Upgrade the VM-Series PAN-OS Software (Standalone)

Verify that enough hardware resources are available to the VM-Series firewall.
Refer to the VM-Series System Requirements to see the resource requirements for each VM-Series model. Allocate additional hardware resources before continuing the upgrade process; the process for assigning additional hardware resources differs on each hypervisor.
If the VM-Series firewall does not have the required resources for the model, it defaults to the capacity associated with the VM-50.
From the web interface, navigate to
Device
Licenses
and make sure you have the correct VM-Series firewall license and that the license is activated.
On the VM-Series firewall standalone version, navigate to
Device
Support
and make sure that you have activated the support license.
Save a backup of the current configuration file.
Although the firewall automatically creates a configuration backup, it is a best practice to create and externally store a backup before you upgrade.
Select
Device
Setup
Operations
and click
Export named configuration snapshot
.
Select the XML file that contains your running configuration (for example,
running-config.xml
) and click
OK
to export the configuration file.
Save the exported file to a location external to the firewall. You can use this backup to restore the configuration if you have problems with the upgrade.
If you have enabled User-ID, after you upgrade, the firewall clears the current IP address-to-username and group mappings so that they can be repopulated with the attributes from the User-ID sources. To estimate the time required for your environment to repopulate the mappings, run the following CLI commands on the firewall.
For IP address-to-username mappings:
show user user-id-agent state all
show user server-monitor state all
For group mappings:
show user group-mapping statistics
Ensure that the firewall is running the latest content release version.
Select
Device
Dynamic Updates
and see which
Applications
or
Applications and Threats
content release version is Currently Installed.
If the firewall is not running the minimum required content release version or a later version required for PAN-OS,
Check Now
to retrieve a list of available updates.
Locate and
Download
the desired content release version.
After you successfully download a content update file, the link in the Action column changes from
Download
to
Install
for that content release version.
Install
the update.
Upgrade the VM-Series plugin.
Before upgrading, check the latest Release Notes for details on whether a new VM-Series plugin affects your environment.
For example, suppose a new VM-Series plugin version only includes AWS features. To take advantage of the new features, you must update the plugin on your VM-Series firewall instances on AWS.
Do not install an upgrade that does not apply to your environment.
Log in to the VM-Series firewall and check the dashboard to view the plugin version.
Select
Device
Plugins
  to view the plugin version. Use
Check Now
to check for updates.
Select the version of the plugin and click
Install
in the Action column to install the plugin.
Upgrade PAN-OS.
If your firewall does not have internet access from the management port, you can download the software image from the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal and then manually
Upload
it to your firewall.
Select
Device
Software
and click
Check Now
to display the latest PAN-OS updates.
(
PAN-OS 10.2.10 and later 10.2 releases
) By default, the preferred releases and the corresponding base releases are displayed. To view the preferred releases only, disable (clear) the
Base Releases
checkbox. Similarly, to view the base releases only, disable (clear) the
Preferred Releases
checkbox.
Locate and
Download
the target PAN-OS version.
After you download the image (or, for a manual upgrade, after you upload the image),
Install
the image.
After the installation completes successfully, reboot using one of the following methods:
If you are prompted to reboot, click
Yes
.
If you are not prompted to reboot, select
Device
Setup
Operations
and click
Reboot Device
.
At this point, the firewall clears the User-ID mappings, then connects to the User-ID sources to repopulate the mappings.
If you have enabled User-ID, use the following CLI commands to verify that the firewall has repopulated the IP address-to-username and group mappings before allowing traffic.
show user ip-user-mapping all
show user group list
If you are upgrading to an XFR release for the first time, repeat this step to upgrade to the corresponding XFR release.
Verify that the firewall is passing traffic.
Select
Monitor
Session Browser
and verify that you are seeing new sessions.