By default, Palo Alto Networks devices use predefined certificates for mutual authentication to establish the SSL connections used for management access and inter-device communication. However, you can configure authentication using custom certificates instead. Additionally, you can use custom certificates to secure the High Availability (HA) connections between Panorama HA peers. Custom certificates allow you to establish a unique chain of trust to ensure mutual authentication between Panorama and the managed firewalls and log collectors. See Certificate Management for detailed information about the certificates and how to deploy them on Panorama, Log Collectors, and firewalls.

The following topics describe how to configure and manage custom certificates using Panorama.