Migrate a Firewall HA Pair to Panorama Management

Plan the migration.
See the checklist in Plan the Transition to Panorama Management.
Disable configuration synchronization between the HA peers.
Repeat these steps for both firewalls in the HA pair.
Log in to the web interface on each firewall, select
Device
High Availability
General
and edit the Setup section.
Clear
Enable Config Sync
and click
OK
.
Commit
the configuration changes on each firewall.
Connect each firewall to Panorama.
If Panorama is already receiving logs from these firewalls, you do not need to perform this step. Continue to Step 5.
Repeat these steps for both firewalls in the HA pair.
Log in to the web interface on each firewall, select
Device
Setup
Management
and edit the Panorama Settings.
In the
Panorama Servers
fields, enter the IP addresses of the Panorama management servers, confirm
Panorama Policy and Objects
and
Device and Network Template
are enabled and select
OK
.
Commit
the configuration changes on each firewall.
Add each firewall as a managed device.
If Panorama is already receiving logs from these firewalls, you do not need to perform this step. Continue to Step 5.
Add a Firewall as a Managed Device.
Log in to the Panorama Web Interface, select
Panorama
Managed Devices
and click
Add
.
Enter the serial number of each firewall and click
OK
.
Select
Commit
Commit to Panorama
and
Commit
your changes.
Verify that the Device State for each firewall is Connected.

Import each firewall configuration into Panorama.
Do no push any device group or template stack configuration to your managed firewalls in this step. Pushing the device group and template stack configuration during this step wipes the local firewall HA configuration in the next steps.
If you later decide to re-import a firewall configuration, first remove the firewall device groups and template to which it is a member. If the device group and template names are the same as the firewall hostname, then you can delete the device group and template before re-importing the firewall configuration or use the
Device Group Name Prefix
fields to enter a new name for the device group and template created by the re-import. Additionally, firewalls don’t lose logs when you remove them from device groups or templates.
From Panorama, select
Panorama
Setup
Operations
, click
Import device configuration to Panorama
, and select the
Device
.
Panorama can’t import a configuration from a firewall that is assigned to an existing device group or template stack.
(
Optional
) Edit the
Template Name
. The default value is the firewall name. You can’t use the name of an existing template or template stack.
(
Optional
) Edit the
Device Group
names. For a multi-vsys firewall, each device group has a vsys name by default, so add a character string as a Device Group Name Prefix for each. Otherwise, the default value is the firewall name. You can’t use the names of existing device groups.
The
Imported devices’ shared objects into Panorama’s shared context
check box is selected by default, which means Panorama compares imports objects that belong to the Shared location in the firewall to Shared in Panorama. If an imported object is not in the Shared context of the firewall, it is applied to each device group being imported. If you clear the check box, Panorama copies will not compare imported objects, and apply all shared firewall objects into device groups being imported instead of Shared. This could create duplicate objects, so selecting the check box is a best practice in most cases. To understand the consequences of importing shared or duplicate objects into Panorama, see Plan how to manage shared settings.
Commit to Panorama
.
Select
Panorama
Setup
Operations
and
Export or push device config bundle
. Select the
Device
, select
OK
and
Push & Commit
the configuration.
The Enable Config Sync setting in Step 2 must be cleared on both firewalls before you push the device group and template stack.
Launch the Web Interface of the firewall HA peer and ensure that the configuration pushed in the previous step committed successfully. If not,
Commit
the changes locally on the firewall.
Repeat Step 1-6 above on the second firewall. The process will create a device group and template stack for the firewall.
Add the HA firewall pair into the same device group and template stack.
(
Firewalls in active/active configuration
) It is recommended to add HA peers to the same device group but not to the same template stack because firewalls in an active/active HA configuration typically need unique network configurations. This simplifies policy management for the HA peers while reducing the operational burden of managing the network configuration of each HA peer when their network configurations are independent of each other. For example, firewalls in an active/active HA configuration often times need unique network configurations, such as unique floating IP that are used as the default gateway for hosts.
Ultimately, deciding whether to add firewalls in an active/active HA configuration to the same device group and template stack is a design decision you must make when designing your configuration hierarchy.
Select
Panorama
Device Group
, select the device group of the second firewall, and remove the second firewall from the device group.
Select the device group from which you removed the second firewall and
Delete
it.
Select the device group for the first firewall, select the second firewall, click
OK
and
Commit to Panorama
to add it to the same device group as the HA peer.
Select
Panorama
Templates
, select the template stack of the second firewall, and remove the second firewall from the template stack.
Select the template stack from which you removed the second firewall and
Delete
it.
Select the template stack for the first firewall, add the second firewall, select
OK
and
Commit to Panorama
to add it to the same template stack as the HA peer.
Remove the HA settings in the template associated with the newly migrated firewalls.
Select
Device
High Availability
and select the
Template
containing the HA configuration.
Select
Remove All
.
Commit to Panorama
.
Push the device group and template stack configurations to your managed firewalls.
Pushing the imported firewall configuration from Panorama to remove local firewall configuration updates
Policy
rule
Creation
and
Modified
dates to reflect the date you pushed to your newly managed firewalls when you monitor policy rule usage for a managed firewall. Additionally, a new universially unique identifier (UUID) for each policy rule is created.
First push the device group and template stack configuration to your passive HA peer and then to the active HA peer.
Select
Commit
Push to Devices
and
Edit Selections
.
Enable (select)
Merge Device Candidate Config
,
Include Device and Network Templates
, and
Force Template Values
.
Click
OK
.
Push
to your managed firewalls.
Launch the Web Interface of the active HA peer and select
Device
High Availability
Operational Commands
to
Suspend local device
.
Fail over to the passive HA peer before modifying the active HA peer to maintain your security posture while completing the configuration migration.
Repeat steps 1-4 for the now passive HA peer.
Launch the Web Interface of the now active HA peer and select
Device
High Availability
Operational Commands
to
Suspend local device
.
This restores the original active/passive HA peer roles.
Select
Panorama
Managed Devices
Summary
, and verify that the device group and template are in sync for the passive firewall. Verify policy rules, objects and network settings on the passive firewall match the active firewall.
Enable configuration synchronization between the HA peers.
Repeat these steps for both firewalls in the HA pair if you plan on maintaining a local configuration that needs to be synchronized.
Log in to the web interface on each firewall, select
Device
High Availability
General
and edit the Setup section.
Select
Enable Config Sync
and click
OK
.
Commit
the configuration changes on each firewall.