: Configure a Template Stack
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Configure a Template Stack

Table of Contents

Configure a Template Stack

A template stack is configurable and allows you to combine multiple templates to push full configurations to your managed firewalls. While templates are modular portions of your firewall configuration that you can reuse across different stacks, you can also configure the template stack to fill in the remaining configurations that you need to apply across all firewalls assigned to the stack. Panorama supports up to 1,024 template stacks and each stack can have up to 8 templates assigned to it. You can reference objects configured in a template stack from a template belonging to the temple stack. The template stack inherits configuration objects from the templates you add and is based on how you order templates in the template stack. You can also override template setting in the template stack to create a template stack configuration object. For details and planning, see Templates and Template Stacks..
Add a Template to configure interfaces, VLANs, Virtual Wires, IPSec Tunnels, DNS Proxy and Virtual Systems. These objects must be configured and pushed from a template, and not a template stack. Once pushed from a template, you can override these objects, except for Virtual Systems, in the template stack.
  1. Plan the templates and their order in the stack.
    Add a Template you plan to assign to the template stack.
    When planning the priority order of templates within the stack (for overlapping settings), you must check the order to prevent misconfiguration. For example, consider a stack in which the ethernet1/1 interface is of type Layer 3 in Template_A but of type Layer 2 with a VLAN in Template_B. If Template_A has a higher priority, Panorama will push ethernet1/1 as type Layer 3 but assigned to a VLAN.
    Also note that a template configuration can’t reference a configuration in another template even if both templates are in the same stack. For example, a zone configuration in Template_A can’t reference a zone protection profile in Template_B.
  2. Create a template stack.
    1. Select
      Panorama
      Templates
      and
      Add Stack
      .
      Panorama supports only
      Add Stack
      to create a new template stack. You cannot clone an existing template stack.
    2. Enter a unique
      Name
      to identify the stack.
    3. For each of the templates the stack will combine (up to 8),
      Add
      and select the template. The dialog lists the added templates in order of priority with respect to duplicate settings, where values in the higher templates override those that are lower in the list. To change the order, select a template and
      Move Up
      or
      Move Down
      .
    4. In the Devices section, select firewalls to assign them to the stack. For firewalls with multiple virtual systems, you can’t assign individual virtual systems, only an entire firewall. You can assign any firewall to only one template stack.
      Whenever you add a new managed firewall to Panorama, you must assign it to the appropriate template stack; Panorama does not automatically assign new firewalls to a template or template stack. When you push configuration changes to a template, Panorama pushes the configuration to every firewall assigned to the template stack.
    5. (
      Optional
      ) Select
      Group HA Peers
      to display a single check box for firewalls that are in a high availability (HA) configuration. Icons indicate the HA state: green for active and yellow for passive. The firewall name of the secondary peer is in parentheses.
      For active/passive HA, add both peers to the same template so that both will receive the configurations. For active/active HA, whether you add both peers to the same template depends on whether each peer requires the same configurations. For a list of the configurations that PAN-OS synchronizes between HA peers, see High Availability Synchronization.
    6. Click
      OK
      to save the template stack.
  3. Edit the
    Network
    and
    Device
    settings, as necessary.
    Renaming a vsys is allowed only on the local firewall. If you rename a vsys on Panorama, the result is an entirely new vsys or the new vsys name gets mapped to the wrong vsys on the firewall.
    In an individual firewall context, you can override settings that Panorama pushes from a stack in the same way you override settings pushed from a template, see Override a Template or Template Stack Value.
    1. Filter the tabs to display only the mode-specific settings you want to edit:
      While Panorama pushes mode-specific settings only to firewalls that support those modes, this selective push doesn’t adjust mode-specific values. For example, if a template has firewalls in Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) mode and an IKE Crypto profile that uses non-FIPS algorithms, the template push will fail. To avoid such errors, use the
      Mode
      drop-down in the
      Network
      and
      Device
      tabs to filter mode-specific features and value options.
      • In the
        Mode
        drop-down, select or clear the
        Multi VSYS
        ,
        Operational Mode
        , and
        VPN Mode
        filter options.
      • Set all the
        Mode
        options to reflect the mode configuration of a particular firewall by selecting it in the
        Device
        drop-down.
    2. Set up your interfaces and network connectivity. For example, Configure Zones and Interfaces to segment your network to manage and control traffic passing through your firewall.
    3. Edit the settings as needed.
    4. Select
      Commit
      Commit and Push
      ,
      Edit Selections
      in the Push Scope, select
      Templates
      , select the firewalls assigned to the template stack, and then
      Commit and Push
      your changes to the Panorama configuration and to the template stack.
  4. Verify that the template stack works as expected.
    1. Select a device assigned to the template stack from the
      Context
      drop-down.
    2. Select a tab to which you pushed configuration changes using the template stack.
    3. Values pushed from the template stack display a template icon ( ) to indicate that settings in the section have values pushed from a template stack. Hover your mouse over the stack to view which template stack from which the value was pushed.
  5. Troubleshoot Connectivity to Network Resources to verify your firewalls can access your network resources.

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