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391 | High Availability
HA Links and Backup
Links
Description
• HA backup links must be on a different subnet from the primary HA
links.
• HA1-backup and HA2-backup ports must be configured on
separate physical ports. The HA1-backup link uses port 28770 and
28260.
• PA-3200 Series firewalls don’t support an IPv6 address for the
HA1-backup link; use an IPv4 address.
Palo Alto Networks recommends enabling heartbeat backup
(uses port 28771 on the MGT interface) if you use an inband port for the HA1 or the HA1 backup links.
Packet-Forwarding
Link
In addition to HA1 and HA2 links, an active/active deployment also
requires a dedicated HA3 link. The firewalls use this link for forwarding
packets to the peer during session setup and asymmetric traffic flow.
The HA3 link is a Layer 2 link that uses MAC-in-MAC encapsulation.
It does not support Layer 3 addressing or encryption. PA-7000 Series
firewalls synchronize sessions across the NPCs one-for-one. On
PA-800 Series, PA-3200 Series, PA-3400 Series, PA-5200 Series, and
PA-5400 Series firewalls, you can configure aggregate interfaces as
an HA3 link. The aggregate interfaces can also provide redundancy
for the HA3 link; you cannot configure backup links for the HA3 link.
On PA-3200 Series, PA-3400 Series, PA-5200 Series, PA-5400 Series,
and PA-7000 Series firewalls, the dedicated HSCI ports support the
HA3 link. The firewall adds a proprietary packet header to packets
traversing the HA3 link, so the MTU over this link must be greater than
the maximum packet length forwarded.
HA4 Link and HA4
Backup Link
The HA4 link and HA4 backup link perform session cache
synchronization among all HA cluster members having the same
cluster ID. The HA4 link between cluster members detects
connectivity failures between cluster members by sending and
receiving Layer 2 keepalive messages. View the status of the HA4 and
HA4 backup links on the firewall dashboard.
HA Ports on Palo Alto Networks Firewalls
When connecting two Palo Alto Networks® firewalls in a high availability (HA) configuration,
we recommend that you use the dedicated HA ports for HA Links and Backup Links. These
dedicated ports include: the HA1 ports labeled HA1, HA1-A, and HA1-B used for HA control and
synchronization traffic; and HA2 and the High Speed Chassis Interconnect (HSCI) ports used for
HA session setup traffic. The PA-5200 Series firewalls have multipurpose auxiliary ports labeled
AUX-1 and AUX-2 that you can configure for HA1 traffic.
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392 | High Availability
You can also configure the HSCI port for HA3, which is used for packet forwarding to the peer
firewall during session setup and asymmetric traffic flow (active/active HA only). The HSCI port
can be used for HA2 traffic, HA3 traffic, or both.
The HA1 and AUX links provide synchronization for functions that reside on the
management plane. Using the dedicated HA interfaces on the management plane is
more efficient than using the in-band ports as this eliminates the need to pass the
synchronization packets over the dataplane.
You can configure data ports as both dedicated HA interfaces and as dedicated backup
HA interfaces. For firewalls without dedicated HA interfaces, such as the PA-200 and
PA-400 Series, it is required to configure a data port as a HA interface.
Data ports configured as HA1, HA2, or HA3 interfaces can be connected directly to
each HA interface on the firewall or connected through a Layer2 switch. For data ports
configured as an HA3 interface, you must enable jumbo frames as HA3 messages exceed
1,500 bytes.
Whenever possible, connect HA ports directly between the two firewalls in an HA pair
(not through a switch or router) to avoid HA link and communications problems that could
occur if there is a network issue.
Use the following table to learn about dedicated HA ports and how to connect the HA Links and
Backup Links:
Model Front-Panel Dedicated Port(s)
PA-800 Series Firewalls • HA1 and HA2—Ethernet 10Mbps/100Mbps/1000Mbps ports
used for HA1 and HA2 in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1 port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1 port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect these ports together through a switch or router.
• For HA2 traffic—Connect the HA2 port on the first firewall
directly to the HA2 port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect these ports together through a switch or router.
PA-3200 Series
Firewalls
• HA1-A and HA1-B—Ethernet 10Mbps/100Mbps/1000Mbps
ports used for HA1 traffic in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1-A port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1-A port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the HA1-A connection—Connect the HA1-
B port on the first firewall directly to the HA1-B port on the
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Model Front-Panel Dedicated Port(s)
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
If the firewall dataplane restarts due to a failure
or manual restart, the HA1-B link will also restart.
If this occurs and the HA1-A link is not connected
and configured, then a split brain condition occurs.
Therefore, we recommend that you connect and
configure the HA1-A ports and the HA1-B ports to
provide redundancy and to avoid split brain issues.
You can remap the firewall’s SFP ports as HA1-A
and HA1-B ports via PAN-OS or Panorama.
• HSCI—The HSCI port is a Layer 1 SFP+ interface that connects
two PA-3200 Series firewalls in an HA configuration. Use this
port for an HA2 connection, HA3 connection, or both.
The traffic carried on the HSCI ports is raw Layer 1 traffic, which
is not routable or switchable. Therefore, you must connect the
HSCI ports directly to each other (from the HSCI port on the first
firewall to the HSCI port on the second firewall).
PA-3400 Series
Firewalls
• HA1-A and HA1-B—Ethernet 10Mbps/100Mbps/1000Mbps
ports used for HA1 traffic in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1-A port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1-A port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the HA1-A connection—Connect the HA1-
B port on the first firewall directly to the HA1-B port on the
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
If the firewall dataplane restarts due to a failure
or manual restart, the HA1-B link will also restart.
If this occurs and the HA1-A link is not connected
and configured, then a split brain condition occurs.
Therefore, we recommend that you connect and
configure the HA1-A ports and the HA1-B ports to
provide redundancy and to avoid split brain issues.
• HSCI—The HSCI port is a Layer 1 SFP+ interface that connects
two PA-3400 Series firewalls in an HA configuration. Use this
port for an HA2 connection, HA3 connection, or both.
The traffic carried on the HSCI port is raw Layer 1 traffic, which
is not routable or switchable. Therefore, you must connect the
HSCI ports directly to each other (from the HSCI port on the first
firewall to the HSCI port on the second firewall).
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Model Front-Panel Dedicated Port(s)
The management interface cannot be configured as a HA
port.
PA-5200 Series
Firewalls
• HA1-A and HA1-B—Ethernet 10Mbps/100Mbps/1000Mbps
ports used for HA1 traffic in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1-A port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1-A port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the HA1-A connection—Connect the HA1-
B port on the first firewall directly to the HA1-B port on the
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
• HSCI—The HSCI port is a Layer 1 interface that connects two
PA-5200 Series firewalls in an HA configuration. Use this port for
an HA2 connection, HA3 connection, or both.
The HSCI port on the PA-5220 firewall is a QSFP+
port and the HSCI port on the PA-5250, PA-5260, and
PA-5280 firewalls is a QSFP28 port.
The traffic carried on the HSCI port is raw Layer 1 traffic, which
is not routable or switchable. Therefore, you must connect the
HSCI ports directly to each other (from the HSCI port on the first
firewall to the HSCI port on the second firewall).
PA-5200 Series
Firewalls (continued)
• AUX-1 and AUX-2—The auxiliary SFP+ ports are multipurpose
ports that you can configure for HA1, management functions, or
log forwarding to Panorama. Use these ports when you need a
fiber connection for one of these functions.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the AUX-1 port on the first firewall
directly to the AUX-1 port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the AUX-1 connection—Connect the AUX-2
port on the first firewall directly to the AUX-2 port on the
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
PA-5400 Series
Firewalls (PA-5410,
PA-5420, and
PA-5430)
• HA1-A and HA1-B—SFP/SFP+ 1Gbps/10Gbps ports used for
HA1 traffic in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1-A port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1-A port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the HA1-A connection—Connect the HA1-
B port on the first firewall directly to the HA1-B port on the
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395 | High Availability
Model Front-Panel Dedicated Port(s)
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
• HSCI—The HSCI port is a Layer 1 QSFP+ interface that connects
two PA-5400 Series firewalls in an HA configuration. Use this
port for an HA2 connection, HA3 connection, or both.
The traffic carried on the HSCI port is raw Layer 1 traffic, which
is not routable or switchable. Therefore, you must connect the
HSCI ports directly to each other (from the HSCI port on the first
firewall to the HSCI port on the second firewall).
• For HA2 and HA3 traffic—Connect the HSCI-A port on the
first firewall directly to the HSCI-A port on the second firewall.
You can use the firewall data ports for HA2 or HA3
traffic as well; however, the same data port cannot
be used for both HA2 and HA3 at the same time.
To have both HA2 and HA3 connections, you must
use separate data ports.
PA-5450 Firewall • HA1-A and HA1-B—SFP/SFP+ 1Gbps/10Gbps ports used for
HA1 traffic in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1-A port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1-A port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the HA1-A connection—Connect the HA1-
B port on the first firewall directly to the HA1-B port on the
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
• HSCI-A and HSCI-B—The HSCI ports are Layer 1 QSFP
+ interfaces that connect two PA-5450 firewalls in an HA
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396 | High Availability
Model Front-Panel Dedicated Port(s)
configuration. Use these ports for an HA2 connection, HA3
connection, or both.
The traffic carried on the HSCI ports is raw Layer 1 traffic, which
is not routable or switchable. Therefore, you must connect these
ports as follows:
• For HA2 and HA3 traffic—Connect the HSCI-A port on the
first firewall directly to the HSCI-A port on the second firewall.
You can configure HA2 (data link) on the HSCI
ports or on NC data ports. When configuring on
dataplane ports, you must ensure that both the
HA2 and HA2-Backup links are configured on
dataplane interfaces. A mix of a dataplane port and
an HSCI port for either HA2 or HA2-Backup will
result in a commit failure.
• For a backup to the HSCI-A connection—Connect the HSCIB port on the first firewall directly to the HSCI-B port on the
second firewall.
PA-7000 Series
Firewalls
• HA1-A and HA1-B—Ethernet 10Mbps/100Mbps/1000Mbps
ports used for HA1 traffic in both HA Modes.
• For HA1 traffic—Connect the HA1-A port on the first firewall
directly to the HA1-A port on the second firewall in the pair or
connect them together through a switch or router.
• For a backup to the HA1-A connection—Connect the HA1-
B port on the first firewall directly to the HA1-B port on the
second firewall in the pair or connect them together through a
switch or router.
You cannot configure an HA1 connection on the
NPC data ports or the management (MGT) port.
• HSCI-A and HSCI-B—The HSCI ports are Layer 1 QSFP+
interfaces that connect two PA-7000 Series firewalls in an HA
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397 | High Availability
Model Front-Panel Dedicated Port(s)
configuration. Use these ports for an HA2 connection, HA3
connection, or both.
The traffic carried on the HSCI ports is raw Layer 1 traffic, which
is not routable or switchable. Therefore, you must connect these
ports as follows:
• For HA2 and HA3 traffic—Connect the HSCI-A port on the
first firewall directly to the HSCI-A port on the second firewall.
For HA2 or HA2/HA3 traffic, the PA-7000 Series
firewalls synchronize sessions across the NPCs onefor-one.
• For a backup to the HSCI-A connection—Connect the HSCIB port on the first firewall directly to the HSCI-B port on the
second firewall.
HA2 and HA2-Backup links can be configured to use a
dataplane interface instead of the HSCI ports. However, if
configured this way, both the HA2 and HA2-Backup links
need to use dataplane interfaces. A mix of a dataplane
port and an HSCI port for either HA2 or HA2-Backup will
result in a commit failure. This applies to the PA-7050-
SMC, PA-7080-SMC, PA-7050-SMC-B, and PA-7080-
SMC-B.
Device Priority and Preemption
The firewalls in an Active-Passive HA pair can be assigned a device priority value to indicate a
preference for which firewall should assume the active role. If you need to use a specific firewall
in the HA pair for actively securing traffic, you must enable the preemptive behavior on both the
firewalls and assign a device priority value for each firewall. The firewall with the lower numerical
value, and therefore higher priority, is designated as active. The other firewall is the passive
firewall.
The same is true for an Active-Active HA pair; however, the device ID is used to assign a device
priority value. Similarly, the lower numerical value in device ID corresponds to a higher priority.
The firewall with the higher priority becomes active-primary and the paired firewall becomes
active-secondary.
By default, preemption is disabled on the firewalls and must be enabled on both firewalls. When
enabled, the preemptive behavior allows the firewall with the higher priority (lower numerical
value) to resume as active or active-primary after it recovers from a failure. When preemption
occurs, the event is logged in the system logs.
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Failover
When a failure occurs on one firewall and the peer in the HA pair (or a peer in the HA cluster)
takes over the task of securing traffic, the event is called a failover. A failover is triggered, for
example, when a monitored metric on a firewall in the HA pair fails. The metrics that the firewall
monitors for detecting a firewall failure are:
• Heartbeat Polling and Hello messages
The firewalls use hello message and heartbeats to verify that the peer firewall is responsive
and operational. Hello messages are sent from one peer to the other at the configured Hello
Interval to verify the state of the firewall. The heartbeat is an ICMP ping to the HA peer over
the control link, and the peer responds to the ping to establish that the firewalls are connected
and responsive. By default, the interval for the heartbeat is 1000 milliseconds. A ping is sent
every 1000 milliseconds and if there are three consecutive heartbeat losses, a failovers occurs.
For details on the HA timers that trigger a failover, see HA Timers.
• Link Monitoring
You can specify a group of physical interfaces that the firewall will monitor (a link group)
and the firewall monitors the state of each link in the group (link up or link down). You
determine the failure condition for the link group: Any link down or All links down in the group
constitutes a link group failure (but not necessarily a failover).
You can create multiple link groups. Therefore, you also determine the failure condition of the
set of link groups: Any link group fails or All link groups fail, which determines when a failover
is triggered. The default behavior is that failure of Any one link in Any link group causes the
firewall to change the HA state to non-functional (or to tentative state in active/active mode)
to indicate a failure of a monitored object.
• Path Monitoring
You can specify a destination IP group of IP address that the firewall will monitor. The firewall
monitors the full path through the network to mission-critical IP addresses using ICMP pings
to verify reachability of the IP address. The default interval for pings is 200ms. An IP address
is considered unreachable when 10 consecutive pings (the default value) fail. You specify the
failure condition for the IP addresses in a destination IP group: Any IP address unreachable
or All IP addresses unreachable in the group. You can specify multiple destination IP groups
for a path group for a virtual wire, VLAN, or virtual router; you specify the failure condition
of destination IP groups in a path group: Any or All, which constitutes a path group failure.
You can configure multiple virtual wire path groups, VLAN path groups, and virtual router path
groups.
You also determine the global failure condition: Any path group fails or All path groups fail,
which determines when a failover is triggered. The default behavior is that Any one of the IP
addresses becoming unreachable in Any destination IP group in Any virtual wire, VLAN, or
virtual router path group causes the firewall to change the HA state to non-functional (or to
tentative state in active/active mode) to indicate a failure of a monitored object.
In addition to the failover triggers listed above, a failover also occurs when the administrator
suspends the firewall or when preemption occurs.
On PA-3200 Series, PA-5200 Series, and PA-7000 Series firewalls, a failover can occur when an
internal health check fails. This health check is not configurable and is enabled to monitor the
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399 | High Availability
critical components, such as the FPGA and CPUs. Additionally, general health checks occur on any
platform, causing failover.
The following describes what occurs in the event of a failure of a Network Processing Card (NPC)
on a PA-7000 Series firewall that is a member of an HA cluster:
• If the NPC that is being used to hold the HA clustering session cache (a copy of the other
members’ sessions) goes down, the firewall goes non-functional. When this occurs, the session
distribution device (such as a load balancer) must detect that the firewall is down and distribute
session load to the other members of the cluster.
• If the NPC of a cluster member goes down and no link monitoring or path monitoring was
enabled on that NPC, the PA-7000 Series firewall member will stay up, but with a lower
capacity because one NPC is down.
• If the NPC of a cluster member goes down and link monitoring or path monitoring was enabled
on that NPC, the PA-7000 Series firewall will go non-functional and the session distribution
device (such as a load balancer) must detect that the firewall is down and distribute session
load to the other members of the cluster.
LACP and LLDP Pre-Negotiation for Active/Passive HA
If a firewall uses LACP or LLDP, negotiation of those protocols upon failover prevents sub-second
failover. However, you can enable an interface on a passive firewall to negotiate LACP and LLDP
prior to failover. Thus, a firewall in Passive or Non-functional HA state can communicate with
neighboring devices using LACP or LLDP. Such pre-negotiation speeds up failover.
All firewall models except VM-Series firewalls support a pre-negotiation configuration, which
depends on whether the Ethernet or AE interface is in a Layer 2, Layer 3, or virtual wire
deployment. An HA passive firewall handles LACP and LLDP packets in one of two ways:
• Active—The firewall has LACP or LLDP configured on the interface and actively participates in
LACP or LLDP pre-negotiation, respectively.
• Passive—LACP or LLDP is not configured on the interface and the firewall does not participate
in the protocol, but allows the peers on either side of the firewall to pre-negotiate LACP or
LLDP, respectively.
The following table displays which deployments are supported on Aggregate Ethernet (AE) and
Ethernet interfaces.
Interface Deployment AE Interface Ethernet Interface
LACP in Layer 2 Active Not supported
LACP in Layer 3 Active Not supported
LACP in Virtual Wire Not supported Passive
LLDP in Layer 2 Active Active
LLDP in Layer 3 Active Active
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Interface Deployment AE Interface Ethernet Interface
LLDP in Virtual Wire Active • Active if LLDP itself is
configured.
• Passive if LLDP itself is not
configured.
Pre-negotiation is not supported on subinterfaces or tunnel interfaces.
To configure LACP or LLDP pre-negotiation, see the step (Optional) Enable LACP and LLDP PreNegotiation for Active/Passive HA for faster failover if your network uses LACP or LLDP.
Floating IP Address and Virtual MAC Address
In a Layer 3 deployment of HA active/active mode, you can assign floating IP addresses, which
move from one HA firewall to the other if a link or firewall fails. The interface on the firewall that
owns the floating IP address responds to ARP requests with a virtual MAC address.
Floating IP addresses are recommended when you need functionality such as Virtual Router
Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). Floating IP addresses can also be used to implement VPNs and
source NAT, allowing for persistent connections when a firewall offering those services fails.
As shown in the figure below, each HA firewall interface has its own IP address and floating IP
address. The interface IP address remains local to the firewall, but the floating IP address moves
between the firewalls upon firewall failure. You configure the end hosts to use a floating IP
address as its default gateway, allowing you to load balance traffic to the two HA peers. You can
also use external load balancers to load balance traffic.
If a link or firewall fails or a path monitoring event causes a failover, the floating IP address and
virtual MAC address move over to the functional firewall. (In the figure below, each firewall has
two floating IP addresses and virtual MAC addresses; they all move over if the firewall fails.) The
functioning firewall sends a gratuitous ARP to update the MAC tables of the connected switches
to inform them of the change in floating IP address and MAC address ownership to redirect traffic
to itself.
After the failed firewall recovers, by default the floating IP address and virtual MAC address
move back to firewall with the Device ID [0 or 1] to which the floating IP address is bound.
More specifically, after the failed firewall recovers, it comes on line. The currently active firewall
determines that the firewall is back online and checks whether the floating IP address it is
handling belongs natively to itself or the other firewall. If the floating IP address was originally
bound to the other Device ID, the firewall automatically gives it back. (For an alternative to this
default behavior, see Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Address Bound to
Active-Primary Firewall.)
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Each firewall in the HA pair creates a virtual MAC address for each of its interfaces that has a
floating IP address or ARP Load-Sharing IP address.
The format of the virtual MAC address (on firewalls other than PA-7000, PA-5200, and PA-3200
Series firewalls) is 00-1B-17-00-xx-yy, where 00-1B-17 is the vendor ID (of Palo Alto Networks
in this case), 00 is fixed, xx indicates the Device ID and Group ID as shown in the following figure,
and yy is the Interface ID:
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Device-ID 0 Group-ID Interface-ID
The format of the virtual MAC address on PA-7000, PA-5200, and PA-3200 Series firewalls is
B4-0C-25-xx-xx-xx, where B4-0C-25 is the vendor ID (of Palo Alto Networks in this case), and the
next 24 bits indicate the Device ID, Group ID and Interface ID as follows:
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
111 Device-ID Group-ID 0000 Interface-ID
When a new active firewall takes over, it sends gratuitous ARPs from each of its connected
interfaces to inform the connected Layer 2 switches of the new location of the virtual MAC
address. To configure floating IP addresses, see Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with
Floating IP Addresses.
ARP Load-Sharing
In a Layer 3 interface deployment and active/active HA configuration, ARP load-sharing allows
the firewalls to share an IP address and provide gateway services. Use ARP load-sharing only
when no Layer 3 device exists between the firewall and end hosts, that is, when end hosts use the
firewall as their default gateway.
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In such a scenario, all hosts are configured with a single gateway IP address. One of the firewalls
responds to ARP requests for the gateway IP address with its virtual MAC address. Each firewall
has a unique virtual MAC address generated for the shared IP address. The load-sharing algorithm
that controls which firewall will respond to the ARP request is configurable; it is determined by
computing the hash or modulo of the source IP address of the ARP request.
After the end host receives the ARP response from the gateway, it caches the MAC address and
all traffic from the host is routed via the firewall that responded with the virtual MAC address for
the lifetime of the ARP cache. The lifetime of the ARP cache depends on the end host operating
system.
If a link or firewall fails, the floating IP address and virtual MAC address move over to the
functional firewall. The functional firewall sends gratuitous ARPs to update the MAC table of the
connected switches to redirect traffic from the failed firewall to itself. See Use Case: Configure
Active/Active HA with ARP Load-Sharing.
You can configure interfaces on the WAN side of the HA firewalls with floating IP addresses, and
configure interfaces on the LAN side of the HA firewalls with a shared IP address for ARP loadsharing. For example, the figure below illustrates floating IP addresses for the upstream WAN
edge routers and an ARP load-sharing address for the hosts on the LAN segment.
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As illustrated in the floating IP address scenario, the firewall supports a shared IP address
for ARP load-sharing only on the LAN side of the firewall; the shared IP address cannot be
on the WAN side.
Route-Based Redundancy
In a Layer 3 interface deployment and active/active HA configuration, the firewalls are connected
to routers, not switches. The firewalls use dynamic routing protocols to determine the best path
(asymmetric route) and to load share between the HA pair. In such a scenario, no floating IP
addresses are necessary. If a link, monitored path, or firewall fails, or if Bidirectional Forwarding
Detection (BFD) detects a link failure, the routing protocol (RIP, OSPF, or BGP) handles the
rerouting of traffic to the functioning firewall. You configure each firewall interface with a unique
IP address. The IP addresses remain local to the firewall where they are configured; they do not
move between devices when a firewall fails. See Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with
Route-Based Redundancy.
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HA Timers
High availability (HA) timers facilitate a firewall to detect a firewall failure and trigger a failover.
To reduce the complexity in configuring timers for an HA pair, you can select from three profiles:
Recommended, Aggressive and Advanced. These profiles auto-populate the optimum HA timer
values for the specific firewall platform to enable a speedier HA deployment.
Use the Recommended profile for typical failover timer settings and the Aggressive profile for
faster failover timer settings. The Advanced profile allows you to customize the timer values to
suit your network requirements.
The following table describes each timer included in the profiles and the current preset values
(Recommended/Aggressive) across the different hardware models; these values are for current
reference only and can change in a subsequent release.
Timers that affect members of an HA cluster are described in Configure HA Clustering.
Timers Description PA-7000 Series
PA-5200 Series
PA-3200 Series
PA-800 Series
PA-220
VM-Series
Panorama
Virtual
Appliance
Panorama MSeries
Monitor Fail
Hold Up Time
(ms)
Interval during which
the firewall will remain
active following a path
monitor or link monitor
failure. This setting is
recommended to avoid
an HA failover due to
the occasional flapping
of neighboring devices.
0/0 0/0 0/0
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Timers Description PA-7000 Series
PA-5200 Series
PA-3200 Series
PA-800 Series
PA-220
VM-Series
Panorama
Virtual
Appliance
Panorama MSeries
Preemption
Hold Time (min)
Time that a passive
or active-secondary
firewall will wait before
taking over as the
active or active-primary
firewall.
1/1 1/1 1/1
Heartbeat
Interval (ms)
Frequency at which
the HA peers exchange
heartbeat messages in
the form of an ICMP
(ping).
1000/1000 2000/1000 2000/1000
Promotion
Hold Time (ms)
Time that the passive
firewall (in active/
passive mode) or the
active-secondary
firewall (in active/
active mode) will wait
before taking over as
the active or activeprimary firewall after
communications with
the HA peer have been
lost. This hold time will
begin only after the
peer failure declaration
has been made.
2000/500 2000/500 2000/500
Additional
Master Hold
Up Time (ms)
Time interval in
milliseconds that is
applied to the same
event as Monitor
Fail Hold Up Time
(range is 0 to 60,000;
default is 500). The
additional time interval
is applied only to the
active firewall in active/
passive mode and to
the active-primary
firewall in active/active
mode. This timer is
500/500 500/500 7000/5000
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Timers Description PA-7000 Series
PA-5200 Series
PA-3200 Series
PA-800 Series
PA-220
VM-Series
Panorama
Virtual
Appliance
Panorama MSeries
recommended to avoid
a failover when both
firewalls experience the
same link/path monitor
failure simultaneously.
Hello Interval
(ms)
Interval in milliseconds
between hello packets
that are sent to
verify that the HA
functionality on
the other firewall is
operational (range
is 8,000 to 60,000;
default is 8,000).
8000/8000 8000/8000 8000/8000
Flap Max A flap is counted when
one of the following
occurs:
• A preemptionenabled firewall
leaves the active
state within 20
minutes after
becoming active.
• A link or path fails
to stay up for
10 minutes after
becoming functional.
In the case of a failed
preemption or nonfunctional loop, this
value indicates the
maximum number of
flaps that are permitted
before the firewall is
suspended (range 0 to
16; default is 3).
3/3 3/3 Not Applicable
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Session Owner
In an HA active/active configuration, both firewalls are active simultaneously, which means
packets can be distributed between them. Such distribution requires the firewalls to fulfill two
functions: session ownership and session setup. Typically, each firewall of the pair performs one
of these functions, thereby avoiding race conditions that can occur in asymmetrically routed
environments.
You configure the session owner of sessions to be either the firewall that receives the First Packet
of a new session from the end host or the firewall that is in active-primary state (the Primary
device). If Primary device is configured, but the firewall that receives the first packet is not in
active-primary state, the firewall forwards the packet to the peer firewall (the session owner) over
the HA3 link.
The session owner performs all Layer 7 processing, such as App-ID, Content-ID, and threat
scanning for the session. The session owner also generates all traffic logs for the session.
If the session owner fails, the peer firewall becomes the session owner. The existing sessions fail
over to the functioning firewall and no Layer 7 processing is available for those sessions. When a
firewall recovers from a failure, by default, all sessions it owned before the failure revert back to
that original firewall; Layer 7 processing does not resume.
If you configure session ownership to be Primary device, the session setup defaults to Primary
device also.
Palo Alto Networks recommends setting the Session Owner to First Packet and the
Session Setup to IP Modulo unless otherwise indicated in a specific use case. Setting the
Session Owner to First Packet reduces traffic across the HA3 link and helps distribute the
dataplane load across peers.
Setting Session Owner and Session Setup to Primary Device causes the active-primary
firewall to perform all traffic processing. You might want to configure this for one of these
reasons:
• You are troubleshooting and capturing logs and pcaps, so that packet processing is not
split between the firewalls.
• You want to force the active/active HA pair to function like an active/passive HA pair.
See Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Address Bound to
Active-Primary Firewall.
Session Setup
The session setup firewall performs the Layer 2 through Layer 4 processing necessary to set up
a new session. The session setup firewall also performs NAT using the NAT pool of the session
owner. You determine the session setup firewall in an active/active configuration by selecting one
of the following session setup load sharing options.
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Session Setup Option Description
IP Modulo The firewall distributes the session setup load based on parity of the
source IP address. This is a deterministic method of sharing the session
setup.
IP Hash The firewall uses a hash of the source and destination IP addresses to
distribute session setup responsibilities.
Primary Device The active-primary firewall always sets up the session; only one
firewall performs all session setup responsibilities.
First Packet The firewall that receives the first packet of a session performs session
setup.
• If you want to load-share the session owner and session setup responsibilities,
set session owner to First Packet and session setup to IP modulo. These are the
recommended settings.
• If you want to do troubleshooting or capture logs or pcaps, or if you want an active/
active HA pair to function like an active/passive HA pair, set both the session owner
and session setup to Primary device so that the active-primary device performs all
traffic processing. See Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP
Address Bound to Active-Primary Firewall.
The firewall uses the HA3 link to send packets to its peer for session setup if necessary. The
following figure and text describe the path of a packet that firewall FW1 receives for a new
session. The red dotted lines indicate FW1 forwarding the packet to FW2 and FW2 forwarding
the packet back to FW1 over the HA3 link.
The end host sends a packet to FW1.
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FW1 examines the contents of the packet to match it to an existing session. If there is no
session match, FW1 determines that it has received the first packet for a new session and
therefore becomes the session owner (assuming Session Owner Selection is set to First
Packet).
FW1 uses the configured session setup load-sharing option to identify the session setup
firewall. In this example, FW2 is configured to perform session setup.
FW1 uses the HA3 link to send the first packet to FW2.
FW2 sets up the session and returns the packet to FW1 for Layer 7 processing, if any.
FW1 then forwards the packet out the egress interface to the destination.
The following figure and text describe the path of a packet that matches an existing session:
The end host sends a packet to FW1.
FW1 examines the contents of the packet to match it to an existing session. If the session
matches an existing session, FW1 processes the packet and sends the packet out the egress
interface to the destination.
NAT in Active/Active HA Mode
In an active/active HA configuration:
• You must bind each Dynamic IP (DIP) NAT rule and Dynamic IP and Port (DIPP) NAT rule to
either Device ID 0 or Device ID 1.
• You must bind each static NAT rule to either Device ID 0, Device ID 1, both Device IDs, or the
firewall in active-primary state.
Thus, when one of the firewalls creates a new session, the Device ID 0 or Device ID 1 binding
determines which NAT rules match the firewall. The device binding must include the session
owner firewall to produce a match.
The session setup firewall performs the NAT policy match, but the NAT rules are evaluated based
on the session owner. That is, the session is translated according to NAT rules that are bound to
the session owner firewall. While performing NAT policy matching, a firewall skips all NAT rules
that are not bound to the session owner firewall.
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For example, suppose the firewall with Device ID 1 is the session owner and session setup
firewall. When the firewall with Device ID 1 tries to match a session to a NAT rule, it skips all rules
bound to Device ID 0. The firewall performs the NAT translation only if the session owner and the
Device ID in the NAT rule match.
You will typically create device-specific NAT rules when the peer firewalls use different IP
addresses for translation.
If one of the peer firewalls fails, the active firewall continues to process traffic for synchronized
sessions from the failed firewall, including NAT traffic. In a source NAT configuration, when one
firewall fails:
• The floating IP address that is used as the Translated IP address of the NAT rule transfers to
the surviving firewall. Hence, the existing sessions that fail over will still use this IP address.
• All new sessions will use the device-specific NAT rules that the surviving firewall naturally
owns. That is, the surviving firewall translates new sessions using only the NAT rules that
match its Device ID; it ignores any NAT rules bound to the failed Device ID.
For examples of active/active HA with NAT, see:
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Source DIPP NAT Using Floating IP Addresses
• Use Case: Configure Separate Source NAT IP Address Pools for Active/Active HA Firewalls
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT in Layer 3
ECMP in Active/Active HA Mode
When an active/active HA peer fails, its sessions transfer to the new active-primary firewall,
which tries to use the same egress interface that the failed firewall was using. If the firewall finds
that interface among the ECMP paths, the transferred sessions will take the same egress interface
and path. This behavior occurs regardless of the ECMP algorithm in use; using the same interface
is desirable.
Only if no ECMP path matches the original egress interface will the active-primary firewall select a
new ECMP path.
If you did not configure the same interfaces on the active/active peers, upon failover the activeprimary firewall selects the next best path from the FIB table. Consequently, the existing sessions
might not be distributed according to the ECMP algorithm.
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Set Up Active/Passive HA
• Prerequisites for Active/Passive HA
• Configuration Guidelines for Active/Passive HA
• Configure Active/Passive HA
• Define HA Failover Conditions
• Verify Failover
Prerequisites for Active/Passive HA
To set up high availability on your Palo Alto Networks firewalls, you need a pair of firewalls that
meet the following requirements:
The same model—Both the firewalls in the pair must be of the same hardware model or virtual
machine model. (Verify that by viewing Dashboard, General Information, Model.)
The same PAN-OS version—Both the firewalls should be running the same PAN-OS version
and must each be up-to-date on the application, URL, and threat databases. (Verify that by
viewing Dashboard, General Information, Software Version.)
The same multi virtual system capability—Both firewalls must have Multi Virtual System
Capability either enabled or not enabled. When enabled, each firewall requires its own multiple
virtual systems licenses. (Verify that by viewing Device > Setup > Management, General
Settings, Multi Virtual System Capability enabled or disabled.)
The same type of interfaces—Dedicated HA links, or a combination of the management port
and in-band ports that are set to interface type HA. (Verify the following on Device > High
Availability > HA Communications.)
• Determine the IP address for the HA1 (control) connection between the HA peers. The HA1
IP address for both peers must be on the same subnet if they are directly connected or are
connected to the same switch.
For firewalls without dedicated HA ports, you can use the management port for the control
connection. Using the management port provides a direct communication link between the
management planes on both firewalls. However, because the management ports will not be
directly cabled between the peers, make sure that you have a route that connects these two
interfaces across your network.
• If you use Layer 3 as the transport method for the HA2 (data) connection, determine the IP
address for the HA2 link. Use Layer 3 only if the HA2 connection must communicate over a
routed network. The IP subnet for the HA2 links must not overlap with that of the HA1 links
or with any other subnet assigned to the data ports on the firewall.
The same set of licenses—Licenses are unique to each firewall and cannot be shared between
the firewalls. Therefore, you must license both firewalls identically. If both firewalls do not
have an identical set of licenses, they cannot synchronize configuration information and
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412 | High Availability
maintain parity for a seamless failover. (Verify that the licenses match by comparing Device >
Licenses.)
As a best practice, if you have an existing firewall and you want to add a new firewall
for HA purposes and the new firewall has an existing configuration Reset the Firewall
to Factory Default Settings on the new firewall. This ensures that the new firewall has
a clean configuration. After HA is configured, you will then sync the configuration on
the primary firewall to the newly introduced firewall with the clean configuration.
Configuration Guidelines for Active/Passive HA
To set up an active (PeerA) passive (PeerB) pair in HA, you must configure some options
identically on both firewalls and some independently (non-matching) on each firewall. These HA
settings are not synchronized between the firewalls. For details on what is/is not synchronized,
see Reference: HA Synchronization.
The following checklist details the settings that you must configure identically on both firewalls:
You must enable HA on both firewalls.
You must configure the same Group ID value on both firewalls. The firewall uses the Group ID
value to create a virtual MAC address for all the configured interfaces. See Floating IP Address
and Virtual MAC Address for information about virtual MAC addresses. When a new active
firewall takes over, it sends Gratuitous ARP messages from each of its connected interfaces to
inform the connected Layer 2 switches of the virtual MAC address’ new location.
If you are using in-band ports as HA links, you must set the interfaces for the HA1 and HA2
links to type HA.
Set the HA Mode to Active Passive on both firewalls.
If required, enable preemption on both firewalls. The device priority value, however, must not
be identical.
If required, configure encryption on the HA1 link (for communication between the HA peers)
on both firewalls.
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Based on the combination of HA1 and HA1 Backup ports you are using, use the following
recommendations to decide whether you should enable heartbeat backup:
HA functionality (HA1 and HA1 backup) is not supported on the management
interface if it's configured for DHCP addressing (IP Type set to DHCP Client). The
exceptions are AWS and Azure, where the management interface is configured as
DHCP Client and it supports HA1 and HA1 Backup links.
• HA1: Dedicated HA1 port
HA1 Backup: Dedicated HA1 port
Recommendation: Enable Heartbeat Backup
• HA1: Dedicated HA1 port
HA1 Backup: In-band port
Recommendation: Enable Heartbeat Backup
• HA1: Dedicated HA1 port
HA1 Backup: Management port
Recommendation: Do not enable Heartbeat Backup
• HA1: In-band port
HA1 Backup: In-band port
Recommendation: Enable Heartbeat Backup
• HA1: Management port
HA1 Backup: In-band port
Recommendation: Do not enable Heartbeat Backup
The following table lists the HA settings that you must configure independently on each firewall.
See Reference: HA Synchronization for more information about other configuration settings are
not automatically synchronized between peers.
Independent
Configuration
Settings
PeerA PeerB
IP address of the HA1 link configured
on this firewall (PeerA).
IP address of the HA1 link
configured on this firewall
(PeerB).
Control Link
For firewalls without dedicated HA ports, use the management port IP
address for the control link.
Data Link
The data link
information is
synchronized
By default, the HA2 link uses
Ethernet/Layer 2.
By default, the HA2 link uses
Ethernet/Layer 2.
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Independent
Configuration
Settings
PeerA PeerB
between the
firewalls after
HA is enabled
and the control
link is established
between the
firewalls.
If using a Layer 3 connection,
configure the IP address for the data
link on this firewall (PeerA).
If using a Layer 3 connection,
configure the IP address for the
data link on this firewall (PeerB).
Device Priority
(required, if
preemption is
enabled)
The firewall you plan to make active
must have a lower numerical value
than its peer. So, if Peer A is to
function as the active firewall, keep
the default value of 100 and increment
the value on PeerB.
If the firewalls have the same device
priority value, they use the MAC
address of their HA1 as the tiebreaker.
If PeerB is passive, set the
device priority value to a number
larger than the setting on PeerA.
For example, set the value to
110.
Link Monitoring
—Monitor one
or more physical
interfaces that
handle vital traffic
on this firewall
and define the
failure condition.
Select the physical interfaces on the
firewall that you would like to monitor
and define the failure condition (all or
any) to trigger a failover.
Pick a similar set of physical
interfaces that you would like
to monitor on this firewall and
define the failure condition (all
or any) to trigger a failover.
Path Monitoring
—Monitor one or
more destination
IP addresses
that the firewall
can use ICMP
pings to ascertain
responsiveness.
Define the failure condition (all or any),
ping interval and the ping count. This
is particularly useful for monitoring the
availability of other interconnected
networking devices. For example,
monitor the availability of a router that
connects to a server, connectivity to
the server itself, or some other vital
device that is in the flow of traffic.
Make sure that the node/device that
you are monitoring is not likely to
be unresponsive, especially when it
comes under load, as this could cause
a a path monitoring failure and trigger
a failover.
Pick a similar set of devices or
destination IP addresses that can
be monitored for determining
the failover trigger for PeerB.
Define the failure condition (all
or any), ping interval and the
ping count.
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Configure Active/Passive HA
The following procedure shows how to configure a pair of firewalls in an active/passive
deployment as depicted in the following example topology.
To configure an active/passive HA pair, first complete the following workflow on the first firewall
and then repeat the steps on the second firewall.
STEP 1 | Connect the HA ports to set up a physical connection between the firewalls.
• For firewalls with dedicated HA ports, use an Ethernet cable to connect the dedicated HA1
ports and the HA2 ports on peers. Use a crossover cable if the peers are directly connected
to each other.
• For firewalls without dedicated HA ports, select two data interfaces for the HA2 link and
the backup HA1 link. Then, use an Ethernet cable to connect these in-band HA interfaces
across both firewalls.
Use the management port for the HA1 link and ensure that the management ports can connect
to each other across your network.
STEP 2 | Enable ping on the management port.
Enabling ping allows the management port to exchange heartbeat backup information.
1. Select Device > Setup > Interfaces > Management.
2. Select Ping as a service that is permitted on the interface.
STEP 3 | If the firewall does not have dedicated HA ports, set up the data ports to function as HA
ports.
For firewalls with dedicated HA ports continue to the next step.
1. Select Network > Interfaces.
2. Confirm that the link is up on the ports that you want to use.
3. Select the interface and set Interface Type to HA.
4. Set the Link Speed and Link Duplex settings, as appropriate.
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STEP 4 | Set the HA mode and group ID.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General and edit the Setup section.
2. Set a Group ID and optionally a Description for the pair. The Group ID uniquely
identifies each HA pair on your network. If you have multiple HA pairs that share the
same broadcast domain you must set a unique Group ID for each pair.
3. Set the mode to Active Passive.
STEP 5 | Set up the control link connection.
This example shows an in-band port that is set to interface type HA.
For firewalls that use the management port as the control link, the IP address information is
automatically pre-populated.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Control Link (HA1).
2. Select the Port that you have cabled for use as the HA1 link.
3. Set the IPv4/IPv6 Address and Netmask.
If the HA1 interfaces are on separate subnets, enter the IP address of the Gateway. Do
not add a gateway address if the firewalls are directly connected or are on the same
VLAN.
STEP 6 | (Optional) Enable encryption for the control link connection.
This is typically used to secure the link if the two firewalls are not directly connected, that is if
the ports are connected to a switch or a router.
1. Export the HA key from one firewall and import it into the peer firewall.
1. Select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates.
2. Select Export HA key. Save the HA key to a network location that the peer can
access.
3. On the peer firewall, select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates, and
select Import HA key to browse to the location that you saved the key and import it
in to the peer.
4. Repeat this process on the second firewall to exchange HA keys on both devices.
2. Select Device > High Availability > General, edit the Control Link (HA1) section.
3. Select Encryption Enabled.
If you enable encryption, after you finish configuring the HA firewalls, you can
Refresh HA1 SSH Keys and Configure Key Options.
STEP 7 | Set up the backup control link connection.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Control Link (HA1 Backup).
2. Select the HA1 backup interface and set the IPv4/IPv6 Address and Netmask.
PA-3200 Series firewalls don’t support an IPv6 address for the HA1 backup
control link; use an IPv4 address.
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STEP 8 | Set up the data link connection (HA2) and the backup HA2 connection between the firewalls.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Data Link (HA2) section.
2. Select the Port to use for the data link connection.
3. Select the Transport method. The default is ethernet, and will work when the HA pair is
connected directly or through a switch. If you need to route the data link traffic through
the network, select IP or UDP as the transport mode.
UDP is the only supported transport mode in Azure environments. UDP is the
preferred transport mode for PA-3400 Series firewalls.
4. If you use IP or UDP as the transport method, enter the IPv4/IPv6 Address and
Netmask.
5. Verify that Enable Session Synchronization is selected.
6. Select HA2 Keep-alive to enable monitoring on the HA2 data link between the HA
peers. If a failure occurs based on the threshold that is set (default is 10000 ms), the
defined action will occur. For active/passive configuration, a critical system log message
is generated when an HA2 keep-alive failure occurs.
You can configure the HA2 keep-alive option on both firewalls, or just one
firewall in the HA pair. If the option is only enabled on one firewall, only that
firewall will send the keep-alive messages. The other firewall will be notified if a
failure occurs.
7. Edit the Data Link (HA2 Backup) section, select the interface, and add the IPv4/IPv6
Address and Netmask.
STEP 9 | Enable heartbeat backup if your control link uses a dedicated HA port or an in-band port.
You do not need to enable heartbeat backup if you are using the management port for the
control link.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Election Settings.
2. Select Heartbeat Backup.
To allow the heartbeats to be transmitted between the firewalls, you must verify that the
management port across both peers can route to each other.
Enabling heartbeat backup also allows you to prevent a split-brain situation.
Split brain occurs when the HA1 link goes down causing the firewall to miss
heartbeats, although the firewall is still functioning. In such a situation, each
peer believes that the other is down and attempts to start services that are
running, thereby causing a split brain. When the heartbeat backup link is
enabled, split brain is prevented because redundant heartbeats and hello
messages are transmitted over the management port.
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STEP 10 | Set the device priority and enable preemption.
This setting is only required if you wish to make sure that a specific firewall is the preferred
active firewall. For information, see Device Priority and Preemption.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Election Settings.
2. Set the numerical value in Device Priority. Make sure to set a lower numerical value on
the firewall that you want to assign a higher priority to.
If both firewalls have the same device priority value, the firewall with the lowest
MAC address on the HA1 control link will become the active firewall.
3. Select Preemptive.
You must enable preemptive on both the active firewall and the passive firewall.
STEP 11 | (Optional) Modify the HA Timers.
By default, the HA timer profile is set to the Recommended profile and is suited for most HA
deployments.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Election Settings.
2. Select the Aggressive profile for triggering failover faster; select Advanced to define
custom values for triggering failover in your set up.
To view the preset value for an individual timer included in a profile, select
Advanced and click Load Recommended or Load Aggressive. The preset values
for your hardware model will be displayed on screen.
STEP 12 | (Optional) Modify the link status of the HA ports on the passive firewall.
The passive link state is shutdown, by default. After you enable HA, the link state for
the HA ports on the active firewall will be green and those on the passive firewall will
be down and display as red.
Setting the link state to Auto allows for reducing the amount of time it takes for the passive
firewall to take over when a failover occurs and it allows you to monitor the link state.
To enable the link status on the passive firewall to stay up and reflect the cabling status on the
physical interface:
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Active Passive Settings.
2. Set the Passive Link State to Auto.
The auto option decreases the amount of time it takes for the passive firewall to take
over when a failover occurs.
Although the interface displays green (as cabled and up) it continues to discard
all traffic until a failover is triggered.
When you modify the passive link state, make sure that the adjacent devices do not
forward traffic to the passive firewall based only on the link status of the firewall.
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STEP 13 | Enable HA.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General and edit the Setup section.
2. Select Enable HA.
3. Select Enable Config Sync. This setting enables the synchronization of the configuration
settings between the active and the passive firewall.
4. Enter the IP address assigned to the control link of the peer in Peer HA1 IP Address.
For firewalls without dedicated HA ports, if the peer uses the management port for the
HA1 link, enter the management port IP address of the peer.
5. Enter the Backup HA1 IP Address.
STEP 14 | (Optional) Enable LACP and LLDP Pre-Negotiation for Active/Passive HA for faster failover if
your network uses LACP or LLDP.
Enable LACP and LLDP before configuring HA pre-negotiation for the protocol if you
want pre-negotiation to function in active mode.
1. Ensure that in Step 12 you set the link state to Auto.
2. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet.
3. To enable LACP active pre-negotiation:
1. Select an AE interface in a Layer 2 or Layer 3 deployment.
2. Select the LACP tab.
3. Select Enable in HA Passive State.
4. Click OK.
You cannot also select Same System MAC Address for Active-Passive HA
because pre-negotiation requires unique interface MAC addresses on the
active and passive firewalls.
4. To enable LACP passive pre-negotiation:
1. Select an Ethernet interface in a virtual wire deployment.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Select the LACP tab.
4. Select Enable in HA Passive State.
5. Click OK.
5. To enable LLDP active pre-negotiation:
1. Select an Ethernet interface in a Layer 2, Layer 3, or virtual wire deployment.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Select the LLDP tab.
4. Select Enable in HA Passive State.
5. Click OK.
If you want to allow LLDP passive pre-negotiation for a virtual wire
deployment, perform Step 14.e but do not enable LLDP itself.
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STEP 15 | Save your configuration changes.
Click Commit.
STEP 16 | After you finish configuring both firewalls, verify that the firewalls are paired in active/
passive HA.
1. Access the Dashboard on both firewalls, and view the High Availability widget.
2. On the active firewall, click the Sync to peer link.
3. Confirm that the firewalls are paired and synced, as shown as follows:
• On the passive firewall: the state of the local firewall should display passive and the
Running Config should show as synchronized.
• On the active firewall: The state of the local firewall should display active and the
Running Config should show as synchronized.
Define HA Failover Conditions
Perform the following task to use link monitoring or path monitoring to define Failover conditions
and thus establish what will cause a firewall in an HA pair to fail over, an event where the task
of securing traffic passes from the previously active firewall to its HA peer. The HA Overview
describes conditions that cause a failover.
You can monitor multiple IP path groups per virtual router, VLAN, or virtual wire. You can enable
each path group with one or more IP addresses and give each its own peer failure conditions.
Additionally, you can set these failure conditions at both the path-group level and the broader
virtual router or VLAN or virtual wire group level using “any” or “all” fail checks to determine the
status of the active firewall.
When you upgrade to PAN-OS 10.0, the firewall automatically transfers your currently monitored
destination IP addresses to a newly created destination group and gives that group a default pathmonitoring name. The new destination group retains your previous failover condition at the pathgroup level.
Ensure that you delete all VLAN path monitoring configurations in active/active HA
before you upgrade to PAN-OS 10.2 because VLAN path monitoring is not compatible
with active/active HA pairing in PAN-OS 10.0; retaining an earlier active/active HA
configuration results in an autocommit failure.
Before you enable path monitoring, you must set up your virtual routers, VLAN, or virtual wires
or a combination of these logical networking components. Path monitoring in virtual routers and
virtual wires is compatible with both active/active and active/passive HA deployments; however,
path monitoring in VLANs is supported only on active/passive pairs.
Before you enable path monitoring, you must also:
• Check reachability for destination IP groups in your virtual routers.
• Ensure that the VLANs (for which you intend to enable path monitoring) include configured
interfaces.
• Obtain the source IP address that you will use to receive pings from the appropriate
destination IP address.
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If you are using SNMPv3 to monitor the firewalls, note that the SNMPv3 Engine ID is
synchronized between the HA pair. For information on setting up SNMP, see Forward
Traps to an SNMP Manager. Because the EngineID is generated using the firewall serial
number, on the VM-Series firewall you must apply a valid license in order to obtain a
unique EngineID for each firewall.
STEP 1 | To configure HA link monitoring, specify a group of physical interfaces for the firewall to
monitor (link up or link down).
1. Select Device > High Availability > Link and Path Monitoring.
2. In the Link Monitoring section, Add a link group by Name.
3. Select Enabled to enable the link group.
4. Select the Failure Condition for the interfaces in the link group: Any (default) or All.
5. Add the Interface(s) to monitor.
6. Click OK.
STEP 2 | (Optional) Modify the failure condition for the set of Link Groups configured on the firewall.
By default, the firewall triggers a failover when any monitored Link Group fails.
1. Edit the Link Monitoring section.
2. Set the Failure Condition to Any (default) or All.
3. Click OK.
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STEP 3 | To configure HA path monitoring for a virtual wire, VLAN, or virtual router (or logical router
for an Advanced Routing Engine), specify the destination IP addresses that the firewall will
ping to verify network connectivity.
1. In the Path Monitoring section, select Add Virtual Wire Path, Add VLAN Path, or Add
Virtual Router Path (or Add Logical Router Path for Advanced Routing Engine).
2. Enter a Name for the virtual wire, VLAN, virtual router path group, or logical routero
path group.
3. (Virtual Wire Path or VLAN Path only) Enter the Source IP address to use to ping the
destination IP address through the virtual wire or VLAN.
4. Select Enabled to enable the path group.
5. Select the Failure Condition that results in a failure for this path group: Any (default) to
issue a failure when one or more Destination IP groups in this path group fail or All to
issue a failure when all Destination IP groups in this path group fail.
6. Enter the Ping Interval in milliseconds; the interval between ICMP messages sent to the
Destination IP address (range is 200 to 60,000; default is 200).
7. Enter the Ping Count of pings that must fail before declaring a failure (range is 3 to 10;
default is 10).
8. Add and enter a Destination IP Group name.
9. Add one or more Destination IP addresses to ping.
10. Select Enabled to enable path monitoring for the Destination IP group.
11. Select the Failure Condition that results in a failure for this Destination IP group: Any
(default) to issue a failure when one or more listed IP addresses is unreachable or All to
issue a failure when all listed IP addresses are unreachable.
12. Click OK twice.
13. (Panorama only) Select the appropriate Panorama template to push the path monitoring
configuration to your appliance.
You can push HA path monitoring for a virtual wire, VLAN, or virtual router
only to firewalls running PAN-OS 10.0 or a later releases. If you try to push the
configuration to firewalls running a release earlier than PAN-OS 10.0 (such as
9.1.x or 9.0.x), the commit may fail or the commit may remove destination IP
addresses from the path group.
Only HA Path Groups containing one Destination IP Group are supported for
managed firewalls running PAN-OS 9.1 and earlier releases.
To manage the destination IP addresses from Panorama for managed firewalls
running different PAN-OS releases, create a separate template for managed
firewalls running PAN-OS 10.0 and later releases and a separate template for
managed firewalls running PAN-OS 9.1 and earlier releases. This allows you to
more accurately control the destination IP address configuration if you created
multiple destination IP groups and ensures your managed firewall successfully
fails over.
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STEP 4 | (Optional) Modify the failure condition for the set of Path Groups configured on the firewall.
By default, the firewall triggers a failover when any monitored Path Group fails.
1. Edit the Path Monitoring section.
2. Select Enabled to enable path monitoring on the appliance.
3. Set the Failure Condition to Any (default) to issue a failure for this firewall when one
or more monitored virtual routers, VLANs, or virtual wires is down. Select All to issue
a failure for this firewall when all monitored virtual routers, VLANs, or virtual wires are
down.
4. Click OK.
STEP 5 | Commit.
Verify Failover
To test that your HA configuration works properly, trigger a manual failover and verify that the
firewalls transition states successfully.
STEP 1 | Suspend the active firewall.
Select Device > High Availability > Operational Commands and click the Suspend local device
link.
STEP 2 | Verify that the passive firewall has taken over as active.
On the Dashboard, verify that the state of the passive firewall changes to active in the High
Availability widget.
STEP 3 | Restore the suspended firewall to a functional state. Wait for a couple of minutes, and then
verify that preemption has occurred, if Preemptive is enabled.
1. On the firewall you previously suspended, select Device > High Availability >
Operational Commands and click the Make local device functional link.
2. In the High Availability widget on the Dashboard, confirm that the firewall has taken
over as the active firewall and that the peer is now in a passive state.
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Set Up Active/Active HA
• Prerequisites for Active/Active HA
• Configure Active/Active HA
• Determine Your Active/Active Use Case
Prerequisites for Active/Active HA
To set up active/active HA on your firewalls, you need a pair of firewalls that meet the following
requirements:
The same model—The firewalls in the pair must be of the same hardware model.
The same PAN-OS version—The firewalls must be running the same PAN-OS version and must
each be up-to-date on the application, URL, and threat databases.
The same multi virtual system capability—Both firewalls must have Multi Virtual System
Capability either enabled or not enabled. When enabled, each firewall requires its own multiple
virtual systems licenses.
The same type of interfaces—Dedicated HA links, or a combination of the management port
and in-band ports that are set to interface type HA.
• The HA interfaces must be configured with static IP addresses only, not IP addresses
obtained from DHCP (except AWS can use DHCP addresses). Determine the IP address
for the HA1 (control) connection between the HA peers. The HA1 IP address for the peers
must be on the same subnet if they are directly connected or are connected to the same
switch.
For firewalls without dedicated HA ports, you can use the management port for the control
connection. Using the management port provides a direct communication link between the
management planes on both firewalls. However, because the management ports will not be
directly cabled between the peers, make sure that you have a route that connects these two
interfaces across your network.
• If you use Layer 3 as the transport method for the HA2 (data) connection, determine the IP
address for the HA2 link. Use Layer 3 only if the HA2 connection must communicate over a
routed network. The IP subnet for the HA2 links must not overlap with that of the HA1 links
or with any other subnet assigned to the data ports on the firewall.
• Each firewall needs a dedicated interface for the HA3 link. The PA-7000 Series, PA-5400
Series, PA-3400 Series, and PA-3200 Series firewalls use the HSCI port for HA3. The
PA-5200 Series firewalls can use the HSCI port for HA3 or you can configure aggregate
interfaces on the dataplane ports for HA3 for redundancy. On the remaining platforms, you
can configure aggregate interfaces on dataplane ports as the HA3 link for redundancy.
The same set of licenses—Licenses are unique to each firewall and cannot be shared between
the firewalls. Therefore, you must license both firewalls identically. If both firewalls do not
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425 | High Availability
have an identical set of licenses, they cannot synchronize configuration information and
maintain parity for a seamless failover.
If you have an existing firewall and you want to add a new firewall for HA purposes
and the new firewall has an existing configuration, it is recommended that you Reset
the Firewall to Factory Default Settings on the new firewall. This will ensure that the
new firewall has a clean configuration. After HA is configured, you will then sync the
configuration on the primary firewall to the newly introduced firewall with the clean
config. You will also have to configure local IP addresses.
Configure Active/Active HA
The following procedure describes the basic workflow for configuring your firewalls in an active/
active configuration. However, before you begin, Determine Your Active/Active Use Case for
configuration examples more tailored to your specific network environment.
You can configure data ports as both dedicated HA interfaces and as dedicated backup
HA interfaces. For firewalls without dedicated HA interfaces, such as the PA-200 and
PA-220R, it is required to configure a data port as a HA interface.
Data ports configured as HA1, HA2, or HA3 interfaces can be connected directly to
each HA interface on the firewall or connected through a Layer2 switch. For data ports
configured as an HA3 interface, you must enable jumbo frames as HA3 messages exceed
1,500 bytes.
To configure active/active, first complete the following steps on one peer and then complete
them on the second peer, ensuring that you set the Device ID to different values (0 or 1) on each
peer.
STEP 1 | Connect the HA ports to set up a physical connection between the firewalls.
For each use case, the firewalls could be any hardware model; choose the HA3 step
that corresponds with your model.
• For firewalls with dedicated HA ports, use an Ethernet cable to connect the dedicated HA1
ports and the HA2 ports on peers. Use a crossover cable if the peers are directly connected
to each other.
• For firewalls without dedicated HA ports, select two data interfaces for the HA2 link and
the backup HA1 link. Then, use an Ethernet cable to connect these in-band HA interfaces
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426 | High Availability
across both firewalls. Use the management port for the HA1 link and ensure that the
management ports can connect to each other across your network.
• For HA3:
• On PA-7000 Series firewalls, connect the High Speed Chassis Interconnect (HSCI-A) on
the first chassis to the HSCI-A on the second chassis, and the HSCI-B on the first chassis
to the HSCI-B on the second chassis.
• On the PA-5450 firewall, connect the HSCI-A on the first chassis to the HSCI-A on the
second chassis, and the HSCI-B on the first chassis to the HSCI-B on the second chassis.
• On the PA-5400 Series firewalls (which have one HSCI port), connect the HSCI port on
the first chassis to the HSCI port on the second chassis.
• On PA-5200 Series firewalls (which have one HSCI port), connect the HSCI port on the
first chassis to the HSCI port on the second chassis. You can also use data ports for HA3
on PA-5200 Series firewalls.
• On PA-3400 Series firewalls (which have one HSCI port), connect the HSCI port on the
first chassis to the HSCI port on the second chassis.
• On PA-3200 Series firewalls (which have one HSCI port), connect the HSCI port on the
first chassis to the HSCI port on the second chassis.
• On any other hardware model, use dataplane interfaces for HA3.
STEP 2 | Enable ping on the management port.
Enabling ping allows the management port to exchange heartbeat backup information.
1. Select Device > Setup > Interfaces > Management.
2. Select Ping as a service that is permitted on the interface.
STEP 3 | If the firewall does not have dedicated HA ports, set up the data ports to function as HA
ports.
For firewalls with dedicated HA ports continue to the next step.
1. Select Network > Interfaces.
2. Confirm that the link is up on the ports that you want to use.
3. Select the interface and set Interface Type to HA.
4. Set the Link Speed and Link Duplex settings, as appropriate.
STEP 4 | Enable active/active HA and set the group ID.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Setup.
2. Select Enable HA.
3. Enter a Group ID, which must be the same for both firewalls. The firewall uses the Group
ID to calculate the virtual MAC address (range is 1-63).
4. (Optional) Enter a Description.
5. For Mode, select Active Active.
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STEP 5 | Set the Device ID, enable synchronization, and identify the control link on the peer firewall
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Setup.
2. Select Device ID as follows:
• When configuring the first peer, set the Device ID to 0.
• When configuring the second peer, set the Device ID to 1.
3. Select Enable Config Sync. This setting is required to synchronize the two firewall
configurations (enabled by default).
4. Enter the Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the HA1 control link on the
peer firewall.
5. (Optional) Enter a Backup Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the backup
control link on the peer firewall.
6. Click OK.
STEP 6 | Determine whether or not the firewall with the lower Device ID preempts the active-primary
firewall upon recovery from a failure.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Election Settings.
2. Select Preemptive to cause the firewall with the lower Device ID to automatically
resume active-primary operation after either firewall recovers from a failure. Both
firewalls must have Preemptive selected for preemption to occur.
Leave Preemptive unselected if you want the active-primary role to remain with the
current firewall until you manually make the recovered firewall the active-primary
firewall.
STEP 7 | Enable heartbeat backup if your control link uses a dedicated HA port or an in-band port.
You need not enable heartbeat backup if you are using the management port for the control
link.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Election Settings.
2. Select Heartbeat Backup.
To allow the heartbeats to be transmitted between the firewalls, you must verify that the
management port across both peers can route to each other.
Enabling heartbeat backup allows you to prevent a split-brain situation.
Split brain occurs when the HA1 link goes down, causing the firewall to miss
heartbeats, although the firewall is still functioning. In such a situation, each
peer believes the other is down and attempts to start services that are running,
thereby causing a split brain. Enabling heartbeat backup prevents split brain
because redundant heartbeats and hello messages are transmitted over the
management port.
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STEP 8 | (Optional) Modify the HA Timers.
By default, the HA timer profile is set to the Recommended profile and is suited for most HA
deployments.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Election Settings.
2. Select Aggressive to trigger faster failover. Select Advanced to define custom values for
triggering failover in your setup.
To view the preset value for an individual timer included in a profile, select
Advanced and click Load Recommended or Load Aggressive. The preset values
for your hardware model will be displayed on screen.
STEP 9 | Set up the control link connection.
This example uses an in-band port that is set to interface type HA.
For firewalls that use the management port as the control link, the IP address information is
automatically pre-populated.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Control Link (HA1).
2. Select the Port that you have cabled for use as the HA1 link.
3. Set the IPv4/IPv6 Address and Netmask.
If the HA1 interfaces are on separate subnets, enter the IP address of the Gateway. Do
not add a gateway address if the firewalls are directly connected.
STEP 10 | (Optional) Enable encryption for the control link connection.
This is typically used to secure the link if the two firewalls are not directly connected, that is if
the ports are connected to a switch or a router.
1. Export the HA key from one firewall and import it into the peer firewall.
1. Select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates.
2. Select Export HA key. Save the HA key to a network location that the peer can
access.
3. On the peer firewall, select Device > Certificate Management > Certificates, and
select Import HA key to browse to the location that you saved the key and import it
in to the peer.
2. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Control Link (HA1).
3. Select Encryption Enabled.
If you enable encryption, after you finish configuring the HA firewalls, you can
Refresh HA1 SSH Keys and Configure Key Options.
STEP 11 | Set up the backup control link connection.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Control Link (HA1 Backup).
2. Select the HA1 backup interface and set the IPv4/IPv6 Address and Netmask.
PA-3200 Series firewalls don’t support an IPv6 address for the HA1 backup
control link; use an IPv4 address.
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STEP 12 | Set up the data link connection (HA2) and the backup HA2 connection between the firewalls.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Data Link (HA2).
2. Select the Port to use for the data link connection.
3. Select the Transport method. The default is ethernet, and will work when the HA pair is
connected directly or through a switch. If you need to route the data link traffic through
the network, select IP or UDP as the transport mode.
4. If you use IP or UDP as the transport method, enter the IPv4/IPv6 Address and
Netmask.
5. Verify that Enable Session Synchronization is selected.
6. Select HA2 Keep-alive to enable monitoring on the HA2 data link between the HA
peers. If a failure occurs based on the threshold that is set (default is 10000 ms), the
defined action will occur. When an HA2 Keep-alive failure occurs, the system either
generates a critical system log message or causes a split dataplane depending on your
configuration.
You can configure the HA2 Keep-alive option on both firewalls, or just one
firewall in the HA pair. If the option is only enabled on one firewall, only that
firewall sends the Keep-alive messages. The other firewall is notified if a failure
occurs.
A split dataplane causes the dataplanes of both peers to operate independently
while leaving the high-available state as Active-Primary and Active-Secondary. If
only one firewall is configured to split dataplane, then split dataplane applies to
the other device as well.
7. Edit the Data Link (HA2 Backup) section, select the interface, and add the IPv4/IPv6
Address and Netmask.
8. Click OK.
STEP 13 | Configure the HA3 link for packet forwarding.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Packet Forwarding.
2. For HA3 Interface, select the interface you want to use to forward packets between
active/active HA peers. It must be a dedicated interface capable of Layer 2 transport and
set to Interface Type HA.
3. Select VR Sync to force synchronization of all virtual routers configured on the HA
peers. Select when the virtual router is not configured for dynamic routing protocols.
Both peers must be connected to the same next-hop router through a switched network
and must use static routing only.
4. Select QoS Sync to synchronize the QoS profile selection on all physical interfaces.
Select when both peers have similar link speeds and require the same QoS profiles on
all physical interfaces. This setting affects the synchronization of QoS settings on the
Network tab. QoS policy is synchronized regardless of this setting.
STEP 14 | (Optional) Modify the Tentative Hold time.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Packet Forwarding.
2. For Tentative Hold Time (sec), enter the number of seconds that a firewall stays in
Tentative state after it recovers post-failure (range is 10-600, default is 60).
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STEP 15 | Configure Session Owner and Session Setup.
1. In Device > High Availability > HA Communications, edit Packet Forwarding.
2. For Session Owner Selection, select one of the following:
• First Packet—The firewall that receives the first packet of a new session is the session
owner (recommended setting). This setting minimizes traffic across HA3 and load
shares traffic across peers.
• Primary Device—The firewall that is in active-primary state is the session owner.
3. For Session Setup, select one of the following:
• IP Modulo—The firewall performs an XOR operation on the source and destination
IP addresses from the packet and based on the result, the firewall chooses which HA
peer will set up the session.
• Primary Device—The active-primary firewall sets up all sessions.
• First Packet—The firewall that receives the first packet of a new session performs
session setup (recommended setting).
Start with First Packet for Session Owner and Session Setup, and then based
on load distribution, you can change to one of the other options.
• IP Hash—The firewall uses a hash of either the source IP address or a combination of
the source and destination IP addresses to distribute session setup responsibilities.
4. Click OK.
STEP 16 | Configure an HA virtual address.
You need a virtual address to use a Floating IP Address and Virtual MAC Address or ARP LoadSharing.
1. In Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config, Add a Virtual Address.
2. Enter or select an Interface.
3. Select the IPv4 or IPv6 tab and click Add.
4. Enter an IPv4 Address or IPv6 Address.
5. For Type:
• Select Floating to configure the virtual IP address to be a floating IP address.
• Select ARP Load Sharing to configure the virtual IP address to be a shared IP address
and skip to Configure ARP Load-Sharing.
STEP 17 | Configure the floating IP address.
1. Do not select Floating IP bound to the Active-Primary device unless you want the
active/active HA pair to behave like an active/passive HA pair.
2. For Device 0 Priority and Device 1 Priority, enter a priority for the firewall configured
with Device ID 0 and Device ID 1, respectively. The relative priorities determine which
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peer owns the floating IP address you just configured (range is 0-255). The firewall with
the lowest priority value (highest priority) owns the floating IP address.
3. Select Failover address if link state is down to cause the firewall to use the failover
address when the link state on the interface is down.
4. Click OK.
STEP 18 | Configure ARP Load-Sharing.
The device selection algorithm determines which HA firewall responds to the ARP requests to
provide load sharing.
1. For Device Selection Algorithm, select one of the following:
• IP Modulo—The firewall that will respond to ARP requests is based on the parity of
the ARP requester's IP address.
• IP Hash—The firewall that will respond to ARP requests is based on a hash of the ARP
requester's IP address.
2. Click OK.
STEP 19 | Define HA Failover Conditions.
STEP 20 | Commit the configuration.
Determine Your Active/Active Use Case
Determine which type of use case you have and then select the corresponding procedure to
configure active/active HA.
If you are using Route-Based Redundancy, Floating IP Address and Virtual MAC Address, or ARP
Load-Sharing, select the corresponding procedure:
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Route-Based Redundancy
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Addresses
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with ARP Load-Sharing
If you want a Layer 3 active/active HA deployment that behaves like an active/passive
deployment, select the following procedure:
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Address Bound to Active-Primary
Firewall
If you are configuring NAT in Active/Active HA Mode, see the following procedures:
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Source DIPP NAT Using Floating IP Addresses
• Use Case: Configure Separate Source NAT IP Address Pools for Active/Active HA Firewalls
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT
• Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT in Layer 3
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Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Route-Based Redundancy
The following Layer 3 topology illustrates two PA-7050 firewalls in an active/active HA
environment that use Route-Based Redundancy. The firewalls belong to an OSPF area. When a
link or firewall fails, OSPF handles the redundancy by redirecting traffic to the functioning firewall.
STEP 1 | Configure Active/Active HA.
Perform Step 1 through Step 15.
STEP 2 | Configure OSPF.
See OSPF.
STEP 3 | Define HA failover conditions.
Define HA Failover Conditions.
STEP 4 | Commit the configuration.
STEP 5 | Configure the peer firewall in the same way, except in Step 5, if you selected Device ID 0 for
the first firewall, select Device ID 1 for the peer firewall.
Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Addresses
In this Layer 3 interface example, the HA firewalls connect to switches and use floating IP
addresses to handle link or firewall failures. The end hosts are each configured with a gateway,
which is the floating IP address of one of the HA firewalls. See Floating IP Address and Virtual
MAC Address.
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STEP 1 | Configure Active/Active HA.
Perform Step 1 through Step 15.
STEP 2 | Configure an HA virtual address.
You need a virtual address to use a Floating IP Address and Virtual MAC Address.
1. In Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config, Add a Virtual Address.
2. Enter or select an Interface.
3. Select the IPv4 or IPv6 tab and click Add.
4. Enter an IPv4 Address or IPv6 Address.
5. For Type, select Floating to configure the virtual IP address to be a floating IP address.
STEP 3 | Configure the floating IP address.
1. Do not select Floating IP bound to the Active-Primary device.
2. For Device 0 Priority and Device 1 Priority, enter a priority for the firewall configured
with Device ID 0 and Device ID 1, respectively. The relative priorities determine which
peer owns the floating IP address you just configured (range is 0 to 255). The firewall
with the lowest priority value (highest priority) owns the floating IP address.
3. Select Failover address if link state is down to cause the firewall to use the failover
address when the link state on the interface is down.
4. Click OK.
STEP 4 | Enable jumbo frames on firewalls other than PA-7000 Series firewalls.
Perform Step 19 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 5 | Define HA Failover Conditions
STEP 6 | Commit the configuration.
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434 | High Availability
STEP 7 | Configure the peer firewall in the same way, except selecting a different Device ID.
For example, if you selected Device ID 0 for the first firewall, select Device ID 1 for the peer
firewall.
Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with ARP Load-Sharing
In this example, hosts in a Layer 3 deployment need gateway services from the HA firewalls. The
firewalls are configured with a single shared IP address, which allows ARP Load-Sharing. The end
hosts are configured with the same gateway, which is the shared IP address of the HA firewalls.
STEP 1 | Perform Step 1 through Step 15 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 2 | Configure an HA virtual address.
The virtual address is the shared IP address that allows ARP Load-Sharing.
1. Select Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Virtual Address and click
Add.
2. Enter or select an Interface.
3. Select the IPv4 or IPv6 tab and click Add.
4. Enter an IPv4 Address or IPv6 Address.
5. For Type, select ARP Load Sharing, which allows both peers to use the virtual IP address
for ARP Load-Sharing.
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435 | High Availability
STEP 3 | Configure ARP Load-Sharing.
The device selection algorithm determines which HA firewall responds to the ARP requests to
provide load sharing.
1. For Device Selection Algorithm, select one of the following:
• IP Modulo—The firewall that will respond to ARP requests is based on the parity of
the ARP requester's IP address.
• IP Hash—The firewall that will respond to ARP requests is based on a hash of the ARP
requester's IP address.
2. Click OK.
STEP 4 | Enable jumbo frames on firewalls other than PA-7000 Series firewalls.
STEP 5 | Define HA Failover Conditions
STEP 6 | Commit the configuration.
STEP 7 | Configure the peer firewall in the same way, except selecting a different Device ID.
For example, if you selected Device ID 0 for the first firewall, select Device ID 1 for the peer
firewall.
Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Address Bound to ActivePrimary Firewall
In mission-critical data centers, you may want both Layer 3 HA firewalls to participate in path
monitoring so that they can detect path failures upstream from both firewalls. Additionally, you
prefer to control if and when the floating IP address returns to the recovered firewall after it
comes back up, rather than the floating IP address returning to the device ID to which it is bound.
(That default behavior is described in Floating IP Address and Virtual MAC Address.)
In this use case, you control when the floating IP address and therefore the active-primary
role move back to a recovered HA peer. The active/active HA firewalls share a single floating
IP address that you bind to whichever firewall is in the active-primary state. With only one
floating IP address, network traffic flows predominantly to a single firewall, so this active/active
deployment functions like an active/passive deployment.
In this use case, Cisco Nexus 7010 switches with virtual PortChannels (vPCs) operating in Layer 3
connect to the firewalls. You must configure the Layer 3 switches (router peers) north and south
of the firewalls with a route preference to the floating IP address. That is, you must design your
network so the route tables of the router peers have the best path to the floating IP address. This
example uses static routes with the proper metrics so that the route to the floating IP address
uses a lower metric (the route to the floating IP address is preferred) and receives the traffic. An
alternative to using static routes would be to design the network to redistribute the floating IP
address into the OSPF routing protocol (if you are using OSPF).
The following topology illustrates the floating IP address bound to the active-primary firewall,
which is initially Peer A, the firewall on the left.
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436 | High Availability
Upon a failover, when the active-primary firewall (Peer A) goes down and the active-secondary
firewall (Peer B) takes over as the active-primary peer, the floating IP address moves to Peer B
(shown in the following figure). Peer B remains the active-primary firewall and traffic continues to
go to Peer B, even when Peer A recovers and becomes the active-secondary firewall. You decide
if and when to make Peer A the active-primary firewall again.
Binding the floating IP address to the active-primary firewall provides you with more control over
how the firewalls determine floating IP address ownership as they move between various HA
Firewall States. The following advantages result:
• You can have an active/active HA configuration for path monitoring out of both firewalls, but
have the firewalls function like an active/passive HA configuration because traffic directed to
the floating IP address always goes to the active-primary firewall.
When you disable preemption on both firewalls, you have the following additional benefits:
• The floating IP address does not move back and forth between HA firewalls if the activesecondary firewall flaps up and down.
• You can review the functionality of the recovered firewall and the adjacent components before
manually directing traffic to it again, which you can do at a convenient down time.
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437 | High Availability
• You have control over which firewall owns the floating IP address so that you keep all flows of
new and existing sessions on the active-primary firewall, thereby minimizing traffic on the HA3
link.
• We strongly recommended you configure HA link monitoring on the interface(s) that
support the floating IP address(es) to allow each HA peer to quickly detect a link failure
and fail over to its peer. Both HA peers must have link monitoring for it to function.
• We strongly recommend you configure HA path monitoring to notify each HA peer
when a path has failed so a firewall can fail over to its peer. Because the floating
IP address is always bound to the active-primary firewall, the firewall cannot
automatically fail over to the peer when a path goes down and path monitoring is not
enabled.
You cannot configure NAT for a floating IP address that is bound to an active-primary
firewall.
STEP 1 | Perform Step 1 through Step 5 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 2 | (Optional) Disable preemption.
Disabling preemption allows you full control over when the recovered firewall becomes
the active-primary firewall.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit the Election Settings.
2. Clear Preemptive if it is enabled.
3. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Perform Step 7 through Step 14 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 4 | Configure Session Owner and Session Setup.
1. In Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config, edit Packet Forwarding.
2. For Session Owner Selection, we recommend you select Primary Device. The firewall
that is in active-primary state is the session owner.
Alternatively, for Session Owner Selection you can select First Packet and then for
Session Setup, select Primary Device or First Packet.
3. For Session Setup, select Primary Device—The active-primary firewall sets up all
sessions. This is the recommended setting if you want your active/active configuration
to behave like an active/passive configuration because it keeps all activity on the activeprimary firewall.
You must also engineer your network to eliminate the possibility of asymmetric
traffic going to the HA pair. If you don’t do so and traffic goes to the activesecondary firewall, setting Session Owner Selection and Session Setup to
Primary Device causes the traffic to traverse HA3 to get to the active-primary
firewall for session ownership and session setup.
4. Click OK.
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438 | High Availability
STEP 5 | Configure an HA virtual address.
1. Select Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Virtual Address and click
Add.
2. Enter or select an Interface.
3. Select the IPv4 or IPv6 tab and Add an IPv4 Address or IPv6 Address.
4. For Type, select Floating, which configures the virtual IP address to be a floating IP
address.
5. Click OK.
STEP 6 | Bind the floating IP address to the active-primary firewall.
1. Select Floating IP bound to the Active-Primary device.
2. Select Failover address if link state is down to cause the firewall to use the failover
address when the link state on the interface is down.
3. Click OK.
STEP 7 | Enable jumbo frames on firewalls other than PA-7000 Series firewalls.
STEP 8 | Commit the configuration.
STEP 9 | Configure the peer firewall in the same way, except selecting a different Device ID.
For example, if you selected Device ID 0 for the first firewall, select Device ID 1 for the peer
firewall.
Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Source DIPP NAT Using Floating IP
Addresses
This Layer 3 interface example uses source NAT in Active/Active HA Mode. The Layer 2 switches
create broadcast domains to ensure users can reach everything north and south of the firewalls.
PA-3050-1 has Device ID 0 and its HA peer, PA-3050-2, has Device ID 1. In this use case, NAT
translates the source IP address and port number to the floating IP address configured on the
egress interface. Each host is configured with a default gateway address, which is the floating IP
address on Ethernet1/1 of each firewall. The configuration requires two source NAT rules, one
bound to each Device ID, although you configure both NAT rules on a single firewall and they are
synchronized to the peer firewall.
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439 | High Availability
STEP 1 | On PA-3050-2 (Device ID 1), perform Step 1 through Step 3 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 2 | Enable active/active HA.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Setup.
2. Select Enable HA.
3. Enter a Group ID, which must be the same for both firewalls. The firewall uses the Group
ID to calculate the virtual MAC address (range is 1-63).
4. For Mode, select Active Active.
5. Set the Device ID to 1.
6. Select Enable Config Sync. This setting is required to synchronize the two firewall
configurations (enabled by default).
7. Enter the Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the HA1 control link on the
peer firewall.
8. (Optional) Enter a Backup Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the backup
control link on the peer firewall.
9. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Configure Active/Active HA.
Complete Step 6 through Step 14.
STEP 4 | Configure Session Owner and Session Setup.
1. In Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config, edit Packet Forwarding.
2. For Session Owner Selection, select First Packet—The firewall that receives the first
packet of a new session is the session owner.
3. For Session Setup, select IP Modulo—Distributes session setup load based on parity of
the source IP address.
4. Click OK.
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440 | High Availability
STEP 5 | Configure an HA virtual address.
1. Select Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Virtual Address and click
Add.
2. Select Interface eth1/1.
3. Select IPv4 and Add an IPv4 Address of 10.1.1.101.
4. For Type, select Floating, which configures the virtual IP address to be a floating IP
address.
STEP 6 | Configure the floating IP address.
1. Do not select Floating IP bound to the Active-Primary device.
2. Select Failover address if link state is down to cause the firewall to use the failover
address when the link state on the interface is down.
3. Click OK.
STEP 7 | Enable jumbo frames on firewalls other than the PA-7000 Series.
STEP 8 | Define HA Failover Conditions.
STEP 9 | Commit the configuration.
STEP 10 | Configure the peer firewall, PA-3050-1 with the same settings, except for the following
changes:
• Select Device ID 0.
• Configure an HA virtual address of 10.1.1.100.
• For Device 1 Priority, enter 255. For Device 0 Priority, enter 0.
In this example, Device ID 0 has a lower priority value so a higher priority; therefore, the
firewall with Device ID 0 (PA-3050-1) owns the floating IP address 10.1.1.100.
STEP 11 | Still on PA-3050-1, create the source NAT rule for Device ID 0.
1. Select Policies > NAT and click Add.
2. Enter a Name for the rule that in this example identifies it as a source NAT rule for
Device ID 0.
3. For NAT Type, select ipv4 (default).
4. On the Original Packet, for Source Zone, select Any.
5. For Destination Zone, select the zone you created for the external network.
6. Allow Destination Interface, Service, Source Address, and Destination Address to
remain set to Any.
7. For the Translated Packet, select Dynamic IP And Port for Translation Type.
8. For Address Type, select Interface Address, in which case the translated address will
be the IP address of the interface. Select an Interface (eth1/1 in this example) and an IP
Address of the floating IP address 10.1.1.100.
9. On the Active/Active HA Binding tab, for Active/Active HA Binding, select 0 to bind the
NAT rule to Device ID 0.
10. Click OK.
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441 | High Availability
STEP 12 | Create the source NAT rule for Device ID 1.
1. Select Policies > NAT and click Add.
2. Enter a Name for the policy rule that in this example helps identify it as a source NAT
rule for Device ID 1.
3. For NAT Type, select ipv4 (default).
4. On the Original Packet, for Source Zone, select Any. For Destination Zone, select the
zone you created for the external network.
5. Allow Destination Interface, Service, Source Address, and Destination Address to
remain set to Any.
6. For the Translated Packet, select Dynamic IP And Port for Translation Type.
7. For Address Type, select Interface Address, in which case the translated address will
be the IP address of the interface. Select an Interface (eth1/1 in this example) and an IP
Address of the floating IP address 10.1.1.101.
8. On the Active/Active HA Binding tab, for the Active/Active HA Binding, select 1 to bind
the NAT rule to Device ID 1.
9. Click OK.
STEP 13 | Commit the configuration.
Use Case: Configure Separate Source NAT IP Address Pools for Active/Active HA
Firewalls
If you want to use IP address pools for source NAT in Active/Active HA Mode, each firewall must
have its own pool, which you then bind to a Device ID in a NAT rule.
Address objects and NAT rules are synchronized (in both active/passive and active/active mode),
so they need to be configured on only one of the firewalls in the HA pair.
This example configures an address object named Dyn-IP-Pool-dev0 containing the IP address
pool 10.1.1.140-10.1.1.150. It also configures an address object named Dyn-IP-Pool-dev1
containing the IP address pool 10.1.1.160-10.1.1.170. The first address object is bound to Device
ID 0; the second address object is bound to Device ID 1.
STEP 1 | On one HA firewall, create address objects.
1. Select Objects > Addresses and Add an address object Name, in this example, Dyn-IPPool-dev0.
2. For Type, select IP Range and enter the range 10.1.1.140-10.1.1.150.
3. Click OK.
4. Repeat this step to configure another address object named Dyn-IP-Pool-dev1 with the
IP Range of 10.1.1.160-10.1.1.170.
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442 | High Availability
STEP 2 | Create the source NAT rule for Device ID 0.
1. Select Policies > NAT and Add a NAT policy rule with a Name, for example, Src-NATdev0.
2. For Original Packet, for Source Zone, select Any.
3. For Destination Zone, select the destination zone for which you want to translate the
source address, such as Untrust.
4. For Translated Packet, for Translation Type, select Dynamic IP and Port.
5. For Translated Address, Add the address object you created for the pool of addresses
belonging to Device ID 0: Dyn-IP-Pool-dev0.
6. For Active/Active HA Binding, select 0 to bind the NAT rule to Device ID 0.
7. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Create the source NAT rule for Device ID 1.
1. Select Policies > NAT and Add a NAT policy rule with a Name, for example, Src-NATdev1.
2. For Original Packet, for Source Zone, select Any.
3. For Destination Zone, select the destination zone for which you want to translate the
source address, such as Untrust.
4. For Translated Packet, for Translation Type, select Dynamic IP and Port.
5. For Translated Address, Add the address object you created for the pool of addresses
belonging to Device ID 1: Dyn-IP-Pool-dev1.
6. For Active/Active HA Binding, select 1 to bind the NAT rule to Device ID 1.
7. Click OK.
STEP 4 | Commit the configuration.
Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT
This Layer 3 interface example uses NAT in Active/Active HA Mode and ARP Load-Sharing
with destination NAT. Both HA firewalls respond to an ARP request for the destination NAT
address with the ingress interface MAC address. Destination NAT translates the public, shared
IP address (in this example, 10.1.1.200) to the private IP address of the server (in this example,
192.168.2.200).
When the HA firewalls receive traffic for the destination 10.1.1.200, both firewalls could possibly
respond to the ARP request, which could cause network instability. To avoid the potential issue,
configure the firewall that is in active-primary state to respond to the ARP request by binding the
destination NAT rule to the active-primary firewall.
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443 | High Availability
STEP 1 | On PA-3050-2 (Device ID 1), perform Step 1 through Step 3 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 2 | Enable active/active HA.
1. In Device > High Availability > General, edit Setup.
2. Select Enable HA.
3. Enter a Group ID, which must be the same for both firewalls. The firewall uses the Group
ID to calculate the virtual MAC address (range is 1 to 63).
4. (Optional) Enter a Description.
5. For Mode, select Active Active.
6. Select Device ID to be 1.
7. Select Enable Config Sync. This setting is required to synchronize the two firewall
configurations (enabled by default).
8. Enter the Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the HA1 control link on the
peer firewall.
9. (Optional) Enter a Backup Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the backup
control link on the peer firewall.
10. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Perform Step 6 through Step 15 in Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 4 | Configure an HA virtual address.
1. Select Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Virtual Address and click
Add.
2. Select Interface eth1/1.
3. Select IPv4 and Add an IPv4 Address of 10.1.1.200.
4. For Type, select ARP Load Sharing, which configures the virtual IP address to be for
both peers to use for ARP Load-Sharing.
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444 | High Availability
STEP 5 | Configure ARP Load-Sharing.
The device selection algorithm determines which HA firewall responds to the ARP requests to
provide load sharing.
1. For Device Selection Algorithm, select IP Modulo. The firewall that will respond to ARP
requests is based on the parity of the ARP requester's IP address.
2. Click OK.
STEP 6 | Enable jumbo frames on firewalls other than the PA-7000 Series.
STEP 7 | Define HA Failover Conditions.
STEP 8 | Commit the configuration.
STEP 9 | Configure the peer firewall, PA-3050-1 (Device ID 0), with the same settings, except in Step
2 select Device ID 0.
STEP 10 | Still on PA-3050-1 (Device ID 0), create the destination NAT rule so that the active-primary
firewall responds to ARP requests.
1. Select Policies > NAT and click Add.
2. Enter a Name for the rule that, in this example, identifies it as a destination NAT rule for
Layer 2 ARP.
3. For NAT Type, select ipv4 (default).
4. On the Original Packet, for Source Zone, select Any.
5. For Destination Zone, select the Untrust zone you created for the external network.
6. Allow Destination Interface, Service, and Source Address to remain set to Any.
7. For Destination Address, specify 10.1.1.200.
8. For the Translated Packet, Source Address Translation remains None.
9. For Destination Address Translation, enter the private IP address of the destination
server, in this example, 192.168.1.200.
10. On the Active/Active HA Binding tab, for Active/Active HA Binding, select primary to
bind the NAT rule to the firewall in active-primary state.
11. Click OK.
STEP 11 | Commit the configuration.
Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT in
Layer 3
This Layer 3 interface example uses NAT in Active/Active HA Mode and ARP Load-Sharing.
PA-3050-1 has Device ID 0 and its HA peer, PA-3050-2, has Device ID 1.
In this use case, both of the HA firewalls must respond to an ARP request for the destination
NAT address. Traffic can arrive at either firewall from either WAN router in the untrust zone.
Destination NAT translates the public-facing, shared IP address to the private IP address of the
server. The configuration requires one destination NAT rule bound to both Device IDs so that
both firewalls can respond to ARP requests.
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445 | High Availability
STEP 1 | On PA-3050-2 (Device ID 1), perform Step 1 through Step 3 of Configure Active/Active HA.
STEP 2 | Enable active/active HA.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General > Setup and edit.
2. Select Enable HA.
3. Enter a Group ID, which must be the same for both firewalls. The firewall uses the Group
ID to calculate the virtual MAC address (range is 1-63).
4. ( Optional) Enter a Description.
5. For Mode, select Active Active.
6. Select Device ID to be 1.
7. Select Enable Config Sync. This setting is required to synchronize the two firewall
configurations (enabled by default).
8. Enter the Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the HA1 control link on the
peer firewall.
9. ( Optional) Enter a Backup Peer HA1 IP Address, which is the IP address of the backup
control link on the peer firewall.
10. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Configure Active/Active HA.
Perform Step 6 through Step 15.
STEP 4 | Configure an HA virtual address.
1. Select Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Virtual Address and click
Add.
2. Select Interface eth1/2.
3. Select IPv4 and Add an IPv4 Address of 10.1.1.200.
4. For Type, select ARP Load Sharing, which configures the virtual IP address to be for
both peers to use for ARP Load-Sharing.
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STEP 5 | Configure ARP Load-Sharing.
The device selection algorithm determines which HA firewall responds to the ARP requests to
provide load sharing.
1. For Device Selection Algorithm, select one of the following
• IP Modulo—The firewall that will respond to ARP requests is based on the parity of
the ARP requester's IP address.
• IP Hash—The firewall that will respond to ARP requests is based on a hash of the ARP
requester's source IP address and destination IP address.
2. Click OK.
STEP 6 | Enable jumbo frames on firewalls other than PA-7000 Series firewalls.
STEP 7 | Define HA Failover Conditions.
STEP 8 | Commit the configuration.
STEP 9 | Configure the peer firewall, PA-3050-1 (Device ID 0), with the same settings, except set the
Device ID to 0 instead of 1.
STEP 10 | Still on PA-3050-1 (Device ID 0), create the destination NAT rule for both Device ID 0 and
Device ID 1.
1. Select Policies > NAT and click Add.
2. Enter a Name for the rule that in this example identifies it as a destination NAT rule for
Layer 3 ARP.
3. For NAT Type, select ipv4 (default).
4. On the Original Packet, for Source Zone, select Any.
5. For Destination Zone, select the Untrust zone you created for the external network.
6. Allow Destination Interface, Service, and Source Address to remain set to Any.
7. For Destination Address, specify 10.1.1.200.
8. For the Translated Packet, Source Address Translation remains None.
9. For Destination Address Translation, enter the private IP address of the destination
server, in this example 192.168.1.200.
10. On the Active/Active HA Binding tab, for Active/Active HA Binding, select both to bind
the NAT rule to both Device ID 0 and Device ID 1.
11. Click OK.
STEP 11 | Commit the configuration.
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HA Clustering Overview
A number of Palo Alto Networks®
firewall models now support session state synchronization
among firewalls in a high availability (HA) cluster of up to 16 firewalls. The HA cluster peers
synchronize sessions to protect against failure of the data center or a large security inspection
point with horizontally scaled firewalls. In the case of a network outage or a firewall going down,
the sessions fail over to a different firewall in the HA cluster. Such synchronization is especially
helpful in the following use cases.
One use case is when HA peers are spread across multiple data centers so that there is no single
point of failure within or between data centers. A second multi-data center use case is when one
data center is active and the other is standby.
A third HA clustering use case is horizontal scaling, in which you add HA cluster members to a
single data center to scale security and ensure session survivability.
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HA clusters support a Layer 3 or virtual wire deployment. HA peers in the cluster can be a
combination of HA pairs and standalone cluster members. In an HA cluster, all members are
considered active; there is no concept of passive firewalls except for HA pairs, which can keep
their active/passive relationship after you add them to an HA cluster.
All cluster members share session state. When a new firewall joins an HA cluster, that triggers all
firewalls in the cluster to synchronize all existing sessions. HA4 and HA4 backup connections are
the dedicated cluster links that synchronize session state among all cluster members having the
same cluster ID. The HA4 link between cluster members detects connectivity failures between
cluster members. HA1 (control link), HA2 (data link), and HA3 (packet-forwarding link) are not
supported between cluster members that aren’t HA pairs.
For a normal session that has not failed over, only the firewall that is the session owner creates
a traffic log. For a session that failed over, the new session owner (the firewall that receives the
failed over traffic) creates the traffic log.
The firewall models that support HA clustering and the maximum number of members supported
per cluster are as follows:
Firewall Model Number of Members Supported Per
Cluster
PA-3200 Series 6
PA-3400 Series 6
PA-5200 Series 16
PA-5400 Series 8
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Firewall Model Number of Members Supported Per
Cluster
PA-7000 Series firewalls that have at least one
of the following cards: PA-7000-100G-NPC,
PA-7000-20GQXM-NPC, PA-7000-20GXM-NPC
PA-7080: 4
PA-7050: 6
VM-300 6
VM-500 6
VM-700 16
HA clustering is not supported in public cloud deployments. NAT is not configurable when HA
clusters are configured. Furthermore, HA clusters deny NAT traffic. Consider the HA Clustering
Best Practices and Provisioning before you start to Configure HA Clustering.
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HA Clustering Best Practices and Provisioning
These are the provisioning requirements and best practices for HA clustering.
• Provisioning Requirements and Best Practices
• HA cluster members must be the same firewall model and run the same PAN-OS®
version.
When upgrading, firewall members will continue to synchronize sessions with one
member at a different version.
• It is highly recommended and a best practice to use Panorama to provision HA cluster
members to keep all configuration and policies synchronized among all cluster members.
• HA cluster members must be licensed for the same components to ensure consistent policy
enforcement and content inspection capabilities.
• The licenses must expire at the same time to prevent mismatched licenses and loss of
functionality.
• All cluster members should be running with the same version of dynamic Content Updates
for consistent security enforcement.
• HA cluster members must share the same zone names in order for sessions to successfully
fail over to another cluster member. For example, suppose sessions going to an ingress zone
named internal are dropped because the link is down. For those sessions to fail over to
an HA firewall peer in the cluster, that peer must also have a zone named internal.
• Client-to-server and server-to-client flows must go back to the same firewall under normal
(non-failure) conditions in order for security content scanning to occur. Asymmetric traffic
won’t be dropped, but it cannot be scanned for security purposes.
• Session Synchronization Best Practices
• Dedicated HA communication interfaces should be used over dataplane interfaces. HSCI
interfaces aren’t used for HA4. This allows separation of HA pair and cluster session
synchronization to ensure maximum bandwidth and reliability for session syncing.
• HA4 should be adequately sized if you use dataplane interfaces. This ensures best effort
session state synchronizing between cluster members.
• Best practice is to have a dedicated cluster network for the HA4 communications link to
ensure adequate bandwidth and non-congested, low-latency connections between cluster
members.
• Architect your networks and perform traffic engineering to avoid possible race conditions,
in which a network steers traffic from the session owner to a cluster member before the
session is successfully synced between the firewalls. Layer2 HA4 connections must have
sufficient bandwidth and low latency to allow timely synchronization between HA members.
The HA4 latency must be lower than the latency incurred when the peering devices switch
traffic between cluster members.
• Architect your networks to minimize asymmetric flows. Session setup requires one cluster
member to see the complete TCP three-way handshake.
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• Health Check Best Practices
• On HA pairs in a cluster, configure an Active/Passive pair with HA backup communication
links for HA1, HA2, and HA4. Configure an Active/Active pair with HA backup
communications links for HA1, HA2, HA3, and HA4.
• Configure HA4 backup links on all cluster members.
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Configure HA Clustering
Learn about HA clustering and follow the HA Clustering Best Practices and Provisioning before
you configure HA firewalls as members of a cluster.
STEP 1 | Establish an interface as an HA interface (to later assign as the HA4 link).
1. Select Network > Interfaces > Ethernet and select an interface; for example,
ethernet1/1.
2. Select the Interface Type to be HA.
3. Click OK.
4. Repeat this step to configure another interface to use as the HA4 backup link.
STEP 2 | Enable HA clustering.
1. Select Device > High Availability > General and edit the Clustering Settings.
2. Enable Cluster Participation.
3. Enter the Cluster ID, a unique numeric ID for an HA cluster in which all members can
share session state; range is 1 to 99.
4. Enter a short, helpful Cluster Description.
5. (Optional) Change Cluster Synchronization Timeout (min), which is the maximum
number of minutes that the local firewall waits before going to Active state when
another cluster member (for example, in unknown state) is preventing the cluster from
fully synchronizing; range is 0 to 30; default is 0.
6. (Optional) Change Monitor Fail Hold Down Time (min), which is the number of minutes
after which a down link is retested to see if it is back up; range is 1 to 60; default is 1.
7. Click OK.
STEP 3 | Configure the HA4 link.
1. Select HA Communications and in the Clustering Links section, edit the HA4 section.
2. Select the interface you configured in the first step as an HA interface to be the Port for
the HA4 link; for example, ethernet1/1.
3. Enter the IPv4/IPv6 Address of the local HA4 interface.
4. Enter the Netmask.
5. (Optional) Change the HA4 Keep-alive Threshold (ms) to specify the timeframe within
which the firewall must receive keepalives from a cluster member to know that the
cluster member is functional; range is 5,000 to 60,000; default is 10,000.
6. Click OK.
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STEP 4 | Configure the HA4 Backup link.
1. Edit the HA4 Backup section.
2. Select the other interface you configured in the first step as an HA interface to be the
Port for the HA4 backup link.
3. Enter the IPv4/IPv6 Address of the local HA4 backup interface.
4. Enter the Netmask.
5. Click OK.
STEP 5 | Specify all members of the HA cluster, including the local member and both HA peers in any
HA pair.
1. Select Cluster Config.
2. (On a supported firewall) Add a peer member’s Device Serial Number.
3. (On Panorama) Add and select a Device from the dropdown and enter a Device Name.
4. Enter the HA4 IP Address of the HA peer in the cluster.
5. Enter the HA4 Backup IP Address of the HA peer in the cluster.
6. Enable Session Synchronization with the peer you identified.
7. (Optional) Enter a helpful Description.
8. Click OK.
9. Select the device and Enable it.
STEP 6 | Define HA failover conditions with link and path monitoring.
STEP 7 | Commit.
STEP 8 | (Panorama only) Refresh the list of HA firewalls in the HA cluster.
1. Under Templates, select Device > High Availability > Cluster Config.
2. Click Refresh at the bottom of the screen.
STEP 9 | View HA cluster information in the UI.
1. Select Dashboard.
2. View the HA cluster fields. The top section displays cluster state and HA4 connections
to provide cluster health at a glance. The HA4 and HA4 Backup indicators will be one of
the following: Green indicates the link status of the cluster members is Up. Red indicates
the link status of all the cluster members is Down. Yellow indicates the link status of
some cluster members is Up while the status of other cluster members is Down. Grey
indicates not configured. The center section displays the capacity of the local session
table and session cache table so you can monitor how full the tables are and plan for
firewall upgrades. The lower section displays communication errors on the HA4 and
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HA4 backup links, signifying possible problems with synchronizing information between
members.
STEP 10 | Access the CLI to view HA cluster and HA4 link information and perform other HA clustering
tasks.
You can view HA cluster flap statistics. The cluster flap count is reset when the HA
device moves from suspended to functional and vice versa. The cluster flap count also
resets when the non-functional hold time expires.
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Refresh HA1 SSH Keys and Configure Key Options
All Palo Alto Networks firewalls come with Secure Shell (SSH) pre-configured, and the high
availability (HA) firewalls can act as SSH server and SSH client simultaneously. When you
configure active/passive or active/active HA, you can enable encryption for the HA1 (control link)
connection between the HA firewalls. We recommend you secure the HA1 traffic between the
HA peers with encryption, particularly if the firewalls aren’t located in the same site. After you
enable encryption on the HA1 control link, you can use the CLI to create an SSH service profile
and secure the connection between the HA firewalls.
SSH service profiles enable you to change the default host key type, generate a new pair of public
and private SSH host keys for the HA1 control link, and configure other SSH HA1 settings. You
can apply the new host keys and configured settings to the firewalls without restarting the HA
peers. The firewall will reestablish HA1 sessions with its peer to synchronize the configuration
changes. It also generates system logs (subtype is ha) for reestablishing HA1 and HA1-backup
sessions.
The following examples show how to configure various SSH settings for your HA1 after you
enable encryption and access the CLI. (See Refresh SSH Keys and Configure Key Options for
Management Interface Connection for SSH management server profile examples.)
You must enable encryption and it must be functioning properly on an HA pair before you
can perform the following tasks.
If you are configuring the HA1 control link in FIPS-CC mode, you must set automatic
rekeying parameters for session keys.
To use the same SSH connection settings for each Dedicated Log Collector (M-series
or Panorama virtual appliance in Log Collector mode) in a Collector Group, configure
an SSH service profile from the Panorama management server, Commit the changes
to Panorama, and then Push the configuration to the Log Collectors. You can use the
set log-collector-group <name> general-setting management ssh
commands.
Create an SSH service profile to exercise greater control over SSH connections between your
HA firewalls.
This example creates an HA profile without configuring any settings.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name>
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. To verify that the new profile has been created and view the settings for any existing
profiles:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles
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456 | High Availability
(Optional) Set the SSH server to use only the specified encryption ciphers for the HA1
sessions.
By default, HA1 SSH allows all supported ciphers for encryption of CLI HA sessions. When you
set one or more ciphers, the SSH server advertises only those ciphers while connecting, and
if the SSH client (HA peer) tries to connect using a different cipher, the server terminates the
connection.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ciphers haprofiles <name> ciphers <cipher>
aes128-cbc—AES 128-bit cipher with Cipher Block Chaining
aes128-ctr—AES 128-bit cipher with Counter Mode
aes128-gcm—AES 128-bit cipher with GCM (Galois/Counter Mode)
aes192-cbc—AES 192-bit cipher with Cipher Block Chaining
aes192-ctr—AES 192-bit cipher with Counter Mode
aes256-cbc—AES 256-bit cipher with Cipher Block Chaining
aes256-ctr—AES 256-bit cipher with Counter Mode
aes256-gcm—AES 256-bit cipher with GCM
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
6. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the HA peers. (Using the
force option when an HA1 backup is configured has no effect.)
7. To verify the ciphers have been updated:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
ciphers
(Optional) Set the default host key type.
If you enable encryption on the HA1 control link, the firewall uses a default host key type
of RSA 2048 unless you change it. The HA1 SSH connection uses only the default host
key type to authenticate the HA peers (before an encrypted session is established between
them). You can change the default host key type; the choices are ECDSA 256, 384, or 521,
or RSA 2048, 3072, or 4096. Change the default host key type if you prefer a longer RSA key
length or if you prefer ECDSA rather than RSA. This example sets the default host key type to
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an ECDSA key of 256 bits. It also re-establishes the HA1 connection using the new host key
without restarting the HA peers.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> default-hostkey key-type ECDSA key-length 256
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. admin@PA-3250> request high-availability sync-to-remote ssh-key
An HA connection must already be established between the HA firewalls. If
the firewalls have not yet established an HA connection, you must enable
encryption on the control link connection, export the HA key to a network
location and import the HA key on the peer. See Configure Active/Passive HA
or Configure Active/Active HA.
6. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
7. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the two HA peers. (Using the
force option when an HA1 backup is configured has no effect.)
8. To verify the host key has been updated:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> default-hostkey
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(Optional) Delete a cipher from the set of ciphers you selected for SSH over the HA1 control
link.
This example deletes the AES CBC cipher with 128-bit key.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# delete deviceconfig system ssh profiles haprofiles <name> ciphers aes128-cbc
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
6. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the two HA peers. (Using the
force option when an HA1 backup is configured has no effect.
7. To verify the cipher has been deleted:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> ciphers
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(Optional) Set the session key exchange algorithms the HA1 SSH server will support.
By default, the SSH server (HA firewall) advertises all the key exchange algorithms to the SSH
client (HA peer firewall).
If you are using an ECDSA default key type, the best practice is to use an ECDH key
algorithm.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> kex <value>
diffie-hellman-group14-sha1—Diffie-Hellman group 14 with SHA1 hash
ecdh-sha2-nistp256—Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman over National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) P-256 with SHA2-256 hash
ecdh-sha2-nistp384—Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman over NIST P-384 with
SHA2-384 hash
ecdh-sha2-nistp521—Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman over NIST P-521 with
SHA2-521 hash
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
6. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the two HA peers. (Using the
force option when an HA1 backup is configured has no effect.
7. To verify the key exchange algorithms have been updated:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
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(Optional) Set the message authentication codes (MAC) the HA1 SSH server will support.
By default, the server advertises all of the MAC algorithms to the client.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> mac <value>
hmac-sha1—MAC with SHA1 cryptographic hash
hmac-sha2-256—MAC with SHA2-256 cryptographic hash
hmac-sha2-512—MAC with SHA2-512 cryptographic hash
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
6. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the two HA peers. (Using the
force option has no effect when an HA1 backup is configured.
7. To verify the MAC algorithms have been updated:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
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(Optional) Regenerate ECDSA or RSA host keys for HA1 SSH to replace the existing keys, and
re-establish HA1 sessions between HA peers using the new keys without restarting the HA
peers.
The HA peers use the host keys to authenticate each other. This example regenerates the
ECDSA 256 default host key.
Regenerating a host key does not change your default host key type. To regenerate the
default host key you are using, you must specify your default host key type and length
when you regenerate. Regenerating a host key that isn’t your default host key type
simply regenerates a key that you aren’t using and therefore has no effect.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh regenerate-hostkeys ha
key-type ECDSA key-length 256
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. admin@PA-3250> request high-availability sync-to-remote ssh-key
An HA connection must already be established between the HA firewalls. If
the firewalls have not yet established an HA connection, you must enable
encryption on the control link connection, export the HA key to a network
location, and import the HA key on the peer. See Configure Active/Passive HA
or Configure Active/Active HA.
6. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
7. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the two HA peers. (Using the
force option when an HA1 backup is configured has no effect.)
(Optional) Set rekey parameters to establish when automatic rekeying of the session keys
occurs for SSH over the HA1 control link.
The session keys are used to encrypt the traffic between the HA peers. The parameters you
can set are data volume (in megabytes), time interval (seconds), and packet count. After any
one rekey parameter reaches its configured value, SSH initiates a key exchange.
You can set a second or third parameter if you aren’t sure the parameter you configured
will reach its value as soon as you want rekeying to occur. The first parameter to reach its
configured value will prompt a rekey, then the firewall will reset all rekey parameters.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> session-rekey data 32
Rekeying occurs after the volume of data (in megabytes) is transmitted following the
previous rekey. The default is based on the cipher you use and ranges from 1GB to
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4GB; the range is 10MB to 4,000MB. Alternatively, you can enter set deviceconfig
system ssh profiles ha-profiles <name> session-rekey data
default command, which sets the data parameter to the default value of the individual
cipher you are using.
3. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> session-rekey interval 3600
Rekeying occurs after the specified time interval (in seconds) passes following the
previous rekeying. By default, time-based rekeying is disabled (set to none). The range is
10 to 3,600.
4. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> session-rekey packets 27
Rekeying occurs after the defined number of packets (2n
) are transmitted following
the previous rekey. For example, 14 configures that a maximum of 214 packets are
transmitted before a rekey occurs. The default is 228. The range is 12 to 27 (212 to 227).
Alternatively, you can enter set deviceconfig system ssh profiles haprofiles <name> session-rekey packets default, which sets the packets
parameter to 228
.
Choose rekeying parameters based on your type of traffic and network speeds
(in addition to FIPS-CC requirements if they apply to you). Don’t set the
parameters so low that they affect SSH performance.
5. admin@PA-3250# commit
6. admin@PA-3250# exit
7. (HA1 Backup is configured) admin@PA-3250> request high-availability
session-reestablish
8. (No HA1 Backup is configured or HA1 Backup link is down) admin@PA-3250> request
high-availability session-reestablish force
You can force the firewall to reestablish HA1 sessions if there is no HA1 backup,
which causes a brief split-brain condition between the two HA peers. (Using the
force option when an HA1 backup is configured has no effect.)
9. To verify the changes:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh profiles ha-profiles
<name> session-rekey
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463 | High Availability
Activate the profile by selecting the profile and restarting HA1 SSH service.
1. admin@PA-3250> configure
2. admin@PA-3250# set deviceconfig system ssh ha ha-profile <name>
3. admin@PA-3250# commit
4. admin@PA-3250# exit
5. admin@PA-3250> set ssh service-restart ha
6. To verify the correct profile is in use:
admin@PA-3250> configure
admin@PA-3250# show deviceconfig system ssh ha
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HA Firewall States
An HA firewall can be in one of the following states:
HA Firewall
State
Occurs In Description
Initial A/P or A/
A
Transient state of a firewall when it joins the HA pair. The
firewall remains in this state after boot-up until it discovers
a peer and negotiations begins. After a timeout, the firewall
becomes active if HA negotiation has not started.
Active A/P State of the active firewall in an active/passive configuration.
Passive A/P State of the passive firewall in an active/passive configuration.
The passive firewall is ready to become the active firewall with
no disruption to the network. Although the passive firewall is not
processing other traffic:
• If passive link state auto is configured, the passive firewall is
running routing protocols, monitoring link and path state, and
the passive firewall will pre-negotiate LACP and LLDP if LACP
and LLDP pre-negotiation are configured, respectively.
• The passive firewall is synchronizing flow state, runtime
objects, and configuration.
• The passive firewall is monitoring the status of the active
firewall using the hello protocol.
Active-Primary A/A In an active/active configuration, state of the firewall that
connects to User-ID agents, runs DHCP server and DHCP relay,
and matches NAT and PBF rules with the Device ID of the
active-primary firewall. A firewall in this state can own sessions
and set up sessions.
ActiveSecondary
A/A In an active/active configuration, state of the firewall that
connects to User-ID agents, runs DHCP server, and matches
NAT and PBF rules with the Device ID of the active-secondary
firewall. A firewall in active-secondary state does not support
DHCP relay. A firewall in this state can own sessions and set up
sessions.
Tentative A/A State of a firewall (in an active/active configuration) caused by
one of the following:
• Failure of a firewall.
• Failure of a monitored object (a link or path).
• The firewall leaves suspended or non-functional state.
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465 | High Availability
HA Firewall
State
Occurs In Description
A firewall in tentative state synchronizes sessions and
configurations from the peer.
• In a virtual wire deployment, when a firewall enters tentative
state due to a path failure and receives a packet to forward,
it sends the packet to the peer firewall over the HA3 link for
processing. The peer firewall processes the packet and sends
it back over the HA3 link to the firewall to be sent out the
egress interface. This behavior preserves the forwarding path
in a virtual wire deployment.
• In a Layer 3 deployment, when a firewall in tentative state
receives a packet, it sends that packet over the HA3 link for
the peer firewall to own or set up the session. Depending on
the network topology, this firewall either sends the packet
out to the destination or sends it back to the peer in tentative
state for forwarding.
After the failed path or link clears or as a failed firewall
transitions from tentative state to active-secondary state, the
Tentative Hold Time is triggered and routing convergence
occurs. The firewall attempts to build routing adjacencies and
populate its route table before processing any packets. Without
this timer, the recovering firewall would enter active-secondary
state immediately and would silently discard packets because it
would not have the necessary routes.
When a firewall leaves suspended state, it goes into tentative
state for the Tentative Hold Time after links are up and able to
process incoming packets.
Tentative Hold Time range (sec) can be disabled (which is 0
seconds) or in the range 10-600; default is 60.
Nonfunctional
A/P or A/
A
Error state due to a dataplane failure or a configuration
mismatch, such as only one firewall configured for packet
forwarding, VR sync or QoS sync.
In active/passive mode, all of the causes listed for Tentative
state cause non-functional state.
Suspended A/P or A/
A
The device is disabled so won’t pass data traffic and although
HA communications still occur, the device doesn’t participate in
the HA election process. It can’t move to an HA functional state
without user intervention.
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Reference: HA Synchronization
If you have enabled configuration synchronization on both peers in an HA pair, most of the
configuration settings you configure on one peer will automatically sync to the other peer upon
commit. To avoid configuration conflicts, always make configuration changes on the active
(active/passive) or active-primary (active/active) peer and wait for the changes to sync to the peer
before making any additional configuration changes.
Only committed configurations synchronize between HA peers. Any configuration in the
commit queue at the time of an HA sync will not be synchronized.
• What Doesn't Sync in Active/Passive HA?
• What Doesn't Sync in Active/Active HA?
• System Runtime Information Synchronized Between HA Peers
• CLI Commands for HA Synchronization
• Reasons That Synchronization Doesn't Happen
What Doesn't Sync in Active/Passive HA?
The following table indicates the settings that don't synchronize in active/passive HA. You must
configure the following settings on each firewall in the HA pair; these settings don't sync from one
peer to another.
Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Passive?
Management
Interface Settings
All management configuration settings must be configured individually
on each firewall, including:
• Device > Setup > Management > General Settings—Hostname,
Domain, Login Banner, SSL/TLS Service Profile (and associated
certificates), Time Zone, Locale, Date, Time, Latitude, Longitude.
• Device > Setup > Management > Management Interface Settings—
IP Type, IP Address, Netmask, Default Gateway, IPv6 Address/
Prefix Length, Default IPv6 Gateway, Speed, MTU, and Services
(HTTP, HTTP OCSP, HTTPS, Telnet, SSH, Ping, SNMP, User-ID,
User-ID Syslog Listener-SSL, User-ID Syslog Listener-UDP)
Multi-vsys Capability You must activate the Virtual Systems license on each firewall in
the pair to increase the number of virtual systems beyond the base
number provided by default on PA-3200 Series, PA-3400 Series,
PA-5200 Series, PA-5400 Series, and PA-7000 Series firewalls.
You must also enable Multi Virtual System Capability on each firewall
(Device > Setup > Management > General Settings).
Panorama Settings Set the following Panorama settings on each firewall (Device > Setup >
Management > Panorama Settings).
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Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Passive?
• Panorama Servers
• Disable Panorama Policy and Objects and Disable Device and
Network Template
SNMP Device > Setup > Operations > SNMP Setup
Services Device > Setup > Services
Global Service Routes Device > Setup > Services > Service Route Configuration
Data Protection Device > Setup > Content-ID > Manage Data Protection
Jumbo Frames Device > Setup > Session > Session Settings > Enable Jumbo Frame
Packet Buffer
Protection
Device > Setup > Session > Session Settings > Packet Buffer
Protection
Network > Zones > Enable Packet Buffer Protection
Forward Proxy Server
Certificate Settings
Device > Setup > Session > Decryption Settings > SSL Forward Proxy
Settings
Master Key Secured
by HSM
Device > Setup > HSM > Hardware Security Module Provider >
Master Key Secured by HSM
Log Export Settings Device > Scheduled Log Export
Software Updates With software updates, you can either download and install them
separately on each firewall, or download them on one peer and sync
the update to the other peer. You must install the update on each peer
(Device > Software).
GlobalProtect Agent
Package
With GlobalProtect app updates, you can either download and install
them separately on each firewall, or download them to one peer and
sync the update to the other peer. You must activate separately on
each peer (Device > GlobalProtect Client).
Content Updates With content updates, you can either download and install them
separately on each firewall, or download them on one peer and sync
the update to the other peer. You must install the update on each peer
(Device > Dynamic Updates).
Licenses/
Subscriptions
Device > Licenses
Support Subscription Device > Support
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468 | High Availability
Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Passive?
Master Key The master key must be identical on each firewall in the HA pair, but
you must manually enter it on each firewall (Device > Master Key and
Diagnostics).
Before changing the master key, you must disable config sync on both
peers (Device > High Availability > General > Setup and clear the
Enable Config Sync check box) and then re-enable it after you change
the keys.
Reports, logs, and
Dashboard Settings
Log data, reports, and Dashboard data and settings (column display,
widgets) are not synced between peers. Report configuration settings,
however, are synced.
HA settings Device > High Availability
Decryption After a failover, firewalls do not support HA sync for decrypted SSL
sessions.
Rule Usage Data Rule usage data, such as hit count, Created, and Modified Dates, are
not synced between peers. You need to log in to the each firewall to
view the policy rule hit count data for each firewall or use Panorama to
view information on the HA firewall peers.
Certificates for
Device Management
and Syslog
Communication over
SSL only
Device > Certificate Management > Certificates
Certificates used for device management or for syslog communication
over SSL don’t synchronize with an HA peer.
Although the certificates used for the management
interface are not synchronized (and can be different), the
name of the certificate entry should be the same for the
active and passive devices.
Certificates in a
Certificate Profile
Device > Certificate Management > Certificate Profile
SSL/TLS Service
Profile for Device
Management only
Device > Certificate Management > SSL/TLS Service Profile
SSL/TLS Service Profile for Device Management doesn’t synchronize
with an HA peer.
Device-ID and IoT
Security
IP address-to-device mappings and policy rule recommendations don’t
synchronize with an HA peer.
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What Doesn't Sync in Active/Active HA?
The following table indicates the settings that don't synchronize in active/active HA. You must
configure the following settings on each firewall in the HA pair; these settings don't sync from one
peer to another.
Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Active?
Management
Interface Settings
You must configure all management settings individually on each
firewall, including:
• Device > Setup > Management > General Settings—Hostname,
Domain, Login Banner, SSL/TLS Service Profile (and associated
certificates), Time Zone, Locale, Date, Time, Latitude, Longitude.
• Device > Setup > Management > Management Interface Settings—
IP Address, Netmask, Default Gateway, IPv6 Address/Prefix Length,
Default IPv6 Gateway, Speed, MTU, and Services (HTTP, HTTP
OCSP, HTTPS, Telnet, SSH, Ping, SNMP, User-ID, User-ID Syslog
Listener-SSL, User-ID Syslog Listener-UDP)
Multi-vsys Capability You must activate the Virtual Systems license on each firewall in
the pair to increase the number of virtual systems beyond the base
number provided by default on PA-3200 Series, PA-3400 Series,
PA-5200 Series, PA-5400 Series, and PA-7000 Series firewalls.
You must also enable Multi Virtual System Capability on each firewall
(Device > Setup > Management > General Settings).
Panorama Settings Set the following Panorama settings on each firewall (Device > Setup >
Management > Panorama Settings).
• Panorama Servers
• Disable Panorama Policy and Objects and Disable Device and
Network Template
SNMP Device > Setup > Operations > SNMP Setup
Services Device > Setup > Services
Global Service Routes Device > Setup > Services > Service Route Configuration
Telemetry and Threat
Intelligence Settings
Device > Setup > Telemetry and Threat Intelligence
Data Protection Device > Setup > Content-ID > Manage Data Protection
Jumbo Frames Device > Setup > Session > Session Settings > Enable Jumbo Frame
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470 | High Availability
Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Active?
Packet Buffer
Protection
Device > Setup > Session > Session Settings > Packet Buffer
Protection
Network > Zones > Enable Packet Buffer Protection
Forward Proxy Server
Certificate Settings
Device > Setup > Session > Decryption Settings > SSL Forward Proxy
Settings
HSM Configuration Device > Setup > HSM
Log Export Settings Device > Scheduled Log Export
Software Updates With software updates, you can either download and install them
separately on each firewall, or download them on one peer and sync
the update to the other peer. You must install the update on each peer
(Device > Software).
GlobalProtect Agent
Package
With GlobalProtect app updates, you can either download and install
them separately on each firewall, or download them to one peer and
sync the update to the other peer. You must activate separately on
each peer (Device > GlobalProtect Client).
Content Updates With content updates, you can either download and install them
separately on each firewall, or download them on one peer and sync
the update to the other peer. You must install the update on each peer
(Device > Dynamic Updates).
Licenses/
Subscriptions
Device > Licenses
Support Subscription Device > Support
Ethernet Interface IP
Addresses
All Ethernet interface configuration settings sync except for the IP
address (Network > Interface > Ethernet).
Loopback Interface IP
Addresses
All Loopback interface configuration settings sync except for the IP
address (Network > Interface > Loopback).
Tunnel Interface IP
Addresses
All Tunnel interface configuration settings sync except for the IP
address (Network > Interface > Tunnel).
LACP System Priority Each peer must have a unique LACP System ID in an active/active
deployment (Network > Interface > Ethernet > Add Aggregate Group
> System Priority).
VLAN Interface IP
Address
All VLAN interface configuration settings sync except for the IP
address (Network > Interface > VLAN).
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471 | High Availability
Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Active?
Virtual Routers Virtual router configuration synchronizes only if you have enabled
VR Sync (Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Packet
Forwarding). Whether or not to do this depends on your network
design, including whether you have asymmetric routing.
IPSec Tunnels IPSec tunnel configuration synchronization is dependent on whether
you have configured the Virtual Addresses to use Floating IP
addresses (Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Virtual
Address). If you have configured a floating IP address, these settings
sync automatically. Otherwise, you must configure these settings
independently on each peer.
GlobalProtect Portal
Configuration
GlobalProtect portal configuration synchronization is dependent on
whether you have configured the Virtual Addresses to use Floating IP
addresses (Network > GlobalProtect > Portals). If you have configured
a floating IP address, the GlobalProtect portal configuration settings
sync automatically. Otherwise, you must configure the portal settings
independently on each peer.
GlobalProtect
Gateway
Configuration
GlobalProtect gateway configuration synchronization is dependent
on whether you have configured the Virtual Addresses to use
Floating IP addresses (Network > GlobalProtect > Gateways). If you
have configured a floating IP address, the GlobalProtect gateway
configuration settings sync automatically. Otherwise, you must
configure the gateway settings independently on each peer.
QoS QoS configuration synchronizes only if you have enabled QoS
Sync (Device > High Availability > Active/Active Config > Packet
Forwarding). You might choose not to sync QoS setting if, for example,
you have different bandwidth on each link or different latency through
your service providers.
LLDP No LLDP state or individual firewall data is synchronized in an active/
active configuration (Network > Network Profiles > LLDP).
BFD No BFD configuration or BFD session data is synchronized in an
active/active configuration (Network > Network Profiles > BFD
Profile).
IKE Gateways IKE gateway configuration synchronization is dependent on whether
you have configured the Virtual Addresses to use floating IP
addresses (Network > IKE Gateways). If you have configured a
floating IP address, the IKE gateway configuration settings sync
automatically. Otherwise, you must configure the IKE gateway settings
independently on each peer.
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Configuration Item What Doesn’t Sync in Active/Active?
Master Key The master key must be identical on each firewall in the HA pair, but
you must manually enter it on each firewall (Device > Master Key and
Diagnostics).
Before changing the master key, you must disable config sync on both
peers (Device > High Availability > General > Setup and clear the
Enable Config Sync check box) and then re-enable it after you change
the keys.
Reports, logs, and
Dashboard Settings
Log data, reports, and dashboard data and settings (column display,
widgets) are not synced between peers. Report configuration settings,
however, are synced.
HA settings • Device > High Availability
• (The exception is Device > High Availability > Active/Active
Configuration > Virtual Addresses, which do sync.)
Decryption After a failover, firewalls do not support HA sync for decrypted SSL
sessions.
Rule Usage Data Rule usage data, such as hit count, Created, and Modified Dates, are
not synced between peers. You need to log in to the each firewall to
view the policy rule hit count data for each firewall or use Panorama to
view information on the HA firewall peers.
Certificates for
Device Management
and Syslog
Communication over
SSL only
Device > Certificate Management > Certificates
Certificates used for device management or for syslog communication
over SSL don’t synchronize with an HA peer.
Certificates in a
Certificate Profile
Device > Certificate Management > Certificate Profile
SSL/TLS Service
Profile for Device
Management only
Device > Certificate Management > SSL/TLS Service Profile
SSL/TLS Service Profile for Device Management doesn’t synchronize
with an HA peer.
Device-ID and IoT
Security
IP address-to-device mappings and policy rule recommendations don’t
synchronize with an HA peer.
System Runtime Information Synchronized Between HA Peers
The following table summarizes what system runtime information is synchronized between HA
peers.
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473 | High Availability
Runtime Information Information Synced?
A/P A/A
HA Link Details
Management Plane
User to Group Mappings Yes Yes HA1
User Mappings across
Virtual Systems
Yes Yes HA1
User to IP Address
Mappings
Yes Yes HA1 In an A/A configuration,
only the Active-Primary
peer connects to UserID Servers or Agents,
and not the ActiveSecondary peer. If the
Active-Primary peer is
Suspended or offline, the
Active-Secondary peer
connects to the User-ID
Servers or Agents.
DHCP Lease (as server) Yes Yes HA1 If the PAN-OS versions
on the HA peers don’t
match, the DHCP
Lease (as server) config
information won’t sync.
DNS Cache No No N/A
FQDN Refresh No No N/A
IKE SAs [Security
Associations] (phase 1)
No No N/A
Forward Information Base
(FIB)
Yes No HA1
Multicast FIB (MFIB) Yes No HA1
PAN-DB URL Cache Yes No HA1 This is synchronized upon
database backup to disk
(every eight hours, when
URL database version
updates), or when the
firewall reboots.
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474 | High Availability
Runtime Information Information Synced?
A/P A/A
HA Link Details
Content (manual sync) Yes Yes HA1
PPPoE, PPPoE Lease Yes Yes HA1
DHCP Client Settings and
Lease
Yes Yes HA1 If the PAN-OS versions
on the HA peers don’t
match, the DHCP Client
Settings and Lease config
information won’t sync.
SSL VPN Logged in User
List
Yes Yes HA1
Dataplane
Session Table Yes Yes HA2 • Active/passive peers
do not sync ICMP
or host session
information.
• Active/active peers
do not sync host
session, multicast
session, or BFD
session information.
A host
session is
a session
terminated
on one
of the
firewall
interfaces,
such as
an ICMP
session
pinging
one
of the
firewall
interfaces
or a GP
tunnel.
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Runtime Information Information Synced?
A/P A/A
HA Link Details
ARP Table Yes No HA2
Multicast Session Table Yes No HA2
Neighbor Discovery (ND)
Table
Yes No HA2
MAC Table Yes No HA2
IPSec SAs [Security
Associations] (phase 2)
Yes Yes HA2
IPSec Sequence Number
(anti-replay)
Yes Yes HA2
DoS Block List Entries No No N/A
Virtual MAC Yes Yes HA2
SCTP Associations Yes No HA2
CLI Commands for HA Synchronization
You can use the following CLI operational command and options to synchronize HA peers:
username@hostname>request high-availability sync-to-remote
>candidate-config Sync candidate configuration to peer
>clock Sync the local time and date to the peer
>id-manager id-manager
>running-config Sync running configuration to peer
>ssh-key Sync ha ssh key to peer
A configuration pushed from Panorama isn't synchronized between firewalls. If you use Panorama
to manage firewalls, you could decide, for example, to use the no form of the following CLI
configuration command to disable configuration synchronization on the firewalls:
username@hostname#set deviceconfig high-availability group
configuration-synchronization enabled
no no
yes yes
Use the no form of the following CLI configuration command to disable state (session)
synchronization on the firewalls:
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476 | High Availability
username@hostname#set deviceconfig high-availability group statesynchronization enabled
no no
yes yes
Reasons That Synchronization Doesn't Happen
Sessions won't synchronize for the following reasons:
• If you disable session (state) synchronization.
• If the HA2 link or connection is down.
The HA configurations won't synchronize for the following reasons:
• If you disabled configuration synchronization on either HA peer.
• If the PAN-OS versions are incompatible on HA peers.
• If configurations on HA peers are not already synchronized.
• If Multi Virtual System Capability is enabled on one HA peer and not the other.
• If GTP is enabled on one HA peer and not the other.
• If SCTP is enabled on one HA peer and not the other.
• If VPN is enabled on one HA peer and not the other.
• If the same features aren't enabled on both HA peers.
• If the dataplane and slots aren't ready on an HA peer.
• If the URL databases are incompatible on the HA peers.
• If the licenses aren't the same on the HA peers.
• Additionally, a plugin mismatch might (not always) prevent configurations from synchronizing.
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478 | Monitoring
To forestall potential issues and to accelerate incidence response when needed, the firewall
provides intelligence about traffic and user patterns using customizable and informative reports.
The dashboard, Application Command Center (ACC), reports, and logs on the firewall allow you to
monitor activity on your network. You can monitor the logs and filter the information to generate
reports with predefined or customized views. For example, you can use the predefined templates
to generate reports on user activities or analyze the reports and logs to interpret unusual behavior
on your network and generate a custom report on the traffic pattern. For a visually engaging
presentation of network activity, the dashboard and the ACC include widgets, charts, and tables
with which you can interact to find the information you care about. In addition, you can configure
the firewall to forward monitored information as email notifications, syslog messages, SNMP
traps, and NetFlow records to external services.
To use the monitoring functionality with the PA-410 you must manage PA-410 firewalls
through a Panorama management server.
• Use the Dashboard
• Use the Application Command Center
• Use the App Scope Reports
• Use the Automated Correlation Engine
• Take Packet Captures
• Monitor Applications and Threats
• View and Manage Logs
• Monitor Block List
• View and Manage Reports
• View Policy Rule Usage
• Use External Services for Monitoring
• Configure Log Forwarding
• Configure Email Alerts
• Use Syslog for Monitoring
• SNMP Monitoring and Traps
• Forward Logs to an HTTP(S) Destination
• NetFlow Monitoring
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479 | Monitoring
Use the Dashboard
The Dashboard tab widgets show general firewall information, such as the software version, the
operational status of each interface, resource utilization, and up to 10 of the most recent entries
in the threat, configuration, and system logs. All of the available widgets are displayed by default,
but each administrator can remove and add individual widgets, as needed. Click the refresh icon
to update the dashboard or an individual widget. To change the automatic refresh interval,
select an interval from the drop-down (1 min, 2 mins, 5 mins, or Manual). To add a widget to the
dashboard, click the widget drop-down, select a category and then the widget name. To delete a
widget, click in the title bar. The following table describes the dashboard widgets.
Dashboard Charts Descriptions
Top Applications Displays the applications with the most sessions. The block size
indicates the relative number of sessions (mouse-over the block to
view the number), and the color indicates the security risk—from green
(lowest) to red (highest). Click an application to view its application
profile.
Top High Risk
Applications
Similar to Top Applications, except that it displays the highest-risk
applications with the most sessions.
General Information Displays the firewall name, model, PAN-OS software version, the
application, threat, and URL filtering definition versions, the current
date and time, and the length of time since the last restart.
Interface Status Indicates whether each interface is up (green), down (red), or in an
unknown state (gray).
Threat Logs Displays the threat ID, application, and date and time for the last 10
entries in the Threat log. The threat ID is a malware description or URL
that violates the URL filtering profile.
Config Logs Displays the administrator username, client (Web or CLI), and date and
time for the last 10 entries in the Configuration log.
Data Filtering Logs Displays the description and date and time for the last 60 minutes in
the Data Filtering log.
URL Filtering Logs Displays the description and date and time for the last 60 minutes in
the URL Filtering log.
System Logs Displays the description and date and time for the last 10 entries in the
System log.
A Config installed entry indicates configuration
changes were committed successfully.
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Dashboard Charts Descriptions
System Resources Displays the Management CPU usage, Data Plane usage, and the
Session Count, which displays the number of sessions established
through the firewall.
Logged In Admins Displays the source IP address, session type (Web or CLI), and session
start time for each administrator who is currently logged in.
ACC Risk Factor Displays the average risk factor (1 to 5) for the network traffic
processed over the past week. Higher values indicate higher risk.
High Availability If high availability (HA) is enabled, indicates the HA status of the local
and peer firewall—green (active), yellow (passive), or black (other). For
more information about HA, see High Availability.
Locks Shows configuration locks taken by administrators.
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Use the Application Command Center
The Application Command Center (ACC) is an interactive, graphical summary of the applications,
users, URLs, threats, and content traversing your network.The ACC uses the firewall logs to
provide visibility into traffic patterns and actionable information on threats. The ACC layout
includes a tabbed view of network activity, threat activity, and blocked activity and each tab
includes pertinent widgets for better visualization of network traffic. The graphical representation
allows you to interact with the data and visualize the relationships between events on the
network, so that you can uncover anomalies or find ways to enhance your network security rules.
For a personalized view of your network, you can also add a custom tab and include widgets that
allow you to drill down into the information that is most important to you.
ACC data, including ACC widgets and exported ACC reports, use Security policy rule data
that you enabled to Log at Session End. If some data you expect to view in the ACC is not
displayed, view your Traffic and Threat logs to determine the correct Security policy
rule to modify as needed so all new logs generated that match the Security policy rule are
viewable in the ACC.
• ACC—First Look
• ACC Tabs
• ACC Widgets (Widget Descriptions)
• ACC Filters
• Interact with the ACC
• Use Case: ACC—Path of Information Discovery
ACC—First Look
Take a quick tour of the ACC.
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ACC—First Look
Tabs The ACC includes three predefined tabs that
provide visibility into network traffic, threat
activity, and blocked activity. For information on
each tab, see ACC Tabs.
Widgets Each tab includes a default set of widgets that best
represent the events/trends associated with the
tab. The widgets allow you to survey the data using
the following filters:
• bytes (in and out)
• sessions
• content (files and data)
• URL categories
• threats (and count)
For information on each widget, see ACC Widgets.
Time The charts or graphs in each widget provide a
summary and historic view. You can choose a
custom range or use the predefined time periods
that range from the last 15 minutes up to the last
90 days or last 30 calendar days. The selected time
period applies across all tabs in the ACC.
The time period used to render data, by default,
is the Last Hour updated in 15 minute intervals.
The date and time interval are displayed onscreen,
for example at 11:40, the time range is 01/12
10:30:00-01/12 11:29:59.
Global Filters The Global Filters allow you to set the filter across
all widgets and all tabs. The charts/graphs apply
the selected filters before rendering the data. For
information on using the filters, see ACC Filters.
Application
View
The application view allows you filter the ACC
view by either the sanctioned and unsanctioned
applications in use on your network, or by the risk
level of the applications in use on your network.
Green indicates sanctioned applications, blue
unsanctioned applications, and yellow indicates
applications that are partially sanctioned. Partially
sanctioned applications are those that have a
mixed sanctioned state; it indicates that the
application is inconsistently tagged as sanctioned,
for example it might be sanctioned on one or more
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483 | Monitoring
ACC—First Look
virtual systems on a firewall enabled for multiple
virtual systems or across one or more firewalls
within a device group on Panorama.
Risk Factor The risk factor (1=lowest to 5=highest) indicates
the relative risk based on the applications used
on your network. The risk factor uses a variety of
factors to assess the associated risk levels, such
as whether the application can share files, is it
prone to misuse or does it try to evade firewalls,
it also factors in the threat activity and malware
as seen through the number of blocked threats,
compromised hosts or traffic to malware hosts/
domains.
Source The data used for the ACC display. The options
vary on the firewall and on Panorama.
On the firewall, if enabled for multiple virtual
systems, you can use the Virtual System dropdown to change the ACC display to include data
from all virtual systems or just a selected virtual
system.
On Panorama, you can select the Device Group
drop-down to change the ACC display to include
data from all device groups or just a selected
device group.
Additionally, on Panorama, you can change the
Data Source as Panorama data or Remote Device
Data. Remote Device Data is only available when
all the managed firewalls are on PAN-OS 7.0.0
or later. When you filter the display for a specific
device group, Panorama data is used as the data
source.
Export You can export the widgets displayed in the
currently selected tab as a PDF. The PDF is
downloaded and saved to the downloads folder
associated with your web browser, on your
computer.
ACC Tabs
The ACC includes the following predefined tabs for viewing network activity, threat activity, and
blocked activity.
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484 | Monitoring
Tab Description
Network Activity Displays an overview of traffic and user activity on your network
including:
• Top applications in use
• Top users who generate traffic (with a drill down into the bytes,
content, threats or URLs accessed by the user)
• Most used security rules against which traffic matches occur
In addition, you can also view network activity by source or
destination zone, region, or IP address, ingress or egress interfaces,
and GlobalProtect host information such as the operating systems
of the devices most commonly used on the network.
Threat Activity Displays an overview of the threats on the network, focusing on
the top threats: vulnerabilities, spyware, viruses, hosts visiting
malicious domains or URLs, top WildFire submissions by file type
and application, and applications that use non-standard ports. The
Compromised Hosts widget in this tab (the widget is supported
on some platforms only), supplements detection with better
visualization techniques; it uses the information from the correlated
events tab (Automated Correlation Engine > Correlated Events) to
present an aggregated view of compromised hosts on your network
by source users/IP addresses and sorted by severity.
Blocked Activity Focuses on traffic that was prevented from coming into the
network. The widgets in this tab allow you to view activity denied
by application name, username, threat name, blocked content—files
and data that were blocked by a file blocking profile. It also lists the
top security rules that were matched on to block threats, content,
and URLs.
Tunnel Activity Displays the activity of tunnel traffic that the firewall inspected
based on your tunnel inspection policies. Information includes
tunnel usage based on tunnel ID, monitor tag, user, and tunnel
protocols such as Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE), General
Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for User Data
(GTP-U), and non-encrypted IPSec.
GlobalProtect Activity Displays an overview of user activity in your GlobalProtect
deployment. Information includes the number of users and number
of times users connected, the gateways to which users connected,
the number of connection failures and the failure reason, a
summary of authentication methods and GlobalProtect app
versions used, and the number of endpoints that are quarantined.
In addition, this tab displays a chart view summary of devices
that have been quarantined. Use the toggle at the top of the
chart to view the quarantined devices by the actions that caused
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Tab Description
GlobalProtect to quarantine the device, the reason GlobalProtect
quarantined the device, and the location of the quarantined devices.
SSL Activity Displays an overview of TLS/SSL decryption activity on the firewall.
Information includes successful and unsuccessful decryption
activity in your network, decryption failure reasons such as
protocol, certificate, and version issues, TLS versions, key exchange
algorithms, and the amount and type of decrypted and undecrypted
traffic.
Use the ACC information to evaluate how decryption is working on
your network and then use the decryption logs to drill down into
details.
You can also interact with the ACC to create customized tabs with custom layout and widgets
that meet your network monitoring needs, export the tab and share with another administrator.
ACC Widgets
The widgets on each tab are interactive; you can set the ACC Filters and drill down into the details
for each table or graph, or customize the widgets included in the tab to focus on the information
you need. For details on what each widget displays, see Widget Descriptions.
Widgets
View You can sort the data by bytes, sessions, threats,
count, content, URLs, malicious, benign, files,
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486 | Monitoring
Widgets
applications, data, profiles, objects, users. The
available options vary by widget.
Graph The graphical display options are treemap, line
graph, horizontal bar graph, stacked area graph,
stacked bar graph, and map. The available options
vary by widget; the interaction experience also
varies with each graph type. For example, the
widget for Applications using Non-Standard Ports
allows you to choose between a treemap and a line
graph.
To drill down into the display, click into the graph.
The area you click into becomes a filter and allows
you to zoom into the selection and view more
granular information on the selection.
Table The detailed view of the data used to render the
graph is provided in a table below the graph. You
can interact with the table in several ways:
• Click and set a local filter for an attribute in
the table. The graph is updated and the table
is sorted using the local filter. The information
displayed in the graph and the table are always
synchronized.
• Hover over the attribute in the table and use the
options available in the drop-down.
Actions
Maximize view— Allows you enlarge the widget
and view the table in a larger screen space and with
more viewable information.
Set up local filters—Allows you to add ACC
Filters to refine the display within the widget.
Use these filters to customize the widgets; these
customizations are retained between logins.
Jump to logs—Allows you to directly navigate to the
logs (Monitor > Logs > <log-type> tab). The logs are
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487 | Monitoring
Widgets
filtered using the time period for which the graph is
rendered.
If you have set local and global filters, the log query
concatenates the time period and the filters and
only displays logs that match the combined filter
set.
Export—Allows you to export the graph as a
PDF. The PDF is downloaded and saved on your
computer. It is saved in the Downloads folder
associated with your web browser.
Widget Descriptions
Each tab on the ACC includes a different set of widgets.
Widget Description
Network Activity—Displays an overview of traffic and user activity on your network.
Application Usage The table displays the top ten applications used on your network, all
the remaining applications used on the network are aggregated and
displayed as other. The graph displays all applications by application
category, sub category, and application. Use this widget to scan
for applications being used on the network, it informs you about
the predominant applications using bandwidth, session count, file
transfers, triggering the most threats, and accessing URLs.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: treemap, area, column, line (the charts vary by the
sort by attribute selected)
User Activity Displays the top ten most active users on the network who have
generated the largest volume of traffic and consumed network
resources to obtain content. Use this widget to monitor top users on
usage sorted on bytes, sessions, threats, content (files and patterns),
and URLs visited.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: area, column, line (the charts vary by the sort by
attribute selected)
Source IP Activity Displays the top ten IP addresses or hostnames of the devices that
have initiated activity on the network. All other devices are aggregated
and displayed as other.
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488 | Monitoring
Widget Description
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: area, column, line (the charts vary by the sort by
attribute selected)
Destination IP
Activity
Displays the IP addresses or hostnames of the top ten destinations
that were accessed by users on the network.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: area, column, line (the charts vary by the sort by
attribute selected)
Source Regions Displays the top ten regions (built-in or custom defined regions)
around the world from where users initiated activity on your network.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: map, bar
Destination Regions Displays the top ten destination regions (built-in or custom defined
regions) on the world map from where content is being accessed by
users on the network.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: map, bar
GlobalProtect Host
Information
Displays information on the state of the hosts on which the
GlobalProtect agent is running; the host system is a GlobalProtect
endpoint. This information is sourced from entries in the HIP match log
that are generated when the data submitted by the GlobalProtect app
matches a HIP object or a HIP profile you have defined on the firewall.
If you do not have HIP Match logs, this widget is blank. To learn how
to create HIP objects and HIP profiles and use them as policy match
criteria, see Configure HIP-Based Policy Enforcement.
Sort attributes: profiles, objects, operating systems
Charts available: bar
Rule Usage Displays the top ten rules that have allowed the most traffic on the
network. Use this widget to view the most commonly used rules,
monitor the usage patterns, and to assess whether the rules are
effective in securing your network.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: line
Ingress Interfaces Displays the firewall interfaces that are most used for allowing traffic
into the network.
Sort attributes: bytes, bytes sent, bytes received
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489 | Monitoring
Widget Description
Charts available: line
Egress Interfaces Displays the firewall interfaces that are most used by traffic exiting the
network.
Sort attributes: bytes, bytes sent, bytes received
Charts available: line
Source Zones Displays the zones that are most used for allowing traffic into the
network.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: line
Destination Zones Displays the zones that are most used by traffic going outside the
network.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: line
Threat Activity—Displays an overview of the threats on the network
Compromised Hosts Displays the hosts that are likely compromised on your network. This
widget summarizes the events from the correlation logs. For each
source user/IP address, it includes the correlation object that triggered
the match and the match count, which is aggregated from the match
evidence collated in the correlated events logs. For details see Use the
Automated Correlation Engine.
Available on the PA-5200 Series, PA-7000 Series, and Panorama.
Sort attributes: severity (by default)
Hosts Visiting
Malicious URLs
Displays the frequency with which hosts (IP address/hostnames) on
your network have accessed malicious URLs. These URLs are known to
be malware based on categorization in PAN-DB.
Sort attributes: count
Charts available: line
Hosts Resolving
Malicious Domains
Displays the top hosts matching DNS signatures; hosts on the network
that are attempting to resolve the hostname or domain of a malicious
URL. This information is gathered from an analysis of the DNS activity
on your network. It utilizes passive DNS monitoring, DNS traffic
generated on the network, activity seen in the sandbox if you have
configured DNS sinkhole on the firewall, and DNS reports on malicious
DNS sources that are available to Palo Alto Networks customers.
Sort attributes: count
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490 | Monitoring
Widget Description
Charts available: line
Threat Activity Displays the threats seen on your network. This information is based
on signature matches in Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Vulnerability
Protection profiles and viruses reported by WildFire.
Sort attributes: threats
Charts available: bar, area, column
WildFire Activity by
Application
Displays the applications that generated the most WildFire
submissions. This widget uses the malicious and benign verdict from
the WildFire Submissions log.
Sort attributes: malicious, benign
Charts available: bar, line
WildFire Activity by
File Type
Displays the threat vector by file type. This widget displays the file
types that generated the most WildFire submissions and uses the
malicious and benign verdict from the WildFire Submissions log. If this
data is unavailable, the widget is empty.
Sort attributes: malicious, benign
Charts available: bar, line
Applications using
Non Standard Ports
Displays the applications that are entering your network on nonstandard ports. If you have migrated your firewall rules from a portbased firewall, use this information to craft policy rules that allow
traffic only on the default port for the application. Where needed,
make an exception to allow traffic on a non-standard port or create a
custom application.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
Charts available: treemap, line
Rules Allowing
Applications On Non
Standard Ports
Displays the security policy rules that allow applications on nondefault ports. The graph displays all the rules, while the table displays
the top ten rules and aggregates the data from the remaining rules as
other.
This information helps you identify gaps in network security by
allowing you to assess whether an application is hopping ports or
sneaking into your network. For example, you can validate whether
you have a rule that allows traffic on any port except the default port
for the application. Say for example, you have a rule that allow DNS
traffic on its application-default port (port 53 is the standard port for
DNS). This widget will display any rule that allows DNS traffic into
your network on any port except port 53.
Sort attributes: bytes, sessions, threats, content, URLs
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