Configure Panorama Appliances in High Availability for Prisma Access
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Configure Panorama Appliances in High Availability for Prisma Access

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Configure Panorama Appliances in High Availability for Prisma Access

Deploying Panorama appliances in a high availability (HA) configuration provides redundancy in case of a system or network failure and ensures that you have continuous connectivity to Prisma Access. In an HA configuration, one Panorama appliance peer is the active-primary and the other is the passive-secondary. In the event of a failover, the secondary peer becomes active and takes over the role of managing Prisma Access.

HA Prerequisites

To simplify the HA set up, configure the Panorama appliances in HA after you purchase Prisma Access and Cortex Data Lake auth codes and components and associate the serial number of the primary Panorama appliance on which you plan to install the Cloud Services plugin with the auth codes, but before you Activate and Install Prisma Access (Panorama Managed). However, you can also use this process to configure existing Panorama appliances that already have the plugin installed.
Whether you are just getting started with a new pair of Panorama appliances, or you have already set up your standalone Panorama appliance and completed the licensing and installation procedures, make sure to check the prerequisites before you enable HA:
  • You must register the Panorama appliance HA peers to the same customer account on the Customer Support Portal (CSP).
  • The Panorama appliance peers must be of the same form factor (hardware appliances of the same model or identical virtual appliances) and same OS version and must have the same set of licenses. The premium support license is required for Prisma Access and Cortex Data Lake.
  • The serial number of the primary Panorama appliance is tied to your Prisma Access and Cortex Data Lake auth codes. If you have installed and set up the plugin on a standalone Panorama appliance, ensure that you use that Panorama appliance as the primary peer. If you need to assign this standalone peer as the secondary Panorama appliance, contact Palo Alto Networks support for assistance with transferring the license to the primary Panorama appliance peer before you continue.

Configure HA

Set up your Panorama appliances in an HA configuration.
  1. Set the primary Panorama appliance as
    Primary
    and the secondary Panorama appliance as
    Secondary
    and be sure that the serial number of your primary Panorama appliance is tied to your Prisma Access and Cortex Data Lake auth codes.
  2. Make sure that the primary (active) and secondary (passive) Panorama appliances are synchronized and that the HA link state between them is up.
    1. Access the
      Dashboard
      on the primary Panorama appliance and select
      Widgets
      System
      High Availability
      to display the HA widget.
    2. Sync to peer
      , click
      Yes
      , and wait for the
      Running Config
      to display
      Synchronized
      .
    3. Make sure that the
      Local
      peer is
      active
      .
    4. Access the
      Dashboard
      on the passive Panorama appliance and select
      Widgets
      System
      High Availability
      to display the HA widget.
    5. Verify that the
      Running Config
      displays
      Synchronized
      .
    6. Make sure that the
      Local
      peer is
      passive
      .
  3. Install the Prisma Access components on the primary Panorama appliance.
    1. Log in to the primary Panorama appliance and select
      Panorama
      Licenses
      .
    2. Click
      Retrieve the license keys from license server
      .
    3. Activate and Install Prisma Access (Panorama Managed), including generating a one-time password (OTP) and verifying your account.
  4. On the primary Panorama appliance, Access the CLI and enter the following operational command:
    tail follow yes mp-log plugin_cloud_services.log
  5. Check that HA is enabled.
    1. Find the following text in the log output, where
      X
      is the serial number of the primary Panorama appliance and
      Y
      is the serial number of the secondary Panorama appliance:
      2017-11-06 15:14:07.790 -0800 INFO: [hainfo] Sending update to CSP for HA peer serial information to https://updates.paloaltonetworks.com/licensesvc/licenseservice.asmx/PanoramaHAInfo (https://updates.paloaltonetworks.com/licensesvc/licenseservice.asmx/PanoramaHAInfo) 2017-11-06 15:14:07.791 -0800 INFO: [hainfo] Data string is primarypanoramasn=<varname>X</varname> &secondarypanoramasn=<varname>Y</varname> 2017-11-06 15:14:17.595 -0800 INFO: [hainfo] HTTP_CODE 200, RESPONSE: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <PanoramaHA xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance (http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance)" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema (http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema)" xmlns="http://www.paloaltonetworks.com/ (http://www.paloaltonetworks.com/)"> <success>true</success> </PanoramaHA> 2017-11-06 15:14:17.596 -0800 INFO: [hainfo] Cached HA Peer's serial number <varname>Y</varname>
    2. Log in to the Customer Support Portal (CSP) and select
      Assets
      Cloud Services
      to verify that both Panorama peers are tied to your Prisma Access and Cortex Data Lake licenses.
    3. Check the fields for the primary and secondary Panorama appliance.
      The Auth Code, Model Name, License Description, and Expiration Date fields should be the same for the primary and secondary Panorama appliance, because Palo Alto Networks has associated the Prisma Access license automatically to the secondary Panorama appliance.
  6. Log in to the secondary Panorama appliance and Activate and Install Prisma Access (Panorama Managed).
    When you log in to the Customer Support Portal (CSP) to generate the OTP, make sure that you specify the serial number for the secondary Panorama appliance.
  7. Commit your changes on the primary and secondary Panorama appliance.
    1. Commit
      Commit and Push
      your changes.
    2. Click
      OK
      and
      Push
      .
  8. Verify that the primary and secondary Panorama appliances are still in a synchronized state.

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