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    Restart Hardware Watchdog
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    Prisma SD-WAN

    Restart Hardware Watchdog

    Table of Contents

    Restart Hardware Watchdog

    Diagnose and recover a Prisma SD-WAN ION device that has restarted due to a hardware watchdog (CPLD) event or kernel panic.
    Where Can I Use This?What Do I Need?
    • Prisma SD-WAN (Managed by Strata Cloud Manager)
    • Prisma SD-WAN
    A hardware watchdog restart occurs when the CPLD circuit detects that the ION kernel has stopped responding and forces a reboot. This procedure walks you through identifying the reboot cause, collecting diagnostic data such as core files, and determining whether high resource utilization contributed to the condition.
    1. Check for incidents and alerts for the ION device on the IncidentsPrisma SD-WAN page.
    2. In the incident details, on the Device Reboot Impacted Objects section, note the reported reason for the reboot.
    3. If the ION device comes back online, go to ConfigurationION Device, hover on the status button and note the Last Reboot Reason field.
    4. If the ION does not come back online, connect a console cable and check whether the device is stuck in a kernel panic state. Copy the kernel panic message to attach to your support case.
    5. Perform a hard reboot using the power button on the ION device panel.
    6. After the ION device comes back up after the hard reboot, log in via the serial console connection and check whether any core files are present on the device by running the command file list core.
    7. If core files are listed, note their names. Export each core file to your support case using the following command, replacing <interface-number>, <corefilename>, and <caseNumber> with your values. Use the customer email address as the password when prompted: file export <interface-number> core <corefilename> scp://<caseNumber>@tacupload.paloaltonetworks.com
    8. Review CPU and memory utilization over an extended period. Select InsightsPrisma SASEION Devices, choose the ION from the dropdown, and select the Device Activity tab. Sustained spikes may contribute to watchdog restarts:
      • CPU: sustained above 90–95%
      • Memory: sustained above 95%
      If elevated resource usage is confirmed, investigate the following:
      • Were Concurrent Flow Limit Exceeded alarms reported on this ION over an extended period?
      • What is the VPN scale and prefix count hosted by this branch or data center?
      • Is there significant policy churn on this site? Correlate with the Device Memory Activity graph.
      • What is the traffic load on the ION over the same period?
      Watchdog restarts do not always correlate with high resource load. Multiple other root causes are possible. Contact Palo Alto Networks support for further analysis.
    9. If the ION device still does not boot after a hard reboot, contact Palo Alto Networks support.

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