Public IP Address Assignment Changes for Providing Secure
Inbound Access for Remote Network Sites
In order to offer more predictability for public IP address mapping
when you add a new app, Prisma Access public IP uses the following
IP assignment algorithm, as described in the following examples.
The following example configuration has a secure inbound access
deployment with 5 public IP addresses, and with six applications
mapped to those addresses. None of these apps are
dedicated (that is, you
did not specify Prisma Access to dedicate a single application to
a single public IP address).
Because app1 and app2 have a unique private IP address/Port/Protocol
combination, they can share a public IP address. If both apps used
port 80, they could not share a public IP address.
| App Name | Private IP Address | Port | Protocol | Dedicated | Public IP |
| app1 | 192.168.1.1 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.1 |
| app2 | 192.168.1.2 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.1 |
| app3 | 192.168.1.3 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.2 |
| app4 | 192.168.1.4 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.3 |
| app5 | 192.168.1.5 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.4 |
| app6 | 192.168.1.6 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.5 |
If you remove an app (app1 in this example), Prisma Access still
allocates five IP addresses for the remaining apps.
| App Name | Private IP Address | Port | Protocol | Dedicated | Public IP |
| app2 | 192.168.1.2 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.1 |
| app3 | 192.168.1.3 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.2 |
| app4 | 192.168.1.4 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.3 |
| app5 | 192.168.1.5 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.4 |
| app6 | 192.168.1.6 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.5 |
If you add an app that requires a Dedicated IP address,
that app requires the allocation of another public IP address, which
puts your deployment over the limit of 5 public IP addresses and
would cause a validation error on commit.
| App Name | Private IP Address | Port | Protocol | Dedicated | Public IP |
| app2 | 192.168.1.2 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.1 |
| app3 | 192.168.1.3 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.2 |
| app4 | 192.168.1.4 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.3 |
| app5 | 192.168.1.5 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.4 |
| app6 | 192.168.1.6 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.1.1.5 |
| dedicated_app | 192.168.1.1 | 8080 | TCP | Yes | 34.141.3.106 |
To offer a more predictable IP address assignment for newly-added
applications, Prisma Access changes the behavior of secure inbound
access for remote networks. As part of this enhancement, the service
also improves IP stickiness with a new algorithm that introduces
a predictable sorting order to help your system administrators predict
the public IP address that will be assigned when they onboard a
new inbound application.
The new algorithm creates a list of groups made up of unique
public IP addresses, sorts the groups by the public IP addresses
that are allocated to each group, and then stores the list in the
service infrastructure. Prisma Access uses this sorted list of groups
to find the available public IP address that can be assigned to
a new application, after Prisma Access checks that the new application’s
private IP address/port/protocol combination does not conflict with
any other apps in that public IP address.
The following example configuration has a secure inbound access
deployment with 5 public IP addresses. Prisma Access has sorted
the apps using the public IP addresses in descending order. One
app (app7) is dedicated, and Prisma Access does not share this public
IP address with any other apps.
| App Name | Private IP Address | Port | Protocol | Dedicated | Public IP |
| app1 | 192.168.1.1 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.1 |
| app2 | 192.168.1.2 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.1 |
| app3 | 192.168.1.3 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.2 |
| app4 | 192.168.1.4 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.3 |
| app5 | 192.168.1.5 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.4 |
| dedicated_app | 192.168.1.7 | 8080 | TCP | Yes | 34.141.1.5 |
When the administrator adds a new non-dedicated application,
Prisma Access evaluates the public IP addresses from top to bottom,
and adds the app to the public IP with the lowest IP address.
In the following example, the administrator has added a new app,
app6, with a private IP address of 192.168.1.6, a port of 81, and
a protocol of TCP. Prisma Access evaluates the public-to-private
IP address mapping as follows:
Prisma Access evaluates the public IP address 35.141.1.1
first, and determines that there is already an app with port 81
assigned to that public IP address.
Prisma Access evaluates the next public IP address in the
list (35.141.1.2), and determines that the private IP address/port/protocol
mapping does not conflict with any other apps assigned to this public
IP address.
Prisma Access assigns the new app app6 to the public IP address
35.141.1.2.
In all cases, Prisma Access ignores any public IP address
that has a dedicated app assigned to it (34.141.1.5 in this case).
| App Name | Private IP Address | Port | Protocol | Dedicated | Public IP |
| app1 | 192.168.1.1 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.1 |
| app2 | 192.168.1.2 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.1 |
| app3 | 192.168.1.3 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.2 |
| app4 | 192.168.1.4 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.3 |
| app5 | 192.168.1.5 | 80 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.4 |
| app6 | 192.168.1.6 | 81 | TCP | No | 35.141.1.2 |
| dedicated_app | 192.168.1.7 | 8080 | TCP | Yes | 34.141.1.5 |
The following rules apply to the deletion of an application:
If the administrator deletes an application from the
configuration, it does not impact the public IP allocation for any
other apps.
If the administrator deletes an application that has a public
IP address only allocated to itself, Prisma Access deletes that
public IP address from the deployment, and that public IP address
might not be reused in the secure inbound access deployment.