Learn how to securely connect your NGFW (HSM client) and a SafeNet Network HSM
server.
To set up connectivity between the Palo Alto Networks firewall (HSM client) and a SafeNet Network
HSM server, you must specify the IP address of the server, enter a password for
authenticating the firewall to the server, and then register the firewall with the
server. Before you begin configuring your HSM client, create a partition for the
firewall on the HSM server and then confirm that the SafeNet Network client version
on the firewall is compatible with your SafeNet Network HSM server (see
Set Up Connectivity with an HSM (PAN-OS)).
Before the hardware security module (HSM) and firewall
connect, the HSM authenticates the firewall based on the firewall IP address.
Therefore, you must
configure the firewall to use a static IP address—not a
dynamic address assigned through DHCP. Operations on the HSM stop working if the
firewall IP address changes during runtime.
HSM configurations are not
synchronized between high availability (HA) firewall peers. Consequently, you
must configure the HSM separately on each peer. In active/passive HA
configurations, you must
manually perform one failover to individually
configure and authenticate each HA peer to the HSM. After this initial manual
failover, user interaction is not required for a failover to function
properly.