Editable Parameters in CN-Series Deployment YAML Files
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CN-Series

Editable Parameters in CN-Series Deployment YAML Files

Table of Contents

Editable Parameters in CN-Series Deployment YAML Files

Review the parameters that you must modify to deploy the CN-Series firewall
The YAML files include several editable parameters, the following tables list the ones you must modify to Deploy the CN-Series Firewalls successfully.

PAN-CN-MGMT-CONFIGMAP

PAN-CN-MGMT-CONFIGMAP
Advanced Routing
(required for Kubernetes 3.0.0 deployments)
PAN_ADVANCED_ROUTING:”true”
If you are using Advanced Routing with the Kubernetes 3.0.0 plugin, you must configure first enable it in PAN-OS, then manually on the template stack. After enabling it, commit and push the configuration. For more information, see Advanced Routing.
Panorama IP Address
PAN_PANORAMA_IP:
Include the Panorama IP address to which the CN-MGMT Pod will connect. If you have configured your Panorama management servers in a high availability (HA) configuration, provide the IP address of the primary-active Panorama.
You can locate the Panorama IP address on
Dashboard
General Information
.
Device Group Name
PAN_DEVICE_GROUP:
Specify the device group name to which you want to assign the CN-NGFW Pods. From Panorama, you will push identical policies to all CN-NGFW Pods that are managed by a pair of CN-MGMT Pods (or that belong to a PAN-SERVICE-NAME).
You can locate the device group name on
Panorama
Device Groups
.
Template Stack Name
PAN_TEMPLATE_STACK:
Allows you to configure the settings that enable firewalls (CN-NGFW Pods) to operate on the network.
You can locate the template stack name on
Panorama
Templates
.
Log Collector group name
PAN_PANORAMA_CGNAME:
Enables log storage for the logs generated on the CN-NGFW firewalls. Without a Collector Group, the firewall logs are not saved.
You can locate the collector group name on
Panorama
Collector Groups
.
(
Optional
)
#CLUSTER_NAME:
Specify the cluster name. The hostname of the CN-MGMT pod combines the StatefulSet name defined in the
PAN-CN-MGMT.yaml
and this optional CLUSTER_NAME. This hostname enables you to identify pods that are associated with different clusters, if you manage multiple clusters on the same Panorama appliance. As a best practice, use the same name here and on the Kubernetes plugin on Panorama.
(
Optional
) Panorama HA peer IP address
#PAN_PANORAMA_IP2:
IP address of the Panorama peer (passive-secondary) that is configured in a high availability setup. Verify that the PAN_PANORAMA_IP is that of the primary-active Panorama.
You can locate the Panorama HA peer IP address on
Panorama
High Availability
Setup
.
(
Required for GTP
) GTP Security
#PAN_GTP_ENABLED: "true"
Enable this parameter for GTP Security on the CN-Series firewall. After you enable GTP, you can use Panorama to configure GTP security and monitor GTP traffic on the firewall.
(
Required for jumbo frame support, if primary CNI does not use jumbo frame
) Jumbo Frame Mode
#PAN_JUMBO_FRAME_ENABLED: "true"
The CN-MGMT pod during bootup uses the eth0 MTU to auto-detect whether to enable jumbo-frame mode. So, if your secondary CNI uses jumbo frames, while the primary CNI does not, you must define
PAN_JUMBO_FRAME_ENABLED: "True"
to enable jumbo frame mode on the CN-Series firewall.
You must make this change before the CN-MGMT StatefulSet is deployed.
(
Required for flexible system resource allocation
)
  • CN-Series as a DaemonSet
    #PAN_NGFW_MEMORY: "42Gi"
  • CN-Series as a K8s Service
    #PAN_NGFW_MEMORY: "6.5Gi"
    #PAN_NGFW_MEMORY: "42Gi"
For 5G-Native Security 48Gi is recommended
If you need higher capacity and want to configure more memory to address your deployment needs, define the memory value using this parameter.
  • CN-Series as a DaemonSet
    Small capacity is 42Gi or less and large capacity is greater than 42Gi.
  • CN-Series as a K8s Service
    Small capacity is less than 6.5Gi, medium capacity is between 6.5Gi and 42Gi, and large capacity is greater than 42Gi.
This change also requires the same or higher memory allocation on the
pan-cn-ngfw.yaml
.
(
Optional
) AF-XDP
#PAN_DATA_MODE: “next-gen”
This parameter is required to enable Address Family eXpress Data Path (AF-XDP).
AF-XDP is an eBPF based socket that is optimized for high performance packet processing suited to cloud native services, to increase effective throughput. This requires kernel version 5.4 or later. Additionally, jumbo mode is not supported; EKS cannot use this parameter because jumbo mode is enabled by default.
Additionally, privileged mode is required in PAN-CN-NGFW.
(
Required to enable HPA
)
(
AKS and GKE
)
#HPA_NAME
(
EKS only
)
#PAN_NAMESPACE_EKS
(
AKS only
)
#PAN_INSTRUMENTATION_KEY
Several parameters are required to enable Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) on the CN-Series firewall as a Service.
  • For each environment, you must provide a unique name to identify the HPA resource per namespace or per tenant.
  • For AKS deployment, you must provide an Azure Application Insight instrumentation key.
The following default values are defined in the
pan-cn-mgmt-configmap.yaml
file.
metadata: name: pan-mgmt-config namespace: kube-system data: PAN_SERVICE_NAME: pan-mgmt-svc PAN_MGMT_SECRET: pan-mgmt-secret
These default values allow you to use these files for a quick proof-of-concept. If you want to modify these e.g., to deploy more than one fault-tolerant pair of PAN-MGMT Pods that manage up to 30 PAN-NGFW Pods, you must modify
pan-mgmt-svc
to use another service name. When you modify these values, you must update the corresponding references in the other YAML files to match the values you define in this file.

PAN-CN-MGMT-SECRET

PAN-CN-MGMT-SECRET
VM auth key
PAN_PANORAMA_AUTH_KEY:
Allows Panorama to authenticate the firewalls so that it can add each firewall as a managed device. The VM auth key is required for the lifetime of the deployment. Without a valid key in the connection request, the CN-Series firewall will be unable to register with Panorama.
Device certificate for the CN-Series
CN-SERIES-AUTO-REGISTRATION-PIN-ID
CN-SERIES-AUTO-REGISTRATION-PIN-VALUE
The firewall requires the device certificate to get any site license entitlements and securely access the Palo Alto cloud-delivered services. Generate the PIN ID and the PIN value on the Palo Alto Networks CSP, and use the PIN before it expires. For example:
CN-SERIES-AUTO-REGISTRATION-PIN-ID:
"01cc5-0431-4d72-bb84-something”
CN-SERIES-AUTO-REGISTRATION-PIN-VALUE:
"12………………….13e"
The following additional field for CN-SERIES-AUTO-REGISTRATION-API-CSP is commented out and is not required:
"certificate.paloaltonetworks.com"

PAN-CN-MGMT

PAN-CN-MGMT
Image path for the Init container image for the CN-MGMT firewall
initContainers:   - name: pan-mgmt-init     image: <your-private-registry-image-path>
The init container generates certificates which are used for securing communication between instances of CN-MGMT Pods and between CN-MGMT pods and CN-NGFW pods.
Edit the image path to point to the location to which you have uploaded the docker image for the CN-MGMT container.
Image Path for the CN-MGMT image containers:
initContainers:   - name: pan-mgmt     image: <your-private-registry-image-path>
Edit the image path to point to the location to which you have uploaded the docker image for the CN-MGMT container.
Hostname of the CN-MGMT firewall
kind: StatefulSet metadata:   name: pan-mgmt-sts
The hostname of the CN-MGMT firewall is derived by combining the StatefulSet name and the optional cluster name that you may have defined in the
pan-cn-mgmt-configmap.yaml
.
The default hostname of the CN-MGMT pods is pan-mgmt-sts-0 and pan-mgmt-sts-1, because the StatefulSet name is pan-mgmt-sts and the cluster name is not defined.
If the hostname is more than 30 characters, the name will be truncated at 30 characters.
(
Required if you defined memory for flexible system resource allocation
)
If you allocated a memory value that is more than or equal to 40Gi for
#PAN_NGFW_MEMORY: "40Gi"
in the
pan-cn-mgmt-configmap.yaml
, make sure that you have identical values in
request
and
limit
for CPU and memory to achieve higher capacity utilization under
containers: resources: requests: # configurable based on desired logging, capacities cpu: "4" memory: "16.0Gi" limits: cpu: "4" memory: "16.0Gi"
For 5G-Native Security, recommended values are cpu=4, memory=16Gi
(
Only for an on-premises or self-managed Native Kubernetes deployment
)
storageClassName: local
For self-managed deployment, the default config has “storageClassName: local”.
If your cluster has dynamically provisioned Persistent Volumes (PV), you must modify the “storageClassName: local” to match that storageClass or remove these lines if DefaultStorageClass is being used.
If your cluster doesn’t have dynamically provisioned PV, cluster admin can create static PVs with provided
pan_cn_pv_local.yaml
which has 2 sets of few PVs, one each for each PAN-CN-MGMT statefulSet pods. You can modify
pan_cn_pv_local.yaml
to match the volumes in your setup and deploy it before deploying the
PAN-CN-MGMT.yaml
.

PAN-CN-NGFW-CONFIGMAP

You do not need to modify any PAN-values unless you need to change the following:
  • PAN_SERVICE_NAME: pan-mgmt-svc
    The service name should match what you defined on the PAN-CN-MGMT-CONFIGMAP.
  • FAILOVER_MODE: failopen
    You can change this to failclose. It comes into effect only when CN-NGFW fails to get a license.
    • In fail-open mode the firewall will receive the packet and send it out without inspecting it. Transitioning to fail-open mode causes an internal restart and a brief disruption to traffic.
    • In fail-close mode, the firewall will drop all the packets it receives. The fail-close mode also brings down the CN-NFGW and releases the slot allocated to let other licensed CN-NFGW use that slot.
  • CPU Pinning—In the
    pan-cn-ngfw-configmap.yaml
    , CPU pinning and hyperthreading are disabled. Do not toggle this setting to enable CPU pinning for dedicated physical cores instead of logical cores with hyperthreading unless guided by Palo Alto Networks Support.
    PAN_CPU_PINNING_ENABLED: "True"/"False"
    PAN_HYPERTHREADING_ENABLE: "True"/"False"

PAN-CN-NGFW

PAN-CN-NGFW
Image path for the CN-NGFW container image
image
  containers:   - name: pan-ngfw-container     image:       <your-private-registry-image-path>
Edit the image path to point to the location to which you have uploaded the docker image for the CN-NGFW container.
(
Required if you defined memory for flexible system resource allocation
)
If you allocated a memory value that is more than or equal to 40Gi for
#PAN_NGFW_MEMORY: "40Gi"
in the
pan-cn-mgmt-configmap.yaml
, make sure that you have identical values in
request
and
limit
for cpu and memory to achieve guaranteed QoS under
containers: resources: requests: #configurable based on desired throughput, number of running pods cpu: "1" memory: "40.0Gi" limits: cpu: "1" memory: "40.0Gi"
For 5G-Native Security, recommended values are cpu=12, memory=48Gi.
Note:
  • The following annotation identifies the PAN-NGFW daemonset:
    paloaltonetworks.com/app: pan-ngfw-ds
    Do not modify this value.
  • The following annotation identifies the firewall name (“pan-fw”):
    paloaltonetworks.com/firewall: pan-fw
    In
    pan-cni-configmap.yaml
    , this firewall name must match exactly in the
    cni_network_config: “firewall”
    And this annotation should match exactly in the application yaml that you use to deploy each application pod.
The CN-NGFW Pod on each node secures the application pods and namespaces that have the annotation:
paloaltonetworks.com/firewall: pan-fw
Keep this annotation as is.
(
Optional
) AF-XDP
imagePullPolicy: Always securityContext: capabilities: #add: ["NET_ADMIN","NET_RAW","NET_BROADCAST","NET_BIND_SERVICE"] add: ["ALL"] privileged: true resources:
You must add
privileged: true
to the section shown to the left. This parameter is required to enable Address Family eXpress Data Path (AF-XDP).
You must also enable AF-XDP in the PAN-CN-MGMT-CONFIGMAP.

PAN-CNI-CONFIGMAP

These parameters are optional.
PAN-CNI-CONFIGMAP
List of firewall names that the application pod might belong to:
"firewall": [ "pan-fw" ]
While no modifications are required, if you change the annotation
paloaltonetworks.com/firewall: pan-fw
in the
pan-cn-ngfw.yaml
, you must replace the value in
"firewall": [ "pan-fw" ]
to match.
"exclude_namespaces": []
While no modifications are required, if you want to exclude specific namespaces, add it to
“exclude_namespaces"
, so that the application pod annotation in that namespace is ignored and traffic is not redirected to the CN-NGFW pod for inspection.
"security_namespaces": [ "kube-system" ]
Add the namespaces in which you have deployed the CN-NGFW daemonset in security_namespaces. The default namespace is kube-system.
“interfaces”
Add the interfaces in the application pods from which you want to redirect traffic to the CN-NGFW pod for inspection. By default, only eth0 traffic is inspected, and you can add additional interfaces as a comma-separated list of strings e.g. [“eth0”, “net1”, “net 2”].
cni_network_config:
{ "cniVersion": "0.3.0", "name": "pan-cni", "type": "pan-cni", "log_level": "debug", "appinfo_dir": "/var/log/pan-appinfo", "mode": "daemonset", "firewall": [ "pan-fw" ], "interfaces": ["eth0", "net1", "net2", "net3"],
}
In addition to this, you must also append
pan-cni
to the
k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/networks
annotation in the app pod.
For example:
metadata: name: testpod annotations: paloaltonetworks.com/firewall: pan-fw k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/networks: sriov-net1, sriov-net2, macvlan-conf, pan-cni
CN-Series currently doesn't support DPDK and it doesn't allow the app pod to use DPDK. You might need to modify the app pod if the app does not automatically adjust to non DPDK mode.
(
CN-Series as a Kubernetes Service only
)
“dpservicename”
“dpservicenamespace”
When the CN-Series is deployed as a service, a
dpservicename
and
dpservicenamespace
are required. By default,
dpservicename
is
“pan-ngfw-svc”
and
dpservicenamespace
is
“kube-system”
.

PAN-CNI

PAN-CNI
Image path for the PAN-CNI container image that has the CNI binaries and the CNI network config file on each node.
containers: name: install-pan-cni image: <your-private-registry-image-path>
Edit the image path to point to the location to which you have uploaded the docker image for the PAN-CNI container.

PAN-CNI-MULTUS

If you are using Multus CNI on a self-managed or native implementation of Kubernetes such as with VMware TKG+, use the
pan-cni-multus.yaml
instead of the
pan-cni.yaml
.

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