Upgrade an HA Firewall Pair to PAN-OS 9.1

Save a backup of the current configuration file.
Although the firewall automatically creates a backup of the configuration, it is a best practice to create and externally store a backup before you upgrade.
Perform these steps on each firewall in the pair:
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 each firewall in the HA pair is running the latest content release version.
Refer to the release notes for the minimum content release version you must install for a PAN-OS 9.1 release. Make sure to follow the Best Practices for Application and Threat Updates.
Select
Device
Dynamic Updates
and check which
Applications
or
Applications and Threats
to determine which update is Currently Installed.

If the firewalls are not running the minimum required content release version or a later version required for PAN-OS 9.1,
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. You must install the update on both peers.
Disable preemption on the first peer in each pair. You only need to disable this setting on one firewall in the HA pair but ensure that the commit is successful before you proceed with the upgrade.
Select
Device
High Availability
and edit the
Election Settings
.
If enabled, disable (clear) the
Preemptive
setting and click
OK
.

Commit
the change.
Determine the Upgrade Path to PAN-OS 9.1
You cannot skip installation of any feature release versions in the path from the currently running PAN-OS version to PAN-OS 9.1.0.
Review the known issues and changes to default behavior in the Release Notes and upgrade/downgrade considerations in the New Features Guide for each release through which you pass as part of your upgrade path.
Install PAN-OS 9.1 on the first peer.
To minimize downtime in an active/passive configuration, upgrade the passive peer first. For an active/active configuration, upgrade the secondary peer first. As a best practice, if you are using an active/active configuration, we recommend upgrading both peers during the same maintenance window.
If you want to test that HA is functioning properly before the upgrade, consider upgrading the active peer in an active/passive configuration first to ensure that failover occurs without incident.
On the first peer, select

Device

Software

and click

Check Now

for the latest updates.

Locate and

Download

PAN-OS 9.1.0.

If your firewall does not have internet access from the management port, you can download the software image from the Palo Alto Networks Support Portal and then manually

Upload

it to your firewall.

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
Reboot Device
.

After the device finishes rebooting, view the High Availability widget on the

Dashboard

and verify that the device you just upgraded is still the passive or active-secondary peer in the HA configuration.


Install PAN-OS 9.1 on the second peer.
(Active/passive configurations only)
Suspend the active peer so that HA fails over to the peer you just upgraded.
On the active peer, select
Device
High Availability
Operational Commands
and click
Suspend local device
.

View the High Availability widget on the
Dashboard
and verify that the state changes to
Passive
.
On the other peer, verify that it is active and is passing traffic (
Monitor
Session Browser
).
On the second peer, select
Device
Software
and click
Check Now
for the latest updates.
Locate and
Download
PAN-OS 9.1.0.
After you download the image,
Install
it.
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
Reboot Device
.
(Active/passive configurations only)
From the CLI of the peer you just upgraded, run the following command to make the firewall functional again:
request high-availability state functional
If your HA firewalls have local policy rules configured, upon upgrade to PAN-OS 9.1, each peer independently assigns UUIDs for each rule. Because of this, the peers will show as out of sync until you sync the configuration (
Dashboard
Widgets
System
High Availability
Sync to peer
).
Verify that both peers are passing traffic as expected.
In an active/passive configuration, only the active peer should be passing traffic; both peers should be passing traffic in an active/active configuration.
Run the following CLI commands to confirm that the upgrade succeeded:
(
Active peers only
) To verify that active peers are passing traffic, run the
show session all
command.
To verify session synchronization, run the
show high-availability interface ha2
command and make sure that the Hardware Interface counters on the CPU table are increasing as follows:
In an active/passive configuration, only the active peer shows packets transmitted; the passive peer will show only packets received.
If you enabled HA2 keep-alive, the hardware interface counters on the passive peer will show both transmit and receive packets. This occurs because HA2 keep-alive is bi-directional, which means that both peers transmit HA2 keep-alive packets.
In an active/active configuration, you will see packets received and packets transmitted on both peers.
If you disabled preemption prior to the upgrade, re-enable it now.
Select
Device
High Availability
and edit the
Election Settings
.
Select
Preemptive
and click
OK
.
Commit
the change.