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70 | Glossary
Ares: Ares Galaxy is an open source P2P file-sharing program
for Microsoft Windows, written in Delphi. Proponents for the
software claim that it is able to download quickly, has a better
and more complete search function than other file-sharing
programs, and connects quickly.
AV: Anti-virus.
BearShare: BearShare is a P2P file-sharing application.
BGP: Border Gateway Protocol.
BitTorrent: BitTorrent is a P2P file-sharing communications
protocol that distributes large amounts of data widely without
the original distributor incurring the costs of hardware, hosting, and bandwidth resources. Instead, each user supplies
pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and
burden on any given individual source.
Boface: Boface is a worm that tricks Facebook users into
purchasing a fake anti-virus program after downloading and
installing malware to their computer.
CPE: Customer-premises equipment or customer-provided
equipment.
eMule: eMule is a P2P file-sharing application that features
direct exchange of sources between client nodes, fast recovery
of corrupted downloads, and the use of a credit system to
reward frequent uploaders. It transmits data in zlib-compressed
form to save bandwidth.
FastTrack: FastTrack is a P2P protocol.
Fbaction: Fbaction is a phishing attack targeted against
Facebook users.
10_939550-bapp01.indd 65 10/1/10 1:36 PM
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dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/ebook_NGFW_dummies.pdf |
71 | 66 Next-Generation Firewalls For Dummies
FINRA: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol.
Gbridge: Gbridge establishes a VPN tunnel inside of a Google
Gtalk instant messaging session (Gbridge is not a Google
application). A Gbridge user can then connect to multiple PCs
that are logged in under the same Gtalk user account.
Gnutella: As of December 2005, Gnutella was the third-mostpopular Internet file sharing network. Popular clients for
Gnutella include Limewire, Morpheus, and BearShare.
Gpass: Gpass is an Internet anti-jamming product widely
used in China to overcome Internet censorship. It effectively
protects user privacy and online safety by providing a secure
Internet access mechanism.
HA: Highly available or high availability.
HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol over SSL/TLS.
IM: Instant Messenger.
IPSec: Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) is a protocol suite for
protecting communications over IP networks using authentication and encryption.
Kazaa: Kazaa is a P2P file-sharing application that uses the
FastTrack protocol.
Koobface: Koobface is a worm that tricks Facebook users into
downloading and installing a fake update of the Adobe Flash
player. Among other things, Koobface attempts to collect
sensitive information such as credit card numbers from an
infected PC.
LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.
Limewire: Limewire is an open-source P2P application.
10_939550-bapp01.indd 66 10/1/10 1:36 PM
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dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/ebook_NGFW_dummies.pdf |
72 | Glossary 67
Mariposa: Mariposa is a botnet that was built with the computer virus known as “Butterfly Bot” and is estimated to
have infected between 8 and 12 million PCs worldwide. The
Mariposa Botnet steals passwords for Web sites and financial
institutions, launches denial of service attacks, and spreads
viruses.
Mediafire: Mediafire is a free and unlimited file and image
hosting Web site. The service is available for free and allows
users to upload files of up to 100 MB.
Morpheus: Morpheus is a P2P application.
MS-RPC: Microsoft Remote Procedure Call is a communications protocol used on Microsoft Windows networks.
Orkut: Social networking site owned and operated by Google.
OSI: Open Systems Interconnection model. The seven-layer
reference model for networks. The layers are Physical,
Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and
Application.
OSPF: Open Shortest Path First.
P2P: Peer-to-Peer.
PCI DSS: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
QoS: Quality of Service.
RIP: Routing Information Protocol.
Skype: Skype is an application that allows users to make
telephone calls over the Internet. Additional features include
instant messaging, file transfer, and video conferencing.
SMB: Server Message Block is an application-layer protocol
also known as Common Internet File System (CIFS).
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
SSH: Secure Shell is a set of standards and an associated
network protocol that allows establishing a secure channel
between a local and a remote computer.
10_939550-bapp01.indd 67 10/1/10 1:36 PM
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73 | 68 Next-Generation Firewalls For Dummies
SSL/TLS: Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security.
A transport layer protocol that provides session-based
encryption and authentication for secure communication
between clients and servers on the Internet.
Stateful inspection: Also known as dynamic packet filtering;
maintains the status of active connections through the firewall
to dynamically allow inbound replies to outbound connections.
TCP: Transmission Control Protocol.
Teamviewer: Teamviewer provides remote control of PCs
over the Internet, allowing a user to instantly take control
over a computer anywhere on the Internet, even through
firewalls.
UDP: User Datagram Protocol.
UltraSurf: UltraSurf implements a proxy with complete transparency and a high level of encryption that enables users to
browse any Web site freely. It is used heavily in countries with
Internet censorship.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator.
VLAN: Virtual Local Area Network.
VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol.
VPN: Virtual Private Network.
zlib: zlib is a software library used for data compression.
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74 | About Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks™ is the network security company. Its nextgeneration firewalls enable unprecedented visibility and
granular policy control of applications and content — by user,
not just IP address — at up to 10Gbps with no performance
degradation. Based on patent-pending App-ID™ technology,
Palo Alto Networks firewalls accurately identify and control
applications — regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic owr
SSL encryption — and scan content to stop threats and prevent
data leakage. Enterprises can for the first time embrace Web 2.0
and maintain complete visibility and control, while significantly
reducing total cost of ownership through device consolidation.
For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com. | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/ebook_NGFW_dummies.pdf |
75 | Lawrence C. Miller, CISSP
Brought to you by
• Differentiate between “good”
and “bad” applications
• Identify evasive techniques used
by applications
• Implement effective application
and network controls
Learn to:
Next-Generation Firewalls
Making Everything Easier!™
Open the book and find:
• How Enterprise 2.0
applications create new
risks for your organization
• Why traditional firewalls
can’t protect your network
• How next-generation
firewalls stand apart from
other security solutions
• What features and
capabilities you need
in your firewall
Lawrence C. Miller, CISSP, has worked in
information security for more than 20 years.
He is the coauthor of CISSP For Dummies and
a dozen other titles. He is also a Palo Alto
Networks customer and liked it so much he
bought the company — well, he’s not that
rich (yet) — but he did write this book! ISBN 978-0-470-93955-0
Book not for resale
Go to Dummies.com®
for videos, step-by-step examples,
how-to articles, or to shop!
Traditional firewalls haven’t changed much over
the past 15 years and can no longer protect your
network. That’s because they were never designed
to control all of the evasive, port-hopping, and
encrypted Internet applications that are so
common today. You’ve added intrusion prevention,
proxies, antivirus, URL filtering, and much more —
all to no avail. It’s time to fix the firewall!
• What Enterprise 2.0 applications are — and
how they create new risks and challenges for
your organization
• Why traditional firewalls are ineffective
against today’s threats — and why quick
fixes and add-on capabilities don’t work
• What a next-generation firewall is — what
it isn’t, and why you need one (or more)
• How to get the most out of your firewall — by
creating effective policies, asking the right
questions, and segmenting your network for
optimum performance
• Discover advanced features and capabilities—
that make next-generation firewalls a powerful
solution to protect your network and regain
control
Regain control of the applications
and users on your network! | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/ebook_NGFW_dummies.pdf |
0 | The PA-200 is a next-generation firewall
that delivers unprecedented visibility and
control over applications, users and content
on enterprise networks.
The Palo Alto NetworksTM PA-200 is targeted at high speed
Internet gateway deployments within distributed enterprise
branch offices. The PA-200 manages network traffic flows
using dedicated computing resources for networking, security,
threat prevention and management.
A high speed dual core CPU provides separation of data and control plane and
ensures that management access is always available, irrespective of the traffic
load. The controlling element of the PA-200 next-generation firewalls is
PAN-OSTM, a security-specific operating system that tightly integrates three
unique identification technologies: App-IDTM, User-IDTM and Content-IDTM,
with key firewall, networking and management features.
PA-200
PALO ALTO NETWORKS: PA-200 Specsheet
PERFORMANCE AND CAPACITIES1 PA-200
Firewall throughput (App-ID enabled) 100 Mbps
Threat prevention throughput 50 Mbps
IPSec VPN throughput 50 Mbps
New sessions per second 1,000
Max sessions 64,000
IPSec VPN tunnels/tunnel interfaces 25
SSL VPN users 25
SSL decrypt sessions 1,000
SSL inbound certificates 25
Virtual routers 3
Security Zones 10
Max number of policies 250
Address objects 2,500
Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN) 2,000
PA-200
1 Performance and capacities are measured under ideal testing conditions using HTTP traffic and PAN-OS 4.1.
APPLICATION IDENTIFICATION:
• Identifies and controls applications
irrespective of port, protocol, encryption
(SSL or SSH) or evasive tactic employed.
• Enables positive enforcement application
usage policies: allow, deny, schedule,
inspect, apply traffic shaping.
• Graphical visibility tools enable simple
and intuitive view into application traffic.
USER IDENTIFICATION:
• Policy-based visibility and control over
who is using the applications through
seamless integration with Active
Directory, LDAP, and eDirectory.
• Identifies Citrix, Microsoft Terminal
Services and XenWorks users, enabling
visibility and control over their respective
application usage.
• Control non-Windows hosts via webbased authentication.
CONTENT IDENTIFICATION:
• Block viruses, spyware, modern malware,
and vulnerability exploits, limit unauthorized
transfer of files and sensitive data such
as CC# or SSN, and control non-work
related web surfing.
• Single pass software architecture enables
predictable throughput performance with
low latency while scanning content.
For a complete description of the PA-200 Series next-generation firewall
feature set, please visit www.paloaltonetworks.com/literature. | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/PA200_Specsheet.pdf |
1 | I/O
• (4) 10/100/1000
MANAGEMENT I/O
• (1) 10/100 out-of-band management port, (1) RJ-45 console port
POWER SUPPLY (AVG/MAX POWER CONSUMPTION)
• 40W (20W/30W)
INPUT VOLTAGE (INPUT FREQUENCY)
• 100-240VAC (50-60Hz)
MAX CURRENT CONSUMPTION
• 1.3A@100VAC
DIMENSIONS
• 1.75”H x 7”D x 9.25”W
WEIGHT (STAND ALONE DEVICE/AS SHIPPED)
• 2.8lbs/5.0lbs
SAFETY
• UL, CUL, CB, TUV
EMI
• FCC Class B, CE Class B, VCCI Class B
ENVIRONMENT
• Operating temperature: 32° to 104° F, 0° to 40° C
• Non-operating temperature: -4° to 158° F, -20° to 70° C
HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS
PALO ALTO NETWORKS: PA-200 Specsheet
PAGE 2
INTERFACE MODES
• L2, L3, Tap, Virtual Wire (transparent mode): Supported
ROUTING
• Modes: OSPF, RIP, BGP, Static
• Forwarding table size (entries per device/per VR): 1,000/1,000
• Policy-based forwarding: Supported
• Multicast: PIM-SM, PIM-SSM, IGMP v1, v2, and v3
HIGH AVAILABILITY
• Modes: Active/Passive with no session synchronization
• Failure detection: Path Monitoring, Interface Monitoring
NAT/PAT
• Max NAT rules: 125
• Max NAT rules (DIPP): 125
• Dynamic IP and port pool: 254
• Dynamic IP pool: 16,234
• NAT Modes: 1:1 NAT, n:n NAT, m:n NAT
• DIPP oversubscription (Unique destination IPs per source port and IP): 1
VLANS
• 802.1q VLAN tags per device/per interface: 4,094/4,094
• Max interfaces: 100
VIRTUAL WIRE
• Max virtual wires (vwire): 2
• Physical interfaces mapped to VWs: Supported
ADDRESS ASSIGNMENT
• Address assignment for device: DHCP Client/PPPoE/Static
• Address assignment for users: DHCP Server/DHCP Relay/Static
IPV6
• Modes: L2, L3, Tap, Virtual Wire (transparent mode)
• Services: App-ID, Content-ID and SSL Decryption
L2 FORWARDING
• ARP table size/device: 500
• IPv6 neighbor table size: 500
• MAC table size/device: 500
NETWORKING
For a complete description of the PA-200 Series next-generation firewall feature set, please visit www.paloaltonetworks.com/literature. | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/PA200_Specsheet.pdf |
2 | FIREWALL
• Policy-based control over applications, users and content
• Fragmented packet protection
• Reconnaissance scan protection
• Denial of Service (DoS)/Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS)
protection
• Decryption: SSL (inbound and outbound), SSH
USER INTEGRATION (USER-ID)
• Active Directory, LDAP, eDirectory, Citrix and Microsoft Terminal
Services, Xenworks, XML API
IPSEC VPN (SITE-TO-SITE)
• Key Exchange: Manual key, IKE v1
• Encryption: 3DES, AES (128-bit, 192-bit, 256-bit)
• Authentication: MD5, SHA1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512
GLOBALPROTECT (REMOTE ACCESS)
• GlobalProtect Gateway
• GlobalProtect Portal
• Transport: IPSec with SSL fall-back
• Authentication: LDAP, RADIUS, SecurID, Kerberos, local user
database
• Client OS: Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7 (32/64 bit), Windows XP,
Windows Vista (32/64 bit), Windows 7 (32/64 bit)
• Third Party Client Support: Apple iOS
FILE AND DATA FILTERING
• Control unauthorized data transfer (data patterns and file types)
• Drive-by download protection
• Predefined signatures for SSN and Credit Card numbers
• Unique file types identified: 59
MANAGEMENT, REPORTING, VISIBILITY TOOLS
• Integrated web interface, CLI or central management (Panorama)
• Syslog, SNMP v2/v3
• XML-based REST API
• Graphical summary of applications, URL categories, threats and data
(ACC)
• View, filter, export traffic, threat, URL, and data filtering logs
• Fully customizable reporting
THREAT PREVENTION (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED)
• Application, operating system vulnerability exploit protection
• Stream-based protection against viruses (including those embedded
in HTML, Javascript, PDF and compressed), spyware, worms
WILDFIRE
• Identify and analyze targeted and unknown malware
• Automated analysis of unknown files for malicious behaviors
• Forensic analysis and protection for newly discovered malware
QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS)
• Policy-based traffic shaping by application, user, source, destination,
interface, IPSec VPN tunnel and more
• 8 traffic classes with guaranteed, maximum and priority bandwidth
parameters
• Real-time bandwidth monitor
• Per policy diffserv marking
• Physical interfaces supported for QoS: 4
URL FILTERING (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED)
• 76-category, 20M URL on-box database
• Dynamic URL filtering (1M URL cache on device)
• Custom block pages and URL categories
SECURITY
PALO ALTO NETWORKS: PA-200 Specsheet
3300 Olcott Street
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Main: +1.408.573.4000
Sales: +1.866.320.4788
Support: +1.866.898.9087
www.paloaltonetworks.com
Copyright ©2012, Palo Alto Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Palo Alto Networks,
the Palo Alto Networks Logo, PAN-OS, App-ID and Panorama are trademarks of
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. All specifications are subject to change without notice.
Palo Alto Networks assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this document
or for any obligation to update information in this document. Palo Alto Networks
reserves the right to change, modify, transfer, or otherwise revise this publication
without notice. PAN_SS_PA200_010312
ORDERING INFORMATION PA-200
Platform PAN-PA-200
For a complete description of the PA-200 Series next-generation firewall feature set, please visit www.paloaltonetworks.com/literature. | https://media.paloaltonetworks.com/documents/PA200_Specsheet.pdf |
0 | PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide
Version 10.2
docs.paloaltonetworks.com | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
1 | Contact Information
Corporate Headquarters:
Palo Alto Networks
3000 Tannery Way
Santa Clara, CA 95054
www.paloaltonetworks.com/company/contact-support
About the Documentation
• For the most recent version of this guide or for access to related documentation, visit the Technical
Documentation portal docs.paloaltonetworks.com.
• To search for a specific topic, go to our search page docs.paloaltonetworks.com/search.html.
• Have feedback or questions for us? Leave a comment on any page in the portal, or write to us at
documentation@paloaltonetworks.com.
Copyright
Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
www.paloaltonetworks.com
© 2021-2023 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Palo Alto Networks is a registered trademark of Palo
Alto Networks. A list of our trademarks can be found at www.paloaltonetworks.com/company/
trademarks.html. All other marks mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
Last Revised
August 16, 2023
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 2 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
2 | Table of Contents
Getting Started................................................................................................. 17
Integrate the Firewall into Your Management Network................................................. 18
Determine Your Access Strategy for Business Continuity.................................. 18
Determine Your Management Strategy...................................................................19
Perform Initial Configuration...................................................................................... 20
Perform Initial Configuration for an Air Gapped Firewall....................................27
Set Up Network Access for External Services....................................................... 31
Register the Firewall.................................................................................................................39
Create a New Support Account and Register a Firewall......................................39
Register a Firewall......................................................................................................... 41
(Optional) Perform Day 1 Configuration..................................................................44
Register the Firewall Line Cards................................................................................47
Segment Your Network Using Interfaces and Zones.......................................................48
Network Segmentation for a Reduced Attack Surface.........................................48
Configure Interfaces and Zones.................................................................................49
Set Up a Basic Security Policy...............................................................................................53
Assess Network Traffic............................................................................................................58
Enable Free WildFire Forwarding......................................................................................... 60
Best Practices for Completing the Firewall Deployment................................................ 63
Subscriptions..................................................................................................... 65
Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall...................................................................66
Activate Subscription Licenses.............................................................................................. 70
What Happens When Licenses Expire?...............................................................................72
Enhanced Application Logs for Palo Alto Networks Cloud Services............................ 75
Cortex XDR..................................................................................................................... 75
IoT Security..................................................................................................................... 77
Firewall Administration.................................................................................. 81
Management Interfaces...........................................................................................................82
Use the Web Interface............................................................................................................ 83
Launch the Web Interface...........................................................................................83
Configure Banners, Message of the Day, and Logos............................................84
Use the Administrator Login Activity Indicators to Detect Account
Misuse...............................................................................................................................86
Manage and Monitor Administrative Tasks............................................................ 88
Commit, Validate, and Preview Firewall Configuration Changes.......................89
Commit Selective Configuration Changes...............................................................91
Export Configuration Table Data...............................................................................92
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 3 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
3 | Table of Contents
Use Global Find to Search the Firewall or Panorama Management
Server................................................................................................................................93
Manage Locks for Restricting Configuration Changes......................................... 95
Manage Configuration Backups.............................................................................................97
Save and Export Firewall Configurations.................................................................97
Revert Firewall Configuration Changes....................................................................99
Manage Firewall Administrators......................................................................................... 101
Administrative Role Types........................................................................................ 101
Configure an Admin Role Profile.............................................................................102
Administrative Authentication................................................................................. 110
Configure Administrative Accounts and Authentication................................... 111
Configure Tracking of Administrator Activity...................................................... 118
Reference: Web Interface Administrator Access............................................................120
Web Interface Access Privileges............................................................................. 120
Panorama Web Interface Access Privileges......................................................... 193
Reference: Port Number Usage.......................................................................................... 199
Ports Used for Management Functions.................................................................199
Ports Used for HA...................................................................................................... 200
Ports Used for Panorama..........................................................................................201
Ports Used for GlobalProtect...................................................................................203
Ports Used for User-ID..............................................................................................203
Ports Used for IPSec.................................................................................................. 205
Ports Used for Routing..............................................................................................206
Ports Used for DHCP.................................................................................................206
Ports Used for Infrastructure...................................................................................206
Reset the Firewall to Factory Default Settings............................................................... 208
Bootstrap the Firewall...........................................................................................................209
USB Flash Drive Support.......................................................................................... 209
Sample init-cfg.txt Files............................................................................................. 210
Prepare a USB Flash Drive for Bootstrapping a Firewall...................................212
Bootstrap a Firewall Using a USB Flash Drive.....................................................214
Device Telemetry.......................................................................................... 217
Device Telemetry Overview................................................................................................ 218
Device Telemetry Collection and Transmission Intervals............................................. 220
Manage Device Telemetry................................................................................................... 221
Enable Device Telemetry.......................................................................................... 221
Disable Device Telemetry......................................................................................... 221
Enable Service Routes for Telemetry.....................................................................222
Manage the Data the Device Telemetry Collects............................................... 222
Manage Historical Device Telemetry.....................................................................224
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 4 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
4 | Table of Contents
Monitor Device Telemetry................................................................................................... 226
Sample the Data that Device Telemetry Collects...........................................................227
Authentication................................................................................................229
Authentication Types.............................................................................................................230
External Authentication Services............................................................................ 230
Multi-Factor Authentication..................................................................................... 230
SAML.............................................................................................................................. 232
Kerberos.........................................................................................................................232
TACACS+.......................................................................................................................233
RADIUS.......................................................................................................................... 234
LDAP...............................................................................................................................236
Local Authentication...................................................................................................236
Plan Your Authentication Deployment............................................................................. 237
Configure Multi-Factor Authentication.............................................................................239
Configure MFA Between RSA SecurID and the Firewall...................................243
Configure MFA Between Okta and the Firewall.................................................251
Configure MFA Between Duo and the Firewall.................................................. 261
Pre-Logon for SAML Authentication................................................................................. 270
Configure SAML Authentication.........................................................................................271
Configure Kerberos Single Sign-On................................................................................... 276
Configure Kerberos Server Authentication......................................................................279
Configure TACACS+ Authentication..................................................................................280
Configure RADIUS Authentication.....................................................................................283
Configure LDAP Authentication......................................................................................... 287
Connection Timeouts for Authentication Servers.......................................................... 289
Guidelines for Setting Authentication Server Timeouts.................................... 289
Modify the PAN-OS Web Server Timeout........................................................... 290
Modify the Authentication Portal Session Timeout............................................290
Configure Local Database Authentication........................................................................292
Configure an Authentication Profile and Sequence.......................................................294
Test Authentication Server Connectivity..........................................................................298
Authentication Policy.............................................................................................................300
Authentication Timestamps...................................................................................... 300
Configure Authentication Policy..............................................................................301
Troubleshoot Authentication Issues...................................................................................305
Certificate Management..............................................................................307
Keys and Certificates.............................................................................................................308
Default Trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs)..................................................................311
Certificate Revocation........................................................................................................... 312
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 5 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
5 | Table of Contents
Certificate Revocation List (CRL).............................................................................312
Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP)............................................................313
Certificate Deployment......................................................................................................... 314
Set Up Verification for Certificate Revocation Status...................................................315
Configure an OCSP Responder............................................................................... 315
Configure Revocation Status Verification of Certificates..................................316
Configure Revocation Status Verification of Certificates Used for SSL/TLS
Decryption.....................................................................................................................316
Configure the Master Key....................................................................................................321
Master Key Encryption..........................................................................................................324
Configure Master Key Encryption Level............................................................... 325
Master Key Encryption on a Firewall HA Pair..................................................... 326
Master Key Encryption Logs.................................................................................... 326
Unique Master Key Encryptions for AES-256-GCM..........................................327
Obtain Certificates..................................................................................................................328
Create a Self-Signed Root CA Certificate............................................................. 328
Generate a Certificate................................................................................................329
Import a Certificate and Private Key......................................................................330
Obtain a Certificate from an External CA.............................................................332
Install a Device Certificate........................................................................................333
Restore an Expired Device Certificate...................................................................336
Deploy Certificates Using SCEP..............................................................................336
Export a Certificate and Private Key.................................................................................340
Block Private Key Export......................................................................................................341
Generate a Private Key and Block It......................................................................342
Import a Private Key and Block It...........................................................................343
Import a Private Key for IKE Gateway and Block It........................................... 344
Verify Private Key Blocking......................................................................................346
Configure a Certificate Profile.............................................................................................348
Configure an SSL/TLS Service Profile............................................................................... 351
Configure an SSH Service Profile....................................................................................... 353
Create an SSH Management Profile.......................................................................353
Create an SSH HA Profile.........................................................................................362
Replace the Certificate for Inbound Management Traffic............................................372
Configure the Key Size for SSL Forward Proxy Server Certificates........................... 373
Revoke and Renew Certificates..........................................................................................375
Revoke a Certificate................................................................................................... 375
Renew a Certificate.................................................................................................... 375
Secure Keys with a Hardware Security Module............................................................. 376
Set Up Connectivity with an HSM......................................................................... 376
Encrypt a Master Key Using an HSM.................................................................... 382
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 6 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
6 | Table of Contents
Store Private Keys on an HSM................................................................................383
Manage the HSM Deployment................................................................................384
High Availability.............................................................................................387
HA Overview........................................................................................................................... 388
HA Concepts............................................................................................................................389
HA Modes..................................................................................................................... 389
HA Links and Backup Links...................................................................................... 390
Device Priority and Preemption.............................................................................. 398
Failover...........................................................................................................................399
LACP and LLDP Pre-Negotiation for Active/Passive HA..................................400
Floating IP Address and Virtual MAC Address.................................................... 401
ARP Load-Sharing........................................................................................................402
Route-Based Redundancy.........................................................................................404
HA Timers..................................................................................................................... 405
Session Owner............................................................................................................. 408
Session Setup............................................................................................................... 408
NAT in Active/Active HA Mode............................................................................. 410
ECMP in Active/Active HA Mode.......................................................................... 411
Set Up Active/Passive HA....................................................................................................412
Prerequisites for Active/Passive HA...................................................................... 412
Configuration Guidelines for Active/Passive HA................................................ 413
Configure Active/Passive HA...................................................................................416
Define HA Failover Conditions................................................................................421
Verify Failover..............................................................................................................424
Set Up Active/Active HA......................................................................................................425
Prerequisites for Active/Active HA........................................................................ 425
Configure Active/Active HA.....................................................................................426
Determine Your Active/Active Use Case..............................................................432
HA Clustering Overview....................................................................................................... 448
HA Clustering Best Practices and Provisioning...............................................................451
Configure HA Clustering.......................................................................................................453
Refresh HA1 SSH Keys and Configure Key Options..................................................... 456
HA Firewall States..................................................................................................................465
Reference: HA Synchronization.......................................................................................... 467
Monitoring.......................................................................................................479
Use the Dashboard.................................................................................................................480
Use the Application Command Center..............................................................................482
ACC—First Look...........................................................................................................482
ACC Tabs.......................................................................................................................484
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ACC Widgets................................................................................................................486
Widget Descriptions...................................................................................................488
ACC Filters....................................................................................................................494
Interact with the ACC................................................................................................495
Use Case: ACC—Path of Information Discovery................................................. 499
Use the App Scope Reports.................................................................................................506
Summary Report..........................................................................................................506
Change Monitor Report.............................................................................................507
Threat Monitor Report...............................................................................................508
Threat Map Report..................................................................................................... 509
Network Monitor Report.......................................................................................... 510
Traffic Map Report..................................................................................................... 511
Use the Automated Correlation Engine............................................................................513
Automated Correlation Engine Concepts..............................................................513
View the Correlated Objects....................................................................................514
Interpret Correlated Events......................................................................................515
Use the Compromised Hosts Widget in the ACC...............................................517
Take Packet Captures............................................................................................................518
Types of Packet Captures.........................................................................................518
Disable Hardware Offload........................................................................................ 519
Take a Custom Packet Capture...............................................................................520
Take a Threat Packet Capture................................................................................. 524
Take an Application Packet Capture...................................................................... 526
Take a Packet Capture on the Management Interface...................................... 529
Monitor Applications and Threats......................................................................................532
View and Manage Logs.........................................................................................................533
Log Types and Severity Levels................................................................................ 533
View Logs......................................................................................................................541
Filter Logs......................................................................................................................542
Export Logs...................................................................................................................543
Use Case: Export Traffic Logs for a Date Range.................................................544
Configure Log Storage Quotas and Expiration Periods..................................... 544
Schedule Log Exports to an SCP or FTP Server.................................................. 545
Monitor Block List.................................................................................................................. 547
View and Manage Reports...................................................................................................548
Report Types................................................................................................................ 548
View Reports................................................................................................................549
Configure the Expiration Period and Run Time for Reports............................. 550
Disable Predefined Reports......................................................................................550
Custom Reports........................................................................................................... 550
Generate Custom Reports........................................................................................ 553
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Generate Botnet Reports..........................................................................................556
Generate the SaaS Application Usage Report......................................................558
Manage PDF Summary Reports.............................................................................. 561
Generate User/Group Activity Reports.................................................................563
Manage Report Groups............................................................................................. 565
Schedule Reports for Email Delivery......................................................................565
Manage Report Storage Capacity........................................................................... 566
View Policy Rule Usage........................................................................................................ 568
Use External Services for Monitoring................................................................................572
Configure Log Forwarding....................................................................................................573
Configure Email Alerts...........................................................................................................578
Use Syslog for Monitoring....................................................................................................580
Configure Syslog Monitoring....................................................................................580
Syslog Field Descriptions.......................................................................................... 584
SNMP Monitoring and Traps...............................................................................................682
SNMP Support............................................................................................................. 682
Use an SNMP Manager to Explore MIBs and Objects.......................................683
Enable SNMP Services for Firewall-Secured Network Elements.....................686
Monitor Statistics Using SNMP...............................................................................686
Forward Traps to an SNMP Manager....................................................................688
Supported MIBs...........................................................................................................690
Forward Logs to an HTTP/S Destination......................................................................... 699
NetFlow Monitoring...............................................................................................................703
Configure NetFlow Exports......................................................................................703
NetFlow Templates.....................................................................................................705
Firewall Interface Identifiers in SNMP Managers and NetFlow Collectors...............711
Monitor Transceivers.............................................................................................................714
User-ID............................................................................................................. 715
User-ID Overview...................................................................................................................716
User-ID Concepts................................................................................................................... 718
Group Mapping............................................................................................................718
User Mapping...............................................................................................................718
Enable User-ID........................................................................................................................ 723
Map Users to Groups............................................................................................................ 727
Map IP Addresses to Users..................................................................................................734
Create a Dedicated Service Account for the User-ID Agent............................735
Configure User Mapping Using the Windows User-ID Agent..........................754
Configure User Mapping Using the PAN-OS Integrated User-ID Agent........768
Configure Server Monitoring Using WinRM........................................................ 772
Configure User-ID to Monitor Syslog Senders for User Mapping...................780
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Map IP Addresses to Usernames Using Authentication Portal........................ 790
Configure User Mapping for Terminal Server Users.......................................... 796
Send User Mappings to User-ID Using the XML API.........................................806
Enable User- and Group-Based Policy.............................................................................. 807
Enable Policy for Users with Multiple Accounts.............................................................808
Verify the User-ID Configuration....................................................................................... 810
Deploy User-ID in a Large-Scale Network.......................................................................813
Deploy User-ID for Numerous Mapping Information Sources.........................813
Insert Username in HTTP Headers.........................................................................817
Redistribute Data and Authentication Timestamps............................................819
Share User-ID Mappings Across Virtual Systems................................................826
App-ID.............................................................................................................. 829
App-ID Overview....................................................................................................................830
Streamlined App-ID Policy Rules........................................................................................831
Create an Application Filter Using Tags................................................................ 831
Create an Application Filter Based on Custom Tags.......................................... 832
App-ID and HTTP/2 Inspection..........................................................................................834
Manage Custom or Unknown Applications......................................................................836
Manage New and Modified App-IDs.................................................................................837
Workflow to Best Incorporate New and Modified App-IDs.............................837
See the New and Modified App-IDs in a Content Release...............................838
See How New and Modified App-IDs Impact Your Security Policy................840
Ensure Critical New App-IDs are Allowed............................................................840
Monitor New App-IDs............................................................................................... 841
Disable and Enable App-IDs.....................................................................................843
Enable and Monitor App-ID TSIDs.........................................................................843
Use Application Objects in Policy...................................................................................... 853
Create an Application Group....................................................................................853
Create an Application Filter......................................................................................854
Create a Custom Application................................................................................... 855
Resolve Application Dependencies.........................................................................859
Safely Enable Applications on Default Ports................................................................... 861
Applications with Implicit Support..................................................................................... 863
Security Policy Rule Optimization...................................................................................... 867
Policy Optimizer Concepts........................................................................................868
Migrate Port-Based to App-ID Based Security Policy Rules.............................875
Rule Cloning Migration Use Case: Web Browsing and SSL Traffic................. 882
Add Applications to an Existing Rule..................................................................... 886
Identify Security Policy Rules with Unused Applications.................................. 888
High Availability for Application Usage Statistics............................................... 891
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How to Disable Policy Optimizer............................................................................891
App-ID Cloud Engine.............................................................................................................893
Prepare to Deploy App-ID Cloud Engine..............................................................895
Enable or Disable the App-ID Cloud Engine........................................................ 899
App-ID Cloud Engine Processing and Policy Usage........................................... 900
New App Viewer (Policy Optimizer).......................................................................904
Add Apps to an Application Filter with Policy Optimizer..................................904
Add Apps to an Application Group with Policy Optimizer................................907
Add Apps Directly to a Rule with Policy Optimizer............................................910
Replace an RMA Firewall (ACE)...............................................................................913
Impact of License Expiration or Disabling ACE................................................... 914
Commit Failure Due to Cloud Content Rollback.................................................914
Troubleshoot App-ID Cloud Engine....................................................................... 915
SaaS App-ID Policy Recommendation...............................................................................918
Import SaaS Policy Recommendation.................................................................... 919
Import Updated SaaS Policy Recommendation................................................... 921
Remove Deleted SaaS Policy Recommendation..................................................922
Application Level Gateways.................................................................................................924
Disable the SIP Application-level Gateway (ALG)...........................................................926
Use HTTP Headers to Manage SaaS Application Access............................................. 928
Understand SaaS Custom Headers.........................................................................928
Domains used by the Predefined SaaS Application Types................................931
Create HTTP Header Insertion Entries using Predefined Types......................932
Create Custom HTTP Header Insertion Entries.................................................. 933
Maintain Custom Timeouts for Data Center Applications............................................935
Device-ID.........................................................................................................937
Device-ID Overview...............................................................................................................938
Prepare to Deploy Device-ID.............................................................................................. 941
Configure Device-ID.............................................................................................................. 947
Manage Device-ID..................................................................................................................950
CLI Commands for Device-ID..............................................................................................952
Quality of Service..........................................................................................955
QoS Overview......................................................................................................................... 956
QoS Concepts..........................................................................................................................958
QoS for Applications and Users.............................................................................. 958
QoS Policy.....................................................................................................................958
QoS Profile....................................................................................................................959
QoS Classes.................................................................................................................. 959
QoS Priority Queuing.................................................................................................960
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QoS Bandwidth Management..................................................................................960
QoS Egress Interface..................................................................................................961
QoS for Clear Text and Tunneled Traffic..............................................................962
Configure QoS.........................................................................................................................963
Configure Lockless QoS........................................................................................................971
Configure QoS for a Virtual System.................................................................................. 973
Enforce QoS Based on DSCP Classification.................................................................... 980
QoS Use Cases........................................................................................................................983
Use Case: QoS for a Single User.............................................................................983
Use Case: QoS for Voice and Video Applications...............................................985
VPNs................................................................................................................. 989
VPN Deployments.................................................................................................................. 990
Site-to-Site VPN Overview.................................................................................................. 991
Site-to-Site VPN Concepts...................................................................................................992
IKE Gateway.................................................................................................................992
Tunnel Interface...........................................................................................................992
Tunnel Monitoring.......................................................................................................993
Internet Key Exchange (IKE) for VPN.................................................................... 993
IKEv2...............................................................................................................................997
Set Up Site-to-Site VPN.....................................................................................................1001
Set Up an IKE Gateway.......................................................................................... 1001
Define Cryptographic Profiles............................................................................... 1008
Set Up an IPSec Tunnel.......................................................................................... 1012
Set Up Tunnel Monitoring......................................................................................1015
Enable/Disable, Refresh or Restart an IKE Gateway or IPSec Tunnel..........1016
Test VPN Connectivity............................................................................................1018
Interpret VPN Error Messages.............................................................................. 1019
Site-to-Site VPN Quick Configs........................................................................................1021
Site-to-Site VPN with Static Routing...................................................................1021
Site-to-Site VPN with OSPF.................................................................................. 1025
Site-to-Site VPN with Static and Dynamic Routing......................................... 1031
Large Scale VPN (LSVPN)......................................................................... 1039
LSVPN Overview..................................................................................................................1040
Create Interfaces and Zones for the LSVPN.................................................................1041
Enable SSL Between GlobalProtect LSVPN Components..........................................1043
About Certificate Deployment.............................................................................. 1043
Deploy Server Certificates to the GlobalProtect LSVPN Components........1043
Deploy Client Certificates to the GlobalProtect Satellites Using SCEP....... 1046
Configure the Portal to Authenticate Satellites............................................................1049
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12 | Table of Contents
Username/Password and Satellite Cookie Authentication (Default
Authentication Method)..........................................................................................1050
Serial Number and IP Address Authentication Method.................................. 1051
Configure GlobalProtect Gateways for LSVPN............................................................ 1059
Configure the GlobalProtect Portal for LSVPN............................................................ 1063
GlobalProtect Portal for LSVPN Prerequisite Tasks.........................................1063
Configure the Portal.................................................................................................1063
Define the Satellite Configurations......................................................................1064
Prepare the Satellite to Join the LSVPN........................................................................ 1068
Verify the LSVPN Configuration...................................................................................... 1071
LSVPN Quick Configs..........................................................................................................1072
Basic LSVPN Configuration with Static Routing............................................... 1072
Advanced LSVPN Configuration with Dynamic Routing.................................1074
Advanced LSVPN Configuration with iBGP....................................................... 1077
Policy.............................................................................................................. 1083
Policy Types...........................................................................................................................1085
Security Policy.......................................................................................................................1087
Components of a Security Policy Rule................................................................ 1087
Security Policy Actions............................................................................................1094
Create a Security Policy Rule................................................................................ 1095
Policy Objects........................................................................................................................1098
Security Profiles....................................................................................................................1100
Create a Security Profile Group............................................................................1107
Set Up or Override a Default Security Profile Group...................................... 1108
Data Filtering............................................................................................................. 1110
Set Up File Blocking.................................................................................................1117
Track Rules Within a Rulebase......................................................................................... 1120
Rule Numbers............................................................................................................ 1120
Rule UUIDs.................................................................................................................1122
Enforce Policy Rule Description, Tag, and Audit Comment.......................................1127
Move or Clone a Policy Rule or Object to a Different Virtual System.................... 1130
Use an Address Object to Represent IP Addresses.....................................................1132
Address Objects........................................................................................................ 1132
Create an Address Object...................................................................................... 1133
Use Tags to Group and Visually Distinguish Objects..................................................1135
Create and Apply Tags............................................................................................1135
Modify Tags................................................................................................................1136
View Rules by Tag Group.......................................................................................1137
Tag Browser............................................................................................................... 1139
Use an External Dynamic List in Policy.......................................................................... 1145
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13 | Table of Contents
External Dynamic List..............................................................................................1145
Formatting Guidelines for an External Dynamic List........................................1149
Built-in External Dynamic Lists............................................................................. 1151
Configure the Firewall to Access an External Dynamic List...........................1152
Configure the Firewall to Access an External Dynamic List from the EDL
Hosting Service..........................................................................................................1155
Retrieve an External Dynamic List from the Web Server............................... 1161
View External Dynamic List Entries..................................................................... 1161
Exclude Entries from an External Dynamic List................................................ 1162
Enforce Policy on an External Dynamic List...................................................... 1163
Find External Dynamic Lists That Failed Authentication................................ 1166
Disable Authentication for an External Dynamic List...................................... 1167
Register IP Addresses and Tags Dynamically................................................................1169
Use Dynamic User Groups in Policy............................................................................... 1171
Use Auto-Tagging to Automate Security Actions........................................................ 1174
Monitor Changes in the Virtual Environment............................................................... 1177
Enable VM Monitoring to Track Changes on the Virtual Network...............1177
Attributes Monitored on Virtual Machines in Cloud Platforms..................... 1179
Use Dynamic Address Groups in Policy..............................................................1184
CLI Commands for Dynamic IP Addresses and Tags...................................................1188
Enforce Policy on Endpoints and Users Behind an Upstream Device..................... 1191
Use XFF Values for Policy Based on Source Users..........................................1191
Use XFF IP Address Values in Security Policy and Logging............................1192
Use the IP Address in the XFF Header to Troubleshoot Events................... 1195
Policy-Based Forwarding....................................................................................................1197
PBF............................................................................................................................... 1197
Create a Policy-Based Forwarding Rule..............................................................1199
Use Case: PBF for Outbound Access with Dual ISPs...................................... 1202
Application Override Policy............................................................................................... 1212
Test Policy Rules.................................................................................................................. 1213
Virtual Systems............................................................................................1215
Virtual Systems Overview..................................................................................................1216
Virtual System Components and Segmentation................................................1216
Benefits of Virtual Systems....................................................................................1217
Use Cases for Virtual Systems.............................................................................. 1217
Platform Support and Licensing for Virtual Systems........................................1218
Administrative Roles for Virtual Systems............................................................1218
Shared Objects for Virtual Systems..................................................................... 1219
Communication Between Virtual Systems.....................................................................1220
Inter-VSYS Traffic That Must Leave the Firewall............................................. 1220
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Inter-VSYS Traffic That Remains Within the Firewall......................................1221
Inter-VSYS Communication Uses Two Sessions............................................... 1223
Shared Gateway....................................................................................................................1224
External Zones and Shared Gateway...................................................................1224
Networking Considerations for a Shared Gateway..........................................1225
Configure Virtual Systems..................................................................................................1226
Configure Inter-Virtual System Communication within the Firewall....................... 1232
Configure a Shared Gateway............................................................................................ 1233
Customize Service Routes for a Virtual System........................................................... 1234
Customize Service Routes to Services for Virtual Systems............................ 1234
Configure a PA-7000 Series Firewall for Logging Per Virtual System..........1236
Configure Administrative Access Per Virtual System or Firewall..................1238
Virtual System Functionality with Other Features.......................................................1240
Zone Protection and DoS Protection.................................................... 1241
Network Segmentation Using Zones...............................................................................1242
How Do Zones Protect the Network?............................................................................1243
Zone Defense........................................................................................................................1244
Zone Defense Tools.................................................................................................1244
How Do the Zone Defense Tools Work?...........................................................1246
Firewall Placement for DoS Protection...............................................................1247
Baseline CPS Measurements for Setting Flood Thresholds............................1247
Zone Protection Profiles......................................................................................... 1255
Packet Buffer Protection........................................................................................ 1259
DoS Protection Profiles and Policy Rules...........................................................1262
Configure Zone Protection to Increase Network Security.........................................1268
Configure Reconnaissance Protection.................................................................1268
Configure Packet Based Attack Protection........................................................1269
Configure Protocol Protection...............................................................................1270
Configure Packet Buffer Protection.....................................................................1274
Configure Packet Buffer Protection Based on Latency...................................1275
Configure Ethernet SGT Protection.....................................................................1276
DoS Protection Against Flooding of New Sessions.....................................................1278
Multiple-Session DoS Attack................................................................................. 1278
Single-Session DoS Attack......................................................................................1282
Configure DoS Protection Against Flooding of New Sessions.......................1282
End a Single Session DoS Attack..........................................................................1285
Identify Sessions That Use Too Much of the On-Chip Packet Descriptor.. 1286
Discard a Session Without a Commit..................................................................1289
Certifications................................................................................................ 1291
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15 | Table of Contents
Enable FIPS and Common Criteria Support...................................................................1292
Access the Maintenance Recovery Tool (MRT).................................................1292
Change the Operational Mode to FIPS-CC Mode............................................1294
FIPS-CC Security Functions...............................................................................................1297
Scrub the Swap Memory on Firewalls or Appliances Running in FIPS-CC Mode. 1300
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16 | Getting Started
The following topics provide detailed steps to help you deploy a new Palo Alto Networks nextgeneration firewall. They provide details for integrating a new firewall into your network and
how to set up a basic security policy. For guidance on continuing to deploy the security platform
features to address your network security needs, review the Best Practices for Completing the
Firewall Deployment.
• Integrate the Firewall into Your Management Network
• Register the Firewall
• Segment Your Network Using Interfaces and Zones
• Set Up a Basic Security Policy
• Assess Network Traffic
• Enable Free WildFire Forwarding
• Best Practices for Completing the Firewall Deployment
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17 | Getting Started
Integrate the Firewall into Your Management Network
All Palo Alto Networks firewalls provide an out-of-band management port (MGT) that you can
use to perform the firewall administration functions. By using the MGT port, you separate the
management functions of the firewall from the data processing functions, safeguarding access
to the firewall and enhancing performance. When using the web interface, you must perform
all initial configuration tasks from the MGT port even if you plan to use an in-band data port for
managing your firewall going forward.
Some management tasks, such as retrieving licenses and updating the threat and application
signatures on the firewall require access to the Internet. If you do not want to enable external
access to your MGT port, you will need to either set up an in-band data port to provide access to
required external services (using service routes) or plan to manually upload updates regularly.
Do not enable access to your management interface from the internet or from other
untrusted zones inside your enterprise security boundary. This applies whether you
use the dedicated management port (MGT) or you configured a data port as your
management interface. When integrating your firewall into your management network,
follow the Adminstrative Access Best Practices to ensure that you are securing
administrative access to your firewalls and other security devices in a way that prevents
successful attacks.
The following topics describe how to perform the initial configuration steps that are necessary
to integrate a new firewall into the management network and deploy it in a basic security
configuration.
• Determine Your Access Strategy for Business Continuity
• Determine Your Management Strategy
• Perform Initial Configuration
• Perform Initial Configuration for an Air Gapped Firewall
• Set Up Network Access for External Services
The following topics describe how to integrate a single Palo Alto Networks nextgeneration firewall into your network. However, for redundancy, consider deploying a pair
of firewalls in a High Availability configuration.
Determine Your Access Strategy for Business Continuity
Your business continuity plan should include provisions for how to connect to critical devices,
including firewalls and Panorama, during power outages and other events that prevent connecting
to those devices over normal communication channels. The ability to connect to and manage
devices on an out-of-band (OOB) network enables you to continue running your business
when primary networks and power sources are down. Business continuity should be a core
consideration of your network architecture.
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18 | Getting Started
An OOB network is a secure method of remotely accessing and managing devices and
does not use the primary communication channels. Instead, OOB networks use separate
communication channels that are always available if the primary channel fails and have
a different source of power than the primary network. Depending on your network
architecture, you may use both the primary network and the OOB network to access and
manage devices in day-to-day operation.
The OOB network should never rely on a power source or network that could fail concurrently
with the primary access network. How you architect OOB access to devices depends on your
network architecture and your business considerations, so there is no “one size fits all” method of
ensuring connectivity. However, there are guidelines that help you understand how to meet the
goals of an OOB access network:
• Power considerations—Use a different power source (a separate circuit or a protected or
battery-powered source) for the OOB network than you use for the regular access network. If
you lose power to the regular network, you won’t lose power to the OOB network.
Use power distribution unit (PDU) controls to remotely power devices on and off.
• Secure connection method—There are a number of ways to connect securely to an OOB
network, for example, a terminal server device, a modem, or a serial console server. Examples
of secure networks you can use for OOB access include LTE, dial-up, and broadband
(completely separated from the normal broadband network) networks. The connection method
you use depends on your business needs and network architecture.
Regardless of the method you select, the connection must be secure, with strong encryption
and authentication. See Administrative Access Best Practices for advice about how to secure
management connections to the firewall and Panorama.
You can connect into an OOB network remotely using SSH with strong authentication over
an Ethernet LAN or you can dial in over a serial connection. The outbound connection will be
serial.
Determine Your Management Strategy
The Palo Alto Networks firewall can be configured and managed locally or it can be managed
centrally using Panorama, the Palo Alto Networks centralized security management system. If
you have six or more firewalls deployed in your network, use Panorama to achieve the following
benefits:
• Reduce the complexity and administrative overhead in managing configuration, policies,
software and dynamic content updates. Using device groups and templates on Panorama, you
can effectively manage firewall-specific configuration locally on a firewall and enforce shared
policies across all firewalls or device groups.
• Aggregate data from all managed firewalls and gain visibility across all the traffic on your
network. The Application Command Center (ACC) on Panorama provides a single glass pane
for unified reporting across all the firewalls, allowing you to centrally analyze, investigate and
report on network traffic, security incidents and administrative modifications.
The procedures that follow describe how to manage the firewall using the local web interface. If
you want to use Panorama for centralized management, first Perform Initial Configuration and
verify that the firewall can establish a connection to Panorama. From that point on you can use
Panorama to configure your firewall centrally.
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19 | Getting Started
Perform Initial Configuration
By default, the PA-Series firewall has an IP address of 192.168.1.1 and a username/password
of admin/admin. For security reasons, you must change these settings before continuing with
other firewall configuration tasks. You must perform these initial configuration tasks either from
the MGT interface, even if you do not plan to use this interface for your firewall management, or
using a direct serial connection to the console port on the firewall.
STEP 1 | Install your firewall and connect power to it.
If your firewall model has dual power supplies, connect the second power supply for
redundancy. Refer to the hardware reference guide for your model for details.
STEP 2 | Gather the required information from your network administrator.
• IP address for MGT port
• Netmask
• Default gateway
• DNS server address
STEP 3 | Connect your computer to the firewall.
You can connect to the firewall in one of the following ways:
• Connect a serial cable from your computer to the Console port and connect to the firewall
using terminal emulation software (9600-8-N-1). Wait a few minutes for the boot-up
sequence to complete; when the firewall is ready, the prompt changes to the name of the
firewall, for example PA-220 login.
• Connect an RJ-45 Ethernet cable from your computer to the MGT port on the firewall.
From a browser, go to https://192.168.1.1.
You may need to change the IP address on your computer to an address in the
192.168.1.0/24 network, such as 192.168.1.2, to access this URL.
STEP 4 | When prompted, log in to the firewall.
You must log in using the default username and password (admin/admin). The firewall will
begin to initialize.
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20 | Getting Started
STEP 5 | Set a secure username and password for the admin account.
Starting with PAN-OS 9.0.4, the predefined, default administrator password (admin)
must be changed on the first login on a device. The new password must be a minimum
of eight characters and include a minimum of one lowercase and one uppercase
character, as well as one number or special character. Although you don’t have to
configure a new username, it is a best practice to do so and to use unique usernames
and passwords for each administrator. Beginning with PAN-OS 10.2, the login must
include at least one alphabetical character or symbol (underscore, period, or hyphen,
although a hyphen cannot be the first character in the username) and cannot be
numbers only.
Be sure to use the best practices for password strength to ensure a strict password
and review the password complexity settings.
1. Select Device > Administrators.
2. Select the admin role.
3. Enter the current default password and the new password.
4. Click OK to save your settings.
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21 | Getting Started
STEP 6 | Configure the MGT interface.
1. Select Device > Setup > Interfaces and edit the Management interface.
2. Configure the address settings for the MGT interface using one of the following
methods:
• To configure static IP address settings for the MGT interface, set the IP Type to Static
and enter the IP Address, Netmask, and Default Gateway.
• To dynamically configure the MGT interface address settings, set the IP Type to
DHCP Client. To use this method, you must Configure the Management Interface as a
DHCP Client.
To prevent unauthorized access to the management interface, it is a an
administrative best practice to Add the Permitted IP Addresses from which an
administrator can access the MGT interface.
3. Set the Speed to auto-negotiate.
4. Select which management services to allow on the interface.
Make sure Telnet and HTTP are not selected because these services use
plaintext and are not as secure as the other services and could compromise
administrator credentials.
5. Click OK.
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22 | Getting Started
STEP 7 | Configure DNS, update server, and proxy server settings.
You must manually configure at least one DNS server on the firewall or it will not be
able to resolve hostnames; it will not use DNS server settings from another source,
such as an ISP.
1. Select Device > Setup > Services.
• For multi-virtual system platforms, select Global and edit the Services section.
• For single virtual system platforms, edit the Services section.
2. On the Services tab, for DNS, select one of the following:
• Servers—Enter the Primary DNS Server address and Secondary DNS Server address.
• DNS Proxy Object—From the drop-down, select the DNS Proxy that you want to use
to configure global DNS services, or click DNS Proxy to configure a new DNS proxy
object.
3. Click OK.
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23 | Getting Started
STEP 8 | Configure date and time (NTP) settings.
1. Select Device > Setup > Services.
• For multi-virtual system platforms, select Global and edit the Services section.
• For single virtual system platforms, edit the Services section.
2. On the NTP tab, to use the virtual cluster of time servers on the Internet, enter the
hostname pool.ntp.org as the Primary NTP Server or enter the IP address of your
primary NTP server.
3. (Optional) Enter a Secondary NTP Server address.
4. (Optional) To authenticate time updates from the NTP server(s), for Authentication
Type, select one of the following for each server:
• None—(Default) Disables NTP authentication.
• Symmetric Key—Firewall uses symmetric key exchange (shared secrets) to
authenticate time updates.
• Key ID—Enter the Key ID (1-65534).
• Algorithm—Select the algorithm to use in NTP authentication (MD5 or SHA1).
• Autokey—Firewall uses autokey (public key cryptography) to authenticate time
updates.
5. Click OK.
STEP 9 | (Optional) Configure general firewall settings as needed.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the General Settings.
2. Enter a Hostname for the firewall and enter your network Domain name. The domain
name is just a label; it will not be used to join the domain.
3. Enter Login Banner text that informs users who are about to log in that they require
authorization to access the firewall management functions.
As a best practice, avoid using welcoming verbiage. Additionally, you should ask
your legal department to review the banner message to ensure it adequately
warns that unauthorized access is prohibited.
4. Enter the Latitude and Longitude to enable accurate placement of the firewall on the
world map.
5. Click OK.
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24 | Getting Started
STEP 10 | Commit your changes.
When the configuration changes are saved, you lose connectivity to the web interface
because the IP address has changed.
Click Commit at the top right of the web interface. The firewall can take up to 90 seconds to
save your changes.
STEP 11 | Connect the firewall to your network.
1. Disconnect the firewall from your computer.
2. (All firewalls except for the PA-5450) Connect the MGT port to a switch port on your
management network using an RJ-45 Ethernet cable. Make sure that the switch port you
cable the firewall to is configured for auto-negotiation.
3. (PA-5450 only) Connect the MGT port to a switch port on your management network
using a Palo Alto Networks certified SFP/SFP+ transceiver and cable.
STEP 12 | Open an SSH management session to the firewall.
Using a terminal emulation software, such as PuTTY, launch an SSH session to the firewall
using the new IP address you assigned to it.
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25 | Getting Started
STEP 13 | Verify network access to external services required for firewall management, such as the
Palo Alto Networks Update Server.
You can do this in one of the following ways:
• If you do not want to allow external network access to the MGT interface, you will need to
set up a data port to retrieve required service updates. Continue to Set Up Network Access
for External Services.
• If you do plan to allow external network access to the MGT interface, verify that you have
connectivity and then proceed to Register the Firewall and Activate Subscription Licenses.
1. Use update server connectivity test to verify network connectivity to the Palo Alto
Networks Update server as shown in the following example:
1. Select Device > Troubleshooting, and select Update Server Connectivity from the
Select Test drop-down.
2. Execute the update server connectivity test.
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. If your firewall is not yet registered, the update server returns the following
message:
Contact Us
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/company/contact-us.html
Support Home
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/support/tabs/overview.html
Device not found on this update server
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26 | Getting Started
Perform Initial Configuration for an Air Gapped Firewall
Perform the initial configuration for an air gapped firewall. By default, the PA-Series firewall has
an IP address of 192.168.1.1 and a username/password of admin/admin. For security reasons,
you must change these settings before continuing with other firewall configuration tasks. Perform
these initial configuration tasks either from the MGT interface, even if you do not plan to use this
interface for your firewall management, or using a direct serial connection to the console port on
the firewall.
The air gapped firewall cannot connect to the Palo Alto Networks update server because an
outbound internet connection is required. To activate licenses, upgrade the PAN-OS software
version, and install dynamic content updates you must upload the relevant files to the air gapped
firewalls manually.
STEP 1 | Gather the required information from your network administrator.
• Private IP address for the management (MGT) port
• Netmask
• Default gateway
• DNS server address
• NTP server address
STEP 2 | Install and power on the firewall.
Review your firewall hardware reference guide for details and best practices.
STEP 3 | Connect to the firewall.
You must log in using the default admin username. You are immediately prompted to change
the default admin password before you can continue. The new password must be a minimum
of eight characters and include a minimum of one lowercase and one uppercase character, as
well as one number or special character.
You can connect to the firewall in one of the following ways:
• Connect a serial cable from your computer to the Console port and connect to the firewall
using terminal emulation software (9600-8-N-1). Wait a few minutes for the boot-up
sequence to complete; when the firewall is ready, the prompt changes to the name of the
firewall, for example PA-220 login.
• Log in to the firewall web interface by connecting an RJ-45 Ethernet cable from
your computer to the MGT interface on the firewall. From a browser, go to
https://192.168.1.1.
You may need to change the IP address on your computer to an address in the
192.168.1.0/24 network, such as 192.168.1.2, to access this URL.
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27 | Getting Started
STEP 4 | (Best Practices) Disable Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP).
ZTP can only be disabled from the firewall CLI. The firewall reboots after you disable ZTP.
Continue to the next steps after the firewall has rebooted and you can log back in.
• PA-5430, PA-5420, PA-5410, PA-5450, PA-3400 Series, PA-3400 Series PA-460, PA-450,
PA-440, and PA-410
admin> set system ztp disable
• All Other Firewalls
admin> request disable-ztp
STEP 5 | Configure the network settings for the air gapped firewall.
The following commands set the interface IP allocation to static, configures the IP address
for the MGT interface, the Domain Name Server (DNS), and Network Time Protocol (NTP)
server.
admin> configure
admin# set deviceconfig system type static
admin# set deviceconfig system ip-address <IP-Address> netmask
<Netmask-IP> default-gateway <Gateway-IP>
admin# set deviceconfig system dns-settings servers primary <IPAddress> secondary <IP-Address>
admin# set deviceconfig system ntp-servers primary-ntp-server ntpserver-address <IP-Address>
admin# set deviceconfig system ntp-servers secondary-ntp-server
ntp-server-address <IP-Address>
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28 | Getting Started
STEP 6 | Register the firewall with the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal (CSP).
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks CSP.
2. Click Register a Device.
3. Select Register device using Serial Number and click Next.
4. Enter the required Device Information.
• Enter the firewall Serial Number.
• Check (enable) Device will be used offline.
• Select the PAN-OS OS Release running on the firewall.
5. Enter the required Location Information.
• Enter the City the firewall is located in,
• Enter the Postal Code the firewall is located in,
• Enter the Country the firewall is located in.
6. Agree and Submit.
7. Skip this step when prompted to generate the optional Day 1 Configuration config
file.
STEP 7 | Download your firewall license keys.
The license key files are required to activate your firewall licenses when air gapped.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks CSP.
2. Select Product > Devices and locate the firewall you added.
3. Download all license keys files from the download links available License column.
You must download a license key file for each license you want to active on the firewall.
STEP 8 | Active the firewall licenses.
1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Select Device > Licenses and Manually upload license key.
Click Choose File to select the license key file you downloaded in the previous step and
click OK.
3. Repeat this step to uploaded and activate all licenses.
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29 | Getting Started
STEP 9 | (Optional) Configure general firewall settings as needed.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the General Settings.
2. Enter a Hostname for the firewall and enter your network Domain name. The domain
name is just a label; it will not be used to join the domain.
3. Enter Login Banner text that informs users who are about to log in that they require
authorization to access the firewall management functions.
As a best practice, avoid using welcoming verbiage. Additionally, you should ask
your legal department to review the banner message to ensure it adequately
warns that unauthorized access is prohibited.
4. Enter the Latitude and Longitude to enable accurate placement of the firewall on the
world map.
5. Click OK.
6. Commit your changes.
STEP 10 | Upgrade the firewall PAN-OS and dynamic content versions.
Review the PAN-OS Upgrade Guide and PAN-OS Release Notes for detailed information
about your target PAN-OS upgrade version.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks CSP.
2. Download dynamic content updates.
1. Select Updates > Dynamic Updates.
2. Select the dynamic Content type you want to install.
3. Download the dynamic content update to your local device.
4. Repeat this step to download all required dynamic content updates.
3. Download a PAN-OS software update.
1. Select Updates > Software Updates.
2. For the Content type, select the firewall model. For the Release type, select
All(default) or Preferred.
3. In the Download column, click the PAN-OS version to download the software image
to your local device.
4. Log in to the firewall web interface.
5. Select Device > Dynamic Updates and Upload the dynamic content updates you
downloaded.
Repeat this step to Browse and select all the dynamic content release versions.
6. Install the dynamic content updates.
7. Select Device > Software and Upload the PAN-OS software image you download.
8. Install the PAN-OS software version.
The firewall needs to restart to finish installing the PAN-OS software upgrade.
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30 | Getting Started
STEP 11 | Connect the firewall to your network.
1. Disconnect the firewall from your computer.
2. (All firewalls except for the PA-5450) Connect the MGT port to a switch port on your
management network using an RJ-45 Ethernet cable. Make sure that the switch port you
cable the firewall to is configured for autonegotiation.
3. (PA-5450 only) Connect the MGT port to a switch port on your management network
using a Palo Alto Networks certified SFP/SFP+ transceiver and cable.
STEP 12 | Verify the air gapped firewall connectivity.
1. Log in to the firewall web interface.
2. Select Device > Troubleshooting.
3. Verify the firewall can reach required internal devices.
1. For Select Test, select ping.
2. For the Host, enter an internal IP address to verify the firewall can reach a device in
the air gapped network.
3. Click Execute and wait for the test to complete.
Click the Test Result when displayed to review the Result Detail to confirm
the firewall can successfully ping the internal device.
4. Repeat this step to verify the firewall can reach all required internal devices.
4. Verify the firewall cannot reach devices outside of the air gapped network.
1. For Select Test, select ping.
2. For the Host, enter an external IP address to verify the firewall cannot reach devices
outside of the air gapped network.
3. Click Execute and wait for the test to complete.
Click the Test Result when displayed to review the Result Detail to confirm
the firewall cannot ping the external device.
Set Up Network Access for External Services
By default, the firewall uses the MGT interface to access remote services, such as DNS servers,
content updates, and license retrieval. If you do not want to enable external network access to
your management network, you must set up an in-band data port to provide access to required
external services and set up service routes to instruct the firewall what port to use to access the
external services.
Do not enable management access from the internet or from other untrusted zones inside
your enterprise security boundary. Follow the Adminstrative Access Best Practices to
ensure that you are properly securing your firewall.
This task requires familiarity with firewall interfaces, zones, and policies. For more
information on these topics, see Configure Interfaces and Zones and Set Up a Basic
Security Policy.
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31 | Getting Started
STEP 1 | Decide which interface you want to use for access to external services and connect it to your
switch or router port.
The interface you use must have a static IP address.
STEP 2 | Log in to the web interface.
Using a secure connection (https) from your web browser, log in using the new IP address
and password you assigned during initial configuration (https://<IP address>). You will see a
certificate warning; that is okay. Continue to the web page.
STEP 3 | (Optional) The firewall comes preconfigured with a default virtual wire interface between
ports Ethernet 1/1 and Ethernet 1/2 (and a corresponding default security policy and
zones). If you do not plan to use this virtual wire configuration, you must manually delete the
configuration to prevent it from interfering with other interface settings you define.
You must delete the configuration in the following order:
1. To delete the default security policy, select Policies > Security, select the rule, and click
Delete.
2. To delete the default virtual wire, select Network > Virtual Wires, select the virtual wire
and click Delete.
3. To delete the default trust and untrust zones, select Network > Zones, select each zone
and click Delete.
4. To delete the interface configurations, select Network > Interfaces and then select each
interface (ethernet1/1 and ethernet1/2) and click Delete.
5. Commit the changes.
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32 | Getting Started
STEP 4 | Configure the interface you plan to use for external access to management services.
1. Select Network > Interfaces and select the interface that corresponds to the interface
you cabled in Step 1.
2. Select the Interface Type. Although your choice here depends on your network
topology, this example shows the steps for Layer3.
3. On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone.
4. In the Zone dialog, enter a Name for new zone, for example Management, and then click
OK.
5. Select the IPv4 tab, select the Static radio button, and click Add in the IP section,
and enter the IP address and network mask to assign to the interface, for example
192.168.1.254/24. You must use a static IP address on this interface.
6. Select Advanced > Other Info, expand the Management Profile drop-down, and select
New Management Profile.
7. Enter a Name for the profile, such as allow_ping, and then select the services you want
to allow on the interface. For the purposes of allowing access to the external services,
you probably only need to enable Ping and then click OK.
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33 | Getting Started
These services provide management access to the firewall, so only select the
services that correspond to the management activities you want to allow on this
interface. For example, don’t enable HTTP or Telnet because those protocols
transmit in plaintext and therefore aren’t secure. Or if you plan to use the MGT
interface for firewall configuration tasks through the web interface or CLI, you
don’t enable HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, or Telnet so that you prevent unauthorized
access through the interface (if you must allow HTTPS or SSH in this scenario,
limit access to a specific set of Permitted IP Addresses). For details, see Use
Interface Management Profiles to Restrict Access.
8. To save the interface configuration, click OK.
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34 | Getting Started
STEP 5 | Configure the Service Routes.
By default, the firewall uses the MGT interface to access the external services it requires. To
change the interface the firewall uses to send requests to external services, you must edit the
service routes.
This example shows how to set up global service routes. For information on setting up
network access to external services on a virtual system basis rather than a global basis,
see Customize Service Routes to Services for Virtual Systems.
1. Select Device > Setup > Services > Global and click Service Route Configuration.
For the purposes of activating your licenses and getting the most recent content
and software updates, you will want to change the service route for DNS, Palo
Alto Networks Services, URL Updates, and AutoFocus.
2. Click the Customize radio button, and select one of the following:
• For a predefined service, select IPv4 or IPv6 and click the link for the service. To
limit the drop-down list for Source Address, select Source Interface and select the
interface you just configured. Then select a Source Address (from that interface) as
the service route.
If more than one IP address is configured for the selected interface, the Source
Address drop-down allows you to select an IP address.
• To create a service route for a custom destination, select Destination, and click Add.
Enter a Destination IP address. An incoming packet with a destination address that
matches this address will use as its source the Source Address you specify for this
service route. To limit the drop-down for Source Address, select a Source Interface. If
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35 | Getting Started
more than one IP address is configured for the selected interface, the Source Address
drop-down allows you to select an IP address.
3. Click OK to save the settings.
4. Repeat Steps 5.2 - 5.3 above for each service route you want to modify.
5. Commit your changes.
STEP 6 | Configure an external-facing interface and an associated zone and then create a security
policy rule to allow the firewall to send service requests from the internal zone to the
external zone.
1. Select Network > Interfaces and then select the external-facing interface. Select Layer3
as the Interface Type, Add the IP address (on the IPv4 or IPv6 tab), and create the
associated Security Zone (on the Config tab), such as Internet. This interface must have a
static IP address; you do not need to set up management services on this interface.
2. To set up a security rule that allows traffic from your internal network to the Palo Alto
Networks update server, select Policies > Security and click Add.
As a best practice when creating Security policy rules, use application-based rules
instead of port-based rules to ensure that you are accurately identifying the underlying
application regardless of the port, protocol, evasive tactics, or encryption in use.
Always leave the Service set to application-default. In this case, create a security
policy rule that allows access to the update server (and other Palo Alto Networks
services).
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36 | Getting Started
STEP 7 | Create a NAT policy rule.
1. If you are using a private IP address on the internal-facing interface, you will need to
create a source NAT rule to translate the address to a publicly routable address. Select
Policies > NAT and then click Add. At a minimum you must define a name for the rule
(General tab), specify a source and destination zone, Management to Internet in this
case (Original Packet tab), and define the source address translation settings (Translated
Packet tab) and then click OK.
2. Commit your changes.
STEP 8 | Select Device > Troubleshooting and verify that you have connectivity from the data port
to the external services, including the default gateway, using the Ping connectivity test, and
the Palo Alto Networks Update Server using the Update Server Connectivity test. In this
example, the firewall connectivity to the Palo Alto Networks Update Server is tested.
After you verify you have the required network connectivity, continue to Register the Firewall
and Activate Subscription Licenses.
1. Select Update Server from the Select Test drop-down.
2. Execute the Palo Alto Networks Update Server connectivity test.
3. Access the firewall CLI, and use the following 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. Because your firewall is not registered, the update server will return the
following message:
Contact Us
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/company/contact-us.html
Support Home
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/support/tabs/overview.html
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37 | Getting Started
Device not found on this update server
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38 | Getting Started
Register the Firewall
Before you can activate support and other licenses and subscriptions, you must first register the
firewall. Before you can register a firewall, though, you must first have an active support account.
Perform one of the following tasks depending on whether you have an active support account:
• If you don’t have an active support account, then Create a New Support Account and Register
a Firewall.
• If you already have an active support account, then you are ready to Register a Firewall.
• (Optional) Perform Day 1 Configuration on a registered firewall.
• If your firewall uses line cards such as an NPC (Network Processing Card), then Register the
Firewall Line Cards.
If you are registering a VM-Series firewall, refer to the VM-Series Deployment Guide
for instructions.
Create a New Support Account and Register a Firewall
If you do not already have an active Palo Alto Networks support account, then you need to
register your firewall when you create your new support account.
STEP 1 | Go to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal.
STEP 2 | Click Create my account.
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39 | Getting Started
STEP 3 | Enter Your Email Address, check I’m not a robot, and click Submit.
STEP 4 | Select Register device using Serial Number or Authorization Code and click Next.
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40 | Getting Started
STEP 5 | Complete the registration form.
1. Enter the contact details for the person in your organization who will own this account.
Required fields are indicated by red asterisks.
2. Create a UserID and Password for the account. Required fields are indicated by red
asterisks.
3. Enter the Device Serial Number or Auth Code.
4. Enter your Sales Order Number or Customer Id.
5. To ensure that you are always alerted to the latest updates and security advisories,
Subscribe to Content Update Emails, Subscribe to Security Advisories, and Subscribe to
Software Update Emails.
6. Select the check box to agree to the End User Agreement and Submit.
Register a Firewall
If you already have an active Palo Alto Networks Customer Support account, perform the
following task to register your firewall.
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41 | Getting Started
STEP 1 | Log in to the firewall web interface.
Using a secure connection (HTTPS) from your web browser, log in using the new IP address
and password you assigned during initial configuration (https://<IP address>).
STEP 2 | Locate your serial number and copy it to the clipboard.
On the Dashboard, locate your Serial Number in the General Information section of the
screen.
STEP 3 | Go to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal and, if not already logged in, Sign In
now.
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42 | Getting Started
STEP 4 | Register the firewall.
1. On the Support Home page, click Register a Device.
2. Select Register device using Serial Number or Authorization Code, and then click Next.
3. Enter the firewall Serial Number (you can copy and paste it from the firewall Dashboard).
4. (Optional) Enter the Device Name and Device Tag.
5. (Optional) If the device will not have a connection to the internet, select the Device will
be used offline check box and then, from the drop-down, select the OS Release you plan
to use.
6. Provide information about the physical location where you plan to deploy the firewall
including the Address, City, Postal Code, and Country.
The physical location of the firewall is set on the Customer Support Portal. There
is no command on the firewall to set the physical location.
7. Read the End User License Agreement (EULA) and the Support Agreement, then Agree
and Submit.
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43 | Getting Started
You can view the entry for the firewall you just registered under Devices.
STEP 5 | (Firewalls with line cards) To ensure that you receive support for your firewall’s line cards,
make sure to Register the Firewall Line Cards.
(Optional) Perform Day 1 Configuration
After you register your firewall, you have the option of running Day 1 Configuration. The Day
1 Configuration tool provides configuration templates informed by Palo Alto Networks best
practices, which you can use as a starting point to build the rest of your configuration.
The benefits of Day 1 Configuration templates include:
• Faster implementation time
• Reduced configuration errors
• Improved security posture
Perform Day 1 Configuration by following these steps:
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44 | Getting Started
STEP 1 | From the page that displays after you have registered your firewall, select Run Day 1
Configuration.
If you’ve already registered your firewall but haven’t run Day 1 Configuration, you can
also run it from the Customer Support Portal home page by selecting Tools > Run Day
1 Configuration.
STEP 2 | Enter the Hostname and Pan OS Version for your new device, and optionally, the Serial
Number and Device Type.
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45 | Getting Started
STEP 3 | Under Management, select either Static or DHCP Client for your Management Type.
Selecting Static will require you fill out the IPV4, Subnet Mask, and Default Gateway fields.
Selecting DHCP Client only requires that you enter the Primary DNS and Secondary DNS. A
device configured in DHCP client mode will ensure the management interface receives an IP
address from the local DHCP server, or it will fill out all the parameters if they are known.
STEP 4 | Fill out all fields under Logging.
STEP 5 | Click Generate Config File.
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46 | Getting Started
STEP 6 | To import and load the Day 1 Configuration file you just downloaded to your firewall:
1. Log into your firewall web interface.
2. Select Device > Setup > Operations.
3. Click Import named configuration snapshot.
4. Select the file.
Register the Firewall Line Cards
The following firewalls use line cards that must be registered to receive support with
troubleshooting and returns:
• PA-7000 Series firewalls
• PA-5450 firewall
If you do not have a Palo Alto Networks Customer Support account, create one by following the
steps at Create a New Support Account and Register a Firewall. Return to these instructions after
creating your Customer Support account and registering your firewall.
STEP 1 | Go to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal and, if not already logged in, Sign In
now.
STEP 2 | Select Assets > Line Cards/Optics/FRUs.
STEP 3 | Register Components.
STEP 4 | Enter the Palo Alto Networks Sales Order Number of the line cards into the Sales Order
Number field to display the line cards eligible for registration.
STEP 5 | Register the line cards to your firewall by entering its chassis serial number in the Serial
Number field. The Location Information below auto-populates based on the registration
information of your firewall.
STEP 6 | Click Agree and Submit to accept the legal terms. The system updates to display the
registered line cards under Assets > Line Cards/Optics/FRUs.
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47 | Getting Started
Segment Your Network Using Interfaces and Zones
Traffic must pass through the firewall in order for the firewall to manage and control it. Physically,
traffic enters and exits the firewall through interfaces. The firewall determines how to act on
a packet based on whether the packet matches a Security policy rule. At the most basic level,
each Security policy rule must identify where the traffic came from and where it is going. On a
Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall, Security policy rules are applied between zones. A
zone is a grouping of interfaces (physical or virtual) that represents a segment of your network
that is connected to, and controlled by, the firewall. Because traffic can only flow between
zones if there is a Security policy rule to allow it, this is your first line of defense. The more
granular the zones you create, the greater control you have over access to sensitive applications
and data and the more protection you have against malware moving laterally throughout your
network. For example, you might want to segment access to the database servers that store your
customer data into a zone called Customer Data. You can then define security policies that only
permit certain users or groups of users to access the Customer Data zone, thereby preventing
unauthorized internal or external access to the data stored in that segment.
• Network Segmentation for a Reduced Attack Surface
• Configure Interfaces and Zones
Network Segmentation for a Reduced Attack Surface
The following diagram shows a very basic example of Network Segmentation Using Zones. The
more granular you make your zones (and the corresponding security policy rules that allows traffic
between zones), the more you reduce the attack surface on your network. This is because traffic
can flow freely within a zone (intra-zone traffic), but traffic cannot flow between zones (interzone traffic) until you define a Security policy rule that allows it. Additionally, an interface cannot
process traffic until you have assigned it to a zone. Therefore, by segmenting your network into
granular zones you have more control over access to sensitive applications or data and you can
prevent malicious traffic from establishing a communication channel within your network, thereby
reducing the likelihood of a successful attack on your network.
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48 | Getting Started
Configure Interfaces and Zones
After you identify how you want to segment your network and the zones you will need to create
to achieve the segmentation (as well as the interfaces to map to each zone), you can begin
configuring the interfaces and zones on the firewall. Configure interfaces on the firewall the to
support the topology of each part of the network you are connecting to. The following workflow
shows how to configure Layer 3 interfaces and assign them to zones. For details on integrating
the firewall using a different type of interface deployments (for example as virtual wire interfaces
or as Layer 2 interfaces), see the PAN-OS Networking Adminstrator’s Guide.
The firewall comes preconfigured with a default virtual wire interface between ports
Ethernet 1/1 and Ethernet 1/2 (and a corresponding default security policy and virtual
router). If you do not plan to use the default virtual wire, you must manually delete the
configuration and commit the change before proceeding to prevent it from interfering with
other settings you define. For instructions on how to delete the default virtual wire and its
associated security policy and zones, see Step 3 in Set Up Network Access for External
Services.
STEP 1 | Configure a default route to your Internet router.
1. Select Network > Virtual Router and then select the default link to open the Virtual
Router dialog.
2. Select the Static Routes tab and click Add. Enter a Name for the route and enter the
route in the Destination field (for example, 0.0.0.0/0).
3. Select the IP Address radio button in the Next Hop field and then enter the IP address
and netmask for your Internet gateway (for example, 203.0.113.1).
4. Click OK twice to save the virtual router configuration.
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49 | Getting Started
STEP 2 | Configure the external interface (the interface that connects to the Internet).
1. Select Network > Interfaces and then select the interface you want to configure. In this
example, we are configuring Ethernet1/8 as the external interface.
2. Select the Interface Type. Although your choice here depends on interface topology, this
example shows the steps for Layer3.
3. 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.
4. In the Virtual Router drop-down, select default.
5. To assign an IP address to the interface, select the IPv4 tab, click Add in the IP section,
and enter the IP address and network mask to assign to the interface, for example
203.0.113.23/24.
6. To enable you to ping the interface, select Advanced > Other Info, expand the
Management Profile drop-down, and select New Management Profile. Enter a Name for
the profile, select Ping and then click OK.
7. To save the interface configuration, click OK.
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50 | Getting Started
STEP 3 | Configure the interface that connects to your internal network.
In this example, the interface connects to a network segment that uses private IP
addresses. Because private IP addresses cannot be routed externally, you have to
configure NAT.
1. Select Network > Interfaces and select the interface you want to configure. In this
example, we are configuring Ethernet1/15 as the internal interface our users connect to.
2. Select Layer3 as the Interface Type.
3. On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. In the
Zone dialog, define a Name for new zone, for example Users, and then click OK.
4. Select the same Virtual Router you used previously, default in this example.
5. To assign an IP address to the interface, select the IPv4 tab, click Add in the IP section,
and enter the IP address and network mask to assign to the interface, for example
192.168.1.4/24.
6. To enable you to ping the interface, select the management profile that you just created.
7. To save the interface configuration, click OK.
STEP 4 | Configure the interface that connects to your data center applications.
Make sure you define granular zones to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive
applications or data and eliminate the possibility of malware moving laterally within
your data center.
1. Select the interface you want to configure.
2. Select Layer3 from the Interface Type drop-down. In this example, we are configuring
Ethernet1/1 as the interface that provides access to your data center applications.
3. On the Config tab, expand the Security Zone drop-down and select New Zone. In the
Zone dialog, define a Name for new zone, for example Data Center Applications, and
then click OK.
4. Select the same Virtual Router you used previously, default in this example.
5. To assign an IP address to the interface, select the IPv4 tab, click Add in the IP section,
and enter the IP address and network mask to assign to the interface, for example
10.1.1.1/24.
6. To enable you to ping the interface, select the management profile that you created.
7. To save the interface configuration, click OK.
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STEP 5 | (Optional) Create tags for each zone.
Tags allow you to visually scan policy rules.
1. Select Objects > Tags and Add.
2. Select a zone Name.
3. Select a tag Color and click OK.
STEP 6 | Save the interface configuration.
Click Commit.
STEP 7 | Cable the firewall.
Attach straight through cables from the interfaces you configured to the corresponding switch
or router on each network segment.
STEP 8 | Verify that the interfaces are active.
Select Dashboard and verify that the interfaces you configured show as green in the Interfaces
widget.
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Set Up a Basic Security Policy
Now that you defined some zones and attached them to interfaces, you are ready to begin
creating your Security Policy. The firewall will not allow any traffic to flow from one zone to
another unless there is a Security policy rule that allows it. When a packet enters a firewall
interface, the firewall matches the attributes in the packet against the Security policy rules to
determine whether to block or allow the session based on attributes such as the source and
destination security zone, the source and destination IP address, the application, user, and the
service. The firewall evaluates incoming traffic against the Security policy rulebase from left to
right and from top to bottom and then takes the action specified in the first Security rule that
matches (for example, whether to allow, deny, or drop the packet). This means that you must
order the rules in your Security policy rulebase so that more specific rules are at the top of the
rulebase and more general rules are at the bottom to ensure that the firewall is enforcing policy as
expected.
Even though a Security policy rule allows a packet, this does not mean that the traffic is free of
threats. To enable the firewall to scan the traffic that it allows based on a Security policy rule, you
must also attach Security Profiles—including URL Filtering, Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, File Blocking,
and WildFire Analysis—to each rule (the profiles you can use depend on which Subscriptions
you purchased). When creating your basic Security policy, use the predefined security profiles
to ensure that the traffic you allow into your network is being scanned for threats. You can
customize these profiles later as needed for your environment.
Use the following workflow set up a very basic Security policy that enables access to the network
infrastructure, to data center applications, and to the internet. This enables you to get the firewall
up and running so that you can verify that you have successfully configured the firewall. However,
this initial policy is not comprehensive enough to protect your network. After you verify that you
successfully configured the firewall and integrated it into your network, proceed with creating
a Best Practice Internet Gateway Security Policy that safely enables application access while
protecting your network from attack.
STEP 1 | (Optional) Delete the default Security policy rule.
By default, the firewall includes a Security policy rule named rule1 that allows all traffic from
Trust zone to Untrust zone. You can either delete the rule or modify the rule to reflect your
zone-naming conventions.
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STEP 2 | Allow access to your network infrastructure resources.
1. Select Policies > Security and click Add.
2. In the General tab, enter a descriptive Name for the rule.
3. In the Source tab, set the Source Zone to Users.
4. In the Destination tab, set the Destination Zone to IT Infrastructure.
As a best practice, use address objects in the Destination Address field to enable
access to specific servers or groups of servers only, particularly for services such
as DNS and SMTP that are commonly exploited. By restricting users to specific
destination server addresses, you can prevent data exfiltration and command
and control traffic from establishing communication through techniques such as
DNS tunneling.
5. In the Applications tab, Add the applications that correspond to the network services
you want to safely enable. For example, select dns, ntp, ocsp, ping, and smtp.
6. In the Service/URL Category tab, keep the Service set to application-default.
7. In the Actions tab, set the Action Setting to Allow.
8. Set Profile Type to Profiles and select the following security profiles to attach to the
policy rule:
• For Antivirus, select default
• For Vulnerability Protection, select strict
• For Anti-Spyware, select strict
• For URL Filtering, select default
• For File Blocking, select basic file blocking
• For WildFire Analysis, select default
9. Verify that Log at Session End is enabled. Only traffic that matches a Security policy rule
will be logged.
10. Click OK.
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STEP 3 | Enable access to general internet applications.
This is a temporary rule that allows you to gather information about the traffic on
your network. After you have more insight into which applications your users need to
access, you can make informed decisions about which applications to allow and create
more granular application-based rules for each user group.
1. Select Policies > Security and Add a rule.
2. In the General tab, enter a descriptive Name for the rule.
3. In the Source tab, set the Source Zone to Users.
4. In the Destination tab, set the Destination Zone to Internet.
5. In the Applications tab, Add an Application Filter and enter a Name. To safely enable
access to legitimate web-based applications, set the Category in the application filter
to general-internet and then click OK. To enable access to encrypted sites, Add the ssl
application.
6. In the Service/URL Category tab, keep the Service set to application-default.
7. In the Actions tab, set the Action Setting to Allow.
8. Set Profile Type to Profiles and select the following security profiles to attach to the
policy rule:
• For Antivirus, select default
• For Vulnerability Protection, select strict
• For Anti-Spyware, select strict
• For URL Filtering, select default
• For File Blocking, select strict file blocking
• For WildFire Analysis, select default
9. Verify that Log at Session End is enabled. Only traffic that matches a security rule will be
logged.
10. Click OK.
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STEP 4 | Enable access to data center applications.
1. Select Policies > Security and Add a rule.
2. In the General tab, Enter a descriptive Name for the rule.
3. In the Source tab, set the Source Zone to Users.
4. In the Destination tab, set the Destination Zone to Data Center Applications.
5. In the Applications tab, Add the applications that correspond to the network services
you want to safely enable. For example, select activesync, imap, kerberos, ldap, msexchange, and ms-lync.
6. In the Service/URL Category tab, keep the Service set to application-default.
7. In the Actions tab, set the Action Setting to Allow.
8. Set Profile Type to Profiles and select the following security profiles to attach to the
policy rule:
• For Antivirus, select default
• For Vulnerability Protection select strict
• For Anti-Spyware select strict
• For URL Filtering select default
• For File Blocking select basic file blocking
• For WildFire Analysis select default
9. Verify that Log at Session End is enabled. Only traffic that matches a security rule will be
logged.
10. Click OK.
STEP 5 | Save your policy rules to the running configuration on the firewall.
Click Commit.
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STEP 6 | To verify that you have set up your basic policies effectively, test whether your Security
policy rules are being evaluated and determine which Security policy rule applies to a traffic
flow.
For example, to verify the policy rule that will be applied for a client in the user zone with the
IP address 10.35.14.150 when it sends a DNS query to the DNS server in the data center:
1. Select Device > Troubleshooting and select Security Policy Match (Select Test).
2. Enter the Source and Destination IP addresses.
3. Enter the Protocol.
4. Select dns (Application)
5. Execute the Security policy match test.
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Assess Network Traffic
Now that you have a basic security policy, you can review the statistics and data in the
Application Command Center (ACC), traffic logs, and the threat logs to observe trends on your
network. Use this information to identify where you need to create more granular security policy
rules.
Use the Application Command Center and Use the Automated Correlation Engine.
In the ACC, review the most used applications and the high-risk applications on your network.
The ACC graphically summarizes the log information to highlight the applications traversing
the network, who is using them (with User-ID enabled), and the potential security impact
of the content to help you identify what is happening on the network in real time. You can
then use this information to create appropriate security policy rules that block unwanted
applications, while allowing and enabling applications in a secure manner.
The Compromised Hosts widget in ACC > Threat Activity displays potentially compromised
hosts on your network and the logs and match evidence that corroborates the events.
Determine what updates/modifications are required for your network security policy rules and
implement the changes.
For example:
• Evaluate whether to allow web content based on schedule, users, or groups.
• Allow or control certain applications or functions within an application.
• Decrypt and inspect content.
• Allow but scan for threats and exploits.
For information on refining your security policies and for attaching custom security profiles,
see how to Create a Security Policy Rule and Security Profiles.
View Logs.
Specifically, view the traffic and threat logs (Monitor > Logs).
Traffic logs are dependent on how your security policies are defined and set up to log
traffic. The Application Usage widget in the ACC, however, records applications and
statistics regardless of policy configuration; it shows all traffic that is allowed on your
network, therefore it includes the inter-zone traffic that is allowed by policy and the
same zone traffic that is allowed implicitly.
Configure Log Storage Quotas and Expiration Periods.
Review the AutoFocus intelligence summary for artifacts in your logs. An artifact is an item,
property, activity, or behavior associated with logged events on the firewall. The intelligence
summary reveals the number of sessions and samples in which WildFire detected the artifact.
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Use WildFire verdict information (benign, grayware, malware) and AutoFocus matching tags to
look for potential risks in your network.
AutoFocus tags created by Unit 42, the Palo Alto Networks threat intelligence team,
call attention to advanced, targeted campaigns and threats in your network.
From the AutoFocus intelligence summary, you can start an AutoFocus search for artifacts and
assess their pervasiveness within global, industry, and network contexts.
Monitor Web Activity of Network Users.
Review the URL filtering logs to scan through alerts, denied categories/URLs. URL logs are
generated when a traffic matches a security rule that has a URL filtering profile attached with
an action of alert, continue, override or block.
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Enable Free WildFire Forwarding
WildFire is a cloud-based virtual environment that analyzes and executes unknown samples
(files and email links) and determines the samples to be malicious, phishing, grayware, or benign.
With WildFire enabled, a Palo Alto Networks firewall can forward unknown samples to WildFire
for analysis. For newly-discovered malware, WildFire generates a signature to detect the
malware, which is made available for retrieval in real-time for all firewalls with an active WildFire
subscription. This enables all Palo Alto next-generation firewalls worldwide to detect and prevent
malware found by a single firewall. Malware signatures often match multiple variants of the same
malware family, and as such, block new malware variants that the firewall has never seen before.
The Palo Alto Networks threat research team uses the threat intelligence gathered from malware
variants to block malicious IP addresses, domains, and URLs.
A basic WildFire service is included as part of the Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall
and does not require a WildFire subscription. With the basic WildFire service, you can enable
the firewall to forward portable executable (PE) files. Additionally, if you do not have a WildFire
subscription, but you do have a Threat Prevention subscription, you can receive signatures for
malware WildFire identifies every 24- 48 hours (as part of the Antivirus updates).
Beyond the basic WildFire service, a WildFire subscription is required for the firewall to:
• Get the latest WildFire signatures in real-time.
• Prevent malicious PE (portable executables), ELF and MS Office files, and PowerShell and shell
scripts from entering your network in real-time using WildFire Inline ML.
• Forward advanced file types and email links for analysis.
• Use the WildFire API.
• Use a WildFire appliance to host a WildFire private cloud or a WildFire hybrid cloud.
If you have a WildFire subscription, go ahead and get started with WildFire to get the most out of
your subscription. Otherwise, take the following steps to enable basic WildFire forwarding:
STEP 1 | Confirm that your firewall is registered and that you have a valid support account as well as
any subscriptions you require.
1. Log in to the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal(CSP) and on the left-hand
side navigation pane, select Assets > Devices.
2. Verify that the firewall is listed. If it is not listed, select Register New Device and
continue to Register the Firewall.
3. (Optional) If you have a Threat Prevention subscription, be sure to Activate Subscription
Licenses.
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60 | Getting Started
STEP 2 | Log in to the firewall and configure WildFire forwarding settings.
1. Select Device > Setup > WildFire and edit the General Settings.
2. Set the WildFire Public Cloud field to forward files to the WildFire global cloud (U.S.) at:
wildfire.paloaltonetworks.com.
You can also forward files to a WildFire regional cloud or a private cloud based
on your location and your organizational requirements.
3. Review the File Size Limits for PEs the firewall forwards for WildFire analysis. set the
Size Limit for PEs that the firewall can forward to the maximum available limit of 10 MB.
As a WildFire best practice, set the Size Limit for PEs to the maximum available
limit of 10 MB.
4. Click OK to save your changes.
STEP 3 | Enable the firewall to forward PEs for analysis.
1. Select Objects > Security Profiles > WildFire Analysis and Add a new profile rule.
2. Name the new profile rule.
3. Add a forwarding rule and enter a Name for it.
4. In the File Types column, add pe files to the forwarding rule.
5. In the Analysis column, select public-cloud to forward PEs to the WildFire public cloud.
6. Click OK.
STEP 4 | Apply the new WildFire Analysis profile to traffic that the firewall allows.
1. Select Policies > Security and either select an existing policy rule or create a new policy
rule as described in Set Up a Basic Security Policy.
2. Select Actions and in the Profile Settings section, set the Profile Type to Profiles.
3. Select the WildFire Analysis profile you just created to apply that profile rule to all traffic
this policy rule allows.
4. Click OK.
STEP 5 | Enable the firewall to forward decrypted SSL traffic for WildFire analysis.
STEP 6 | Review and implement WildFire best practices to ensure that you are getting the most of
WildFire detection and prevention capabilities.
STEP 7 | Commit your configuration updates.
STEP 8 | Verify that the firewall is forwarding PE files to the WildFire public cloud.
Select Monitor > Logs > WildFire Submissions to view log entries for PEs the firewall
successfully submitted for WildFire analysis. The Verdict column displays whether WildFire
found the PE to be malicious, grayware, or benign. (WildFire only assigns the phishing verdict
to email links). The Action column indicates whether the firewall allowed or blocked the
sample. The Severity column indicates how much of a threat a sample poses to an organization
using the following values: critical, high, medium, low, information.
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STEP 9 | (Threat Prevention subscription only) If you have a Threat Prevention subscription, but do
not have a WildFire subscription, you can still receive WildFire signature updates every 24-
48 hours.
1. Select Device > Dynamic Updates.
2. Check that the firewall is scheduled to download, and install Antivirus updates.
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Best Practices for Completing the Firewall Deployment
Now that you have integrated the firewall into your network and enabled the basic security
features, you can begin configuring more advanced features. Here are some things to consider
next:
Follow the Adminstrative Access Best Practices to make sure you are properly securing the
management interfaces.
Configure a best-practice security policy rulebase to safely enable applications and protect
your network from attack. Go to the Best Practices page and select security policy best
practice for your firewall deployment.
Set up High Availability—High availability (HA) is a configuration in which two firewalls are
placed in a group and their configuration and session tables are synchronized to prevent a
single point to failure on your network. A heartbeat connection between the firewall peers
ensures seamless failover in the event that a peer goes down. Setting up a two-firewall cluster
provides redundancy and allows you to ensure business continuity.
Enable User Identification (User-ID)—User-ID is a Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall
feature that allows you to create policies and perform reporting based on users and groups
rather than individual IP addresses.
Enable Decryption—Palo Alto Networks firewalls provide the capability to decrypt and inspect
traffic for visibility, control, and granular security. Use decryption on a firewall to prevent
malicious content from entering your network or sensitive content from leaving your network
concealed as encrypted or tunneled traffic.
Follow the Best Practices for Securing Your Network from Layer 4 and Layer 7 Evasions.
Share Threat Intelligence with Palo Alto Networks—Permit the firewall to periodically collect
and send information about applications, threats, and device health to Palo Alto Networks.
Telemetry includes options to enable passive DNS monitoring and to allow experimental
test signatures to run in the background with no impact to your security policy rules, firewall
logs, or firewall performance. All Palo Alto Networks customers benefit from the intelligence
gathered from telemetry, which Palo Alto Networks uses to improve the threat prevention
capabilities of the firewall.
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Learn about all the subscriptions and services that work with the firewall, and get started by
activating subscription licenses:
• Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall
• Activate Subscription Licenses
• What Happens When Licenses Expire?
• Enhanced Application Logs for Palo Alto Networks Cloud Services
Certain cloud services, like Cortex XDR™, do not integrate with the firewall directly, but
rely on data stored in Strata Logging Service for visibility into network activity. Enhanced
application logging is a feature that comes with a Strata Logging Service subscription—it
allows the firewall to collect data specifically for Cortex XDR to use to detect anomalous
network activity. Turning on enhanced application logging is a Cortex XDR best practice.
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Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall
The following Palo Alto Networks subscriptions unlock certain firewall features or enable
the firewall to leverage a Palo Alto Networks cloud-delivered service (or both). Here you can
read more about each service or feature that requires a subscription to work with the firewall.
To enable a subscription, you must first Activate Subscription Licenses; once active, most
subscription services can use Dynamic Content Updates to provide new and updated functionality
to the firewall.
Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall
Strata Cloud Manager Manage your Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls
(NGFW) from Strata Cloud Manager. This cloud-delivered, AIpowered security solution allows seamless management of
your advanced ML-powered NGFWs, alongside Prisma Access
deployments, through a single, streamlined user interface.
Strata Cloud Manager has two licensing tiers: Strata Cloud
Manager Essentials and Strata Cloud Manager Pro. This
unified structure streamlines the deployment of network
security offerings, including AIOps for NGFW, Autonomous
Digital Experience Management (ADEM), cloud management
functionality, and Strata Logging Service.
• Get Started with Strata Cloud Manager
• Strata Cloud Manager License
• Cloud Management for NGFWs
Strata Cloud Manager supports PAN-OS 10.2.3 or
later.
IoT Security The IoT Security solution works with next-generation firewalls
to dynamically discover and maintain a real-time inventory of
the IoT devices on your network. Through AI and machinelearning algorithms, the IoT Security solution achieves a
high level of accuracy, even classifying IoT device types
encountered for the first time. And because it’s dynamic, your
IoT device inventory is always up to date. IoT Security also
provides the automatic generation of policy recommendations
to control IoT device traffic, as well as the automatic creation
of IoT device attributes for use in firewall policies.
• Get Started with IoT Security.
SD-WAN Provides intelligent and dynamic path selection on top of
the industry-leading security that PAN-OS software already
delivers. Managed by Panorama, the SD-WAN implementation
includes:
• Centralized configuration management
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Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall
• Automatic VPN topology creation
• Traffic distribution
• Monitoring and troubleshooting
• Get Started with SD-WAN
Threat Prevention Threat Prevention provides:
• Antivirus, anti-spyware (command-and-control), and
vulnerability protection.
• Built-in external dynamic lists that you can use to secure
your network against malicious hosts.
• Ability to identify infected hosts that try to connect to
malicious domains.
• Get Started with Threat Prevention
Advanced Threat Prevention In addition to all of the features included with Threat
Prevention, the Advanced Threat Prevention subscription
provides an inline cloud-based threat detection and prevention
engine, leveraging deep learning models trained on high fidelity
threat intelligence gathered by Palo Alto Networks, to defend
your network from evasive and unknown command-andcontrol (C2) threats by inspecting all network traffic.
• Get Started with Advanced Threat Prevention
DNS Security Provides enhanced DNS sinkholing capabilities by querying
DNS Security, an extensible cloud-based service capable of
generating DNS signatures using advanced predictive analytics
and machine learning. This service provides full access to
the continuously expanding DNS-based threat intelligence
produced by Palo Alto Networks.
To set up DNS Security, you must first purchase and install a
Threat Prevention license.
• Get Started with DNS Security
URL Filtering Provides the ability to not only control web-access, but how
users interact with online content based on dynamic URL
categories. You can also prevent credential theft by controlling
the sites to which users can submit their corporate credentials.
To set up URL Filtering, you must purchase and install a
subscription for the supported URL filtering database, PANDB. With PAN-DB, you can set up access to the PAN-DB
public cloud or to the PAN-DB private cloud.
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Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall
URL filtering is no longer available as a standalone
subscription. All features contained in URL filtering
are included with the Advanced URL filtering
subscription.
• Get Started with URL Filtering
Advanced URL Filtering Advanced URL Filtering uses a cloud-based ML-powered web
security engine to perform ML-based inspection of web traffic
in real-time. This reduces reliance on URL databases and outof-band web crawling to detect and prevent advanced, fileless web-based attacks including targeted phishing, webdelivered malware and exploits, command-and-control, social
engineering, and other types of web attacks.
• Get Started with Advanced URL Filtering
WildFire Although basic WildFire® support is included as part of the
Threat Prevention license, the WildFire subscription service
provides enhanced services for organizations that require
immediate coverage for threats, frequent WildFire signature
updates, advanced file type forwarding (APK, PDF, Microsoft
Office, and Java Applet), as well as the ability to upload files
using the WildFire API. A WildFire subscription is also required
if your firewalls will be forwarding files to an on-premise
WF-500 appliance.
• Get Started with WildFire
Advanced WildFire Advanced WildFire is a subscription offering that provides
access to Intelligent Run-time Memory Analysis: a cloud-based
advanced analysis engine that complements static and dynamic
analysis, to detect and prevent evasive malware threats. By
leveraging a cloud-based detection infrastructure, Intelligent
Run-time Memory Analysis detection engines operate a wide
array of detection mechanisms to target these highly-evasive
malware.
• Get Started with Advanced WildFire
AutoFocus Provides a graphical analysis of firewall traffic logs and
identifies potential risks to your network using threat
intelligence from the AutoFocus portal. With an active
license, you can also open an AutoFocus search based on logs
recorded on the firewall.
• Get Started with AutoFocus
Strata Logging Service Provides cloud-based, centralized log storage and aggregation.
The Strata Logging Service is required or highly-recommended
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Subscriptions You Can Use With the Firewall
to support several other cloud-delivered services, including
Cortex XDR, IoT Security, and Prisma Access, and Traps
management service.
• Get Started with Strata Logging Service
GlobalProtect Gateway Provides mobility solutions and/or large-scale VPN capabilities.
By default, you can deploy GlobalProtect portals and gateways
(without HIP checks) without a license. If you want to use
advanced GlobalProtect features (HIP checks and related
content updates, the GlobalProtect Mobile App, IPv6
connections, or a GlobalProtect Clientless VPN) you will need
a GlobalProtect Gateway license for each gateway.
• Get Started with GlobalProtect
Virtual Systems This is a perpetual license, and is required to enable support
for multiple virtual systems on PA-3200 Series firewalls. In
addition, you must purchase a Virtual Systems license if you
want to increase the number of virtual systems beyond the
base number provided by default on PA-3400 Series, PA-5200
Series, PA-5400 Series, and PA-7000 Series firewalls (the
base number varies by platform). The PA-220, PA-400 Series,
PA-800 Series, and VM-Series firewalls do not support virtual
systems.
• Get Started with Virtual Systems
Enterprise Data Loss
Prevention (DLP)
Provides cloud-based protection against unauthorized access,
misuse, extraction, and sharing of sensitive information.
Enterprise DLP provides a single engine for accurate detection
and consistent policy enforcement for sensitive data at rest
and in motion using machine learning-based data classification,
hundreds of data patterns using regular expressions or
keywords, and data profiles using Boolean logic to scan for
collective types of data.
• Get Started with Enterprise Data loss Prevention
SaaS Security Inline The SaaS Security solution works with Strata Logging Service
to discover all of the SaaS applications in use on your network.
SaaS Security Inline can discover thousands of Shadow IT
applications and their users and usage details. SaaS Security
Inline also enforces SaaS policy rule recommendations
seamlessly across your existing Palo Alto Networks firewalls.
App-ID Cloud Engine (ACE) also requires SaaS Security Inline.
• Get Started with SaaS Security Inline
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Activate Subscription Licenses
Follow these steps to activate a new license on the firewall.
The Decryption Mirroring feature requires you to activate a free license to unlock feature
functionality. To request the free license and activate this feature, follow the steps in
Configure Decryption Port Mirroring.
STEP 1 | Locate the activation codes for the licenses you purchased.
When you purchased your subscriptions you should have received an email from Palo Alto
Networks customer service listing the activation code associated with each subscription. If you
cannot locate this email, contact Customer Support to obtain your activation codes before you
proceed.
STEP 2 | Activate your Support license.
You will not be able to update your PAN-OS software if you do not have a valid Support
license.
1. Log in to the web interface and then select Device > Support.
2. Click Activate support using authorization code.
3. Enter your Authorization Code and then click OK.
STEP 3 | Activate each license you purchased.
Select Device > Licenses 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.
• Activate feature using authorization code—Use this option to enable purchased
subscriptions 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.
• Manually upload license key—Use this option if your firewall does not have connectivity to
the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal. 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.
To automate activation using the Customer Support Portal API, see the process to
Activate Licenses. This process works for both the hardware and VM-Series firewalls.
STEP 4 | Verify that the license is successfully activated
On the Device > Licenses page, verify that the license is successfully activated. For example,
after activating the WildFire license, you should see that the license is valid:
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STEP 5 | (WildFire, Advanced URL Filtering, and DNS Security subscriptions only) Commit
configuration changes to complete subscription activation.
After activating a WildFire, Advanced URL Filtering, or DNS Security subscription license, a
commit is required for the firewall to begin processing their corresponding traffic and data
types based on the security profile configurations. You should:
• Commit any pending changes. If you do not have pending changes, which prevents you
from committing any configuration updates, you can: issue a commit force command
through the CLI or make an update that writes to the candidate configuration, which
enables the commit option.
Use the following CLI configuration mode command to initiate a commit force:
username@hostname> configure
Entering configuration mode
[edit]
username@hostname# commit force
A commit force bypasses some of the validation checks that normally occur with a
normal commit operation. Make sure your configuration is valid and is semantically
and syntactically correct before issuing a commit force update.
• WildFire only Check that the WildFire Analysis profile rules include the advanced file types
that are now supported with the WildFire subscription. If no change to any of the rules is
required, make a minor edit to a rule description and perform a commit.
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What Happens When Licenses Expire?
Palo Alto Networks subscriptions provide the firewall with added functionality and/or access
to a Palo Alto Networks cloud-delivered service. When a license is within 30 days of expiration,
a warning message displays in the system log daily until the subscription is renewed or expires.
Upon license expiration, some subscriptions continue to function in a limited capacity, and others
stop operating completely. Here you can find out what happens when each subscription expires.
The precise moment of license expiry is at the beginning of the following day at 12:00 AM
(GMT). For example, if your license is scheduled to end on 1/20 you will have functionality
for the remainder of that day. At the start of the new day on 1/21 at 12:00 AM (GMT),
the license will expire. All license-related functions operate on Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT), regardless of the configured time zone on the firewall.
(Panorama license) If the support license expires, Panorama can still manage firewalls
and collect logs, but software and content updates will be unavailable. The software and
content versions on Panorama must be the same as or later than the versions on the
managed firewalls, or else errors will occur. For details, see Panorama, Log Collector,
Firewall, and WildFire Version Compatibility.
Subscription Expiry Behavior
Advanced Threat
Prevention / Threat
Prevention
Alerts appear in the System Log indicating that the license has
expired.
You can still:
• Use signatures that were installed at the time the license
expired, unless you install a new Applications-only content
update either manually or as part of an automatic schedule.
If you do, the update will delete your existing threat
signatures and you will no longer receive protection against
them.
• Use and modify Custom App-ID™ and threat signatures.
You can no longer:
• Install new signatures.
• Roll signatures back to previous versions.
• Detect and prevent unknown threats using real-time, MLbased detection engines provided by Advanced Threat
Prevention.
DNS Security You can still:
• Use local DNS signatures if you have an active Threat
Prevention license.
You can no longer:
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Subscription Expiry Behavior
• Get new DNS signatures.
Advanced URL Filtering /
URL Filtering
You can still:
• Enforce policy using custom URL categories.
You can no longer:
• Get updates to cached PAN-DB categories.
• Connect to the PAN-DB URL filtering database.
• Get PAN-DB URL categories.
• Analyze URL requests in real-time using advanced URL
filtering.
WildFire You can still:
• Forward PEs for analysis.
• Get signature updates every 24-48 hours if you have an
active Threat Prevention subscription.
You can no longer:
• Get five-minute updates through the WildFire public and
private clouds.
• Forward advanced file types such as APKs, Flash files,
PDFs, Microsoft Office files, Java Applets, Java files (.jar
and .class), and HTTP/HTTPS email links contained in
SMTP and POP3 email messages.
• Use the WildFire API.
• Use the WildFire appliance to host a WildFire private cloud
or a WildFire hybrid cloud.
AutoFocus You can still:
• Use an external dynamic list with AutoFocus data for a
grace period of three months.
You can no longer:
• Access the AutoFocus portal.
• View the AutoFocus Intelligence Summary for Monitor log
or ACC artifacts.
Strata Logging Service You can still:
• Access the stored data for a 30-day grace period provided
for license renewal, after which the data is deleted.
You can no longer:
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Subscription Expiry Behavior
• Ingest data to Strata Logging Service during 30-day grace
period.
• Forward logs to Strata Logging Service during 30-day grace
period.
GlobalProtect You can still:
• Use the app for endpoints running Windows and macOS.
• Configure single or multiple internal/external gateways.
You can no longer:
• Access the Linux OS app and mobile app for iOS, Android,
Chrome OS, and Windows 10 UWP.
• Use IPv6 for external gateways.
• Run HIP checks.
• Use Clientless VPN.
• Enforce split tunneling based on destination domain, client
process, and video streaming application.
VM-Series See the VM-Series Deployment Guide.
Support You can no longer:
• Receive software updates.
• Download VM images.
• Benefit from technical support.
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Enhanced Application Logs for Palo Alto Networks
Cloud Services
The firewall can collect data that increases visibility into network activity for Palo Alto Networks
apps and services, like Cortex XDR and IoT Security. These Enhanced Application logs are
designed strictly for Palo Alto Networks apps and services to consume and process; you cannot
view Enhanced Application logs on the firewall or Panorama. Only firewalls sending logs to the
logging service can generate Enhanced Application logs.
Enhanced Application Logging can cause undesired logging behavior, such as the
generation of URL Filtering logs for traffic to allowed categories. This can impact storage
capacity and performance. Disable this feature to reduce undesired logs.
Follow these procedures to enable log forwarding for Enhanced Application logs for Cortex XDR
and IoT Security:
• Cortex XDR
• IoT Security
Cortex XDR
The types of data that Enhanced Application logs gather include records of DNS queries, the
HTTP header User Agent field that specifies the web browser or tool used to access a URL, and
information about DHCP automatic IP address assignment. With DHCP information, for example,
Cortex XDR™ can alert on unusual activity based on hostname instead of IP address. This allows
the security analyst using Cortex XDR to meaningfully assess whether the user’s activity is within
the scope of their role, and if not, to more quickly take action to stop the activity.
To benefit from the most comprehensive set of Enhanced Application logs, enable User-ID.
Deployments for the Windows-based User-ID agent and the PAN-OS integrated User-ID agent
both collect some data that isn’t reflected in the firewall User-ID logs but is useful for associating
network activity with specific users.
To start forwarding Enhanced Application logs to Strata Logging Service, turn on Enhanced
Application Logging globally, and then enable it on a per-security rule basis (using a Log
Forwarding profile). The global setting is required and captures data for traffic that isn’t sessionbased (ARP requests, for example). The per-security policy rule setting is strongly recommended;
the majority of Enhanced Application logs are gathered from the session-based traffic that your
Security policy rules enforce.
STEP 1 | Enhanced Application Logging requires a Strata Logging Service subscription. User-ID is also
recommended. Here are steps to get started with Strata Logging Service and enable User-ID.
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STEP 2 | To Enable enhanced application logging on the firewall, select Device > Setup >
Management > Cloud Logging and edit the Cloud Logging Settings.
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STEP 3 | Continue to enable Enhanced Application Logging for the Security policy rules that control
the traffic into which you want extended visibility.
1. Select Objects > Log Forwarding and Add or modify a Log Forwarding profile.
2. Update the profile to Enable enhanced application logs in cloud logging (including traffic
and url logs).
Notice that when you enable Enhanced Application Logging in a Log Forwarding profile,
match lists that specify the log types required for Enhanced Application Logging are
automatically added to the profile.
3. Click OK to save the profile and continue to update as many profiles as needed.
4. Ensure that the Log Forwarding profile that you’ve updated is attached to a Security
policy rule, to trigger log generation and forwarding for the traffic matched to the rule.
1. To view the profiles attached to each Security policy rule, select Policies > Security.
2. To update the Log Forwarding profile attached to a rule, Add or edit a rule and select
Policies > Security > Actions > Log Forwarding and select the Log Forwarding profile
enabled with Enhanced Application Logging.
IoT Security
One part of the firewall setup for IoT Security involves creating a Log Forwarding profile and
applying it to Security policy rules. Although you can apply a profile to each rule individually,
a simpler approach is to select a predefined Log Forwarding profile and apply it to as many
rules as you like in bulk. The following steps explain this approach to adding the predefined Log
Forwarding profile to Security policy rules in bulk.
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To use this workflow, you must have already configured Security policy rules, enabled
logging on the rules, and enabled logging services with Enhanced Application Logging.
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STEP 1 | Apply a Log Forwarding profile for IoT Security to Security policy rules.
1. Log in to your next-generation firewall and select Policies > Log Forwarding for Security
Services in the Policy Optimizer section.
2. To view all your Security policy rules, including those with a Log Forwarding profile and
those without it, select All for Log Forwarding Profile.
3. Select the rules for which you want to forward logs to the logging service.
4. Attach Log Forwarding Profile at the bottom of the page.
5. To apply the default Log Forwarding profile to your rules, choose IoT Security Default
Profile - EAL Enabled and OK.
The default profile is preconfigured to provide IoT Security with all the log types it requires,
including Enhanced Application logs.
You don’t have to Enable Enhanced IoT Logging because Enhanced Application
Logging (EAL) is already enabled on IoT Security Default Profile.
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or
To add the forwarding of EALs to an existing Log Forwarding profile that doesn’t already
have it, choose it from the Log Forwarding Profile list, select Enable Enhanced IoT Logging
and then OK.
When you Enable Enhanced IoT Logging, PAN-OS updates the chosen Log
Forwarding profile itself and thereby enables enhanced log forwarding on all rules
that use the same Log Forwarding profile.
PAN-OS adds the chosen Log Forwarding profile to those rules that don’t already have one
and replaces previously assigned profiles with this one.
STEP 2 | Commit your changes.
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Administrators can configure, manage, and monitor Palo Alto Networks firewalls using the web
interface, CLI, and API management interface. You can customize role-based administrative access
to the management interfaces to delegate specific tasks or permissions to certain administrators.
See Administrative Access Best Practices for how to safeguard your management network and
the firewall and Panorama management interfaces.
• Management Interfaces
• Use the Web Interface
• Manage Configuration Backups
• Manage Firewall Administrators
• Reference: Web Interface Administrator Access
• Reference: Port Number Usage
• Reset the Firewall to Factory Default Settings
• Bootstrap the Firewall
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Management Interfaces
You can use the following user interfaces to manage the Palo Alto Networks firewall:
Do not enable management access from the internet or from other untrusted zones inside
your enterprise security boundary. Follow the Adminstrative Access Best Practices to
ensure that you are properly securing your firewall.
• Use the Web Interface to perform configuration and monitoring tasks with relative ease. This
graphical interface allows you to access the firewall using HTTPS (recommended) or HTTP and
it is the best way to perform administrative tasks.
• Use the Command Line Interface (CLI) to perform a series of tasks by entering commands in
rapid succession over SSH (recommended), Telnet, or the console port. The CLI is a no-frills
interface that supports two command modes, operational and configure, each with a distinct
hierarchy of commands and statements. When you become familiar with the nesting structure
and syntax of the commands, the CLI provides quick response times and administrative
efficiency.
• Use the XML API to streamline your operations and integrate with existing, internally
developed applications and repositories. The XML API is a web service implemented using
HTTP/HTTPS requests and responses.
• Use Panorama to perform web-based management, reporting, and log collection for multiple
firewalls. The Panorama web interface resembles the firewall web interface but with additional
functions for centralized management.
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Use the Web Interface
The following topics describe how to use the firewall web interface. For detailed information
about specific tabs and fields in the web interface, refer to the Web Interface Reference Guide.
• Launch the Web Interface
• Configure Banners, Message of the Day, and Logos
• Use the Administrator Login Activity Indicators to Detect Account Misuse
• Manage and Monitor Administrative Tasks
• Commit, Validate, and Preview Firewall Configuration Changes
• Commit Selective Configuration Changes
• Export Configuration Table Data
• Use Global Find to Search the Firewall or Panorama Management Server
• Manage Locks for Restricting Configuration Changes
Launch the Web Interface
The following web browsers are supported for access to the web interface:
• Google Chrome 104+
• Microsoft Edge 104+
• Mozilla Firefox 103+
• Safari 15+
Perform the following tasks to launch the web interface.
STEP 1 | Launch an Internet browser and enter the IP address of the firewall in the URL field (https://
<IP address>).
By default, the management (MGT) interface allows only HTTPS access to the web
interface. To enable other protocols, select Device > Setup > Interfaces and edit the
Management interface.
STEP 2 | Log in to the firewall according to the type of authentication used for your account. If
logging in to the firewall for the first time, use the default value admin for your username
and password.
• SAML—Click Use Single Sign-On (SSO). If the firewall performs authorization (role
assignment) for administrators, enter your Username and Continue. If the SAML identity
provider (IdP) performs authorization, Continue without entering a Username. In both
cases, the firewall redirects you to the IdP, which prompts you to enter a username and
password. After you authenticate to the IdP, the firewall web interface displays.
• Any other type of authentication—Enter your user Name and Password. Read the login
banner and select I Accept and Acknowledge the Statement Below if the login page has the
banner and check box. Then click Login.
STEP 3 | Read and Close the messages of the day.
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83 | Firewall Administration
Configure Banners, Message of the Day, and Logos
A login banner is optional text that you can add to the login page so that administrators will see
information they must know before they log in. For example, you could add a message to notify
users of restrictions on unauthorized use of the firewall.
You can add colored bands that highlight overlaid text across the top (header banner) and bottom
(footer banner) of the web interface to ensure administrators see critical information, such as the
classification level for firewall administration.
A message of the day dialog automatically displays after you log in. The dialog displays messages
that Palo Alto Networks embeds to highlight important information associated with a software or
content release. You can also add one custom message to ensure administrators see information,
such as an impending system restart, that might affect their tasks.
You can replace the default logos that appear on the login page and in the header of the web
interface with the logos of your organization.
STEP 1 | Configure the login banner.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the General Settings.
2. Enter the Login Banner (up to 3,200 characters).
3. (Optional) Select Force Admins to Acknowledge Login Banner to force administrators to
select an I Accept and Acknowledge the Statement Below check box above the banner
text to activate the Login button.
4. Click OK.
STEP 2 | Set the message of the day.
1. Select Device > Setup > Management and edit the Banners and Messages settings.
2. Enable the Message of the Day.
3. Enter the Message of the Day (up to 3,200 characters).
After you enter the message and click OK, administrators who subsequently
log in, and active administrators who refresh their browsers, see the new or
updated message immediately; a commit isn’t necessary. This enables you to
inform other administrators of an impending commit that might affect their
configuration changes. Based on the commit time that your message specifies,
the administrators can then decide whether to complete, save, or undo their
changes.
4. (Optional) Select Allow Do Not Display Again (default is disabled) to give administrators
the option to suppress a message of the day after the first login session. Each
administrator can suppress messages only for his or her own login sessions. In the
message of the day dialog, each message will have its own suppression option.
5. (Optional) Enter a header Title for the message of the day dialog (default is Messageof
the Day).
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84 | Firewall Administration
STEP 3 | Configure the header and footer banners.
A bright background color and contrasting text color can increase the likelihood that
administrators will notice and read a banner. You can also use colors that correspond
to classification levels in your organization.
1. Enter the Header Banner (up to 3,200 characters).
2. (Optional) Clear Same Banner Header and Footer (enabled by default) to use different
header and footer banners.
3. Enter the Footer Banner (up to 3,200 characters) if the header and footer banners differ.
4. Click OK.
STEP 4 | Replace the logos on the login page and in the header.
The maximum size for any logo image is 128KB. The supported file types are png and
jpg. The firewall does not support image files that are interlaced, images that contain
alpha channels, and gif file types because such files interfere with PDF generation.
1. Select Device > Setup > Operations and click Custom Logos in the Miscellaneous
section.
2. Perform the following steps for both the Login Screen logo and the Main UI (header)
logo:
1. Click upload .
2. Select a logo image and click Open.
You can preview the image to see how PAN-OS will crop it to fit by clicking
the magnifying glass icon.
3. Click Close.
3. Commit your changes.
STEP 5 | Verify that the banners, message of the day, and logos display as expected.
1. Log out to return to the login page, which displays the new logos you selected.
2. Enter your login credentials, review the banner, select I Accept and Acknowledge the
Statement Below to enable the Login button, and then Login.
A dialog displays the message of the day. Messages that Palo Alto Networks embedded
display on separate pages in the same dialog. To navigate the pages, click the right or left
arrows along the sides of the dialog or click a page selector at the bottom of
the dialog.
3. (Optional) You can select Do not show again for the message you configured and for any
messages that Palo Alto Networks embedded.
4. Close the message of the day dialog to access the web interface.
Header and footer banners display in every web interface page with the text and colors
that you configured. The new logo you selected for the web interface displays below the
header banner.
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85 | Firewall Administration
Use the Administrator Login Activity Indicators to Detect Account
Misuse
The last login time and failed login attempts indicators provide a visual way to detect misuse of
your administrator account on a Palo Alto Networks firewall or Panorama management server.
Use the last login information to determine if someone else logged in using your credentials and
use the failed login attempts indicator to determine if your account is being targeted in a bruteforce attack.
STEP 1 | View the login activity indicators to monitor recent activity on your account.
1. Log in to the web interface on your firewall or Panorama management server.
2. View the last login details located at the bottom left of the window and verify that the
timestamp corresponds to your last login.
3. Look for a caution symbol to the right of the last login time information for failed login
attempts.
The failed login indicator appears if one or more failed login attempts occurred using
your account since the last successful login.
1. If you see the caution symbol, hover over it to display the number of failed login
attempts.
2. Click the caution symbol to view the failed login attempts summary. Details include
the admin account name, the reason for the login failure, the source IP address, and
the date and time.
After you successfully log in and then log out, the failed login counter resets
to zero so you will see new failed login details, if any, the next time you log in.
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 86 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
86 | Firewall Administration
STEP 2 | Locate hosts that are continually attempting to log in to your firewall or Panorama
management server.
1. Click the failed login caution symbol to view the failed login attempts summary.
2. Locate and record the source IP address of the host that attempted to log in. For
example, the following figure shows multiple failed login attempts.
3. Work with your network administrator to locate the user and host that is using the IP
address that you identified.
If you cannot locate the system that is performing the brute-force attack, consider
renaming the account to prevent future attacks.
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87 | Firewall Administration
STEP 3 | Take the following actions if you detect an account compromise.
1. Select Monitor > Logs > Configuration and view the configuration changes and commit
history to determine if your account was used to make changes without your knowledge.
2. Select Device > Config Audit to compare the current configuration and the configuration
that was running just prior to the configuration you suspect was changed using your
credentials. You can also do this using Panorama.
If your administrator account was used to create a new account, performing
a configuration audit helps you detect changes that are associated with any
unauthorized accounts, as well.
3. Revert the configuration to a known good configuration if you see that logs were
deleted or if you have difficulty determining if improper changes were made using your
account.
Before you commit to a previous configuration, review it to ensure that it
contains the correct settings. For example, the configuration that you revert to
may not contain recent changes, so apply those changes after you commit the
backup configuration.
Use the following best practices to help prevent brute-force attacks on
privileged accounts.
• Limit the number of failed attempts allowed before the firewall locks a
privileged account by setting the number of Failed Attempts and the Lockout
Time (min) in the authentication profile or in the Authentication Settings for
the Management interface (Device > Setup > Management > Authentication
Settings).
• Use Interface Management Profiles to Restrict Access.
• Enforce complex passwords for privileged accounts.
Manage and Monitor Administrative Tasks
The Task Manager displays details about all the operations that you and other administrators
initiated (such as manual commits) or that the firewall initiated (such as scheduled report
generation) since the last firewall reboot. You can use the Task Manager to troubleshoot failed
operations, investigate warnings associated with completed commits, view details about queued
commits, or cancel pending commits.
You can also view System Logs to monitor system events on the firewall or view Config
Logs to monitor firewall configuration changes.
STEP 1 | Click Tasks at the bottom of the web interface.
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88 | Firewall Administration
STEP 2 | Show only Running tasks (in progress) or All tasks (default). Optionally, filter the tasks by
type:
• Jobs—Administrator-initiated commits, firewall-initiated commits, and software or content
downloads and installations.
• Reports—Scheduled reports.
• Log Requests—Log queries that you trigger by accessing the Dashboard or a Monitor page.
STEP 3 | Perform any of the following actions:
• Display or hide task details—By default, the Task Manager displays the Type, Status, Start
Time, and Messages for each task. To see the End Time and Job ID for a task, you must
manually configure the display to expose those columns. To display or hide a column, open
the drop-down in any column header, select Columns, and select or deselect the column
names as needed.
• Investigate warnings or failures—Read the entries in the Messages column for task details.
If the column says Too many messages, click the corresponding entry in the Type column
to see more information.
• Display a commit description—If an administrator entered a description when configuring
a commit, you can click Commit Description in the Messages column to display the
description.
• Check the position of a commit in the queue—The Messages column indicates the queue
position of commits that are in progress.
• Cancel pending commits—Click Clear Commit Queue to cancel all pending commits
(available only to predefined administrative roles). To cancel an individual commit, click x
in the Action column for that commit (the commit remains in the queue until the firewall
dequeues it). You cannot cancel commits that are in progress.
Commit, Validate, and Preview Firewall Configuration Changes
A commit is the process of activating pending changes to the firewall configuration. You can filter
pending changes by administrator or location and then preview, validate, or commit only those
changes. The locations can be specific virtual systems, shared policies and objects, or shared
device and network settings.
The firewall queues commit requests so that you can initiate a new commit while a previous
commit is in progress. The firewall performs the commits in the order they are initiated but
prioritizes auto-commits that are initiated by the firewall (such as FQDN refreshes). However, if
the queue already has the maximum number of administrator-initiated commits, you must wait for
the firewall to finish processing a pending commit before initiating a new one. To cancel pending
commits or view details about commits of any status, see Manage and Monitor Administrative
Tasks.
When you initiate a commit, the firewall checks the validity of the changes before activating
them. The validation output displays conditions that either block the commit (errors) or that are
important to know (warnings). For example, validation could indicate an invalid route destination
that you need to fix for the commit to succeed. The validation process enables you to find and fix
errors before you commit (it makes no changes to the running configuration). This is useful if you
have a fixed commit window and want to be sure the commit will succeed without errors.
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89 | Firewall Administration
When enabled and managed by a Panorama™ management server, managed firewalls locally test
the configuration committed locally or pushed from Panorama to verify that the new changes
do not break the connection between Panorama and the managed firewall. If the committed
configuration breaks the connection between Panorama and a managed firewall, then the
firewall automatically fails the commit and the configuration is reverted to the previous running
configuration. Additionally, firewalls managed by a Panorama management server test their
connection to Panorama every 60 minutes and if a managed firewalls detects that it can no
longer successfully connect to Panorama, then it reverts its configuration to the previous running
configuration.
The commit, validate, preview, save, and revert operations apply only to changes made
after the last commit. To restore configurations to the state they were in before the last
commit, you must load a previously backed up configuration.
To prevent multiple administrators from making configuration changes during concurrent
sessions, see Manage Locks for Restricting Configuration Changes.
STEP 1 | Configure the scope of configuration changes that you will commit, validate, or preview.
1. Click Commit at the top of the web interface.
2. Select one of the following options:
• Commit All Changes (default)—Applies the commit to all changes for which you have
administrative privileges. You cannot manually filter the commit scope when you
select this option. Instead, the administrator role assigned to the account you used to
log in determines the commit scope.
• Commit Changes Made By—Enables you to filter the commit scope by administrator
or location. The administrative role assigned to the account you used to log in
determines which changes you can filter.
To commit the changes of other administrators, the account you used to log in
must be assigned the Superuser role or an Admin Role profile with the Commit
For Other Admins privilege enabled.
3. (Optional) To filter the commit scope by administrator, select Commit Changes Made By,
click the adjacent link, select the administrators, and click OK.
4. (Optional) To filter by location, select Commit Changes Made By and clear any changes
that you want to exclude from the Commit Scope.
If dependencies between the configuration changes you included and excluded
cause a validation error, perform the commit with all the changes included. For
example, when you commit changes to a virtual system, you must include the
changes of all administrators who added, deleted, or repositioned rules for the
same rulebase in that virtual system.
STEP 2 | Preview the changes that the commit will activate.
This can be useful if, for example, you don’t remember all your changes and you’re not sure
you want to activate all of them.
The firewall compares the configurations you selected in the Commit Scope to the running
configuration. The preview window displays the configurations side-by-side and uses color
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90 | Firewall Administration
coding to indicate which changes are additions (green), modifications (yellow), or deletions
(red).
Preview Changes and select the Lines of Context, which is the number of lines from the
compared configuration files to display before and after each highlighted difference. These
additional lines help you correlate the preview output to settings in the web interface. Close
the preview window when you finish reviewing the changes.
Because the preview results display in a new browser window, your browser
must allow pop-ups. If the preview window does not open, refer to your browser
documentation for the steps to allow pop-ups.
STEP 3 | Preview the individual settings for which you are committing changes.
This can be useful if you want to know details about the changes, such as the types of settings
and who changed them.
1. Click Change Summary.
2. (Optional) Group By a column name (such as the Type of setting).
3. Close the Change Summary dialog when you finish reviewing the changes.
STEP 4 | Validate the changes before you commit to ensure the commit will succeed.
1. Validate Changes.
The results display all the errors and warnings that an actual commit would display.
2. Resolve any errors that the validation results identify.
STEP 5 | Commit your configuration changes.
Commit your changes to validate and activate them.
To view details about commits that are pending (which you can still cancel), in
progress, completed, or failed, see Manage and Monitor Administrative Tasks.
Commit Selective Configuration Changes
Configuration changes occur often and are typically made by multiple administrators who
are not aware of what other configuration changes were made. It is vital to be able to control
which configuration objects are committed and prevent incomplete configurations from being
committed to your firewall. Rather than committing all pending configuration changes, you can
instead select configuration objects to commit. A system log is generated after a successful
selective commit.
The ability to select specific objects commit allows multiple administrators to effectively make
configuration changes without disrupting other administrators who make configuration changes
that are not ready to be committed. Leveraging the ability to selectively commit configuration
changes allows you to maintain your defined operational procedure while still being able to
successfully make independent configuration changes that are not defined within your operational
scope.
STEP 1 | Log in to the firewall web interface.
STEP 2 | Perform configuration changes on the firewall and Commit.
PAN-OS® Administrator’s Guide Version 10.2 91 ©2025 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/techdocs/en_US/pdf/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/pan-os-admin.pdf |
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