadBalancer

Multiple Ports in a Service

For multiple ports in one service, edit labels and map the target port name and number in the format panw-
named-port-<service-spec-port-name>, as shown in the sample below.

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 apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: carts
annotations:
cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: "Internal"
labels:
panw-named-port-carts-http: "6082"
panw-named-port-carts-https: "6083"
namespace: default
spec:
type: LoadBalancer
ports:
# the port that this service should serve on
- name: carts-http
protocol: TCP
port: 80
targetPort: 80
- name: carts-https
protocol: TCP
port: 443
targetPort: 443
selector:
name: carts

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Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on a Cisco
ENCS Network
If you have virtualized the traditional appliance-based network infrastructure at your branch
or remote office with the Cisco 5400 Series Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS)
appliance, you can use Enterprise NFV Infrastructure Software (NFVIS) to deploy the VM-
Series firewall within your Cisco network. The VM-Series firewall serves as a virtual network
function (VNF) with next-generation firewall capabilities to safely enable all applications and
protect your branch or remote office users and network from threats.
The Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS) appliances combine with Cisco
Integrated Services Virtual Routers (ISRV) and NFVIS software to support Software-Defined
Branch (SD-Branch) network architectures.

> Plan Your Cisco ENCS Deployment

> Prepare the VM-Series Firewall Image for Cisco ENCS
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco ENCS

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Plan Your Cisco ENCS Deployment
In your Cisco SD-Branch, deploy the VM-Series Firewall on the Cisco ENCS appliance as a VNF that
provides next generation firewall capabilities to secure your applications and users at the branch office.
You can deploy the firewall in a virtual wire, Layer 2, or Layer 3 deployment, and in high availability
configuration.
To manage the VM-Series firewall, the Panorama appliance can be deployed on premises or in the cloud.
The following topology shows the VM-Series firewall at the branch edge.

Cisco ENCS Requirements

For supported NFVIS versions and hardware platforms, see the Palo Alto Networks Compatibility Matrix.
In NFVIS, set up networks and bridges.
Create virtual NICs and attach them to a virtual bridge so the ENCS appliance can steer traffic
through the VM-Series firewall.
On the Cisco ENCS appliance, the VM-Series firewall supports up to 8 dataplane interfaces.

The dataplane interfaces of the VM-Series firewall on Cisco ENCS support Virtio mode
only; ENCS SR-IOV and PCI passthrough modes are not supported.
Set up network connections for VM-Series firewall management access. If you are using Panorama,
ensure that Panorama has network access to manage the firewall you deploy.
Python 2.7. Required on your local machine if you are using the command line to convert.

VM-Series Firewall and Panorama Requirements

VM-Series Firewall—The VM-50 and VM-100 are recommended. The VM-300, VM-500, and VM-700
are also supported, provided the ENCS hardware has sufficient resources that can be assigned to
the VM-Series firewall. Consult the VM-Series System Requirements to ensure that the Cisco ENCS
appliance has adequate resources to support the VM-Series model you choose.

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 qcow2 file (the PAN-OS for VM-Series KVM base image) for PAN-OS 9.1 or later. See Convert a
qcow2 File from the Graphical User Interface, Step 2 or Convert a qcow2 File from the Command
Line Interface, Step 2.
VM-Series firewall capacity license and subscription auth codes that meet your requirements. See
VM-Series Model License Types. You enter auth codes in the NFVIS user interface, or include the
auth codes in the authcodes text file in the conversion folder as described in Convert a qcow2 File
from the Command Line Interface, Step 4.
With PAN-OS 9.1, the VM-Series firewall on Cisco ENCS supports Virtio with DPDK mode enabled
by default.
Panorama hardware or virtual appliance. While you can deploy a single VM-Series firewall in a Cisco SD-
Branch network, it is more common to deploy firewalls in many branches and centrally manage them
with Panorama.
Panorama version 9.1 or later. The version must be the same or higher than the version on your VM-
Series firewall.
A VM auth key generated on Panorama. This key allows the VM-Series firewall to authenticate with
Panorama.

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Prepare the VM-Series Firewall Image for
Cisco ENCS
You can convert a PAN-OS qcow2 file from the NFVIS graphical user interface or the command line
interface.
• Convert a qcow2 File from the Graphical User Interface
• Convert a qcow2 File from the Command Line Interface

Convert a qcow2 File from the Graphical User Interface

Use the NFVIS graphical user interface to enter image packaging and bootstrap information.

STEP 1 | In NFVIS, go to VM Life Cycle > Image Repository > Image Packaging.

STEP 2 | Fill in the package information as shown below, supplying your own values.
1. Enter a Package Name and VM Version, and for the VM Type, choose Firewall.
2. Enable the Serial Console.
3. Leave the Sriov Driver(s) field blank, as SR-IOV is not supported.
4. Select Local to choose a qcow2 file you uploaded previously, or click Upload Raw Images to upload a
qcow2 file.
• Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal.
If you have not already done so, create a support account and register the VM-Series firewall.
• Select Support > Software Updates and from the Filter By drop-down, select Pan OS for VM-
Series KVM Base Image, for example, version 9.1.
• Download the qcow2 image.

STEP 3 | Upload the bootstrap files.

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STEP 4 | Set the Advanced Configuration.

STEP 5 | Enter values for Custom Properties.

STEP 6 | Set values for your resource requirements and choose the Default profile, or add a profile for
the current configuration.
Click Submit to save your package.

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STEP 7 | Click Register to register the new image.

Convert a qcow2 File from the Command Line Interface

To create a bootstrap file from the command line interface, you create the file
image_properties_template.xml then use the using the VM Image Packaging utility to create a .tar
file, which you convert using the nfvpt.py script. The output is a tar.gz file that can be uploaded from
the NFVIS user interface.

STEP 1 | Create or choose a folder on your local machine (the conversion folder) in which you want to
download and save the files necessary to convert the VM-Series firewall qcow2 image to the
Cisco ENCS format.

STEP 2 | Obtain the VM-Series firewall qcow2 image.

1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal.
If you have not already done so, create a support account and register the VM-Series firewall.
2. Select Support > Software Updates and from the Filter By drop-down, select Pan OS for VM-Series
KVM Base Image, for example, version 9.1.
3. Download the qcow2 image to the conversion folder.

STEP 3 | Create the following init-cfg.txt file in the conversion folder.

type=static
ip-address=${IP_ADDRESS}
default-gateway=${GATEWAY}
netmask=${NETMASK}
ipv6-address=
ipv6-default-gateway=
hostname=${HOSTNAME}

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 vm-auth-key=${VM_AUTH_KEY}
panorama-server=${PANORAMA_SERVER}
panorama-server-2=
tplname=
dgname=
dns-primary=${DNS_SERVER}
dns-secondary=
op-command-modes=jumbo-frame, mgmt-interface-swap**
dhcp-send-hostname=yes
dhcp-send-client-id=yes
dhcp-accept-server-hostname=yes
dhcp-accept-server-domain=yes

STEP 4 | Create a text file named authcodes (no extension), and enter the auth codes for the VM-Series
firewall capacity and subscriptions. Save the file in the conversion folder.

STEP 5 | Create the following image_properties_template.xml file in the conversion folder, and
supply values for your deployment:

<image_properties>
<vnf_type>FIREWALL</vnf_type>
<name>pafw</name>
<version>9.1.0</version>
<bootup_time>-1</bootup_time>
<root_file_disk_bus>virtio</root_file_disk_bus>
<root_image_disk_format>qcow2</root_image_disk_format>
<vcpu_min>2</vcpu_min>
<vcpu_max>8</vcpu_max>
<memory_mb_min>4096</memory_mb_min>
<memory_mb_max>16384</memory_mb_max>
<vnic_max>8</vnic_max>
<root_disk_gb_min>32</root_disk_gb_min>
<root_disk_gb_max>60</root_disk_gb_max>
<console_type_serial>true</console_type_serial>
<sriov_supported>true</sriov_supported>
<pcie_supported>false</pcie_supported>
<monitoring_supported>false</monitoring_supported>
<monitoring_methods>ICMPPing</monitoring_methods>
<low_latency>true</low_latency>
<privileged_vm>true</privileged_vm>
<custom_property>
<HOSTNAME> </HOSTNAME>
</custom_property>
<custom_property>
<IP_ADDRESS> </IP_ADDRESS>
</custom_property>
<custom_property>
<NETMASK> </NETMASK>
</custom_property>
<custom_property>
<GATEWAY> </GATEWAY>
</custom_property>
<custom_property>
<PANORAMA_SERVER> </PANORAMA_SERVER>
</custom_property>
<custom_property>
<DNS_SERVER> </DNS_SERVER>
</custom_property>
<custom_property>
<VM_AUTH_KEY> </VM_AUTH_KEY>

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 </custom_property>
<default_profile>VM-50</default_profile>
<profiles>
<profile>
<name>VM-50</name>
<description>VM-50 profile</description>
<vcpus>2</vcpus>
<memory_mb>5120</memory_mb>
<root_disk_mb>60000</root_disk_mb>
</profile>
<profile>
<name>VM-100-n-200</name>
<description>VM-100 and VM-200 profile</description>
<vcpus>2</vcpus>
<memory_mb>7168</memory_mb>
<root_disk_mb>60000</root_disk_mb>
</profile>
<profile>
<name>VM-300</name>
<description>VM-300 profile</description>
<vcpus>2</vcpus>
<memory_mb>9216</memory_mb>
<root_disk_mb>60000</root_disk_mb>
</profile>
<profile>
<name>VM-1000-HV</name>
<description>VM-1000-HV profile</description>
<vcpus>4</vcpus>
<memory_mb>9216</memory_mb>
<root_disk_mb>60000</root_disk_mb>
</profile>
<profile>
<name>VM-500</name>
<description>VM-500 profile</description>
<vcpus>4</vcpus>
<memory_mb>16384</memory_mb>
<root_disk_mb>60000</root_disk_mb>
</profile>
</profiles>
<cdrom>true</cdrom>
<bootstrap_file_1>/config/init-cfg.txt</bootstrap_file_1>
<bootstrap_file_2>/config/bootstrap.xml</bootstrap_file_2>
<bootstrap_file_3>/license/authcodes</bootstrap_file_3>
</image_properties>

STEP 6 | Download the image packaging utility.

1. Log in to the Enterprise NFVIS user interface and select VM Life Cycle > Image Repository.
2. Click the Browse Datastore tab, and navigate to data > intdatastore > uploads > vmpackagingutility.
3. Download nfvisvmpackagingtool.tar to the conversion folder.
4. Untar the file:

tar -xvf nfvisvmpackagingtool.tar

STEP 7 | In the conversion folder that contains the qcow2, the init-config.txt and the authcodes
file, run the nfvpt.py script. See the nfvpt.py image packaging utility documentation.

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 The following sample creates the image file Palo-Alto-9.1.0, and a VM-100 profile. Options are space-
separated (the sample shows options on separate lines for clarity only) and custom options are key-value
pairs with a colon separator.

./nfvpt.py -o Palo-Alto-9.1.0 -i PA-VM-KVM-9.1.0.qcow2

-n PAN902 -t FIREWALL -r 9.1.0
--monitored false
--privileged true
--bootstrap /config/init-cfg.txt:init-cfg.txt,/license/authcodes:authcodes
--min_vcpu 2 --max_vcpu 8
--min_mem 4096 --max_mem 16384
--min_disk 10 --max_disk 70
--vnic_max 8
--optimize true
--console_type_serial true
--profile VM-100,"VM-100 profile",2,7168,61440
--default_profile VM-100
--custom HOSTNAME:hello
--custom IP_ADDRESS:10.2.218.24
--custom NETMASK:255.255.255.0
--custom GATEWAY:10.2.218.1
--custom DNS_SERVER:10.55.66.10
--custom PANORAMA_SERVER:0.10.10.0
--custom VM_AUTH_KEY:123451234512345

STEP 8 | Upload the converted image.

1. In the NFVIS user interface, select VM Life Cycle > Image Repository and click the blue Images icon
to show the Drop Files or Click circle.
2. Drag the converted file into the circle, or click to browse and select your file.
3. In the Status column, click Start.
When the upload is complete, the image is registered, and the file you uploaded displays in the Image
Registration tab Images list.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco ENCS
Before you begin to deploy the firewall, make sure that you have created network connections for
management access to the VM-Series firewall. If you are using Panorama, ensure that Panorama has
management connectivity to the firewall.

STEP 1 | Deploy the VM-Series firewall.

1. In Enterprise NFVIS, click VM Life Cycle > Deploy.
2. Drag the firewall icon to the appropriate network. In this example, the firewall connects to a
management network and a LAN network.

3. Deploy the VM-Series firewall.

If you are using Panorama to manage the firewall, the firewall displays as Connected on Panorama >
Managed Devices > Summary. If the firewall is not connected to Panorama, check that you have
provided the correct Panorama IP address and that the devices can communicate over the network.

STEP 2 | Configure the VM-Series firewall dataplane interfaces.

See configure a Layer 3 interface, configure a Layer 2 interface, or configure virtual wires. If using
Panorama, the following steps show you how to configure the firewall for a Layer 3 deployment.
1. Add a template and assign the firewall to the template.
2. Select the Network and in the Template drop-down, select the template you created.
3. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.

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 4. Click ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Set Interface Type to Layer3.
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• Also on the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone called UnTrust for example, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select DHCP Client or Static. If you choose static, enter the IP address.

5. Repeat b-e for each network interface.

6. Commit > Commit and Push to commit all configuration changes to Panorama and the managed
firewalls.
Verify that the link state for the firewall interfaces is up.

STEP 3 | Configure Security policies to safely enable applications and users on your network.
If using Panorama, the following steps show you how to use device groups to centrally manage policy
rules for your managed firewalls.
1. Add a device group and assign the managed firewalls to your device group.

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 2. Configure the security policies for the device group.

STEP 4 | Verify that the VM-Series firewall is securing traffic on your network.

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668 VM-SERIES DEPLOYMENT GUIDE | Set Up a VM-Series Firewall on a Cisco ENCS Network
Set up the VM-Series Firewall on Oracle
Cloud Infrastructure
Deploy the VM-Series firewall on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) cloud. With the VM-Series
on OCI, you can protect and segment your workloads, prevent advanced threats, and improve
visibility into your applications as you move to the cloud.
OCI is a public cloud computing service that enables you to run your applications in a highly-
available, hosted environment offered by Oracle. You can deploy the VM-Series firewall to
secure your applications and services running your OCI environment.

> OCI Shape Types

> Deployments Supported on OCI
> Prepare to Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on OCI
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall From the Oracle Cloud Marketplace
> Configure Active/Passive HA on OCI

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OCI Shape Types
The VM-Series firewalls support the following OCI VM shapes. See Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
documentation for more information about VM shapes.

VM-Series Model Minimum OCI Shape

VM-100 VM.Standard2.4

VM-300 VM.Standard2.4

VM-500 VM.Standard2.8

VM-700 VM.Standard2.16

You can deploy the VM-Series firewall on an OCI instance with more resources than the minimum VM-
Series System Requirements. If you chooses a larger shape size for the VM-Series firewall model. Although
the firewall only uses the maximum vCPUs cores and memory listed on the system requirements page, it
does take advantage of the faster network performance that the larger shape provides.

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Deployments Supported on OCI
Use the VM-Series firewall on OCI to secure your cloud environment in the following scenarios:
• North-South Traffic—You can use the VM-Series firewall to secure traffic entering your cloud network
from an untrusted source or exiting your cloud network to reach an untrusted source. For either type of
traffic, you must configure route table rules in your Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) and NAT policy rules
on the firewall.
In this example, outbound traffic is exiting the trust subnet in your VCN. You must configure source
address translation policy onto a public IP address and a route table rule that redirects that traffic to
the firewall. The route rule points outgoing traffic to the firewall’s interface in the trust subnet of the
VCN. When the firewall receives this traffic, it performs the source address translation on the traffic and
applies any other security policy you have configured.

• Inter-VCN Traffic (East-West)—The VM-Series firewall allows you to secure traffic moving within your
cloud environment between VCNs. Each subnet must belong to a different VCN because, by default, no
route rules are used to enable traffic within a VCN. In this scenario, you configure an interface on the
firewall connected to a subnet in each VCN.
In the example below, a user in the Trust Subnet wants to access data in the DB Subnet. Configure
a route on OCI that reaches DB Subnet CIDR next hop, which points to the interface Trust Subnet
network on the VM-Series firewall.

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Prepare to Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on
OCI
The process to deploy the VM-Series firewall on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure requires the completion of
preparation tasks.
• Virtual Cloud Networks
• SSH Keys
• Initial Configuration User Data

Virtual Cloud Networks

A virtual cloud network (VCN) is a virtual, private network that you set up in your OCI environment. To
deploy the VM-Series firewall in OCI, your VCN must have at least three virtual network interfaces cards
(VNICs) for the management interface and two data interfaces.
OCI uses a series of route tables to send traffic out of your VCN and one route table is added to each
subnet. A subnet is a division of your VCN. If you do not specify a route table, the subnet uses the VCN’s
default route table.Each route table rule specifies a destination CIDR block and a next hop (target) for any
traffic that matches the CIDR. OCI only uses a subnet’s route table if the destination IP address is outside
the VCN’s specified CIDR block; route rules are not required to enable traffic within the VCN. And, if traffic
has overlapping rules, OCI use the most specific rule in the route table to route traffic.

If there is no route rule that matches the traffic that is attempting to leave the VCN, the traffic
is dropped.

Each subnet requires a route table and once you have added a route table to a subnet, you cannot change it.
However, you can add, remove, or edit rules in a route table after it has been created.

SSH Keys
You must create an SSH key pair to login to the firewall for the first time. You cannot use the default
username and password to access the firewall for the first time. After the firewall boots up for the first time,
you must access the firewall through the CLI and create a new username and password.
1. Create an SSH key pair and store the SSH Key pair in the default location for your operating system.
• On Linux or MacOS, use ssh-keygen to create the key pair in your .ssh directory.
• On Windows, use PuTTYgen to create the key pair.
The content of the Key comment field does not matter to the VM-Series firewall; you can accept
the default (the key creation date) or enter a comment that helps you remember the name of the key
pair. Use the Save private key button to store the private key in your .ssh directory.
2. Select the full public key.
• Linux or MacOS:
Open your public key in a text editor and copy the public key.
• Windows: You must use the PuTTY Key Generator to view the public key. Launch PuTTYgen, click
Load, and browse to private key you saved in your .ssh directory.
In PuTTYgen, scroll down to ensure you select the entire key, right click, and choose Copy.

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 Initial Configuration User Data
You must provide the following bootstrapping parameters when setting up the VM-Series firewall instance.
OCI uses this information to perform the initial configuration of the firewall, which provides the firewall
with a hostname and license and connects the firewall to Panorama, if applicable.

The Panorama-related fields are required only if you have a Panorama appliance and want
use Panorama to manage your VM-Series firewall.

Field Description

hostname= Host name for the firewall.

vm-auth-key= Virtual machine authentication key for registering the

firewall with Panorama.

panorama-server= IPv4 or IPv6 address of the primary Panorama server.

This field is not required but recommended for centrally
managing your firewalls.

panorama-server-2= IPv4 or IPv6 address of the secondary Panorama server.

This field is not required but recommended.

tplname= Panorama template stack name. If you add a Panorama

server IP address, as a best practice assign the firewall
to a template stack on Panorama and enter the template
stack name in this field so that you can centrally manage
and push configuration settings to the firewall.

dgname= Panorama device group name. If you add a Panorama

server IP address, as a best practice create a device
group on Panorama and enter the device group name

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Field Description
in this field so that you can group the firewalls logically
and push policy rules to the firewall.

authcodes= Used to license the VM-Series firewall with the Palo

Alto Networks licensing server.

op-command-modes=jumbo-frame Used to enable jumbo frame mode on the VM-Series

firewall. Because OCI deploys VM instances in jumbo
mode by default, it is recommended that you launch the
VM-Series firewall in jumbo mode to achieve the best
throughput.

Paste the bootstrapping parameters into the OCI console in the following format.
hostname=<fw-hostname>
vm-auth-key=<auth-key>
panorama-server=<panorama-ip>
panorama-server-2=<panorama2-ip>
tplname=<template-stack-name>
dgname=<device-group-name>
authocodes=<firewall-authcode>
op-command-modes=jumbo-frame

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall From the
Oracle Cloud Marketplace
Complete the following procedure to deploy the VM-Series firewall in OCI from the Oracle Cloud
Marketplace.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.

STEP 2 | Find the VM-Series firewall application in the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.
1. Search for Palo Alto Networks and a list of offerings for the VM-Series firewall will display.
2. Select an offering.
3. Click Get App.
4. Select your Region and click Sign In.
5. Select the Version and Compartment.
6. Accept the Oracle and Partner terms.
7. Click Launch Instance.

STEP 3 | Enter a descriptive Name for your VM-Series firewall instance.

STEP 4 | Select an Availability Domain.

STEP 5 | Select Virtual Machine under Shape Type.

STEP 6 | Select the shape with the number of CPUs, amount of RAM, and number of interfaces required
for the VM-Series firewall model. See the Compute Shapes page for the amount resources

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 provided by the different compute shapes. See VM-Series System Requirements for more
information about the resources required for each VM-Series firewall model.

STEP 7 | Under Networking, select your Virtual cloud network compartment, Virtual cloud network,
Subnet compartment, and Subnet for your management interface. You can only add one
interface when creating the VM-Series firewall instance. You will add additional interfaces
later.

STEP 8 | (Optional) Set the boot volume to a size larger than the default. By default, the boot volume is
set to 60GB. Complete this procedure if you require a larger boot volume to support features
such as attaching logs.
1. Select Custom boot volume size (in GB).
2. Enter 60 or greater. 60 GB is the minimum hard drive size required by the VM-Series firewall.

STEP 9 | Add your SSH key.

1. Under Add SSH Key, select Paste SSH Key.
2. Paste your SSH key into the field provided.

STEP 10 | Add the bootstrapping parameters.

1. Click Show Advanced Options.
2. Under User data, select Paste cloud-init script.
3. Paste the boostrap parameters into the field provided.
hostname=<fw-hostname>
vm-auth-key=<auth-key>

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 panorama-server=<panorama-ip>
panorama-server-2=<panorama2-ip>
tplname=<template-stack-name>
dgname=<device-group-name>
authcodes=<firewall-authcode>
op-command-modes=jumbo-frame

STEP 11 | Click Create.

When the VM-Series firewall is launched, OCI creates and attaches a primary VNIC to the instance. This
VNIC resides in the subnet you specified in the instance network setting and connects to the VM-Series
firewall’s management interface.

STEP 12 | Configure a new administrative password for the firewall.

1. Use the management IP address to SSH into the command line interface (CLI) of the VM-Series
firewall.
2. Enter the following command to log in to the firewall:
ssh-i <private_key.pem> admin@<public-ip_address>
3. Configure a new password, using the following command and follow the onscreen prompts:
configure
set mgt-config users admin password

STEP 13 | Attach a vNIC to your VM-Series firewall instance for each data interface. You must attach at
least two data interfaces to your firewall instance—untrust and trust.
1. Select your newly launched VM-Series firewall instance and select Attached VNICs > Create VNIC.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your vNIC.
3. Select your VCN from the Virtual Cloud Network drop-down.
4. Select your subnet from the Subnet drop-down.
5. Specify a Private IP Address. This is only required if your want to choose a particular IP for the vNIC.
If you do not specify an IP, OCI will assign an IP address from the CIDR block you assigned to the
subnet.
6. Select Assign Public IP Address for public facing vNICs such as your untrust subnet.
7. Click Create VNIC.
8. Repeat this procedure for each vNIC your deployment requires.

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STEP 14 | Configure the dataplane network interfaces as Layer 3 interfaces on the firewall.
1. Log in to the firewall.
2. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
3. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example untrust-zone, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select either Static.
• Click Add in the IP section and enter the IP address and network mask for the interface. Make
sure that the IP address matches the IP address that you assigned to the corresponding subnet in
VCN. For example, if you add this interface to your untrust zone, make sure you assign the untrust
vNIC IP address configured in your VCN.
4. Repeat this procedure for each vNIC configured in your VCN except your management vNIC.

Always only delete interfaces at the bottom of the interface list. Deleting firewall interfaces
in the wrong order results in a interface mismatch between the firewall and OCI. For
example, say you have five data interfaces, then delete interface two on the firewall and
add a new interface at the bottom. After rebooting the firewall, the newly added interface
will take the place of the deleted interface two instead of taking a place at the bottom of
the list.

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Configure Active/Passive HA on OCI
You can configure a pair of VM-Series firewalls on OCI in an active/passive high availability (HA)
configuration. To ensure uptime in an HA setup on OCI, you must create a secondary, floating IP addresses
that can quickly move from one peer to the other. When the active firewall goes down, the floating IP
address moves from the active to the passive firewall so that the passive firewall can seamlessly secure
traffic as soon as it becomes the active peer. In addition to the floating IP address, the HA peers also need
HA links—a control link (HA1) and a data link (HA2)—to synchronize data and maintain state information.

To allow the firewalls to move the floating IP address upon failover, you must place the firewall instances
in a dynamic group on OCI. Dynamic groups allow you to group the firewall instances as principal actors
and create policy to allow the instances in the dynamic group to make API calls against OCI services. You
will use matching rules to add the HA peer instances to the dynamic group and then create the policy the
floating IP from one VNIC to another.
Both VM-Series firewalls in the HA pair must have the same number of network interfaces. Each firewall
requires a minimum of four interfaces—management, untrust, trust, and HA. You can configure additional
data interfaces as required by your deployment.
• Management interface—the private and public IP addresses associated with the primary interface. You
can use the private IP address on the management interface as the IP address for the HA1 interface
between the peers. If you want a dedicated HA interface, you must attach an additional interface to each
firewall, for a total of five interfaces each.
• Untrust and trust interfaces—each of these data interfaces on the active HA peer require a primary
and secondary IP address. Upon failover, when the passive HA peer transitions to the active state, the
secondary private IP address is detached from the previously active peer and attached to the now active
HA peer.

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 • HA2 interface—this interface has a single private IP address on each HA peer. The HA2 interface is
the data link peers use to synchronize sessions, forwarding tables, IPsec security associations, and ARP
tables.

STEP 1 | Deploy the VM-Series Firewall From the Oracle Cloud Marketplace and set up the network
interfaces for HA.
1. (Optional) Configure a dedicated HA1 interface on each HA peer.
1. From the OCI Console, select Compute > Instances and click on the name of your active peer
instance.
2. Select Attached VNICs and click Create VNIC.
3. Enter a descriptive name for your HA1 interface.
4. Select the VCN and subnet.
5. Enter a private IP address.
6. Click Create VNIC.
7. Repeat this process on your passive peer instance.
2. Configure an HA2 interface on each HA peer.
1. From the OCI Console, select Compute > Instances and click on the name of your active peer
instance.
2. Select Attached VNICs and click Create VNIC.
3. Enter a descriptive name for your HA2 interface.
4. Select the VCN and subnet. The HA2 interface should be on a separate subnet from your data
interfaces.
5. Enter a private IP address.
6. Click Create VNIC.
7. Repeat this process on your passive peer instance.
3. Add a secondary IP address to your dataplane interfaces on the active peer.
1. From the OCI Console, select Compute > Instances and click on the name of your active peer
instance.
2. Select Attached VNICs and click on your untrust VNIC.
3. Select IP Addresses and click Assign Private IP Address.
4. Enter the IP address and click Assign.
5. Repeat this procedure for each dataplane interface on your active peer.

STEP 2 | Create security rules to allow the HA peers to synchronize data and maintain state information.
By default, OCI allows ICMP traffic only. You must open the necessary HA ports.
1. Open the ports for your HA1 interface.
1. From the OCI Console, select Networking > Virtual Cloud Networks and select your VCN.
2. Select Subnets and select the subnet containing your HA1 interface.
3. Select Security Lists and click the default security list to edit it.
4. Click Add Ingress Rule.
5. Enter the Source CIDR that includes the HA peer HA1 port IP address.
6. Select TCP from the IP Protocol drop-down.
7. Click +Additional Ingress Rule. You need to create two additional rules for TCP ports 28260 and
28769.
8. If encryption is enabled on your VM-Series firewall for the HA1 link, create an additional rules for
ICMP and TCP port 28.
9. Click Add Ingress Rules.

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 2. Open the ports for your HA2 interface.
1. From the OCI Console, select Networking > Virtual Cloud Networks and select your VCN.
2. Select Subnets and select the subnet containing your HA2 interface.
3. Select Security Lists and click the default security list to edit it.
4. Click Add Ingress Rule.
5. Enter the Source CIDR that includes the HA peer HA2 port IP address.
6. Select UDP or IP from the IP Protocol drop-down.
7. If the transport mode is UDP, enter 29281 into Source Port Name. If the transport mode is IP,
enter 99 into Source Port Name.
8. Click Add Ingress Rules.

STEP 3 | Add both HA peers to a dynamic group and create policy that allows the HA peers to move the
floating IP address. You must have the OCID of each HA peer instance to build the dynamic
group matching rules, so have those on hand to past into the rule builder.
1. Create the dynamic group.
1. From the OCI Console, select Identity > Dynamic Groups > Create Dynamic Group.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your dynamic group.
3. Click Rule Builder.
4. Select Any of the following rules from the first drop-down.

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 5. Select Match instances with ID: from the Attributes drop-down and paste one of the peer OCIDs
into the Value field.
6. Click +Additional Line.
7. Select Match instances with ID: from the Attributes drop-down and paste the other peer OCID
into the Value field.
8. Click Add Rule.

9. Click Create Dynamic Group.

2. Create the policy rule.
1. From the OCI Console, select Identity > Policies > Create Policy.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your policy.
3. Enter the first policy statement.
Allow dynamic-group <dynamic_group_name> to use virtual-network-family
in compartment <compartment_name>
4. Click +Another Statement.
5. Enter the second policy statement.
Allow dynamic-group <dynamic_group_name> to use instance-family in
compartment <compartment_name>
6. Click Create.

STEP 4 | Configure the interfaces on the firewall. You must configure the HA2 data link and at least two
Layer 3 interfaces for your untrust and trust interfaces. Complete this workflow on the first HA
peer and then repeat the steps on the second HA peer.
1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. (Optional) If you are using the management interface as HA1, you must set the interface IP Type to
static and configure a DNS server.

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 1. Select Device > Setup > Interfaces > Management.
2. Set the IP Type to Static.
3. Enter the private IP address of the primary VNIC of your VM-Series firewall instance.
4. Click OK.
5. Select Device > Setup > Services.
6. Click Edit.
7. Enter the IP address of the Primary DNS Server.
8. Click OK.
9. Commit your changes.
3. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet and click on your untrust interface. In this example, the HA2
interface is 1/1, the trust interface is ethernet 1/2, and the untrust interface is ethernet 1/3.
4. Click the link for ethernet 1/1 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: HA
5. Click the link for ethernet 1/2 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example trust-zone, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select either Static.
• Click Add in the IP section and enter the primary IP address and network mask for the interface.
Make sure that the IP address matches the IP address that you assigned to the corresponding
subnet in VCN. For example, if you add this interface to your trust zone, make sure you assign the
trust vNIC IP address configured in your VCN.
• Click Add in the IP section and enter the secondary, floating IP address and network mask.
6. Click the link for ethernet 1/3 and configure as follows:
• Interface Type: Layer3
• On the Config tab, assign the interface to the default router.
• On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. Define a new
zone, for example untrust-zone, and then click OK.
• On the IPv4 tab, select either Static.
• Click Add in the IP section and enter the primary IP address and network mask for the interface.
Make sure that the IP address matches the IP address that you assigned to the corresponding
subnet in VCN. For example, if you add this interface to your untrust zone, make sure you assign
the untrust vNIC IP address configured in your VCN.
• Click Add in the IP section and enter the secondary, floating IP address and network mask.

STEP 5 | Enable HA.

1. Select Device > High Availability > General.
2. Edit the Setup settings.
3. Enter the private IP address of the passive peer in the Peer HA1 IP address field.
4. Click OK.

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 5. (Optional) Edit the Control Link (HA1). If you do not plan to use the management interface for the
control link and have added an additional interface (for example ethernet 1/4), edit this section to
select the interface to use for HA1 communication.
6. Edit the Data Link (HA2) to use Port ethernet 1/1 and add the IP address of active peer and the
Gateway IP address for the subnet.
7. Select IP or UDP from the Transport drop-down. Ethernet is not supported.

8. Click OK.

STEP 6 | Commit your changes.

STEP 7 | Repeat step 4 and step 5 on the passive HA peer.

STEP 8 | After your finish configuring HA on both firewalls, verify that the firewalls are paired in active/
passive HA.
1. Access the Dashboard on both firewalls and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active HA peer, click Sync to peer.
3. Confirm that the firewalls are paired and synced.
• On the passive firewall: the state of the local firewall should display Passive and the Running
Config should show as Synchronized.
• On the active firewall: the state of the local firewall should display Active and the Running Config
should show as Synchronized.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba
Cloud
Deploying the VM-Series firewall on Alibaba Cloud protects networks you create within
Alibaba Cloud. You can deploy VM-Series firewalls to protect internet facing applications and
hybrid cloud deployments.

> VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud

> Minimum System Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud
> Prepare to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud
> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud

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VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall to secure inbound and outbound north-south traffic in Alibaba
Cloud.

Securing east-west traffic within the same VPC is not supported because Alibaba Cloud
does not support subnet routing.

The VM-Series firewall on Alibaba Cloud runs on the KVM hypervisor and supports up to 8 network
interfaces when you select an Alibaba Cloud instance with sufficient resources (see Minimum System
Requirements for the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud).
The VM-Series firewall on Alibaba Cloud supports BYOL licensing and the VM-Series ELA on Alibaba Cloud
International Regions and Mainland China. PAYG licensing is not currently supported.
In Alibaba Cloud, your VPC logically isolates your virtual network. After creating a VPC, you can create
VSwitches to further segment your virtual private network, as shown in the following diagram. To secure
inbound traffic, both DNAT and SNAT must be configured on the firewall.

Inbound traffic originates from a client outside of your VPC going to the VM-Series firewall untrust
interface. The firewall inspects the traffic and sends it to an application through the trust interface. Traffic
returning from the application must travel through the VM-Series firewall trust interface, which inspects the
return traffic flow and sends it out through the untrust interface.
Outbound traffic typically originates from an external application. Typically you route the internet facing
traffic within a VPC to a NAT gateway (with EIP attached). To do this, add a default gateway route in
the VPC routing table, with the VM-Series firewall IP address of the application subnet as the next hop.
Configure SNAT using the untrust interface IP to ensure traffic originating from the internet returns through
the VM-Series firewall.
Refer to Secure North-South Traffic on Alibaba Cloud for a sample configuration.

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Minimum System Requirements for the VM-
Series Firewall on Alibaba Cloud
On Alibaba Cloud, you can deploy the VM-Series firewall on the KVM hypervisor (see VM-Series
Deployments).
• VM-Series Firewall Software Requirements
• Alibaba Cloud Instance Type Recommendations for the VM-Series Firewall
• Alibaba Cloud CLI

VM-Series Firewall Software Requirements

Ensure that you have the software and licenses required to complete a VM-Series deployment on Alibaba
Cloud.
• To deploy the VM-Series firewall on Alibaba Cloud, you must use a VM-Series image you obtain from
the Alibaba Marketplace. The image incorporates PAN-0S version 10.0.3 and VM-Series plugin version
2.0.3.
• Before you deploy, choose the VM-Series ELA or BYOL license, a capacity license, and a subscription
bundle. See VM-Series Model License Types.
• You must be able to SSH into the VM-Series firewall to complete the deployment. If your OS does not
support SSH, install third-party software, such as Putty.

Alibaba Cloud Instance Type Recommendations for the VM-Series

Firewall
Before creating the VM-Series firewall, you must choose an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance type
that supports the minimum system requirements for your VM-Series model. Review the instance type
documentation to ensure the ECS instance type has the resources to secure your network configuration.

VM-Series Model Elastic Compute Service Instance Types

VM-100 ecs.g5.xlarge, ecs.sn2ne.xlarge

VM-300 ecs.g5.xlarge, ecs.sn2ne.xlarge

VM-500 ecs.g5.2xlarge, ecs.sn2ne.2xlarge

VM-700 ecs.g5.4xlarge, ecs.sn2ne.4xlarge

Alibaba Cloud CLI

Aliyun version 3.0.4 or higher. See Prepare to Use the Aliyun Command Line Interface.

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Prepare to Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on
Alibaba Cloud
This task uses the Aliyun CLI to create a VPC and VSwitches for the VM-Series firewall, however, you
should plan your network before you start. Evaluate the applications you want to protect, and determine
where you will deploy the VM-Series firewall to inspect and secure north-south traffic.
• Choose Licenses and Plan Networks
• Prepare to Use the Aliyun Command Line Interface

Choose Licenses and Plan Networks

Evaluate the applications you need to protect and create networks that permit the VM-Series firewall to
inspect your inbound and outbound application traffic.

STEP 1 | Plan and design your VPC.

1. Plan networks, including CIDR Blocks for your VPCs and VSwitches.
Refer to Create a VPC and Configure Networks for a sample procedure.
2. Plan your IP addresses. If you need specific addresses or address ranges, refer to the Elastic IP
Address User Guide.
3. Plan security groups.

STEP 2 | Evaluate your applications and network configurations and calculate the firewall capacity you
need to secure your applications and networks.

STEP 3 | Obtain VM-Series firewall licenses.

Although you do not need a license to install the VM-Series firewall (you can activate a license after the
installation), you must choose an appropriate VM-Series model and ECS instance type before deploying
the firewall.
1. Choose a VM-Series model.

The VM-Series firewall supports up to 8 interfaces, provided the VM-Series model and
Alibaba Cloud instance have sufficient resources.You can use the model

Use the VM-Series model you have chosen to choose one of the Alibaba Cloud Instance Type
Recommendations for the VM-Series Firewall.
2. Choose a VM-Series capacity license that meets your needs.
3. Purchase a BYOL subscription bundle (if you do not already have one). You receive an auth code for
your VM-Series subscription, and you must supply it during the deployment.

STEP 4 | Plan how to configure Alibaba accounts and permissions to access the VM-Series firewall. For a
start, see the Security FAQ, and learn about Instance RAM Roles.

Prepare to Use the Aliyun Command Line Interface

This chapter focuses on the ECS Console, however, everything you do in the ECS Console can be done from
the Aliyun command line interface. The CLI is required if you want to use the VM-Series firewall to secure
load balancing on Alibaba Cloud.

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 Install and configure a recent version of Aliyun, the Alibaba Cloud command line interface.

STEP 1 | Create an AccessKey and save the Access Key ID and Secret in a secure place.

STEP 2 | Download a supported version of Aliyun from https://github.com/aliyun/aliyun-cli.

STEP 3 | Install Aliyun.

STEP 4 | Configure Aliyun.

The configuration prompts you for your Access Key information and other information.
If your deployment uses a storage bucket, the region must match the region for your bucket.

aliyun configure
Configuring profile '' in '' authenticate mode...
Access Key Id [*************8rq]: *************8rq
Access Key Secret [***************************tM2]:
***************************tM2
Default Region Id [us-west-1]: us-west-1
Default Output Format [json]: json (Only support json))
Default Language [zh|en] en: en
Saving profile[] ...Done.
available regions:
...

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Alibaba
Cloud
The VM-Series firewall assumes a minimum of three interfaces: management, untrust, and trust. When
you create an Alibaba Cloud VPC, it is logically isolated. To segment your virtual private network into
subnets you create VSwitches, each having its own CIDR block. Because the VM-Series firewall has multiple
interfaces, it can inspect traffic on all subnets.
Typically external inbound traffic encounters the VM-Series firewall untrust interface. The firewall inspects
the inbound traffic and sends it to an application through the trust interface. Return traffic from the
application goes to the firewall’s trust interface, where the firewall inspects the return traffic and sends it
out through the untrust interface.
The following tasks demonstrate how to use the console to create the VM-Series firewall infrastructure.
• Create a VPC and Configure Networks
• Create and Configure the VM-Series Firewall
• Secure North-South Traffic on Alibaba Cloud
• Configure Load Balancing on Alibaba Cloud

Create a VPC and Configure Networks

Use the Alibaba Cloud console to create a VPC, VSwitches, security groups, and security group rules.

All VM-Series firewall interfaces must be assigned an IPv4 address when deployed in a
public cloud environment. IPv6 addresses are not supported.

STEP 1 | Open the VPC console and select your region from the menu. Note, the region you select must
provide one of the instance types that Palo Alto Networks supports.

STEP 2 | From the Alibaba Cloud Console home page, select Products and Services > Networking >
Virtual Private Cloud.

STEP 3 | Create a VPC.

In this step you create a VPC and Management, Untrust, and Trust VSwitches. The ECS console
creates a VPC and a switch using the same form.
1. Select Create VPC.
Specify the VPC name, an IPv4 CIDR Block, and a description. Refer to Create a VPC.

Property Value

Name Your choice

IPV4 CIDR Bock Your choice. Refer to the CIDR block FAQ.

Resource Group Your Choice.

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 2. Select Create VSwitch.
• Name the VSwitch Management.
• Choose the Zone, specify an IPv4 CIDR Block that is a subset of the block you specified for the
VPC, and specify a Description.
• At the bottom, click Add to add another vSwitch (do not click OK until you have added all
VSwitches).
Refer to Create a VSwitch.
3. Add the Untrust VSwitch in the same manner.
4. Add the Trust VSwitch.
5. Click OK.
View the VPC details and make any changes before you click Complete.

STEP 4 | Create security groups and security group rules.

• From the Alibaba Cloud Console home page, select Elastic Compute Service > Networking &
Security > Security Groups.
• On the upper right, click Create Security Group.
1. Create the management security group.
Refer to Create a security group to fill out the following fields.

Property Value

Template Customize

Security Group Name Management

Security Group Type Basic

Network Type VPC

VPC Select the VPC you created earlier.

Resource Group Your choice

• Complete the form and click OK.

ECS console prompts you to create rules for this security group. This task describes some basic
security group rules that allow you to bring up the VM-Series Firewall. You can create more rules
to enforce your network security requirements.
2. Select Create Rules Now and create rules for HTTPS and SSH.
Select the Inbound tab, and click Add Security Group Rule.
• Create an Inbound rule to allow HTTPS in this security group. For example:

Property Value

Rule Direction Inbound

Action Allow

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 Property Value

Protocol Type HTTPS (443)

Priority 100

Authorization Type Refer to Add security group rules.

Authorization Object
• Click Add Security Group Rule to create an inbound rule to allow SSH on the management
interface.

Property Value

Rule Direction Inbound

Action Allow

Protocol Type Customized TCP

Port Range 1/65535

Authorization Type Refer to Add security group rules.

Authorization Object

Click OK and select Back to return to the Security Groups page.

3. Select Create Security Group and create the Untrust security group.
When prompted, create a rule for the Untrust security group.

Property Value

Rule Direction Inbound

Action Allow

Protocol Type Custom TCP

Port Range 1/65535

Priority 100

Authorization Type Refer to Add security group rules.

Authorization Object

Click OK and select Back to return to the Security Groups page.

4. Create the Trust security group.
When prompted, click Add Security Group Rule and duplicate the Untrust rule.
Continue to Create and Configure the VM-Series Firewall.

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Create and Configure the VM-Series Firewall
This task uses the ECS console to create a VM-Series firewall instance with a minimum of three interfaces:
management, untrust, and trust. An ECS instance supports a single NIC by default, and automatically
attaches an Elastic Network Interface (ENI) to it. To support the VM-Series firewall, you must separately
create the Untrust and Trust Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) and attach them to your instance.

STEP 1 | From the Alibaba Cloud console home page, select Elastic Compute Service > Instances &
Images > Instances, and click Create Instance on the upper right.

STEP 2 | Select Custom Launch.

STEP 3 | Basic Configurations.

1. Fill in the following values. For example:

Property Value

Billing Method Subscription.

Region Your choice. You can also select a Zone. The region you select must
provide one of the required instance types.

Instance Type One of the types in Alibaba Cloud Instance Type Recommendations
for the VM-Series Firewall. You can use Type-based Selection to
search for the instance type.

Image Select Marketplace Image and search the Alibaba Marketplace

for “VM-Series”. The image combines the OS and the VM-Series
firewall.

Storage Choose a disk type and specify 60 GB.

Snapshot Your choice.

Duration Your choice.

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 2. Select Next: Networking.

STEP 4 | On the Networking page, supply the following values.

1. Network (select VPC).
• Choose the VPC you created in Create a VPC and Configure Networks.
• Choose the Management VSwitch.
2. Public IP Address.
If you do not have a public IP address, enable Assign Public IP address and the system will allocate
one. If you must use a specific IP address, or an address in a specific range, you can request a custom
IP address. Refer to the Elastic IP Address User Guide.
3. Security Group.
Select the Management security group.
4. Elastic Network Interface.
The Management interface is already attached to eth0.
5. Select Next: System Configurations.

STEP 5 | On the System Configurations page, fill in the following values.

1. Logon Credentials: Select Key Pair.

Password authentication is not supported.

2. Name the VM-Series firewall instance and supply a Host name.

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 Make any corrections.
Select Preview to view your settings thus far.
3. Following Advanced (based or instance RAM roles or cloud-init) click Show.
• The RAM role is optional.
• In the User Data field, enter basic bootstrap information as key-value pairs separated by newlines.
See Enter a Basic Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds). For example, enter the following in
the User Data field.

type=dhcp-client
hostname=Ca-FW-DC1
vm-auth-key=7550362253****
panorama-server=10.*.*.20
panorama-server-2=10.*.*.21
tplname=FINANCE_TG4
dgname=finance_dg
op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=on
dhcp-send-hostname=yes
dhcp-send-client-id=yes
dhcp-accept-server-hostname=yes
dhcp-accept-server-domain=yes
authcodes=I7115398
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=abcdefgh1234****
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=zyxwvut-0987****

op-command-modes (mgmt-interface-swap and jumbo frame) are not supported

for Alibaba Cloud.
op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=on supports DPDK. If you want to specify PacketMMAP,
specify op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=off

Grouping is Optional. Select Preview to view the configuration before ordering.

STEP 6 | View the terms of service, and select Create Order to create the VM-Series firewall instance.
View the purchase order and select Subscribe.

STEP 7 | From the console home page, choose > Elastic Compute Service > Networks and Security >
ENIs and select Create ENI in the top right corner. Create elastic network interfaces for the
Untrust and Trust interfaces.
1. Create the Untrust ENI.
In the Actions column, select Bind to Instance and select the instance you just created.
2. Create the Trust ENI and bind it to the instance.

STEP 8 | Allocate Elastic IP (EIP) addresses.

Allocate EIP addresses for the VM-Series firewall Management interface and the Untrust network
interface. In this example the Trust interface is not exposed to the internet, so you don’t need a third IP
address.
If you already have two EIPs, go to the next step.
1. Associate an EIP with the VM-Series firewall Management interface.
2. Associate an EIP with the VM-Series firewall Untrust network interface.
The second interface you attach is assigned to network interface 1 on the VM-Series firewall.

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STEP 9 | Restart your instance to attach the new network interfaces.
On the Instances list, select your instance, select Manage, and select Restart on the upper right.

STEP 10 | SSH in to the VM-Series firewall with the security key and set the admin password:

developer1$ ssh -i dev1-vpc1.pem admin@18.***.145.153

Welcome admin.

admin> configure
Entering configuration mode
[edit]
admin# set mgt-config users admin password
Enter password:<password>
Confirm password:<password>
[edit]
admin# commit

STEP 11 | Access the VM-Series firewall web interface.

Open a web browser and enter the EIP for the management interface.

Secure North-South Traffic on Alibaba Cloud

After creating a VPC, you can create VSwitches to segment your virtual private network into subnets. This
sample features a VPC with CIDR 192.168.0.0/16; you can enter your own values. Four VSwitches create
four subnets.

VSwitch Name Interface Sample CIDR

mgmt eth0 192.168.0.0/24

untrust eth1 192.168.1.0/24

web eth2 192.168.2.0/24

db eth3 192.168.3.0/24

In the following diagram, the VM-Series firewall connects to two trusted subnets, web and db. Inbound
traffic is initiated when an external client accesses the VM-Series firewall’s Untrust interface. The firewall
inspects the traffic and sends it to an application. For example, the firewall sends traffic to a Web server
through the Trust interface. The traffic returning from the Web server must hit the VM-Series firewall’s
Trust interface. The firewall inspects the return traffic flow, and sends it out through the Untrust interface.

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 To secure inbound traffic, both DNAT and SNAT must be configured on the firewall.

STEP 1 | Create NAT rules for inbound traffic.

Here’s a sample of the NAT rules for inbound traffic protection.

<nat>
<rules>
<entry name="inbound_web">
<source-translation>
<dynamic-ip-and-port>
<interface-address>
<interface>ethernet1/2</interface>
</interface-address>
</dynamic-ip-and-port>
</source-translation>
<destination-translation>
<translated-address>web_server</translated-address>
</destination-translation>
<to>
<member>untrust</member>
</to>
<from>
<member>any</member>
</from>
<source>
<member>any</member>
</source>
<destination>
<member>fw_untrust</member>
</destination>
<service>any</service>
<to-interface>ethernet1/1</to-interface>
</entry>
</rules>
</nat>

<address>
<entry name="fw_untrust">
<ip-netmask>192.168.1.4</ip-netmask>

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 </entry>
<entry name="fw_trust">
<ip-netmask>192.168.2.201</ip-netmask>
</entry>
<entry name="web_server">
<ip-netmask>192.168.2.203</ip-netmask>
</entry>
</address>

STEP 2 | Secure outbound traffic.

As shown in the diagram above, an application initiates the outbound traffic. For example, a web server
must run yum install to update rpm packages. Typically the internet facing traffic within a VPC is
routed to a NAT gateway (with an EIP attached). To secure outbound traffic, you must force outbound
traffic to go through the VM-Series firewall.
1. Add a default gateway route in the VPC routing table with firewall IP in the subnet of the web server
as the next hop.

2. View your entry in the route table.

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 3. Configure SNAT rules using the Untrust interface IP to ensure traffic returning from the internet goes
through the VM-Series firewall.
Here's a sample SNAT configuration.

<nat>
<rules>
<entry name="outbound_web">
<source-translation>
<dynamic-ip-and-port>
<interface-address>
<interface>ethernet1/1</interface>
</interface-address>
</dynamic-ip-and-port>
</source-translation>
<to>
<member>untrust</member>
</to>
<from>
<member>trust</member>
</from>
<source>
<member>any</member>
</source>
<destination>
<member>any</member>
</destination>
<service>any</service>
<to-interface>any</to-interface>
</entry>
</rules>
</nat>

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Configure Load Balancing on Alibaba Cloud
On Alibaba Cloud, you can deploy the VM-Series firewall in a load balancer sandwich configuration where
the firewall is deployed between a public network and a private network, as shown below.

In Create a VPC and Configure Networks, you created Untrust and Trust ENIs and attached them to the
VM-Series firewall instance as secondary ENIs.
When you use the console to add multiple backend servers to Alibaba Server Load Balancer (SLB), the
SLB sends traffic to the primary ENI of the next-hop backend servers. Because the primary ENI is the
management interface, traffic must go to the Untrust interface (a secondary ENI) for inspection.
To ensure that internet traffic goes to dataplane interfaces rather than the management interface, use the
Alibaba CLI to attach the VM-Series firewall untrust ENIs to your SLB instance.

You must install the Aliyun command line interface to use the following CLI commands.

STEP 1 | Create the public and private VPCs for a load balancer sandwich configuration, and deploy the
VM-Series firewalls.
The remaining steps are sample CLI commands you can adapt to your environment.

STEP 2 | Create the load balancer.

slb CreateLoadBalancer --RegionId us-west-1 --LoadBalancerName wli-slb

--VpcId vpc-rj91ry36ghwgc8cf2fr7z --LoadBalancerSpec slb.s1.small
--AddressType internet --MasterZoneId us-west-1a
--SlaveZoneId us-west-1b
{
"NetworkType": "classic",
"LoadBalancerName": "**********",

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 "Address": "***********,
"ResourceGroupId": "rg-************ofi",
"RequestId": "0B8BA2AA-E837-****-****-B82A8A1D5FBB",
"AddressIPVersion": "ipv4",
"LoadBalancerId": "lb-******************mvz",
"VSwitchId": "",
"VpcId": "vpc-*****************r7z"
}

STEP 3 | Add backend servers.

Use the CLI to add interfaces one at a time. The order in which you add the interfaces
determines which NIC receives the interface.

aliyun slb AddBackendServers --LoadBalancerId lb-******************mvz

--BackendServers
'[
{
"ServerId":"eni-******************bzw",
"Type":"eni","Weight":"100"
}
]'

STEP 4 | Create an HTTP Listener that performs a health check.

aliyun slb CreateLoadBalancerHTTPListener

--LoadBalancerId lb-******************mvz
--ListenerPort 80 --StickySession on
--HealthCheck on --HealthCheckURI '/'

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Set Up a Firewall in Cisco ACI
Palo Alto Networks integrates as a service with Cisco Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI).
ACI is a software-defined networking (SDN) solution for easily deploying new workloads and
network services. Using an SDN controller called the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure
Controller (APIC), you deploy the firewall service between Endpoint Groups (EPGs). EPGs
act as a container for applications or application tiers. When you place a firewall between
EPGs, security policy configured on the firewall secures the traffic between the EPGs. The
APIC provides a single pane of glass for managing the network topology, network policies,
and connectivity for the entire data center and supports inserting L4 - L7 devices, such
as a hardware-based or VM-Series firewall. Panorama is required for centralized security
management.

> Palo Alto Networks Firewall Integration with Cisco ACI

> Prepare Your ACI Environment for Integration
> Integrate the Firewall with Cisco ACI in Network Policy Mode
> Endpoint Monitoring in Cisco ACI

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Palo Alto Networks Firewall Integration with
Cisco ACI
Palo Alto Networks integration with Cisco ACI allows you to insert a firewall between EPGs as a Layer 4 to
Layer 7 service. The firewall then secures the east-west traffic between the application tiers within those
EPGs or north-south traffic between users and the applications.
The figure below shows an example of a physical ACI deployment that includes integrated Palo Alto
Network firewalls. All the entities in the ACI Fabric are connected to leaf switches and those leaf switches
are connected to larger spine switches. As users access the application, the ACI fabric moves the traffic
to the correct destination. To secure the traffic between the application tiers, the network administrator
inserts the Palo Alto Networks firewalls as L4 to L7 services between each EPG and creates a service graph
to define what services the L4 to L7 device provides.

After the firewall services have been deployed, traffic now flows logically as shown below. Traffic to and
from the end users and each tier in the application regardless of where or how each entity is physically
connected to the network.

When the your firewall is integrated with Cisco ACI, traffic is sent to the firewall with a policy-based
redirect (PBR). Additionally, configuration of the firewall and configuration of the APIC are completely
separate. Network policy mode does not rely on any other configuration integration between the firewall
and the APIC, so it provides greater flexibility of configuration and deployment of the firewall.

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 For east-west traffic, define a bridge domain and subnet in the ACI fabric for the firewall. Configure
contracts between EPGs that send traffic to the firewall using a PBR. The PBR forwards traffic to the
firewall based on policy containg the firewall’s IP and MAC address. The firewall interfaces are always
in Layer 3 mode and traffic is received and routed back to the ACI fabric. You can configure separate
interfaces for consumer and provider connections or a single interface for ingress and egress traffic. The
procedure in this document uses a single interface because it simplifies the integration; you do not need to
configure as many interfaces, IP addresses, or VLANs. However, when using a single interface, you cannot
uses zone information in defining security policy and you must modify the default intra-zone policy on the
firewall to deny traffic.
For north-south traffic, you must use a dedicated policy called an L3Out. An L3Out contains the information
required for the tenant to connect to external routing devices and access external networks. L3Out
connections contain an external network EPG that represent the networks accessible through the L3Out
policy. Just as the L3Out can group all external networks into a single EPG, you can use a vzAny object ACI
to represent all EPGs in a VRF. Using a vzAny object simples the application of the outbound traffic contract
because, whenever a new EPG is added to the VRF, the contract is automatically applied. In this scenario,
the external network provides the contract and the vzAny object (all internal EPGs) consume it.
The following section provide additional details about components and concepts that make up the
integration between the Next-Generation Firewall and Cisco ACI.
• Service Graph Templates
• Multi-Context Deployments

Service Graph Templates

Firewalls are deployed in Cisco ACI through service graphs. A service graph allows you to integrate Layer 4
- Layer 7 devices, such as a firewall, into the flow of traffic without the need for the L4-L7 device to be the
default gateway for the servers in the ACI fabric.
Firewalls are represented in the ACI fabric as an L4-L7 device that you configure in the APIC as a device
cluster. A single firewall or two firewalls deployed as an HA pair are configured as a device cluster. Each
device cluster has one or more logical interfaces that describe the interface information of the device
cluster and map the path of the member firewall with a VLAN from the physical or virtual machine monitor
(VMM) domain.
Service graph templates define the firewall device cluster that you insert into the traffic flow between
EPGs. Additionally, the service graph template defines the how the firewall is integrated and the logical
interfaces that are assigned to the consumer and provider EPGs. After creating your service graph template,
you assign it to EPGs and contracts. Because the service graph template is not tied to a specific EPG or
contract, you can reuse it between multiple EPGs. The APIC then deploys the service graph template by
connecting it to the bridge domain between EPGs.

Multi-Context Deployments
Cisco ACI integration supports physical firewalls divided into contexts that are managed by ACI as individual
firewalls. On the firewall, these contexts are the virtual systems (vsys) on the firewalls and each firewall is
licensed to support a certain number of vsys instances. When deploying a multi-vsys firewall in ACI, you
must configure a chassis manager in the tenant and assign it to the firewall service.

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Prepare Your ACI Environment for Integration
Before you can integrate the firewall with a device package, you must complete the following steps to
prepare your Cisco ACI environment.

STEP 1 | Deploy Panorama.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

• Physical Firewall—Connect the firewall’s out-of-band management port to one leaf switch port and
connect at least one firewall data interface to the switch. Firewall interfaces on a physical firewall are
configured with VLANs to ensure connectivity to the correct networks. Deploy the firewall according
to the platform-specific installation guide.
• VM-Series Firewall—When configuring the virtual hardware for the VM-Series firewall, set the port-
group for the management interface. Each VM-Series firewall connected to the network requires its
own virtual NIC. Deploy the VM-Series firewall based on your hypervisor.

STEP 3 | Configure the management IP address on each firewall and Panorama.

Perform initial configuration on:
• Hardware-based firewall
• VM-Series firewall
• Panorama

STEP 4 | Add your firewall(s) to Panorama as a managed device.

STEP 5 | Install feature licenses on your firewall(s).

• Register and activate licenses on your physical firewall.
• Register and Activate VM-Series Model Licenseson your VM-Series firewall.
• Manage firewall licenses using Panorama.

STEP 6 | Establish Cisco ACI fabric and management connectivity.

As part of this configuration, create a physical domain and VLAN namespace. Ensure that data interfaces
of any physical firewalls are part of the physical domain.

STEP 7 | Create a Cisco ACI VMM domain profile.

If you are using virtual machines or the VM-Series firewall, create a virtual machine monitor (VMM)
domain profile for the VMware vSphere environment. The VMM domain specifies the connectivity
policy between vSphere and the ACI fabric.

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Integrate the Firewall with Cisco ACI in
Network Policy Mode
In network policy mode, you integrate a pair of firewalls in high availability (HA) into the east-west or north-
south traffic by using a policy-based redirect to a single logical HA interface. The firewall and ACI fabric are
configured separately and address objects on the firewall are mapped to EPGs in the ACI fabric.
You can use network policy mode to deploy a Palo Alto Networks firewall to secure east-west or north-
south traffic.
• Deploy the Firewall to Secure East-West Traffic in Network Policy Mode
• Deploy the Firewall to Secure North-South Traffic in Network Policy Mode

Deploy the Firewall to Secure East-West Traffic in Network Policy

Mode
The following procedure describes how to deploy a Palo Alto Networks firewall to secure east-west traffic
in the your Cisco ACI environment using unmanaged mode with policy-based redirect. This procedure
assumes that you have completed the following:
• Firewalls are operational and connected to a leaf switch in your Cisco ACI environment. Additionally, the
management interface of each firewall must be reachable by the APIC.
• Firewalls are deployed in active/passive HA mode. This procedure does not cover HA network setup and
assumes you have completed this in advance.
To secure east-west traffic, define a bridge domain and subnet in the ACI fabric for the firewall. Configure
contracts between EPGs that send traffic to the firewall using a PBR. The PBR forwards traffic to the
firewall based on policy containing the firewall’s IP and MAC address. The firewall interfaces are always
in Layer 3 mode and traffic is received and routed back to the ACI fabric. You can configure separate
interfaces for consumer and provider connections or a single interface for ingress and egress traffic. The
procedure in this document uses a single interface because it simplifies the integration; you do not need to
configure as many interfaces, IP addresses, or VLANs. However, when using a single interface, you cannot
uses zone information in defining security policy and you must modify the default intra-zone policy on the
firewall to deny traffic.
This procedure deploys the firewall in one-arm mode. In one-arm mode, the traffic enters and exits the
firewall through a single interface. This common firewall interface is used for both consumer and provider
interfaces in the service graph template. Using a single interface simplifies integration with the firewall by
reducing the number IP addresses, VLANs, and interfaces that you must configure. However, a one-arm
deployment model is intrazone, so you cannot use zone information to define security policy.
On the firewall:
• Create a Virtual Router and Security Zone
• Configure the Network Interfaces
• Configure a Static Default Route
• Create Address Objects for the EPGs
• Create Security Policy Rules
On the Cisco APIC:
• Create a VLAN Pool and Domain
• Configure an Interface Policy for LLDP and LACP for East-West Traffic
• Establish the Connection Between the Firewall and ACI Fabric

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 • Create a VRF and Bridge Domain
• Create an L4-L7 Device
• Create a Policy-Based Redirect
• Create and Apply a Service Graph Template

Create a Virtual Router and Security Zone

Configure a virtual router and zone on the firewall for each VRF in the tenant.

STEP 1 | Log in to the firewall.

STEP 2 | Select Network > Virtual Routers and click Add.

STEP 3 | Give the virtual router a descriptive Name.

STEP 4 | Click OK.

STEP 5 | Select Network > Zones and click Add.

STEP 6 | Give the zone a descriptive Name.

STEP 7 | Choose Layer 3 from the Type drop-down.

STEP 8 | Click OK.

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STEP 9 | Commit your changes.

Configure the Network Interfaces

Configure the Ethernet interfaces that connect the firewall to the ACI leaf switches. The VLAN ID number
used in this configuration should be a member of the VLAN pool assigned to the firewalls in ACI.

The VM-Series firewall does not support aggregate Ethernet groups.

STEP 1 | Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet and click Add Aggregate Group.

STEP 2 | Enter a number for the aggregate group in the second Interface Name field.

STEP 3 | Select Layer 3 from the Interface Type drop-down.

STEP 4 | Select the LACP tab and click Enable LACP.

STEP 5 | Select Fast as the Transmission Rate.

STEP 6 | Under High Availability Options, select Enable in HA Passive State.

Do not select Same System MAC Address for Active-Passive HA. This option makes the
firewall pair appear as a single device to the switch, so traffic will flow to both firewalls
instead of just the active firewall.

STEP 7 | Click OK.

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STEP 8 | Click on the name of an Ethernet interface to configure it and add it to the aggregate group.
1. Select Aggregate Ethernet from the Interface Type drop-down.
2. Select the interface you defined in the aggregate Ethernet group configuration.
3. Click OK.
4. Repeat this step for each other member interface of the aggregate Ethernet group.

STEP 9 | Add a subinterface on the aggregate Ethernet interface for the tenant and VRF.
1. Select the row of your aggregate Ethernet group and click Add Subinterface.
2. In the second Interface Name field, enter a numerical suffix to identify the subinterface.
3. In the Tag field, enter the VLAN tag of the subinterface.
4. Select the virtual router you configured previously from the Virtual Router drop-down.
5. Select the zone you configured previously from the Zone drop-down.
6. Select the IPv4 tab.
7. Select the Static Type.
8. Click Add and enter the subinterface IP address and network mask in CIDR notation.
9. Click OK.

Configure a Static Default Route

Configure a static default route to direct traffic from the Ethernet subinterfaces to the subnet router.

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STEP 1 | Select Network > Virtual Routers and click on the virtual router you created previously in this
procedure.

STEP 2 | Select Static Routes > IPv4 and click Add.

STEP 3 | Enter a descriptive Name.

STEP 4 | Enter 0.0.0.0/0 in the Destination field.

STEP 5 | From the Interface drop-down, select the aggregate Ethernet group you created previously in
this procedure.

STEP 6 | Select IP Address from the Next Hop drop-down and enter the IP address of the next hop
router.

STEP 7 | Click OK.

STEP 8 | Click OK again.

STEP 9 | Commit your changes.

Create Address Objects for the EPGs

You must define address objects and map them to endpoint groups (EPGs) to be used in security policy.
Address groups are the best way map security groups to a group of servers using an endpoint IP address
range. Create one address object for each of your EPGs.

STEP 1 | Select Objects > Address and click Add.

STEP 2 | Enter a descriptive name for your address object.

STEP 3 | Select IP Netmask from the Type drop-down.

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STEP 4 | Enter the IP Netmask.

STEP 5 | Click OK.

STEP 6 | Repeat this process for each EPG.

STEP 7 | Commit your changes.

Create Security Policy Rules

Create security policy rules to control the traffic moving between your EPGs. By default, the firewall allows
all intrazone traffic. Therefore, because the EPGs are in the same zone, all between those EPGs is allowed.
Before creating a new rules, you will change the default intrazone rule from allow to deny.

STEP 1 | Select Policies > Security.

STEP 2 | Click on intrazone-default to highlight the row and click Override.

STEP 3 | Select the Action tab.

STEP 4 | Select Deny from the Action drop-down.

STEP 5 | Click OK.

STEP 6 | Configure additional security policy rules based on your needs using the address objects and
zone you created for your EPG.

Create a VLAN Pool and Domain

Configure the VLAN pool that will be used to allocate VLANs to the firewall when you attach interfaces to
the ACI infrastructure for EPGs. The firewall’s VLAN pull should have a static VLAN range.

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 Configure a dedicated domain for the firewall. A domain for the firewall is required to map the VLANs
to the EPGs. Create a physical domain for a physical firewall and create a VMM domain for a VM-Series
firewall.

STEP 1 | Create a VLAN pool.

1. Log in to your APIC.
2. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Pools > VLAN.
3. Right-click VLAN and select Create VLAN Pool.
4. Enter a descriptive Name for your VLAN pool.
5. Select Dynamic Allocation for Allocation Mode.
6. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Encap Blocks.
7. Enter your VLAN range in the VLAN Range field.
8. Select Static Allocation form the Allocation Mode drop-down.
9. Click OK.
10.Click Submit.

STEP 2 | (Physical firewall only) Create a physical domain.

1. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Physical and External Domains > Physical Domains.
2. Right-click Physical Domain and select Create Physical Domain.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your physical domain.
4. Select the VLAN pool you created in the previous procedure from the VLAN Pool list.
5. Click Submit.

STEP 3 | (VM-Series firewall only) Create a VMM domain.

1. Select Virtual Networking > VMM Domains > VMware.
2. Right-click VMware and select Create vCenter Domain.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your VMM domain.
4. Select VMware vSphere Distributed Switch from the Virtual Switch drop-down.
5. Select VLAN from the Encapsulation drop-down.
6. Select your VLAN pool from the VLAN Pool drop-down.
7. Click the plus (+) button to the right of vCenter Credentials.
8. Enter a descriptive Profile Name and your vCenter login information.
9. Click the plus (+) button to the right of vCenter.
10.Enter a descriptive Name.
11.Select vCenter from the Type drop-down.
12.Enter your vCenter IP address under IP/Hostname.
13.Select the vCenter Credentials profile you just created from the Associated Credential drop-down.
14.Click Submit.

Configure an Interface Policy for LLDP and LACP for East-West Traffic
Create policy that enables LLDP and LACP on the ACI interfaces that connect to your firewall.
LLDP is necessary for forwarding to work correctly in the ACI environment; ACI does not deploy a subnet
router interface on a leaf switch unless it detects an endpoint on the switch that requires one. LLDP helps
determine if a subnet router interface is required.
LACP provides greater resiliency and recovery speed on a link failure.

STEP 1 | Create an LLDP Interface Policy.

1. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Interface Policies > Policies > LLDP Interface.

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 2. Right-click on LLDP Interface and select Create LLDP Interface Policy.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your LLDP interface policy.
4. Select Enabled for Receive State.
5. Select Enabled for Transmit State.
6. Click Submit.

STEP 2 | Create a Port Channel policy to enable LACP.

1. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Interface Policies > Policies > Port Channel.
2. Right-click on Port Channel and select Create Port Channel Policy.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your port channel policy.
4. Select LACP Active from the Mode drop-down.
5. Click Submit.

Establish the Connection Between the Firewall and ACI Fabric

Attach your firewall to the leaf switch through a VPC connection using the Ethernet interface (or aggregate
Ethernet group) you configured on your firewall earlier in this procedure. Connect the interface or
interfaces to the same ports on the leaf switches.

STEP 1 | Select Fabric > Access Policies > Quick Start.

STEP 2 | Click Configure an interface, PC, and VPC.

STEP 3 | Click the green and white plus (+).

STEP 4 | Select the leaf switch or switches to which you firewall is connected from the Switches drop-
down.

STEP 5 | Click the green and white plus (+).

STEP 6 | Select VPC as the Interface Type.

STEP 7 | In the Interfaces field, enter the number of the interface your firewall uses to connect to the
leaf switch.

STEP 8 | Enter a descriptive name into the Interface Selector Name field.

STEP 9 | Select LLDP-Enabled from the LLDP Policy drop-down.

STEP 10 | Select LACP Active from the Port Channel Policy drop-down.

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STEP 11 | Select Bare Metal for a physical firewall or ESX Hosts for the VM-Series from the Attached
Device Type drop-down.

STEP 12 | Select Choose One for Domain.

STEP 13 | Select the physical domain or VMM domain you created previously in this procedure from the
Domain drop-down.

STEP 14 | Click Save.

STEP 15 | Click Save and then Submit.

STEP 16 | Repeat this procedure for the second firewall in your HA pair.

Create a VRF and Bridge Domain

A tenant requires a VRF for all bridge domains and subnets. In this example, you will create a single,
common VRF for the firewall and endpoints. Then configure a dedicated bridge domain for your firewall and
disable dataplane learning. Disabling dataplane learning is required to use Policy Based Redirect in a bridge
domain.

STEP 1 | Create a VRF.

1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
2. Select Networking > VRFs.
3. Right-click VRFs and select Create VRF.
4. Enter a descriptive Name for your VRF.
5. Clear the Create A Bridge Domain check box.
6. Click Finish.

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STEP 2 | Create a bridge domain for the firewall.
1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
2. Select Networking > Bridge Domains.
3. Right-click Bridge Domains and select Create Bridge Domain.
4. Enter a descriptive Name for your bridge domain.
5. Select the VRF you created in the previous procedure from the VRF drop-down.
6. Click Next.

Create an L4-L7 Device

You must define the firewall as an L4-L7 device in the APIC so ACI can insert it into the traffic flow. You
configure L4-L7 devices in the APIC as a device cluster, which is a construct that represents a single firewall
or a firewall HA pair acting as a single device. Device clusters have one or more logical interfaces, which
define the path of the member firewalls with a VLAN from the physical domain.

STEP 1 | On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.

STEP 2 | Select Services > L4-L7 > Devices.

STEP 3 | Right-click Devices and select Create L4-L7 Device.

STEP 4 | Clear the Managed check box.

STEP 5 | Enter a descriptive Name for your L4-L7 Device.

STEP 6 | Select Firewall from the Service Type drop-down.

STEP 7 | Select Physical for a physical firewall or Virtual for a VM-Series firewall from the Device Type
drop-down.

STEP 8 | Select the physical or VMM domain you created previously from the Domain drop-down.

STEP 9 | Select HA Node for View.

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STEP 10 | Under Device 1, click the plus (+) icon to the right of Device Interfaces.

STEP 11 | Enter a descriptive Name for this interface.

STEP 12 | Under Path, select the path to the primary firewall in your HA pair.

STEP 13 | Click Update.

STEP 14 | Under Device 2, click the plus (+) icon to the right of Device Interfaces.

STEP 15 | Enter a descriptive Name for this interface.

STEP 16 | Under Path, select the path to the secondary firewall in your HA pair.

STEP 17 | Click Update.

STEP 18 | Under Cluster, click the plus (+) icon to the right of Cluster Interfaces.

STEP 19 | Enter a descriptive Name for the cluster.

STEP 20 | Select the two interfaces you configured above from the list under Concrete Interfaces.
The APIC requires that you configure two interfaces. However, because there is only one
connection between the firewall and the ACI fabric, only one of the interfaces is used.

STEP 21 | Under Encap, enter a VLAN from the from the static VLAN pool you created earlier. Traffic
will be redirected to the firewall on the VLAN assigned here.

STEP 22 | Click Update.

STEP 23 | Click Finish.

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Create a Policy-Based Redirect
Configure the policy based redirect that sends the traffic between your EPGs to the firewall. Policy based
redirect leverages the MAC address of the interface on the firewall. Before configuring the PBR setting on
the APIC, you must get the MAC address from the firewall.

STEP 1 | Get the MAC address of the firewall.

1. Log into the firewall CLI.
2. Use the command show interface all to display the MAC addresses of your configured
interfaces.
3. Copy the MAC address of the interface that will receive the redirected traffic.

STEP 2 | Create the L4-L7 Policy-Based Redirect.

1. Log into the APIC.
2. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
3. Select Policies > Protocol > L4-L7 Policy Based Redirect.
4. Right-click L4-L7 Policy Based Redirect and select Create L4-L7 Policy Based Redirect.
5. Enter a descriptive Name for your Policy Based Redirect.
6. Click the plus (+) icon to the right of Destinations.
7. In the IP field, enter the IP address of the interface that will receive the redirected traffic.
8. In the MAC field, enter the MAC address that you copied from the firewall CLI.
9. Click OK.
10.Click Submit.

Create and Apply a Service Graph Template

Create a service graph template that uses the device cluster representing the firewall in a policy-based
redirect integration. After creating the service graph, you must apply it to EPGs to protect traffic. A contract
and contract filter rules define the traffic that can be forwarded to the firewall.

STEP 1 | Create a service graph template.

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 1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
2. Select Services > L4-L7 > L4-L7 Service Graph Templates.
3. Right-click L4-L7 Service Graph Template and select Create L4-L7 Service Graph Template.
4. Enter a descriptive Graph Name for your service graph template.
5. Select Create a New One for Graph Type.
6. Click and drag the L4-L7 device you created in the previous procedure between the consumer and
provider EPGs.
7. Select Routed for Firewall.
8. Select Routed Redirect.
9. Click Submit.

STEP 2 | Apply the service graph template.

1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
2. Select Services > L4-L7.
3. In the EPGs Information pane, select your consumer and provider EPGs from the Consumer EPG and
Provider EPG drop-downs.
4. Select Create a New Contract.
5. Enter a descriptive Contract Name.
6. Clear No Filter (Allow All Traffic). Using this option is not recommended. To allow all traffic between
the EPGs to be redirected to the firewall, it is recommended that you create a filter to do this.
7. Click the plus (+) icon to the right of Filter Entries.
8. Create a rule (or rules) to define what traffic is allowed to pass between the EPGs and redirected to
the firewall.
9. Click Next.

10.Select the service graph template you created in the previous procedure from the Service Graph
Template drop-down.

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 11.In the consumer and provider pane, select the bridge domain containing your firewall from the BD
drop-downs.
12.Select the policy based redirect you created previously from the Redirect Policy drop-downs.
13.Select the cluster interface you created with you L4-L7 device from the Cluster Interface drop-
downs.

Deploy the Firewall to Secure North-South Traffic in Network

Policy Mode
Use network policy mode to secure north-south traffic entering and exiting your data center using
unmanaged mode with policy-based redirect. This procedure assumes that you have completed the
following:
• Firewalls are operational and connected to a leaf switch in your Cisco ACI environment. Additionally, the
management interface of each firewall must be reachable by the APIC.
• Firewalls are deployed in active/passive HA mode. This procedure does not cover HA network setup and
assumes you have completed this in advance.
To establish external connectivity to networks outside of your ACI fabric, you must configure an L3Out.
And L3Out is a dedicated policy that contains the parameters required to connect external routing devices
to a tenant. Additionally, an L3Out contain an external EPG (called an external network in the APIC UI) that
represents networks accessible through the L3Out. The external EPG is not dynamically populated and
follows a zero-trust model, so you must define the networks in the EPG. To make configuration easier, you
can configure a network of 0.0.0.0/0 to assign all networks to the external EPG.
To secure inbound traffic, connect your firewall or firewalls in an HA pair to your border-leaf switches.
Border-leaf switches are leaf switches that provide Layer 3 connections to external routers. The firewalls
peer with the border-leaf switches using the open shortest path first (OSPF) protocol that is configured on
each leaf switch in the vPC pair and communicates with the firewalls using a switch virtual interface (SVI).
On the firewall, you configure a virtual router dedicated to the interfaces that connect to your data center.
Additionally, this procedure includes
For outbound traffic, the firewall advertises the external networks to the border-leaf switches using OSPF.
Additionally, the external network EPG is configured to allow all networks advertised by the firewall into

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 that EPG. You create a contract between a vzAny managed object and the external networks EPG to
allow traffic from any EPG within the VRF to reach the external networks through the firewall. The vzAny
managed object allows you to consolidate all EPGs in a VRF to one or more contracts instead of creating
a separate contracts for each EPG. The EPGs collected in the vzAny managed object consume the contact
provided by the external EPG.
Unlike in service manager mode, management if the ACI infrastructure and the firewalls is completed
separately.
On the APIC—
• Create a VLAN Pool and External Routed Domain
• Configure an Interface Policy for LLDP and LACP for North-South Traffic
• Create an External Routed Network
• Configure Subnets to Advertise to the External Firewall
• Create an Outbound Contract
• Create an Inbound Web Contract
• Apply Outbound and Inbound Contracts to the EPGs
On the firewall—
• Create a Virtual Router and Security Zone for North-South Traffic
• Configure the Network Interfaces
• Configure Route Redistribution and OSPF
• Configure NAT for External Connections

Create a VLAN Pool and External Routed Domain

Create a VLAN pool to allocate VLANs to the firewall as you attach interfaces to the infrastructure to
support the EPGs in your ACI fabric. You should use a static VLAN range for the firewall.
Additionally, you must create a physical domain to map the VLANs to the EPGs. The following procedure
creates a physical domain dedicated to the firewall.

STEP 1 | Create a VLAN pool.

1. Log in to your APIC.
2. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Pools > VLAN.
3. Right-click VLAN and select Create VLAN Pool.
4. Enter a descriptive Name for your VLAN pool.
5. Select Dynamic Allocation for Allocation Mode.
6. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Encap Blocks.
7. Enter your VLAN range in the VLAN Range field.
8. Select Static Allocation form the Allocation Mode drop-down.
9. Click OK.
10.Click Submit.

STEP 2 | Create an external routed domain.

1. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Physical and External Domains > External Domains.
2. Right-click External Routed Domain and select Create Layer 3 Domain.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your physical domain.
4. Select the VLAN pool you created in the previous procedure from the VLAN Pool list.
5. Click Submit.

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Configure an Interface Policy for LLDP and LACP for North-South Traffic
Create policy that enables LLDP and LACP on the ACI interfaces that connect to your firewall.
LLDP is necessary for forwarding to work correctly in the ACI environment; ACI does not deploy a subnet
router interface on a leaf switch unless it detects an endpoint on the switch that requires one. LLDP helps
determine if a subnet router interface is required.
LACP provides greater resiliency and recovery speed on a link failure.

STEP 1 | Create an LLDP Interface Policy.

1. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Interface Policies > Policies > LLDP Interface.
2. Right-click on LLDP Interface and select Create LLDP Interface Policy.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your LLDP interface policy.
4. Select Enabled for Receive State.
5. Select Enabled for Transmit State.
6. Click Submit.

STEP 2 | Create a Port Channel policy to enable LACP.

1. Select Fabric > Access Policies > Interface Policies > Policies > Port Channel.
2. Right-click on Port Channel and select Create Port Channel Policy.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your port channel policy.
4. Select LACP Active from the Mode drop-down.
5. Click Submit.

Create an External Routed Network

The firewalls pass IP routing information to the ACI ovar a Layer 3 OSPF network. ACI uses a switch virtual
interface (SVI) on the leaf switches with an IP address on each switch for connection resilience. Create a
Layer 3 routed network to peer with the firewall using OSPF.

STEP 1 | On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.

STEP 2 | Select Networking > External Routed Networks.

STEP 3 | Right-click External Routed Networks and select Create Routed Outside.

STEP 4 | Enter a descriptive Name for your External Routed Network.

STEP 5 | Select your VRF with external connectivity from the VRF drop-down.

STEP 6 | Select the external routed domain you created previously form the External Routed Domain
drop-down.

STEP 7 | Select OSPF.

STEP 8 | Enter an OSPF Area ID. The Area ID can be expressed in decimal number or dotted decimal
form. For example, Area 1 is the same as Area 0.0.0.1 or Area 271 is the same as Area 0.0.1.15.
The Area ID range is 0 (0.0.0.0) to 4294967295 (255.255.255.255).

STEP 9 | Select Regular Area for the OSPF Area Type.

STEP 10 | Click the plus (+) button to the right of Nodes and Interface Profiles to create a Node Profile
with a node that for the border-leaf switches that connect to the firewall.

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STEP 11 | Enter a descriptive Name for your Node Profile.

STEP 12 | Attach nodes to your Node Profile.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Nodes. This opens the Select Node window.
2. Select the node that your firewall is connected to from the Node ID drop-down.
3. Enter the IP address of the router attached to the leaf switch in Router ID.
4. Click OK.
5. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Nodes and Interface Profiles.
6. Enter a descriptive Name for your Node Profile.
7. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Nodes. This opens the Select Node window.
8. Select the node that your secondary HA firewall is connected to from the Node ID drop-down.
9. Enter the IP address of the router attached to the second leaf switch in Router ID.
10.Click OK.

STEP 13 | Attach an OSPF Interface Profile for your Node Profile.

1. Enter a descriptive Name for your OSPF Interface Profile.
2. Click Next.
3. Select Create OSPF Interface Policy from the OSPF Policy drop-down.
4. Enter a descriptive Name for your OSPF Interface Policy.
5. Select MTU Ignore.
6. Click Submit.
7. Click Next.
8. Click SVI.
9. Click the plus (+) button to the right of SVI Interfaces. This opens the Select SVI window.
10.Click Virtual Port Channel.
11.Select the Path to the port and port channel interface where the firewall connects to the leaf switch.
12.In Encap, enter the VLAN encapsulation used for your layer 3 outside profile.
13.Select Trunk for Mode.
14.In the Side A IPv4 Primary Address field, enter the primary IP address of the path attached to the
layer 3 outside profile.
15.In the Side B IPv4 Primary Address field, enter the secondary IP address of the path attached to the
layer 3 outside profile.
16.Click OK.

STEP 14 | Click OK to close the Create Interface Profile window.

STEP 15 | Click OK to close the Create Node Profile window.

STEP 16 | Click Next.

STEP 17 | Click the plus (+) button to the right of External EPG Networks. This opens the Create Routed
Outside window.

STEP 18 | Enter a descriptive Name for you External Network.

STEP 19 | Add a subnet to you External Network.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Subnets.
2. Enter the IP address and mask of the subnet’s default gateway.
3. Select Export Route Control Subnet.
4. Select External Subnets for External EPG.

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 5. Click OK.

STEP 20 | Click Finish.

Configure Subnets to Advertise to the External Firewall

By default, subnets in the ACI fabric are not advertised to external networks. You must configure the
subnets to be advertised externally.

STEP 1 | On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.

STEP 2 | Select Networking > Bridge Domains > <your bridge domain>.

STEP 3 | Click L3 Configurations.

STEP 4 | Click the plus (+) button to the right of Associated L3 Outs.

STEP 5 | Select the Layer 3 external routed network connection you created in the previous procedure
from the L3 Out drop-down.

STEP 6 | Click Update.

STEP 7 | Select Networking > Bridge Domains > <your bridge domain> > Subnets > <externally
advertised subnet>.

STEP 8 | Set the Scope to Advertised Externally.

STEP 9 | Click Submit.

Create an Outbound Contract

Create a contract with a filter that allows DNS, NTP, HTTP, and HTTPS traffic. You will use this contract to
allow all endpoints in the VRF to reach the external networks but limits the traffic sent to the firewall.

STEP 1 | On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.

STEP 2 | Select Contracts > Filters

STEP 3 | Right-click on Filters and select Create Filter.

STEP 4 | Enter a descriptive Name for the filter.

STEP 5 | Create a filter entry for UDP traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the UDP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select udp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. Select dns from the Destination Port From drop-down.

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 6. Click Update.

STEP 6 | Create a filter entry for TCP traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the TCP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select tcp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. Select dns from the Destination Port From drop-down.
6. Click Update.

STEP 7 | Create a filter entry for NTP traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the NTP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select udp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. In the Destination Port From field, enter 123.
6. Click Update.

STEP 8 | Create a filter entry for HTTP traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the HTTP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select tcp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. Select http from the Destination Port From drop-down.
6. Click Update.

STEP 9 | Create a filter entry for HTTPS traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the HTTP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select tcp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. Select https from the Destination Port From drop-down.
6. Click Update.

STEP 10 | Click Submit.

STEP 11 | Create a contract for outbound traffic.

1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant and select Contracts.

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 2. Right-click on Contracts and select Create Contract.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your Contract.
4. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Subjects.
5. Enter a descriptive Name for you Subject.
6. Under Filter Chain, click the plus (+) button to the right of Filters.
7. Select the filter you created previously from the drop-down.
8. Click OK.

STEP 12 | Click Submit.

Create an Inbound Web Contract

You must also create a contract and filters to allow inbound traffic to reach the servers behind the firewall.
The following procedure describes the process of creating a contract and filters that allows HTTP and
HTTPS web traffic to access resources behind the firewall.

STEP 1 | On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.

STEP 2 | Select Contracts > Filters

STEP 3 | Right-click on Filters and select Create Filter.

STEP 4 | Enter a descriptive Name for the filter.

STEP 5 | Create a filter entry for HTTP traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the HTTP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select tcp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. Select http from the Destination Port From drop-down.
6. Click Update.

STEP 6 | Create a filter entry for HTTPS traffic.

1. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Entries.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for the TCP filter.
3. Select IP from the EtherType drop-down.
4. Select tcp from the IP Protocol drop-down.
5. Select https from the Destination Port From drop-down.
6. Click Update.

STEP 7 | Click Submit.

STEP 8 | Create a contract for inbound web traffic.

1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant and select Contracts.
2. Right-click on Contracts and select Create Contract.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your Contract.
4. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Subjects.
5. Enter a descriptive Name for you Subject.
6. Under Filter Chain, click the plus (+) button to the right of Filters.
7. Select the filter you created previously from the drop-down.
8. Click OK.

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STEP 9 | Click Submit.

Apply Outbound and Inbound Contracts to the EPGs

Now you must apply the inbound and outbound contracts to the appropriate EPGs.
For all the EPGs (EPG collection) within a VRF to send traffic to an external destination, each internal EPG
must contract with the external EPG. Typically, you would need to create a separate contract between each
internal EPG and the external EPG. However, using a vzAny object you can apply the same contract to all
EPGs dynamically. The EPG collection consumes the contract and the external EPG provides the contract.
You can configure specific traffic profiles in the contract or send all traffic to the firewall and allow it to
control the traffic leaving the datacenter. Additionally, any new EPG that joins the VRF will automatically
has the contract applied to it.
Apply the inbound contract so the internal EPG is the provider and the external EPG is the consumer.
Traffic flowing to the internal EPG is fist checked against the contract and any allowed traffic is then
secured further by the firewall as necessary.

STEP 1 | Apply the outbound contract to all EPGs in the VRF.

1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
2. Select Networking > VRFs > <you VRF> > EPG Collection for VRF.
3. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Consumed Contracts.
4. Select your outbound contract from the Name drop-down.
5. Click Update.
6. Select Networking > External Routed Networks > <your external routed network> > Networks >
External.
7. Click the plus (+) button to the right of Provided Contracts.
8. Select your outbound contract from the Name drop-down.
9. Click Update.

STEP 2 | Apply the inbound contract so an internal EPG provides it to the external EPG.
1. On the Tenants tab, double-click on the name of your tenant.
2. Select Application Profiles > <your application profile> > Application EPGs > <your application
EPG> > Contracts.
3. Right-click on Contracts and select Add Provided Contract.
4. Select your inbound contract from the Contract drop-down.
5. Click Submit.
6. On the same tenant, select Networking > External Routed Networks > <your external routed
network> > Networks > External.
7. On the Contracts tab, click the plus (+) button to the right of Consumed Contracts.
8. Select your inbound contract from the Name drop-down.
9. Click Update.

Create a Virtual Router and Security Zone for North-South Traffic

Create a virtual router and security zone on the firewall to match the tenant and VRF on ACI.

STEP 1 | Log in to the firewall.

STEP 2 | Select Network > Virtual Routers and click Add.

STEP 3 | Give the virtual router a descriptive Name.

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STEP 4 | Click OK.

STEP 5 | Select Network > Zones and click Add.

STEP 6 | Give the zone a descriptive Name.

STEP 7 | Choose Layer 3 from the Type drop-down.

STEP 8 | Click OK.

STEP 9 | Commit your changes.

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Configure the Network Interfaces
Configure an aggregate Ethernet interface, member interfaces, and subinterface that your firewall uses to
connect to the ACI leaf switches. If you are using a VM-Series firewall, use discreet interfaces instead of
aggregate interfaces.

The VM-Series firewall does not support aggregate Ethernet groups.

STEP 1 | Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet and click Add Aggregate Group.

STEP 2 | Enter a number for the aggregate group in the second Interface Name field.

STEP 3 | Select Layer 3 from the Interface Type drop-down.

STEP 4 | Select the LACP tab and click Enable LACP.

STEP 5 | Select Fast as the Transmission Rate.

STEP 6 | Under High Availability Options, select Enable in HA Passive State.

Do not select Same System MAC Address for Active-Passive HA. This option makes the
firewall pair appear as a single device to the switch, so traffic will flow to both firewalls
instead of just the active firewall.

STEP 7 | Click OK.

STEP 8 | Click on the name of an Ethernet interface to configure it and add it to the aggregate group.
1. Select Aggregate Ethernet from the Interface Type drop-down.
2. Select the interface you defined in the aggregate Ethernet group configuration.
3. Click OK.
4. Repeat this step for each other member interface of the aggregate Ethernet group.

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STEP 9 | Add a subinterface on the aggregate Ethernet interface for the tenant and VRF.
1. Select the row of your aggregate Ethernet group and click Add Subinterface.
2. In the second Interface Name field, enter a numerical suffix to identify the subinterface.
3. In the Tag field, enter the VLAN tag of the subinterface.
4. Select the virtual router you configured previously from the Virtual Router drop-down.
5. Select the zone you configured previously from the Zone drop-down.
6. Select the IPv4 tab.
7. Select the Static Type.
8. Click Add and enter the subinterface IP address and network mask in CIDR notation.
9. Click OK.

Configure Route Redistribution and OSPF

Configure route redistribution to make routing information from the firewall available to the external-facing
routers attached to your leaf switches. Then configure OSPF on the firewall and assign a router-id, area
number, and interface to form adjacencies.

STEP 1 | Configure route redistribution.

1. Select Network > Virtual Routers and click on the virtual router you created earlier.
2. Select Redistribution Profile > IPv4 > Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your redistribution profile.
4. Enter a priority.
5. For Redistribute, select Redist.
6. Check connect and static under General Filters.
7. Click OK.

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STEP 2 | Configure OSPF.
1. Select Network > Virtual Routers and click on the virtual router you created earlier.
2. Select Router Settings > ECMP and select Enable.
3. Select OSPF and choose Enable.
4. Enter the OSPF Router ID.
5. Under Area, click Add.
6. Enter the Area ID. This value must match the value you assigned when you created the external
routed network on the APIC. On the firewall, this must be entered in dotted decimal form. For
example, if you entered an Area ID of 10 in the APIC, the equivalent on the firewall is 0.0.0.10.
7. Select Interface > Add.
8. Enter the interface that connects to your external network EPG and click OK.
9. Select Export Rules > Add.
10.Select the Redistribution Profile you created above from the Name drop-down and click OK.
11.Select Allow Redistribute Default Route.
12.Click OK.

Configure NAT for External Connections

You only need to configure NAT if the firewall has an external interface used for connecting to networks
outside of your data center. While NAT is not required, you can use this procedure to translate private IP
addressing in your data center to public IP addressing outside. Begin setting up NAT by configuring address
translation for traffic entering server inside an EPG in your data center. Then configure a NAT policy that
translates the source address of outbound traffic from any EPG to the external interface IP address.

STEP 1 | Configure address translation for traffic entering an EPG in your data center.
1. Select Policies > NAT and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your NAT policy rule.
3. Select Original Packet and click Add under Source Zone.
4. Select the source zone from the drop-down.
5. Select the destination zone from the Destination Zone drop-down.
6. Select Any for the Source Address.
7. Click Add under Destination Address and enter the external IP address.

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 8. On the Translated Packet tab, select the Translation Type under Destination Address Translation.
9. Select an address from the Translated Address drop-down.
10.Click OK.

STEP 2 | Configure address translation for outbound traffic.

1. Select Policies > NAT and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your outbound NAT policy.
3. Select Original Packet and click Add under Source Zone.
4. Select the zone that matches your ACI tenant and VRF.
5. Select the external zone from the Destination Zone drop-down.

6. On the Translated Packet tab, select the Translation Type under Source Address Translation.
7. Enter additional required address information.
8. Click OK.

STEP 3 | Commit your changes.

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Endpoint Monitoring in Cisco ACI
The Cisco ACI plugin for Panorama allows you to build security policy for your Cisco ACI fabric using
Dynamic Address Groups. The plugin monitors for changes in an Application Policy Infrastructure Controller
(APIC) fabric in your Cisco ACI environment and shares that information with Panorama. Each Panorama
with the Cisco ACI plugin installed can support up to 16 APIC clusters. And each monitoring definition has
one cluster and one notify group.
The number of endpoints that the Cisco ACI plugin can monitor is dependent the amount of memory
allocated to Panorama. If you have a Panorama virtual appliance, make sure you assign the necessary
amount of memory for the endpoints in your environment. See the Panorama Admin Guide for more
information about preparing your virtual Panorama.

Panorama Memory Endpoints

8GB 10,000

16GB 20,000

The Cisco ACI plugin processes the endpoint information and converts it into a set of tags that can be
used as match criteria for placing IP addresses in dynamic address groups. The tags are constructed in the
following format:
cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>.ap_<app-profile>.{epg_<EPG> | uepg_<micro-EPG>}
• cisco.cl_<cluster>—this tag groups IP addresses into a dynamic address group based on the Cisco ACI
cluster and displays the name of your cluster.
• cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>—this tag groups IP addresses into a dynamic address group based on
tenant and displays the name of your cluster and tenant.
• cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>.ap_<app-profile>—this tag groups IP addresses into a dynamic address
group base on application profile and displays the name of your cluster, tenant, and application profile.
• cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>.ap_<app-profile>.epg_<EPG>—this tag groups IP addresses into a
dynamic address group based on EPG and displays the name of your cluster, tenant, application profile,
and EPG.
• cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>.ap_<app-profile>.uepg_<micro-EPG>—this tag groups IP addresses into
a dynamic address group based on micro-EPG and displays the name of your cluster, tenant, application
profile, and micro-EPG.
• cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>.l2out_<L2-external-endpoint>—this tag groups IP addresses into
dynamic address groups based on L2 external endpoint and displays the name of you cluster, tenant, and
L2 external endpoint.
• cisco.cl_<cluster>.tn_<tenant>.bd_<bridge-domain>.subnet_<subnet>—this tag groups IP address into
a dynamic address group based on subnet and displays the name of you cluster, tenant, bridge domain,
and subnet.
To retrieve endpoint IP-address-to-tag mapping information, you must configure a Monitoring Definition
for each APIC fabric in your Cisco ACI environment. The Monitoring Definition specifies the username
and password that allows Panorama to connect to the APICs. It also specifies the device groups and
corresponding notify groups containing the firewalls to which Panorama pushes the tags. After you
configure the Monitoring Definition and the Cisco ACI plugin retrieves the tags, you can create dynamic
address groups and add the tags as match criteria.
The Cisco ACI plugin uses two intervals to retrieve information from the APIC. The first is the monitoring
interval.

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 • Monitoring interval—The monitoring interval is the amount of time that the plugin waits before querying
for changes in the fabric. If no changes occurred, the monitoring interval resets. If changes are detected,
the plugin processes the changes before resetting the monitoring interval. The default monitoring
interval is 60 seconds. You can set the monitoring interval from 60 seconds to one day (86,400 seconds).
• Full-sync interval—The full-sync interval is the amount of time that the plugin waits before updating
the dynamic objects from all fabrics regardless of any changes occurred. This ensures that the plugin is
synchronized with the fabric even if a change event is missed by the monitoring interval. The default full-
sync interval is 10 minutes. You can set the full-sync interval from 600 seconds (10 minutes) and 86,400
seconds (one day).
You must configure the full-sync interval through the Panorama CLI.

If you configure a value for the monitoring interval greater than that of the full-sync interval,
the full-sync interval is ignored and a full synchronization is performed at every monitoring
interval.

If Panorama loses its connection with the APIC, Panorama will attempt to reconnect five times. After five
failed attempts, Panorama stops monitoring for changes in your clusters and displays the reconnection
attempts in the system log. To recover and begin monitoring your clusters again, you must perform a
commit on Panorama.
• Install the Panorama Plugin for Cisco ACI
• Configure the Cisco ACI Plugin
• Panorama Plugin for Cisco ACI Dashboard

Install the Panorama Plugin for Cisco ACI

To get started with endpoint monitoring on Cisco ACI, download and install the Cisco ACI plugin on
Panorama.
If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer. When
installing the plugin on Panoramas in an HA pair, install the plugin on the passive peer before the active
peer. After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state. Installing the
plugin on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 1 | Verify that your virtual Panorama has enough memory to support the number endpoints in
your ACI environment.

STEP 2 | Select Panorama > Plugins.

STEP 3 | Select Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.

STEP 4 | Select Download in the Action column to download the plugin.

STEP 5 | Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
Panorama will alert you when the installation is complete.

Configure the Cisco ACI Plugin

After installing the plugin, you must set the monitoring interval, configure a notify group, and establish a
connection between Panorama and the APIC fabric.

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STEP 1 | (Optional) Configure the full-sync interval.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Enter configure mode.
admin@Panorama> configure
3. Use the following command to set the full-sync interval. The default interval is 600 seconds (10
minutes). The range is 600 seconds to 86,400 seconds (one day).
admin@Panorama# set plugins cisco full-sync-interval <interval-in-seconds>

STEP 2 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

STEP 3 | You must add the firewalls as managed devices on Panorama and create Device Groups so
that you can configure Panorama to notify these groups with the VM information it retrieves.
Device groups can include VM-Series firewalls or virtual systems on the hardware firewalls.

STEP 4 | Enable monitoring, set the monitoring interval, and enable bypass proxy.
1. Select Panorama > Cisco ACI > Setup > General.
2. Select Enable Monitoring. This enables monitoring for all clusters in your deployment.
3. Set the Monitoring Interval in seconds. The monitoring interval is how often Panorama retrieves
updated network information from the APIC. The default value is 60 seconds and the range is 60
seconds to 86,400 seconds (one day).
4. (Optional) Select Bypass Proxy to Bypass proxy server settings, configured on Panorama under
Panorama > Setup > Services > Proxy Server, for communication between Panorama and the
APIC. This allows Panorama to communicate directly with the APIC while maintaining proxied
communication for other services.

STEP 5 | Create a notify group.

1. Select Panorama > Cisco ACI > Setup > Notify Groups.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your notify group.
4. Select the device groups in your ACI deployment.

STEP 6 | Add ACI fabric information.

1. Select Panorama > Cisco ACI > Setup > ACI Fabric.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your cluster.
3. Enter the IP address or FQDN for each APIC in the cluster as a comma-separated list.

When using FQDN, do not include https:// in the URL.

4. Enter your APIC username.

5. Enter and confirm your APIC password.
6. Click OK.

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STEP 7 | Configure the Monitoring Definition.
1. Select Panorama > Cisco ACI > Monitoring Definition and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name and optionally a description to identify the Cisco ACI cluster for which you
use this definition.
3. Select the Cluster Info and Notify Group.
4. Click OK.

STEP 8 | Commit your changes.

STEP 9 | Verify that you can view the EPG information on Panorama, and define the match criteria for
Dynamic Address Groups.

Some browser extensions may block API calls between Panorama and the APIC which
prevents Panorama from receiving match criteria. If Panorama displays no match criteria
and you are using browser extensions, disable the extensions and Synchronize Dynamic
Objects to populate the tags available to Panorama.

Panorama does not immediately process new monitoring definitions and populate the
match criteria available to dynamic address. You should wait for the duration of your
configured monitoring interval before verifying that EPG information.

STEP 10 | Verify that addresses in your EPGs are added to dynamic address groups.
1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
2. Click More in the Addresses column of a dynamic address group.
Panorama displays a list of IP addresses added to that dynamic address group based on the match
criteria you specified.

STEP 11 | Use dynamic address groups in policy.

1. Select Policies > Security.
2. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the policy.

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 3. Add the Source Zone to specify the zone from which the traffic originates.
4. Add the Destination Zone at which the traffic is terminating.
5. For the Destination Address, select the Dynamic address group you just created.
6. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
to the rule.
7. Repeats Steps 1 through 6 to create another policy rule.
8. Click Commit.
See Use Dynamic Address Groups in Policy for more information.

STEP 12 | You can update the dynamic objects from the APIC at any time by synchronizing dynamic
objects. Synchronizing dynamic objects enables you to maintain context on changes in the
virtual environment and allows you to enable applications by automatically updating the
Dynamic Address Groups used in policy rules.
1. Select Panorama > Cisco ACI > Monitoring Definition.
2. Click Synchronize Dynamic Objects.

On HA failover, the newly active Panorama attempts to reconnect to the APIC and
retrieve tags for all monitoring definitions. If there is an error with reconnecting even one
monitoring definition, Panorama generates a system log message

Unable to process subscriptions after HA switch-over; user-

intervention required.

When you see this error, you must log in to Panorama and fix the issue, for example
remove an invalid APIC IP or provide valid credentials, and commit your changes to
enable Panorama to reconnect and retrieve the tags for all monitoring definitions. Even
when Panorama is disconnected from the APIC, the firewalls have the list of all tags that
had been retrieved before failover, and can continue to enforce policy on that list of IP
addresses. If you perform a commit before resolving the failover error, the newly active
Panorama will not push any IP-to-tag mapping information and clearing the mapping
information from the firewalls. As a best practice, to monitor this issue, configure action-
oriented log forwarding to an HTTPS destination from Panorama so that you can take
immediate action.

Panorama Plugin for Cisco ACI Dashboard

The Panorama plugin for Cisco ACI dashboard provides a bird’s-eye view of the ACI infrastructure
monitored by the plugin. The dashboard consists of two pages—the first page provides an overview of
various objects monitored by the plugin on a set of clickable tiles; clicking a tile takes you to the second
page that provides further information about the object displayed on the tile.
After installing the plugin, you can access the dashboard by selecting Panorama > Cisco ACI > Dashboard.

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 The dashboard only queries for and counts pre-rule security policies configured on
Panorama; it does not include post-rules, default-rules, or NAT rules.

Dashboard Tiles Description

Tenant Tags Displays the total number of tenants Panorama retrieved from the APIC.
Additionally, it displays the number of dynamic address groups associated with
If a tenants and the number of tenants used in policy.
tenant’s
Click the tile to drill down and view the following columns.
health
score • Tenant Name—list all the tenants retrieved by Panorama.
is zero • Tenant Tag—the Panorama tag associated with each tenant.
(0) on • Dynamic Address Group—displays the dynamic address groups associated
the with the listed tag.
APIC, • In Policy—shows if the listed dynamic address group is used in policy.
Panorama
does
not
retrieve
information
about
that
tenant.
Therefore,
the
tenant
count
on
Panorama
will not
match
the
total
on the
APIC.

Application Profiles Displays the total number of application profiles Panorama retrieved from
the APIC. Additionally, it displays the number of dynamic address groups
associated with application profiles and the number of application profiles used
in policy.
Click the tile to drill down and view the following columns.
• Application Profile Name—lists all application profiles retrieved by
Panorama.
• Tenant Name—displays the tenant associated with the listed application
profile.
• Application Profile Tag—the Panorama tag associated with each application
profile.
• Dynamic Address Group—displays the dynamic address groups associated
with the listed tag.
• In Policy—shows if the listed dynamic address group is used in policy.

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 Dashboard Tiles Description

End Point Groups Displays the total number of end point groups (EPG) Panorama retrieved from
the APIC. Additionally, it displays the number of dynamic address groups
associated with EPGs and the number of EPGs used in policy.
Click the tile to drill down and view the following columns.
• EPG Name—lists all EPGs retrieved by Panorama.
• Application Profile Name—lists the EPG’s associated application profile.
• Tenant Name—displays the tenant associated with the listed application
profile.
• EPG Tag—the Panorama tag associated with each EPG.
• Dynamic Address Group—displays the dynamic address groups associated
with the listed tag.
• In Policy—shows if the listed dynamic address group is used in policy.

Micro End Point Displays the total number of micro end point groups (EPG) Panorama retrieved
Groups from the APIC. Additionally, it displays the number of dynamic address groups
associated with micro EPGs and the number of micro EPGs used in policy.
Click the tile to drill down and view the following columns.
• Micro EPG Name—lists all EPGs retrieved by Panorama.
• Application Profile Name—lists the Micro EPG’s associated application
profile.
• Tenant Tag—displays the tenant associated with the listed application
profile.
• Micro EPG Tag—the Panorama tag associated with each Micro EPG.
• Dynamic Address Group—displays the dynamic address groups associated
with the listed tag.
• In Policy—shows if the listed dynamic address group is used in policy.

Bridge Domains Displays the total number of bridge domains Panorama retrieved from
the APIC. Additionally, it displays the number of dynamic address groups
associated with brdige domains and the number of bridge domains used in
policy.
Click the tile to drill down and view the following columns.
• Bridge Domain Name—lists all bridge domains retrieved by Panorama.
• Tenant Name—displays the tenant associated with the listed bridge domain.
• Bridge Domain Tag—the Panorama tag associated with each bridge domain.
• Dynamic Address Group—displays the dynamic address groups associated
with the listed tag.
• In Policy—shows if the listed dynamic address group is used in policy.

Service Graphs Displays the total number of Service Graphs monitored by the plugin as well as
well as the number of firewalls in line with monitored service graphs.
Click the tile to drill down and view the following columns.
• Service Graph Name—lists all service graphs retrieved by Panorama.
• Producer EPG—displays the producer EPG associated with the service
graph.
• FW InLine—displays the firewall associated with the service graph.

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP
You can deploy the VM-Series firewall as a network virtual service on the Cisco Cloud Security
Platform (CSP). Because the Cisco CSP is RHEL KVM platform, the VM-Series firewall is
deployed using the VM-Series firewall for KVM base image.
With the VM-Series firewall on Cisco CSP, you can protect your workloads, prevent advanved
threats, and improve visibility into the applications on your virtual network.

> VM-Series on Cisco CSP System Requirements

> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP

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VM-Series on Cisco CSP System Requirements
You can create and deploy multiple instances—standalone or as an HA pair—of the VM-Series firewall on
your Cisco CSP.
The VM-Series firewall has the following requirements:
• See the Compatibility Matrix for supported versions of CSP and PAN-OS.
• Bootstrap Package converted to a ISO file
• See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-Series
model.
• Minimum of two network interfaces (vNICs). One is a dedicated vNIC for the management interface and
one is for the data interface. You can then add up to eight more vNICs for data traffic.
• The VM-Series firewall on Cisco CSP supports all VM-Series models except the VM-50.
• SR-IOV and packet MMAP mode only; DPDK is not supported.

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Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Cisco CSP
Complete the following procedure to deploy the VM-Series firewall on Cisco CSP.

STEP 1 | Download the VM-Series qcow2 base image file from the Customer Support Portal.

STEP 2 | Create a bootstrap ISO file for the VM-Series firewall.

1. Create a Bootstrap Package for your VM-Series firewall.
2. Create an ISO file containing the bootstrap package using your preferred tool.

STEP 3 | Log in to the Cisco CSP web interface.

STEP 4 | Upload the VM-Series firewall qcow2 image and ISO file.
1. Select Configuration > Repository.
2. Click the plus (+) icon.
3. Click Browse and navigate to your qcow2 file.
4. Click Upload.
5. Click Browse and navigate to your ISO file.
6. Click Upload.

STEP 5 | Create the VM-Series firewall service.

1. Enter a descriptive Name for the VM-Series firewall.
2. Select the Target Host Name from the drop-down.
3. Select the qcow2 file you uploaded from the Image Name drop-down.

4. Select the Day Zero Config.

1. Click the Day Zero Config plus (+) icon.
2. Select the bootstrap ISO file from the Source File Name drop-down.
3. Click Submit.

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 5. Allocate the number of cores and memory required for your VM-Series firewall model.
6. Add enough vNICs to support the number of VM-Series interfaces configured in your bootstrap ISO
file.
See the Cisco Cloud Service Platform documentation for more information about creating and deploying
a service instance.

STEP 6 | After the bootstrap process is complete, log in to your VM-Series firewall using the
management IP address your specified in the bootstrap ISO file.
The firewall should be up and configure based on the parameters you defined in the bootstrap package.

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Endpoint Monitoring for Cisco TrustSec
Install and configure the Panorama plugin for Cisco TrustSec to retrieve the IP addresses of
endpoints in your environment and build security policy for those endpoints using Dynamic
Address Groups.

> Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec

> Install the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec
> Configure the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec
> Troubleshoot the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec

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Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec
The Panorama plugin for Cisco TrustSec enables you to create security policy for your TrustSec
environment using dynamic address groups. The plugin monitors for changes in TrustSec security groups
and registers that information with Panorama and forwards IP information to the firewall, so Panorama can
apply the correct policy to corresponding endpoints. The Panorama plugin for Cisco TrustSec supports up to
16 pxGrid (Cisco ISE) servers.
The Panorama plugin processes the endpoint information and converts it to a set of tags that you can use as
match criteria for placing IP addresses in dynamic address groups. Panorama creates a tag for each security
group tag (SGT) on your pxGrid servers. The tags are constructed in the following format:
cts.svr_<pxgrid-server-name>.sgt_<SGT-name>
To retrieve endpoint IP-address-to-tag mapping information, you must configure a Monitoring Definition
for each pxGrid server in your environment. The pxGrid server configuration specifies the username and
password and is referenced by the monitoring definition that allows Panorama to connect to the pxGrid.
Additionally, you can configure the plugin to verify the pxGrid server identity with a certificate profile on
Panorama. It also specifies the device groups and corresponding notify groups containing the firewalls to
which Panorama pushes the tags. After you configure the Monitoring Definition and the plugin retrieves the
tags, you can create dynamic address groups and add the tags as match criteria.
The Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec version 1.0.2 and later supports Bulk Sync and PubSub monitoring
modes. The plugin selects a mode based on the Panorama version—Bulk Sync mode if the Panorama version
is earlier than 10.0.0, and PubSub mode on Panorama 10.0.0 and later. The user interface displays the
configuration options for the default monitoring mode.
• Bulk Sync
• PubSub

Bulk Sync
Bulk Sync mode uses two intervals to retrieve information from your pxGrid servers—the monitoring
interval and full-sync interval. This mode is the default when the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec
version 1.0.2 or later is installed on a Panorama version earlier than 10.0.0. Panorama versions earlier than
10.0.0 support IP-tab updates to configd every 10 seconds.
• Monitoring interval—The monitoring interval is the amount of time that the plugin waits before querying
for changes. If no changes have occurred, the monitoring interval resets. If there are changes, the plugin
processes the changes before resetting the monitoring interval. The default monitoring interval is 60
seconds. You can set the monitoring interval from 10 seconds to one day (86,400 seconds).

The minimum monitoring interval is 30 seconds when the Panorama plugin for Cisco
TrustSec 1.0.0 is installed.
• Full-sync interval—The full-sync interval is the amount of time that the plugin waits before updating the
dynamic objects from all pxGrid servers regardless of any changes occurred. This ensures that the plugin
is synchronized with the pxGrid server even if a change event is missed by the monitoring interval. You
can set the full-sync interval from 600 seconds (10 minutes) to 86,400 seconds (one day). You must
configure the full-sync interval from the Panorama CLI.

If the monitoring interval is greater than the full-sync interval, the full-sync interval is ignored
and a full synchronization is performed at every monitoring interval.

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PubSub
PubSub mode monitors notifications directly from the Cisco ISE server (the subscription daemon), parses for
IP tags, and sends relevant information to the tag processing daemon (tag-proc). PubSub is the default mode
when the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec version 1.0.2 or later is installed on Panorama version 10.0.0
or later. Panorama versions 10.0.0 or later support IP-tab updates to configd every 100 milliseconds.
• Push interval—The push interval is the amount of time between pushes. If the previous push takes
too much time, the next push is triggered as soon as it finishes. The minimum push interval is 100
milliseconds (0 seconds) and the maximum is 60 seconds. The default push interval is 0 seconds.
• Enable Full Sync—Enable this option to trigger a complete update. If you enable full sync, you can set the
full-sync interval. Default is no.
• Full-sync interval—The full-sync interval is the amount of time that the plugin waits before updating
the dynamic objects from all pxGrid servers regardless of any changes occurred. The default full-sync
interval is 10 minutes. You can set the full-sync interval from 600 seconds (10 minutes) to 86,400
seconds (one day). You must configure the full-sync interval from the Panorama CLI.
• Reconnection interval—The initial reconnection interval is 1 second, and it is doubled if the previous
reconnection failed. The maximum reconnection interval is 64 sec. There is no limit to the number of
reconnection attempts.

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Install the Panorama Plugin for Cisco TrustSec
To get started with endpoint monitoring with Cisco TrustSec, download and install the Cisco TrustSec
plugin on Panorama. To correlate the plugin version with the Panorama version, see Panorama Plugins in
the Compatibility Matrix.

Cisco TrustSec plugin upgrade or downgrade requires a commit.

If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer. When
installing the plugin on Panorama appliances in an HA pair, install the plugin on the passive peer before
the active peer. After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state.
Installing the plugin on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 1 | Select Panorama > Plugins.

STEP 2 | Click Check Now to get the latest version of the plugin.

STEP 3 | Select Download in the Action column to download the plugin.

STEP 4 | Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
Panorama will alert you when the installation is complete.

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Configure the Panorama Plugin for Cisco
TrustSec
After you install the plugin, you must also assign a notify group to your Cisco TrustSec plugin configuration.
A notify group is a list of device groups that includes the firewalls to which Panorama should push all the
tags it retrieves from the pxGrid server.
Each Panorama with the Cisco TrustSec plugin installed can support up to 16 pxGrid servers and 16
monitoring definitions. And each monitoring definition has one pxGrid server and one notify group.
The following configuration instructions cover both Bulk Sync and PubSub monitoring modes; some user
interface features are enabled, or visible based on the monitoring mode.

STEP 1 | Configure the full-sync interval if you want to change it from the default 600 seconds (10
minutes).
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Enter configure mode.
admin@Panorama> configure
3. Use the following command to set the full-sync interval. The range is 600 seconds to 86,400 seconds
(one day).
admin@Panorama# set plugins cisco_trustsec full-sync-interval <interval-
in-seconds>

STEP 2 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

STEP 3 | You must add the firewalls as managed devices on Panorama and create Device Groups so
that you can configure Panorama to notify these groups with the VM information it retrieves.
Device groups can include VM-Series firewalls or virtual systems on the hardware firewalls.

STEP 4 | Configure Cisco TrustSec monitoring.

1. Select Panorama > Cisco TrustSec > Setup > General.
Enable Cisco TrustSec Monitoring is enabled by default. This enables monitoring for all clusters in
your deployment.
The user interface selects the PubSub monitoring mode if the Panorama plugin for Cisco TrustSec is
1.0.2 or later is installed on Panorama 10.0.0 or later:

The plugin selects Bulk Sync mode when it is installed on a Panorama version earlier than 10.0.0:

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 2. Click the gear to edit the setup parameters.
• Push Interval (PubSub only)—Minimum 0, maximum 60 seconds, default is 0 (100 milliseconds).
• Enable Full Sync (PubSub only, optional)—Select this optional to enable a full sync. Default is no.
• Full Sync Interval.
• PubSub—If Enable Full Sync is selected, you can set the full sync interval in seconds. Range is
600 seconds to 86400 seconds (one day), and the default value is 600
• Bulk Sync—Enabled by default in Bulk Sync mode. Range is 600 seconds to 86400 seconds
(one day), and the default value is 600.
• Monitoring Interval (Bulk Sync only)—10 to 86400 seconds, default is 60—Set the polling interval
at which Panorama queries the pxGrid server for endpoint address information. This is the time
period between the end of a monitoring event and the start of the next event.

STEP 5 | Create a notify group.

1. Select Panorama > Cisco TrustSec > Setup > Notify Groups.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your notify group.
4. Select the device groups you created in previously.

STEP 6 | (Optional) If enabling server identity verification of the pxGrid server, configure a certificate
profile on Panorama.

STEP 7 | Create, activate, and approve the pxGrid client name and client password.
1. Log in to the Panorama CLI.
2. Execute the following command to create the client name.
• If you have a certificate profile, create the client name as follows:

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 admin@Panorama> request plugins cisco_trustsec create-account client-
name <client-name> host <ise-server-ip>
• If you skipped Step 6 and you do not have a certificate, enter:
request plugins cisco_trustsec create-account server-cert-verification-
enabled no client-name <client-name>host <host-name>
3. Execute the following command to create the client name.

admin@Panorama> request plugins cisco_trustsec create-account client-name

test host 10.10.10.15

AccountCreate in progress...
AccountCreate successful.
client nodename: test
client password: PmVKBmPgf63Hypq

AccountActivate in progress...
AccountActivate successful.

Please approve the account on the server.

4. Log in to your Cisco ISE server to approve the account.
5. Select Administration > pxGrid Services > All Clients.
6. Select the client name you create on Panorama.
7. Click Approve.

STEP 8 | Add pxGrid server information. The Panorama plugin for Cisco TrustSec supports up to 16
pxGrid (Cisco ISE) servers.
1. Select Panorama > Cisco TrustSec > Setup > pxGrid Server.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your pxGrid server.
3. In the Host field, enter the IP address or FQDN for your pxGrid server.
4. Enter the client name you created in the previous step.
5. Enter and confirm the client password you generated in the previous step.
6. Verify the pxGrid server identity.
1. Select Verify server certificate.
2. Select your certificate profile from the Cert Profile drop-down.
7. Click OK.

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STEP 9 | Configure the Monitoring Definition.
1. Select Panorama > Cisco TrustSec > Monitoring Definition and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name and optionally a Description to identify the monitoring definition.
3. Select the pxGrid Server.
4. (Optional) Set Panorama to Monitor pxGrid sessions in AUTHENTICATED state. By default,
Panorama retrieves IP-Tag mappings from sessions in the “STARTED” state. ISE sessions have the
“STARTED” state when there is a corresponding accounting start packet. If no accounting start
packet is present for the session, then the session state is “AUTHENTICATED”.
5. Select the Notify Group.
6. Click OK.

STEP 10 | Commit your changes.

STEP 11 | Create active ISE sessions so that Panorama can learn SGT tags for dynamic address group
definition. To create active sessions, use ISE to authenticate devices.
Panorama does not collect default SGT tags on ISE.

STEP 12 | Create dynamic address groups and verify that addresses are added to dynamic address
groups.
1. Select Objects > Address Groups.
2. Select the Device Group you created for monitoring endpoints in your Cisco TrustSec environment
from the Device Group drop-down.
3. Click Add and enter a Name and Description for the dynamic address group.

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 The dynamic address group naming convention is: cts.svr_<server-name>.sgt_<SGT-name>
4. Select Type as Dynamic.
5. Click Add Match Criteria.
6. Select the And or Or operator and click the plus (+) icon next to the security group name to add it to
the dynamic address group.
Panorama can only display security group tags it has learned from active sessions. Security group tags
in live sessions appear in the match criteria list.
7. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
8. Click More in the Addresses column of a dynamic address group.
Panorama displays a list of IP addresses added to that dynamic address groups based on the match
criteria you specified.

STEP 13 | Use dynamic address groups in policy.

Dynamic address groups are empty until you attach them to a policy. You won’t see any
IP addresses in your dynamic address group unless a policy is using it.

1. Select Policies > Security.

2. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the policy.
3. Add the Source Zone to specify the zone from which the traffic originates.
4. Add the Destination Zone at which the traffic is terminating.
5. For the Destination Address, select the dynamic address group you just created.
6. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
to the rule.
7. Repeats Steps 1 through 6 to create another policy rule.

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 8. Click Commit.

STEP 14 | (Optional) Update the dynamic objects from the pxGrid server at any time by synchronizing
dynamic objects. Synchronizing dynamic objects enables you to maintain context on changes
in the virtual environment and allows you to enable applications by automatically updating
the dynamic address groups used in policy rules.
1. Select Panorama > Cisco TrustSec > Monitoring Definition.
2. Click Synchronize Dynamic Objects.

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Troubleshoot the Panorama Plugin for Cisco
TrustSec
• Plugin Status Commands
• Debug Commands
• Debug Logs

Plugin Status Commands

• Clear counters:

clear plugins cisco-trustsec counters

• Display monitor status:

show plugins cisco-trustsec status

• Display counters:

show plugins cisco-trustsec counters

Debug Commands
• Check IP addresses in dynamic address groups.

show object registered-ip tag <tag>

show object registered-ip all

• Fetch the tags of an IP address from a server. The fetched ip-tag mappings are logged in
plugin_cisco_trustsec.log. No ip-tag mappings are pushed to the notify group associated with
the server. No retry if failed.

debug plugins cisco-trustsec query pxgrid-server $server-name ip $ip-address

• Force synchronize with a server and push the mappings to the configd process. No retry if failed.

request plugins cisco-trustsec synchronize-dynamic-objects name $server-name

• Force synchronize with all servers and push the mappings to the configd process. No retry if failed.

request plugins cisco-trustsec synchronize-dynamic-objects all

• Force synchronize the mappings from configd process to VM-Series firewalls. No retry if failed.

request plugins cisco-trustsec sync

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Debug Logs
The logs are in the following locations on the disk:

/opt/plugins/var/log/pan/plugin_cisco_trustsec.log
/opt/plugins/var/log/pan/plugin_cisco_trustsec_sub.log
/opt/plugins/var/log/pan/plugin_cisco_trustsec_ret.log
/opt/plugins/var/log/pan/plugin_cisco_trustsec_proc.log

The size limit for a log file (shared by all plugins installed on your Panorama device) is 10 million bytes. A
log file can accept 93,000 session logins. If you configure log rotation, a backup log can support 186,000
session logins.
• Change the plugin debug level.

request plugins debug level $level plugin-name cisco_trustsec

• off: No debug log.

• low: Dump only basic debug logs.
• medium: Dump detailed debug logs.
• high: Dump everything including request/response messages with servers.
• Merge the logs into a single log file:

request plugins cisco-trustsec merge-logs

• Show the debug log in the CLI:
• Cisco TrustSec plugin version 1.0.2 or later installed on a Panorama version earlier than 10.0.0:

tail mp-log plugin_cisco_trustsec_merged.log

• Cisco TrustSec plugin version 1.0.2 or later installed on Panorama version 10.0.0 or later:

tail follow yes plugins-log

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Set Up the VM-Series Firewall on Nutanix
AHV
The VM-Series firewall for Nutanix AHV allows you to deploy the VM-Series firewall on
devices capable of running the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor. If you are using Panorama to
mange your VM-Series firewalls on Nutanix AHV, you can use the Panorama plugin for Nutanix
to perform VM monitoring. This allows you to dynamically inform the firewall of changes in
your Nutanix environment and ensure that policy is applied to virtual machines as they join
your network.

> Deploy the VM-Series Firewall on Nutanix AHV

> VM Monitoring on Nutanix

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VM Monitoring on Nutanix
Install and configure the Panorama plugin for Nutanix to monitor changes in your Nutanix environment and
build policy using dynamic address groups.
• About VM Monitoring on Nutanix
• Install the Panorama Plugin for Nutanix
• Configure the Panorama Plugin for Nutanix

About VM Monitoring on Nutanix

The Panorama plugin for Nutanix facilitates the use of dynamic address groups by monitoring virtual
machines in your Nutanix environment. Prism Central groups entities in your Nutanix environments by
categories and filters them further by value. Panorama creates tags based on categories and values you
define in Prism Central. When a virtual machine is placed in a category and assigned a value, Panorama
applies the corresponding tag to the virtual machine’s IP address. You can then create security policy by
using the tags as match criteria for dynamic address groups in Panorama.

In the example above, we have two categories—Dev and HR—with two values within each of them. And
these categories are within the cluster, which is within Prism Central. After you begin monitoring your
Nutanix environment, Panorama uses value, category, cluster, and Prism Central to form tags. When you
view the match criteria for dynamic address groups, the tags are listed in the following format.
ntnx.PC-<prism-central-name>.CL-<cluster-name>.<category>.<value>
With the information in the example above, Panorama creates the following tags.
ntnx.PC-PrismCentralHQ.CL-ClusterAlpha.Dev.Engineering
ntnx.PC-PrismCentralHQ.CL-ClusterAlpha.Dev.QA
ntnx.PC-PrismCentralHQ.CL-ClusterAlpha.HR.Recruiting
ntnx.PC-PrismCentralHQ.CL-ClusterAlpha.HR.Benefits
To secure these workloads in these categories, use tags such as these as match criteria in the dynamic
address groups. You can then use the dynamic address groups as source and destination address groups in

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 your security policy rules. When a virtual machine joins a dynamic address group, the policy your created is
applied automatically.

Install the Panorama Plugin for Nutanix

To get started with endpoint monitoring on Nutanix, download and install the Panorama plugin for Nutanix.
If you have a Panorama HA configuration, repeat this installation process on each Panorama peer. When
installing the plugin on Panoramas in an HA pair, install the plugin on the passive peer before the active
peer. After installing the plugin on the passive peer, it will transition to a non-functional state. Installing the
plugin on the active peer returns the passive peer to a functional state.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama user interface.

STEP 2 | Select Panorama > Plugins.

STEP 3 | Select Check Now to retrieve a list of available updates.

STEP 4 | Select Download in the Action column to download the plugin.

STEP 5 | Select the version of the plugin and click Install in the Action column to install the plugin.
Panorama will alert you when the installation is complete.

Configure the Panorama Plugin for Nutanix

After installing the plugin, complete the following procedure to establish a connection between Panorama
and Prism Central.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama web interface.

STEP 2 | Enable monitoring and set the monitoring interval.

1. Select Panorama > Nutanix > Setup > General.
2. Select Enable Monitoring.
3. Set the Monitoring Interval in seconds. The monitoring interval is how often Panorama retrieves
updated networking information from Prism Central.

STEP 3 | Create a notify group.

1. Select Panorama > Nutanix > Setup > Notify Groups.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your notify group.
4. Select the device groups in your Nutanix deployment.

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STEP 4 | Add Prism Central information.
1. Select Panorama > Nutanix > Setup > Nutanix Prism Central.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter a descriptive Name for your Prism Central.
4. Enter the IP address or FQDN for Prism Central.
5. Enter your Prism Central username.
6. Enter and confirm your Prism Central password.
7. Click Validate to confirm that you entered the Prism Central credentials correctly.

If you return to the Nutanix Prism Central Info window after clicking OK, clicking the
Validate button returns a credential validation error message. This is the expected
behavior. Although Panorama displays dots in the password field, the field is empty;
this causes the validation to fail despite Panorama being successfully connected to
Prism Central.
8. Click OK.

STEP 5 | Configure the Monitoring Definition.

1. Select Panorama > Nutanix > Monitoring Definition and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name and optionally a description to identify the Prism Central for which you use
this definition.
3. Select the Prism Central and Notify Group.
4. Click OK.

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STEP 6 | Commit your changes.

STEP 7 | Verify that you can view the VM information on Panorama, and define the match criteria for
dynamic address groups.
1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups and click Add.
2. Enter a descriptive Name for your dynamic address groups.
3. Select Dynamic from the Type drop-down.
4. Click Add Match Criteria. You can select dynamic tags as the match criteria to populate the members
of the group. Select the And or Or operator and select the attributes that you would like to filter for
or match against. and then click OK.
5. Commit your changes.

STEP 8 | Verify that addresses in your VMs are added to dynamic address groups.
1. Select Panorama > Objects > Address Groups.
2. Click More in the Addresses column of a dynamic address group.
Panorama displays a list of IP addresses added to that dynamic address group based on the match
criteria you specified.

STEP 9 | Use dynamic address groups in policy.

1. Select Policies > Security.
2. Click Add and enter a Name and a Description for the policy.
3. Add the Source Zone to specify the zone from which the traffic originates.
4. Add the Destination Zone at which the traffic is terminating.
5. For the Destination Address, select the Dynamic address group you just created.

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6. Specify the action— Allow or Deny—for the traffic, and optionally attach the default security profiles
to the rule.
7. Repeat Steps 1 through 6 to create another policy rule.
8. Click Commit.

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall
Bootstrapping allows you to create a repeatable and streamlined process of deploying new
VM-Series firewalls on your network because it allows you to create a package with the model
configuration for your network and then use that package to deploy VM-Series firewalls
anywhere.
You can either bootstrap the firewall with complete configuration so that the firewall is
fully configured at startup, or you can begin with a basic configuration—a minimal initial
configuration that enables you to boot the firewall and then register with Panorama to
complete the configuration.
If you choose the basic configuration and you are deploying on AWS, Azure or GCP, you can
use the bootstrap package and an init-cfg.txt file. Alternatively, you can bootstrap with
user data. Instead of providing bootstrap configuration parameters in files, you enter them
as key-value pairs directly into the AWS or GCP user interface when you launch a VM-Series
firewall. Azure has a similar process with which you provide the bootstrap parameters in a
template or other text file accessed from the Azure CLI.
If you create the bootstrap package, you deliver it from an external device (such as a virtual
disk, a virtual CD-ROM, or a cloud storage device (such as a bucket).

> Choose a Bootstrap Method

> VM-Series Firewall Bootstrap Workflow
> Bootstrap Package
> Bootstrap Configuration Files
> Generate the VM Auth Key on Panorama
> Create the init-cfg.txt File
> Create the bootstrap.xml File
> Prepare the Licenses for Bootstrapping
> Prepare the Bootstrap Package
> Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
> Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
> Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi
> Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform
> Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
> Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
> Verify Bootstrap Completion
> Bootstrap Errors

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Choose a Bootstrap Method
You can bootstrap the VM-Series firewall with a basic configuration or a complete configuration.
A complete configuration uses the bootstrap package and includes everything you need to fully configure
the firewall at boot up. This includes configuration parameters (in init-cfg.txt), content updates, and
software versions. A complete configuration can include both init-cfg.txt and bootstrap.xml files.

Configuration Method Configuration Location Comment

Specify complete configuration Public cloud storage • Full bootstrap package in the
information in /config/ storage bucket.
AWS S3 bucket, Azure storage
bootstrap.xml in the bootstrap • Requires cloud storage and an
account, or Google storage
package. IAM role to access it.
bucket.

A basic configuration is a minimal configuration that enables you to launch, license, and register the
VM-Series firewall. The basic configuration does not support plugins, content, software images, or
bootstrap.xml.
After you boot the firewall you can connect with Panorama to complete the configuration, or log in to the
firewall to update content and software manually. The following table briefly contrasts three ways you can
store and access a basic configuration:

Configuration Method Configuration Location Comment

init-cfg.txt Public cloud storage • Requires cloud storage and

an IAM role to access it. The
Store basic configuration • AWS S3 bucket
Panorama admin must also be
parameters as key-value pairs • Azure storage account granted access to the bucket.
in config/init-cfg.txt in the • GCP storage bucket
bootstrap package.

User data VM Instance • The initial configuration

parameters are stored with the
Enter configuration parameters • Alibaba: User data
VM.
into the public cloud user • AWS: User data
interface as key-value pairs. • No need for separate storage
• Azure: Custom data and the associated IAM role.
• GCP: GCP metadata
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure:
User data

AWS Secret Manager Encrypted in AWS Secret • You need an IAM role to create
Manager. a secret. Others can be granted
Enter configuration parameters
permission to get the secret.
into the AWS secret manager
as key-value pairs. • To get the secret, pass the
secret name using user data.

See the VM-Series firewall bootstrap workflow to compare the workflow for the basic and complete
configurations.
• Basic Configuration
• Complete Configuration

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Basic Configuration
A basic configuration includes the initial configuration and licenses. You can use the bootstrap package to
pass the key-value pairs for the initial configuration, or you can enter the bootstrap parameters key-value
pairs as user data.
If you do not use Panorama, you can use the initial configuration to bootstrap the firewall, then log in and
complete the configuration manually. If you use Panorama, your initial configuration must include bootstrap
parameters for the IP addresses for your Panorama servers and the VM Auth Key so the bootstrapped
firewall can register with Panorama and complete the full configuration.
• Add a Basic Configuration to the Bootstrap Package
• Enter a Basic Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds)
• Save a Basic Configuration in the AWS Secrets Manager

Add a Basic Configuration to the Bootstrap Package

The initial configuration is a minimal configuration that enables you to launch, license, and register the VM-
Series firewall, and connect with Panorama, if applicable. You deliver the configuration (init-cfg.txt) in the
bootstrap package.

Enter a Basic Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds)

When you deploy the VM-Series firewall from a public cloud user interface, you can enter the configuration
parameters as user data during the launch/deployment process. If you have sufficient permissions to
deploy a firewall from your cloud account, and access Panorama (if you are using it), you can skip creating a
bootstrap package, creating configuration files, and other bootstrap tasks related to cloud storage (a storage
bucket, IAM roles, or service accounts that grant external access to storage).
Configuration parameters include the values in init-cfg.txt File Components, and the following additional
values only available as user data:
• authcodes—The authcode use to register the VM-Series firewall. For example,
authcodes=I7115398.
• mgmt-interface-swap—Used to swap the management interface when the VM-Series firewall is
behind a load balancer in an AWS or GCP deployment. For example, mgmt-interface-swap=enable.
You can enter configuration parameters as key-value pairs directly into the Alibaba, AWS, GCP or OCI user
interface. You can also define the configuration from a text file or a cloud-native template, such as an AWS
Cloud Formation template, Azure ARM template, a GCP YAML file, or a Terraform template.
Each cloud has a different term for user data, and uses different separators between bootstrap parameters.
• Alibaba Cloud User Data —Use a newline (\n) for each parameter, and if a parameter has multiple
options, use commas to separate them.
• AWS User Data—semicolon, or newline (\n). If a parameter has more than one option, separate options
with a comma. For example:

type=dhcp-client; op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap,jumbo-frame;
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=abcdefgh1234****;
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=zyxwvut-0987****

type=dhcp-client
op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap,jumbo-frame
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=abcdefgh1234****
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=zyxwvut-0987****

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 If you choose to save your basic configuration in the AWS Secrets Manager, enter the secret name as a
key-value pair in the user data field. For example:

• Azure Custom Data—semicolon. If a parameter has more than one option, separate options with a
comma. For example:

type=dhcp-client; op-command-modes=jumbo-frame;
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=abcdefgh1234****;
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=zyxwvut-0987****
• GCP Custom Metadata—In a file, such as a YAML file or Terraform template, use a newline (\n) for each
parameter, and if a parameter has multiple options, use commas to separate them. For example:

type=dhcp-client
op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap,jumbo-frame
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=abcdefgh1234****
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=zyxwvut-0987****
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure User Data—Use a newline (\n) for each parameter, and if a parameter has
multiple options, use commas to separate them.

Save a Basic Configuration in the AWS Secrets Manager

You can use the AWS Secrets Manager to store the basic configuration as a secret, and then use User Data
to bootstrap a VM with the parameters stored in the secret. To perform this task you need permission to
use the Secrets Manager.
• The secret creator must have full Secrets Manager administrator permissions. A Secrets Manager
administrator can permit others to use the secret, as described in Authentication and access control for
AWS Secrets Manager.
For example, the following policy statement allows you to get the secret value:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
"Resource":
"arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:688382******:secret:My_bts-******"
}
}

Refer to Actions, Resources, and Context Keys You Can Use in an IAM Policy or Secret Policy for AWS
Secrets Manager to see actions that require permission, such as list, get, and rotate secret.
• (Optional) To encrypt the secret you can use the DefaultEncryptionKey from AWS Secrets Manager.

STEP 1 | Log in to the AWS console and under Security, Identity and Compliance, select Secrets
Manager and select Store a new secret.

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STEP 2 | Select other type of secrets.
1. Enter the key-value pairs to define the basic configuration.

mgmt-interface-swap does not work as a key-value pair in an AWS secret. It must

be entered as: op-command-modes=mgmt-interface-swap
2. Select the DefaultEncryptionKey, and click Next.

STEP 3 | Supply the secret name and description.

1. Edit the resource permissions to securely access secrets across AWS accounts. For example:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor0",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "s3:ListBucket",
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::sn-bootstrap"
},
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor1",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "s3:GetObject",
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::sn-bootstrap/*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
"Resource": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:688382******:
secret:My_bootstrap"
}
]
}
2. (Optional) You can examine the secret from the command line (if you have permission). For example:

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 # aws secretsmanager get-secret-value --secret-id My_bootstrap
{
"ARN": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:688382******:
secret:My_bootstrap",
"Name": "My_bootstrap",
"VersionId": "01b6853d-e187-479f-***********",
"SecretString": "{\"mgmt-interface-swap\":\"enable\",
\"vm-auth-key\":\"AAA\",\"panorama-server\":\"10.*.*.1\",
\"panorama-server-2\":\"10.*.*.2\",\"dgname\":\"dg-s0000h\",
\"tplname\":\"tpl-santosh\",\"license-authcode\":\"AAAA\"}",
"VersionStages": [ "AWSCURRENT" ],
"CreatedDate": 1581018411.847
}

Complete Configuration
A complete configuration ensures the firewall is fully configured on boot up. The bootstrap.xml file includes
the initial configuration, licenses, software, content, and a version of the VM-Series plugin. You can
create bootstrap.xml manually or you can export an existing configuration, as described in Create the
bootstrap.xml File.

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VM-Series Firewall Bootstrap Workflow
Use the following workflow to bootstrap your VM-Series firewall. Refer to the following figure for an
overview of both complete and basic bootstrapping procedures.

STEP 1 | (Optional) For security reasons, you can only bootstrap a firewall when it is in factory default
state. If you want to use the bootstrap package to bootstrap a VM-Series firewall that has been
previously configured, reset the firewall to factory default settings.

STEP 2 | Choose a bootstrap method.

After you familiarize yourself with the bootstrap package, assess whether you want to use a complete
configuration, or use a basic configuration and optionally use Panorama to manage the bootstrapped
firewall.
If you choose a basic configuration, decide whether to use the bootstrap package, or enter the
configuration parameters as key-value pairs in user data.

STEP 3 | (Optional) If you want to use Panorama to manage the VM-Series firewalls being bootstrapped,
generate the VM auth key on Panorama. You must include this key in the init-cfg.txt file
(vm-auth-key) or enter the key-value pair as user data.

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STEP 4 | Prepare the licenses for bootstrapping.

STEP 5 | If you choose the basic configuration and you plan to bootstrap with user data, skip to Step 7.
If you plan to use the basic configuration and the bootstrap package, create the init-cfg.txt file and
prepare the bootstrap package.
If you choose the complete configuration, create the bootstrap.xml file and prepare the full bootstrap
package.

STEP 6 | Prepare the bootstrap package and save the bootstrap package in the appropriate delivery
format for your hypervisor.

STEP 7 | Bootstrap the VM-Series firewall.

• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Google Cloud Platform
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM

STEP 8 | Verify bootstrap completion.

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Bootstrap Package
The bootstrap process is initiated only on first boot when the firewall is in a factory default state.
• Bootstrap Package Structure
• Bootstrap Package Delivery

Bootstrap Package Structure

The bootstrap package must include the /config, /license, /software, and /content folders, even if
they are empty. The /plugins folder is optional. For an example, see Prepare the Bootstrap Package.
• /config folder—Contains the configuration files. The folder can hold two files: init-cfg.txt and the
bootstrap.xml. For details, see Bootstrap Configuration Files.

If you intend to pre-register VM-Series firewalls with Panorama with bootstrapping, you
must generate a VM auth key on Panorama and include the generated key in the init-
cfg.txt file. See Generate the VM Auth Key on Panorama.
• /license folder—Contains the license keys or auth codes for the licenses and subscriptions that you
intend to activate on the firewalls. If the firewall does not have Internet connectivity, you must either
manually obtain the license keys from the Palo Alto Networks Support portal or use the Licensing
API to obtain the keys and then save each key in this folder. For details, see Prepare the Licenses for
Bootstrapping.

You must include an auth code bundle instead of individual auth codes so that the firewall
or orchestration service can simultaneously fetch all license keys associated with a
firewall. If you use individual auth codes instead of a bundle, the firewall will retrieve only
the license key for the first auth code included in the file.
• /software folder—Contains the software images required to upgrade a newly provisioned VM-Series
firewall to the desired PAN-OS version for your network. You must include all intermediate software
versions between the current version and the final PAN-OS software version to which you want to
upgrade the VM-Series firewall. Refer to VM-Series Firewall Hypervisor Support in the Compatibility
Matrix.
• /content folder—Contains the application and threat updates, WildFire updates, and the BrightCloud
URL filtering database for the valid subscriptions on the VM-Series firewall. You must include the
minimum content versions required for the desired PAN-OS version. If you do not have the minimum
required content version associated with the PAN-OS version, the VM-Series firewall cannot complete
the software upgrade.
• /plugins folder—Optional folder contains a single VM-Series plugin image.

Bootstrap Package Delivery

The file type used to deliver the bootstrap package to the VM-Series firewall varies based on your
hypervisor. Use the table below to determine the file type your hypervisor or cloud vendor supports.

External Device for Bootstrapping AWS Azure ESXi Google Hyper-V KVM
(Bootstrap Package Format)

CD-ROM (ISO image) — — Yes — Yes Yes

Block Storage Device — — Yes — Yes Yes

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External Device for Bootstrapping AWS Azure ESXi Google Hyper-V KVM
(Bootstrap Package Format)

Storage Account — Yes — — — —

Storage Bucket Yes — — Yes — —

When you attach the storage device to the firewall, the firewall scans for a bootstrap package and, if one
exists, the firewall uses the settings defined in the bootstrap package.
If you have included a Panorama server IP address in the file, the firewall connects with Panorama. If the
firewall has Internet connectivity, it contacts the licensing server to update the UUID and obtain the license
keys and subscriptions. The firewall is then added as an asset in the Palo Alto Networks Support portal. If
the firewall does not have Internet connectivity, it either uses the license keys you included in the bootstrap
package, or it connects to Panorama to retrieve the appropriate licenses and deploys them to the managed
firewalls.

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Bootstrap Configuration Files
The bootstrap package must include the basic configuration in config/init-cfg.txt. The complete
configuration (in /config/bootstrap.xml file) is optional.
When you include init-cfg.txt file and the bootstrap.xml file in the bootstrap package, the firewall
merges the configurations of those files, and if any settings overlap, the firewall uses the values defined in
the init-cfg.txt file.
• init-cfg.txt
• bootstrap.xml

init-cfg.txt
Contains basic information for configuring the management interface on the firewall, such as the IP address
type (static or DHCP), IP address (IPv4 only or both IPv4 and IPv6), netmask, and default gateway. The DNS
server IP address, Panorama IP address and device group and template stack parameters are optional.
You can use the generic name init-cfg.txt, or to be more specific, you can prepend the UUID or Serial
number of each firewall to the filename (for example: 0008C100105-init-cfg.txt).
When the firewall boots, it searches for a text file that matches its UUID or serial number and, if none is
found, it searches using the generic filename init-cfg.txt. For a sample file, see Create the init-cfg.txt
File.

If you are using Panorama to manage your bootstrapped VM-Series firewalls:

• You must generate a VM auth key on Panorama and include the key in the init-
cfg.txt file. For more information, see Generate the VM Auth Key on Panorama.
• The Panorama appliance that manages the firewalls must be in Panorama mode. If you
use a Panorama appliance in Management-Only mode, firewall logs are dropped because
Panorama in Management-Only mode does not have a Log Collector Group that can
store firewall logs.

bootstrap.xml
The optional bootstrap.xml file contains a complete configuration for the firewall. If you are not using
Panorama to centrally manage your firewalls, the bootstrap.xml file provides a way to automate the
process of deploying firewalls that are configured at launch.
You can define the configuration manually or export the running configuration (running-config.xml)
from an existing firewall and save the file as bootstrap.xml. If you export bootstrap.xml file,
make sure to export the XML file from a firewall deployed on the same platform or hypervisor as your
deployment. See Create the bootstrap.xml File.

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Generate the VM Auth Key on Panorama
If you want to use Panorama to manage the VM-Series firewalls that you are bootstrapping, you must
generate a VM auth key on Panorama and include the key in the basic configuration (init-cfg.txt) file. The
VM auth key allows Panorama to authenticate the newly bootstrapped VM-Series firewall. So, to manage
the firewall using Panorama, you must include the IP address for Panorama and the VM auth key in the
basic configuration file as well as the license auth codes in the /license folder of the bootstrap package. The
firewall can then provide the IP address, serial number, and the VM auth key in its initial connection request
to Panorama so that Panorama can verify the validity of the VM auth key and add the firewall as a managed
device. If you provide a device group and template in the basic configuration file, Panorama will assign the
firewall to the appropriate device group and template so that you can centrally configure and administer the
firewall using Panorama.
The lifetime of the key can vary between 1 hour and 8760 hours (1 year). After the specified time, the
key expires and Panorama will not register VM-Series firewalls without a valid auth-key in this connection
request.

STEP 1 | Log in to the Panorama CLI or access the API:

• In the CLI, use the following operational command:

request bootstrap vm-auth-key generate lifetime <1-8760>

For example to generate a key that is valid for 24 hrs, enter the following:

request bootstrap vm-auth-key generate lifetime 24

VM auth key 755036225328715 generated. Expires at: 2015/12/29 12:03:52

• In the API, use the following URL:

https://<Panorama_IP_address>/api/?type=op&cmd=<request><bootstrap><vm-
auth-key><generate><lifetime><number-of-hours></lifetime></generate></vm-
auth-key></bootstrap></request>
where the lifetime is the number of hours for which the VM auth key is valid.

STEP 2 | Verify the validity term of the VM auth key(s) you generated on Panorama. Make sure that the
validity term allows enough time for the firewall(s) to register with Panorama.

https://<Panorama_IP_address>/api/?type=op&cmd=<request><bootstrap><vm-auth-
key><show></show></vm-auth-key></bootstrap></request>

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STEP 3 | Add the generated VM auth key to the basic configuration (init-cfg.txt) file. See Create the init-
cfg.txt File

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Create the init-cfg.txt File
The init-cfg.txt file is required to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall. It provides the basic information
the firewall needs to connect to you network.
• init-cfg.txt File Components
• Sample init-cfg.txt File
Complete the following procedure to create the init-cfg.txt file.

STEP 1 | Create a new text file.

Use a text editor such as Notepad, EditPad, or other plain-text editors to create a text file.

STEP 2 | Add the basic network configuration for the management interface on the firewall.

If any of the required parameters are missing in the file, the firewall exits the bootstrap
process and boots up using the default IP address, 192.168.1.1. You can view the system
log on the firewall to detect the reason for the bootstrap failure. For errors, see Licensing
API.

There are no spaces between the key and value in each field. Do not add spaces as they
could cause failures during parsing on the mgmtsrvr side.

• To configure the management interface with a static IP address, you must specify the IP address,
type of address, default gateway, and netmask. An IPv4 address is required, IPv6 address is optional.
For syntax, see Sample init-cfg.txt File.
• To configure the management interface as a DHCP client, you must specify only the type of address.
If you enable the DHCP client on the management interface, the firewall ignores the IP address,
default gateway, netmask, IPv6 address, and IPv6 default gateway values defined in the file. For
syntax, see Sample init-cfg.txt File.
When you enable DHCP on the management interface, the firewall takes the DHCP assigned IP
address and is accessible over the network. You can view the DHCP assigned IP address on the
General Information widget on the Dashboard or with the CLI command show system info.
However, the default static management IP address 192.168.1.1 is retained in the running configuration
(show config running) on the firewall. This static IP address ensures that you can always restore
connectivity to your firewall, in the event you lose DHCP access to the firewall.

STEP 3 | Add the VM auth key to register a VM-Series firewall with Panorama.
To add a VM-Series firewall on Panorama, you must add the VM auth key that you generated on
Panorama to the basic configuration (init-cfg.txt) file. For details on generating a key, see Generate
the VM Auth Key on Panorama.

STEP 4 | Add details for accessing Panorama.

• Add IP addresses for the primary and secondary Panorama servers.
• Specify the template and the device group to which you want to assign the firewall.

STEP 5 | (Recommended) Add the VM-Series registration pin and value for installing the device
certificate.

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 If you want to install the device certificate on the VM-Series firewall at launch, you must generate the
VM-Series registration pin ID and value on the CSP and include it in the init-cfg.txt file. This pin
and value also applies any site licenses that use the PAYG license.

STEP 6 | (Optional) Include additional parameters for the firewall.

• Add IP address for the primary and secondary DNS servers.
• Add the hostname for the firewall.
• Enable either jumbo frames or multiple-virtual systems (or both)
• Enable management interface swap (mgmt) and the dataplane interface (ethernet 1/1) for the VM-
Series firewall on AWS or GCP. For more information on changing the management interface, see
Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB or Management Interface Swap for
Google Cloud Platform Load Balancing.
• Enable or disable DPDK.

init-cfg.txt File Components

The following table describes the bootstrap parameters in the init-cfg.txt file.

Field Description

type= Type of management IP address: static or dhcp-client. This field is required.

ip-address= IPv4 address. This field is ignored if the type is dhcp-client. If the type is
static, an IPv4 address is required; the ipv6-address field is optional and can
be included.
You cannot specify the management IP address and netmask configuration
for the VM-Series firewall in AWS and Azure. If defined, the firewall ignores
the values you specify.

default-gateway= IPv4 default gateway for the management interface. This field is ignored if
the type is dhcp-client. If the type is static, and ip-address is used, this field is
required.

netmask= IPv4 netmask. This field is ignored if the type is dhcp-client. If the type is
static, and ip-address is used, this field is required.

ipv6-address= (Optional) IPv6 address and /prefix length of the management interface. This
field is ignored if the type is dhcp-client. If the type is static, this field can be
specified along with the ip-address field, which is required.

ipv6-default-gateway= IPv6 default gateway for the management interface. This field is ignored if
the type is dhcp-client. If the type is static and ipv6-address is used, this field
is required.

hostname= Host name for the firewall.

panorama-server= IPv4 or IPv6 address of the primary Panorama server. This field is not
required but recommended for centrally managing your firewalls.

panorama-server-2= IPv4 or IPv6 address of the secondary Panorama server. This field is not
required but recommended.

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Field Description

tplname= Panorama template stack name. If you add a Panorama server IP address, as
a best practice assign the firewall to a template stack on Panorama and enter
the template stack name in this field so that you can centrally manage and
push configuration settings to the firewall.

dgname= Panorama device group name. If you add a Panorama server IP address, as a
best practice create a device group on Panorama and enter the device group
name in this field so that you can group the firewalls logically and push policy
rules to the firewall.

cgname= Panorama collector group name. If you want to bootstrap the firewall to
send logs to a Panorama collector group, you must first configure a collector
group on Panorama and then configure the firewall to forward logs to
Panorama.
On the M-Series appliances, a default Collector Group is predefined and
already contains the local Log Collector as a member. On the Panorama
virtual appliance, you must add the Collector Group and add the local Log
Collector as a member.

dns-primary= IPv4 or IPv6 address of the primary DNS server.

dns-secondary= IPv4 or IPv6 address of the secondary DNS server.

vm-auth-key= Virtual machine authentication key for Panorama (see Generate the VM
Auth Key on Panorama). This field is ignored when bootstrapping hardware
firewalls.

op-command-modes= The following values are allowed: multi-vsys, jumbo-frame, mgmt-interface-

swap. If you enter multiple values, use a space or a comma to separate the
entries.
• multi-vsys—(Hardware-based firewalls only) Enables multiple virtual
systems.
• jumbo-frame—Enables the default MTU size for all Layer 3 interfaces to
be set at 9192 bytes.
• mgmt-interface-swap—(VM-Series firewall on AWS and Google
only) Allows you to swap the management interface (MGT) with the
dataplane interface (ethernet 1/1) when deploying the firewall. For
details, see Management Interface Mapping for Use with Amazon ELB or
Management Interface Swap for Google Cloud Platform Load Balancing.

op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io= The value on or off allows you to enable or disable Data Plane
Development Kit (DPDK) in environments where the firewall supports
DPDK. DPDK allows the host to process packets faster by bypassing the
Linux kernel; interactions with the NIC are performed using drivers and the
DPDK libraries.

plugin-op-commands= Specify VM-Series plugin operation commands.

Multiple commands must be entered on a single, comma

separated with no spaces.

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 Field Description
• sriov-access-mode-on—this command is only valid for VM-Series
firewall on ESXi and KVM hypervisors.
For KVM only, if you enable sriov-access-mode-on, do not enable
op-command-modes=jumbo-frame.
• aws-gwlb-inspect:enable—enables VM-Series Integration with an
AWS Gateway Load Balancer.
• aws-gwlb-associate-vpce:<vpce-
id>@ethernet<subinterface>—allows you to Associate a VPC
Endpoint with a VM-Series Interface or subinterface on the firewall. The
specified interface is assigned to a security zone.
• aws-gwlb-overlay-routing:enable—use this command to Enable
Overlay Routing for the VM-Series on AWS when integrated with a AWS
GWLB.
• set-dp-cores—customize the number of cores for a VM
with a Software NGFW license. The maximum number of
cores is 16.

dhcp-send-hostname= The value of yes or no comes from the DHCP server. If yes, the firewall will
send its hostname to the DHCP server. This field is relevant only if type is
dhcp-client.

dhcp-send-client-id= The value of yes or no comes from the DHCP server. If yes, the firewall will
send its client ID to the DHCP server. This field is relevant only if type is
dhcp-client.

dhcp-accept-server- The value of yes or no comes from the DHCP server. If yes, the firewall will
hostname= accept its hostname from the DHCP server. This field is relevant only if type
is dhcp-client.

dhcp-accept-server- The value of yes or no comes from the DHCP server. If yes, the firewall will
domain= accept its DNS server from the DHCP server. This field is relevant only if
type is dhcp-client.

vm-series-auto- The VM-Series registration PIN ID and value for installing the device
registration-pin-id certificate on the VM-Series firewall. The PIN ID and value also enable you
to automatically activate the site licenses for AutoFocus and Cortex Data
and
Lake on PAYG instances of the firewall.
vm-series-auto-
You must generate this in registration PIN ID and value on the Palo Alto
registration-pin-value
Networks CSP. See Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall for
information on generating PIN ID and value.

Sample init-cfg.txt File

The following sample basic configuration files show all the parameters that are supported in the file;
required parameters are in bold.

Sample init-cfg.txt file (Static IP Address) Sample init-cfg.txt file (DHCP Client)

type=static type=dhcp-client

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Sample init-cfg.txt file (Static IP Address) Sample init-cfg.txt file (DHCP Client)
ip-address=10.*.*.19 ip-address=
default-gateway=10.*.*.1 default-gateway=
netmask=255.255.255.0 netmask=
ipv6-address=2001:400:f00::1/64 ipv6-address=
ipv6-default-gateway=2001:400:f00::2* ipv6-default-gateway=
hostname=Ca-FW-DC1 hostname=Ca-FW-DC1
vm-auth-key=7550362253**** vm-auth-key=7550362253****
panorama-server=10.*.*.20 panorama-server=10.*.*.20
panorama-server-2=10.*.*.21 panorama-server-2=10.*.*.21
tplname=FINANCE_TG4 tplname=FINANCE_TG4
dgname=finance_dg dgname=finance_dg
dns-primary=10.5.6.6 dns-primary=10.5.6.6
dns-secondary=10.5.6.7 dns-secondary=10.5.6.7
op-command-modes=jumbo-frame,mgmt- op-command-modes=jumbo-frame,mgmt-
interface-swap** interface-swap**
op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=*** op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=***
plugin-op-commands= plugin-op-commands=
dhcp-send-hostname=no dhcp-send-hostname=yes
dhcp-send-client-id=no dhcp-send-client-id=yes
dhcp-accept-server-hostname=no dhcp-accept-server-hostname=yes
dhcp-accept-server-domain=no dhcp-accept-server-domain=yes
vm-series-auto-registration-pin- vm-series-auto-registration-pin-
id=abcdefgh1234**** id=abcdefgh1234****
vm-series-auto-registration-pin- vm-series-auto-registration-pin-
value=zyxwvut-0987**** value=zyxwvut-0987****

You cannot specify the management IP address and netmask configuration for the VM-
Series firewall on AWS. If defined, the firewall ignores the values you specify because AWS
uses a back-end metadata file to assign the management IP address and netmask.
*The IPv6 default gateway is required if you include an IPv6 address.
**The mgmt-interface-swap operational command pertains only to a VM-Series firewall
on AWS or GCP.
***The op-cmd-dpdk-pkt-io=off is for disabling DPDK on the VM-Series firewall on
ESXi, KVM, and GCP (DPDK is enabled by default).
**** The vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id and vm-series-auto-
registration-pin-value are required for two use cases:
• Activation of site licenses—AutoFocus or Cortex Data Lake—with Pay-As-You-Go
(PAYG) license options of the VM-Series firewall.
• Retrieve and install the device certificate on the VM-Series firewall.

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Create the bootstrap.xml File
Use these instructions to export the configuration from a firewall running on the same platform or
hypervisor as your target deployment.

STEP 1 | Export a configuration from a firewall.

1. Select Device > Setup > Operations.
2. Select the configuration file you want to export.
• To export the running configuration, in the Configuration Management section, Export named
configuration snapshot and select running config.xml from the drop-down.
• To export a previous version of a firewall configuration, in the Configuration Management section,
Export configuration version and select the appropriate configuration version in the drop-down.

STEP 2 | Rename the configuration file and save.

1. Rename the file to bootstrap.xml.
For the bootstrap process to be successful, the filename must be an exact (case-sensitive) match.
2. Save the bootstrap.xml file in the same location as the init-cfg.txt file.

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Prepare the Licenses for Bootstrapping
To license the firewall during the bootstrapping process, you must purchase the auth codes and register the
licenses and subscriptions on the Palo Alto Networks Support portal before you begin bootstrapping.
For the VM-Series firewalls running BYOL (not applicable for usage-based licensing—PAYG), you must have
an auth code bundle that includes the capacity auth code, support subscription, and any other subscriptions
you require. The process of preparing the licenses for bootstrapping depends on whether the firewall has
Internet access when bootstrapping:
• Direct Internet access—The firewall is connected directly to the Internet.
• Indirect Internet access—The firewall is managed by Panorama, which has direct Internet access and the
ability to fetch the license keys on behalf of the firewall.
• No Internet access—The firewall uses an orchestration service or a custom script to fetch the license
keys on behalf of the firewall.

• For VM-Series firewalls with Internet access.

Enter the auth code in the /license folder when you Prepare the Bootstrap Package.

• For VM-Series firewalls with indirect Internet access.

1. Register the auth code on the Palo Alto Networks Support portal.
1. Go to the Support portal, log in, and select Assets > Register New Device > Register device using
Serial Number or Authorization Code.
2. Follow the steps to Register the VM-Series Firewall.
3. Click Submit.
2. Activate the auth codes on the Palo Alto Networks Support portal to generate license keys.
1. Go to the Support portal, log in, and select the Assets tab.
2. For each serial number, click the Action link.
3. Select the Activate Auth-Code button.
4. Enter the Authorization code, click Agree, and Submit.
5. Download the license keys and save it to a local folder.
6. Continue to Prepare the Bootstrap Package; you must add the license keys that you downloaded
to the \license folder in the bootstrap package.

• For a custom script or an orchestration service that can access the Internet on behalf of
firewalls.
The script or service must fetch the CPU ID and the UUID from the hypervisor on which the firewall is
deployed and access the Palo Alto Networks Support portal with CPU ID, UUID, API key and the auth
code to obtain the required keys. See Licensing API.

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Prepare the Bootstrap Package
On AWS, Azure, or GCP, you can create the bootstrap package in your public cloud storage.
• VM-Series plugin version 1.0.13 and earlier, and versions 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 support one bootstrap package
per storage bucket.
• VM-Series plugin versions 2.0.2 and later also support subfolders within your public cloud storage
bucket. Within a bucket you can create multiple folders and subfolders, each containing a bootstrap
package. Typically a folder represents configuration for a group of VMs, such as a Panorama device
group.
To access the bootstrap package, specify the full path to the bootstrap folder. For example: my-
storage/my-firewalls/bootstrap-2020-10-15
Use the following procedure to prepare the bootstrap package.

STEP 1 | Create the top-level directory structure for the bootstrap package.
On your local client or laptop, or in a public cloud storage bucket, create the following folders:

/config
/content
/software
/license
/plugins

You can leave a folder empty, but you must have /config, /license, /software, and /content
folders. The /plugins folder is optional, and only required if you are upgrading the VM-Series plugin
independent of a PAN-OS release.
Do not place any other files or folders in the bootstrap structure. Adding other files or folders will result
in a bootstrapping failure.

/my-storage
/my-firewalls
/internal /external
/config /config
/content /content
/license /license
/plugins /plugins
/software /software

STEP 2 | Add content within each folder.

For an overview of the process, see Bootstrap Package. For details on the files in the /config folder,
see Bootstrap Configuration Files.

/config
0008C100105-init-cfg.txt
0008C100107-init-cfg.txt
bootstrap.xml
/content
panupv2-all-contents-488-2590
panup-all-antivirus-1494-1969
panup-all-wildfire-54746-61460

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 /software
PanOS_vm-10.0.0
/license
authcodes
0001A100110-url3.key
0001A100110-threats.key
0001A100110-url3-wildfire.key
/plugins
vm_series-2.0.2

• If you save the keys to the license folder, you can use a file naming convention that
works for you, but keep the .key extension in the filename. For auth codes, create a
text file named authcodes (without a file extension), add your auth codes to that file,
and save it to the license folder.
• Use an auth code bundle instead of individual auth codes so that the firewall or
orchestration service can simultaneously fetch all license keys associated with a
firewall. If you use individual auth codes instead of a bundle, the firewall will retrieve
only the license key for the first auth code included in the file.
• In the /plugins folder, supply only one VM-Series plugin binary. Do not supply
multiple plugin versions.

STEP 3 | Create the bootstrap package.

For VM-Series firewalls, create the image in the appropriate format for your hypervisor. See Bootstrap
Package Delivery.

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on AWS
STEP 1 | Choose a bootstrap method.
• To add a basic configuration to the bootstrap package, continue to Step 2.
• To enter a basic configuration as user data or use user data to get the basic configuration from an
AWS secret, continue to Step 3.

STEP 2 | Prepare an S3 bucket, and an IAM role to enable read access.

To bootstrap using a file, you must be familiar with AWS S3 and IAM permissions required for
completing this process. For detailed instructions on creating policy, refer to the AWS documentation on
Creating Customer Managed Polices.
The management interface of the VM-Series firewall must be able to access the S3 bucket to complete
bootstrapping. You can either assign a public IP address or an elastic IP address to the management
interface so that the S3 bucket can be accessed over the Internet. Or, create a AWS VPC endpoint in the
same region as the S3 bucket, if you prefer to create a private connection between your VPC and the
S3 bucket and do not want to enable internet access on the firewall management interface. For more
information refer to the AWS documentation on setting up VPC endpoints.
1. Create an IAM role with inline policy to enable read access to the S3 bucket [ListBucket, GetObject].
For detailed instructions on creating an IAM role, defining which accounts or AWS services can
assume the role, defining which API actions and resources the application can use upon assuming the
role, refer to the AWS documentation on IAM Roles for Amazon EC2. When launching the VM-Series
firewall, you must attach this role to enable access to the S3 bucket and the objects included in the
bucket for bootstrapping successfully.
2. On the AWS console, create an Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket, or create a subdirectory
in an existing S3 bucket.
The S3 bucket in the following example, vmseries-aws-bucket, is at the All Buckets root folder level.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["s3:ListBucket"],
"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<bucketname>"]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["s3:GetObject"],
"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<bucketname>/*"]
}
]
}
3. Create the folders within the S3 bucket as described in Prepare the Bootstrap Package.
• Create the structure directly in your S3 bucket.

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 • (Optional) Add content within each folder. You can leave a folder empty, but you must have all the
\config, \content, \license, and \software folders. The \plugins folder is optional.

If you have enabled logging in Amazon S3, a Logs folder is automatically created
in the S3 bucket. The Logs folder helps troubleshoot issues with access to the S3
bucket.

STEP 3 | Launch the VM-Series firewall on AWS. Choose one of the following.
• init-cfg.txt—If you are using a file to configure the firewall, attach the IAM role you created in
Step 2.1, expand the Advanced Details section, and in the User Data field, specify the path to an S3
bucket, directory, or subdirectory. For example,

vmseries-bootstrap-aws-s3bucket=<bucketname>

or

vmseries-bootstrap-aws-s3bucket=<bucketname/directoryname>
• User Data—If you are using user data to configure the firewall, expand the Advanced Details section
and in the User Data field enter the initial bootstrap parameters as described in Enter a Basic
Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds).
• AWS Secrets Manager—If you stored your basic configuration as described in Save a Basic
Configuration in the AWS Secrets Manager, expand the Advanced Details section and in the User
Data field choose As text and enter the secret name as a key-value pair. For example:

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 Select Review and Launch. For more details, see Launch the VM-Series firewall on AWS.

STEP 4 | Verify Bootstrap Completion. Select the firewall instance on the AWS Management console
and choose Actions > Instance Settings > Get Instance Screenshot.
• The screenshot shows bootstrapping in progress. A successful bootstrap is shown below:

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• If you are using an S3 bucket and the S3 bucket does not have the correct permissions or you do not
have all four folders in the S3 bucket, you see the following error message:

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Azure
The VM-Series firewall on Azure supports Azure Files service for bootstrapping.

STEP 1 | Choose a bootstrap method.

• To add a basic configuration to the bootstrap package, continue to Step 2.
To manage the bootstrap package for the VM-Series firewall on Azure, you must be familiar with
storage accounts on Azure and know how to create a file share and directory objects that contain the
folder structure required for the bootstrap package. You can share an Azure file share across many
virtual machines so that all firewalls deployed in the same region as the storage account that hosts
the file share can access the files concurrently.
The management interface of the VM-Series firewall must be able to access the file share that holds
the bootstrap package so that it can complete bootstrapping.
• To Enter a Basic Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds), continue to Step 3.2.

STEP 2 | Set up the bootstrap package within an Azure Files service.

1. On the Azure portal, select or create a storage account.
2. Create a file share within the Azure Files service.

3. Create the folders within the storage account.

• Create the top-level directory structure for the bootstrap package directly in the root folder and
create a subfolder for each bootstrap configuration.
• Add content folders within each folder. You can leave a folder empty but you must have all four
folders (config, license, software and content) in the parent folder. In the following screenshot,
you can see that the config folder has the init-cfg.txt file uploaded to it.

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STEP 3 | Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from the Azure Marketplace (Solution Template).
• If you are using a file to configure the firewall, continue to Step 3.1
• If you are using custom data to configure the firewall, continue to Step 3.2.

1. If you choose to use the bootstrap package, select Enable Bootstrap: Yes and provide the
information required to access the file share that holds the bootstrap files.
1. Storage Account Name— This is the Azure storage account in which you created the file share for
the bootstrap folders.
2. Storage Account Access Key—The firewall needs this access key to authenticate to the storage
account and access the files stored within. To copy this access key, select the storage account
name, and then select Settings > Access Keys.

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 3. File-share—The file-share name that contains the bootstrap package.
4. (Optional) Share-directory—The path to a subfolder within the file-share. If you have a common
file share that serves as a repository for bootstrap configurations for different set ups, you can
use a share-directory to create a folder hierarchy and access a specific set of subfolders within the
common file-share.
2. Enter the configuration parameters as custom data. For the key-value pairs, see Enter a Basic
Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds). Separate each key-value pair with a semicolon. For
example:

type=dhcp-client; op-command-modes=jumbo-frame;
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=abcdefgh1234****;
vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=zyxwvut-0987****

Provide custom data using one of the methods in Custom data and Cloud-Init on Azure Virtual
Machines.

STEP 4 | Verify Bootstrap Completion.

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi
You can bootstrap the VM-Series firewall using an ISO image or a virtual hard disk.
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi with an ISO
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi with a Block Storage Device

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi with an ISO

Use these instructions to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on an ESXi server using an ISO.

STEP 1 | Create an ISO image and upload it to a Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) datastore or to a
Network File System (NFS) volume.
1. Prepare the Bootstrap Package.
2. Create an ISO image. The tool you use to create the image varies based on your client operating
system.
3. Upload the ISO image to a VMFS datastore or to an NFS volume that is accessible to the ESX/ESXI
host.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server.
By default, the firewall is deployed with two network interfaces— one for management traffic and
one data traffic. Make sure that the first ethernet interface on the firewall, which is its management
interface, is connected to the virtual switch port-group assigned for device management.
2. Do not power on the firewall.

STEP 3 | Attach the bootstrap image to the firewall.

1. Select the VM-Series firewall from the Inventory list.
2. Click Edit Settings and select Virtual Hardware.
3. Select Datastore iso file in the CD DVD drive drop-down, and browse for the ISO image.
4. Power on the firewall. The firewall will begin with the bootstrapping process, which will take several
minutes. The status messages on the success or failure of the process will display on the console.
5. Verify Bootstrap Completion.

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on ESXi with a Block Storage

Device
Use these instructions to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on an ESXi server using a block storage device.

STEP 1 | Create the bootstrap package and the virtual hard disk.
1. Create the bootstrap package.
2. Deploy a Linux virtual machine.
3. On the Linux machine, Prepare the Bootstrap Package. You can leave the folder empty, but you must
have all four folders.
4. Attach a new data disk less than 39 GB to the Linux virtual machine.
5. Partition the disk and format the file system as ext3.
6. Make a directory for the new file system and mount the disk to the Linux virtual machine.
7. Copy the contents of your bootstrap package to the disk.
8. Unmount the disk.

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 9. Detach the disk from the Linux virtual machine. Take note of the Disk File describing the bootstrap
disk you created; it shows the datastore name and path to the disk. Additionally, do not check the
Delete Files From Datastore check box; doing so deletes the disk.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server.
2. Do not power on the firewall.

STEP 3 | Attach the bootstrap package to the firewall.

1. Select the VM-Series firewall from the Inventory list.
2. Click Edit Settings and select Virtual Hardware.
3. From the New Device drop-down, select Existing Hard Disk. Select the bootstrap disk according to
the datastore and path noted previously.
4. Power on the firewall. The firewall will begin with the bootstrapping process, which will take several
minutes. The status messages on the success or failure of the process will display on the console.
5. Verify Bootstrap Completion.

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Google
Cloud Platform
STEP 1 | Choose a bootstrap method.

STEP 2 | Log in to Google Cloud Console.

• To add a basic configuration to the bootstrap package, create bootstrap files as described in Prepare
the Bootstrap Package, and continue to Step 3.
• To enter a basic configuration as custom metadata, skip to Step 4.

STEP 3 | Select Storage > Browser, and click Create Bucket.

You can use this bucket to bootstrap the firewall when you Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google
Cloud Platform Marketplace.
If you intend to bootstrap using a Google storage bucket in the same project, you must have
devstorage.read_only IAM privileges.
You can create and populate the bucket at the top level, or you can create a bucket with subfolders
within it so that many bootstrap packages can share the same bucket.
1. Enter the bucket name, choose the default storage class, and choose a location. Note, the location in
the storage bucket must be compatible with the zone you specify for the compute engine instance.
2. Click Create.
3. In the Storage Browser, click the bucket name to open it.
4. Click Create Folder and name the folder config. Click Create.
5. Repeat, creating folders for content, license, and software, as shown below. All folders must be
present, even if they are empty.

6. (Optional) If you created an init-cfg.txt file, open the config folder. Click Upload Files, browse
to select your init-cfg.txt file, and click Open.
7. Open the license folder and upload the authcodes file.
8. Continue until you have uploaded all the bootstrap files.

STEP 4 | Add the initial configuration parameters as metadata. Add each key-value pair as described in
Enter a Basic Configuration as User Data (Public Clouds).

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STEP 5 | See Deploy the VM-Series Firewall from Google Cloud Platform Marketplace for deployment
details.

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V
You can bootstrap the VM-Series firewall using an ISO image or a virtual hard disk.
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V with an ISO
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V with a Block Storage Device

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V with an ISO

Use these instructions to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on a Hyper-V server with an ISO.

STEP 1 | Create an ISO image.

1. Prepare the Bootstrap Package.
2. Create an ISO image. The tool you use to create the image varies based on your client operating
system.
3. Upload the ISO image to a location accessible to the Hyper-V host.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with Hyper-V Manager.
By default, the firewall is deployed with two network interfaces— one for management traffic and
one data traffic. Make sure that the first ethernet interface on the firewall, which is its management
interface, is connected to the vSwitch assigned for device management.
2. Do not power on the firewall.

STEP 3 | Attach the bootstrap image to the firewall.

1. In Hyper-V Manager, select the VM-Series firewall from the Virtual Machines list.
2. Click Settings > Hardware > IDE Controller > DVD Drive.
3. Under Media, click the Image file radio button.
4. Click Browse and select your uploaded ISO image.
5. Click Apply and Ok to exit the virtual machine settings.
6. Power on the firewall. The firewall will begin with the bootstrapping process, which will take several
minutes. The status messages on the success or failure of the process will display on the console.
7. Verify Bootstrap Completion.

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on Hyper-V with a Block Storage

Device
Use these instructions to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on a Hyper-V server with a block storage device.

STEP 1 | Create the bootstrap package and the virtual hard disk.
1. Deploy a Linux virtual machine.
2. On the Linux machine, Prepare the Bootstrap Package. You can leave the folder empty, but you must
have all four folders.
3. Attach a new data disk less than 39 GB to the Linux virtual machine.
1. Power of the Linux virtual machine.
2. In Hyper-V, select the Linux virtual machine from the Virtual Machines list.
3. Select Settings > Hardware > IDE Controller.
4. Select Hard Drive and click Add.
5. Select Virtual Hard Disk and click New.

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 6. Follow the on-screen instructions to create a new VHD. Note the name and path of the new VHD.
7. Click Apply then OK to exit the virtual machine settings.
8. Power on the Linux virtual machine.
4. Connect to the CLI of the Linux virtual machine.
5. Partition the disk and format the file system as ext3.
6. Make a directory for the new file system and mount the disk to the Linux virtual machine.
7. Copy the contents of your bootstrap package to the disk.
8. Unmount the disk.
9. Detach the disk from the Linux virtual machine.
1. Power of the Linux virtual machine.
2. Select the Linux virtual machine from the Virtual Machines list.
3. Select Settings > Hardware > IDE Controller.
4. Select the VHD you created.
5. Click Remove. This detaches the VHD but does not delete it.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Provision the VM-Series Firewall on a Hyper-V host with Hyper-V Manager.
2. Do not power on the firewall.

STEP 3 | Attach the bootstrap disk image to the firewall.

1. Select the firewall from the Virtual Machines list.
2. Select Settings > Hardware > IDE Controller.
3. Select Hard Drive and click Add.
4. Select Virtual Hard Disk and click Browse.
5. Browse to the bootstrap VHD you created, select it, and click Open.
6. Click Apply and OK to exit the Virtual Machine settings.
7. Power on the firewall. The firewall will begin with the bootstrapping process, which will take several
minutes. The status messages on the success or failure of the process will display on the console.
8. Verify Bootstrap Completion.

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Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM
You can bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on KVM using an ISO image or a virtual hard disk.
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM with an ISO
• Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM With a Block Storage Device

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM with an ISO

Use these instructions to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on a KVM server using an ISO.

STEP 1 | Create an ISO image.

1. Prepare the Bootstrap Package.
2. Create an ISO image. The tool you use to create the image varies based on your client operating
system.
3. Upload the ISO image to a location accessible to the KVM host.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Install the VM-Series Firewall on KVM.
By default, the firewall is deployed with two network interfaces— one for management traffic and
one data traffic. Make sure that the first ethernet interface on the firewall, which is its management
interface, is connected to the virtual switch port-group assigned for device management.
2. Do not power on the firewall.

STEP 3 | Attach the bootstrap image to the firewall.

1. In virt-manager, double-click on the VM-Series firewall to open the console.
2. View the VM hardware details by navigating to View > Details.
3. Open the Add New Virtual Hardware menu by clicking Add Hardware.
4. Change the device type to IDE CDROM.
5. Click the Select managed or other existing storage radio button and click Browse. Locate the ISO
image you created and click Choose Volume.
6. Click Finish to exit the Add New Virtual Hardware menu.
7. Power on the firewall by navigating to Virtual Machine > Run. The firewall will begin with the
bootstrapping process, which will take several minutes. The status messages on the success or failure
of the process will display on the console.
8. Verify Bootstrap Completion.

Bootstrap the VM-Series Firewall on KVM With a Block Storage

Device
Use these instructions to bootstrap the VM-Series firewall on a KVM server with a block storage device.

STEP 1 | Create the bootstrap package and the virtual hard disk.
1. Create the bootstrap package.
2. Create a new disk image less than 39 GB in size and partition the disk and format the file system as
ext3. The tools used to complete this process vary based on your client operating system.
3. Mount the disk image file and copy the prepared bootstrap package to the disk image files.
4. Copy the contents of your bootstrap package to the disk.
5. Unmount the disk image.

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 6. Upload the disk image file to a location accessible to the KVM host.

STEP 2 | Deploy the firewall.

1. Install the VM-Series Firewall on KVM.
2. Do not power on the firewall.

STEP 3 | Attach the bootstrap disk image to the firewall.

1. In virt-manager, double click on the VM-Series firewall to open the console.
2. View the VM hardware details be selecting View > Details.
3. Open the Add New Virtual Hardware menu by clicking Add Hardware.
4. Select Storage and the select Select or create custom storage.
5. Click the Manage button to open the Choose Storage Volume dialog, and select the disk image file
that you previously created.
6. Click Choose Volume.
7. Ensure that the device type is Disk Device and do not change the Bus Type.
8. Click Finish.
9. Power on the firewall. The firewall will begin with the bootstrapping process, which will take several
minutes. The status messages on the success or failure of the process will display on the console.
10.Verify Bootstrap Completion.

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Verify Bootstrap Completion
You can see basic status logs on the console during the bootstrap and you can verify that the process is
complete.

STEP 1 | If you included panorama-server, tplname, and dgname in your init-cfg.txt file, check
Panorama managed devices, the device group, and the template name.

STEP 2 | Verify the general system settings and configuration. Access the web interface and select
Dashboard > Widgets > System or use the CLI operational commands show system info and
showconfig running.

STEP 3 | Verify the license installation. Select Device > Licenses or use the CLI operational command
request license info.

STEP 4 | If you have Panorama configured, manage the content versions and software versions from
Panorama. If you do not have Panorama configured, use the web interface to manage content
versions and software versions.

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Bootstrap Errors
If you receive an error message during the bootstrapping process, refer to the following table for details.

Error message (Severity) Reasons

Boot image error (high) • No external device was detected with the bootstrap package.
Or
• A critical error happened while booting from the image on the
external device. The bootstrap process was aborted.

No bootstrap config file on The external device did not have the bootstrap configuration file.
external device (high)

Bad or no parameters for The networking parameters required for bootstrapping were either
mandatory networking incorrect or missing. The error message lists the value—IP address,
information in the netmask, default gateway—that caused the bootstrap failure.
bootstrap config file (high)

Failed to install license The license key could not be applied. This error indicates that the
key for file <license-key- license key used was invalid. The output includes the name of the
filename> (high) license key that could not be applied.

Failed to install license The license auth code could not be applied. This error indicates that the
key using authcode license auth code used was invalid. The output includes the name of
<authcode> (high) the authcode that could not be applied.

Failed content update The content updates were not successfully applied.
commits (high)

USB media prepared The bootstrap image has been successfully complied on the USB flash
successfully using given device. <username>: Successfully prepared the USB using bundle
bundle (informational) <bundlename>

Successful bootstrap The firewall was successfully provisioned with the bootstrap
(informational) configuration file. The output includes the license keys installed
and the filename of the bootstrap configuration. On the VM-Series
firewalls only, the PAN-OS version and content update version are also
displayed.

Read about the Bootstrap Package and how to Prepare the Bootstrap Package.

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