Provision the VM-Series Firewall on an ESXi Server

Use these instruction to deploy the VM-Series firewall on a (standalone) ESXi server. For deploying the VM-Series NSX edition firewall, see Set Up a VM-Series NSX Edition Firewall.

Provision a VM-Series Firewall
Download the OVA file. If you are using vSphere 6.5, you must download PA-VM-ESX-7.1.0-u1.ova.	Register your VM-Series firewall and obtain the OVA file from the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support web site: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/support/tabs/overview.html. The file contains the base installation. After the base installation is complete, you will need to download and install the latest PAN-OS version from the support portal. This will ensure that you have the latest fixes that were implemented since the base image was created. For instructions, see Upgrade the PAN-OS Software Version (Standalone Version).
Before deploying the OVA file, set up virtual standard switch(es) and virtual distributed switch(es) that you will need for the VM-Series firewall.	If you are deploying the VM-Series firewall with Layer 3 interfaces, you should Enable Use of Hypervisor Assigned MAC Addresses on the firewall. If you choose to not enable the use of hypervisor assigned MAC address, you must configure (set to Accept) any virtual switch attached to the VM-Series firewall to allow the following modes: Promiscuous mode MAC address changes Forged transmits If you are deploying the firewall with Layer 2, virtual wire, or tap interfaces, you must configure any virtual switch attached to the VM-Series firewall to allow (set to Accept) the modes listed above. To configure a virtual standard switch to receive frames for the VM-Series firewall: Configure a virtual standard switch from the vSphere Client by navigating to Home > Inventory > Hosts and Clusters. Click the Configuration tab and under Hardware click Networking. For each VM-Series firewall attached virtual switch, click on Properties. Highlight the virtual switch and click Edit. In the vSwitch properties, click the Security tab and set Promiscuous Mode, MAC Address Changes and Forged Transmits to Accept and then click OK. This change will propagate to all port groups on the virtual switch. To configure a virtual distributed switch to receive frames for the VM-Series firewall: Select Home > Inventory > Networking. Highlight the Distributed Port Group you want to edit and select the Summary tab. Click Edit Settings and select Policies > Security and set Promiscuous Mode, MAC Address Changes and Forged Transmits to Accept and then click OK.
Deploy the OVA. If you add additional interfaces (vmNICs) to the VM-Series firewall, a reboot is required because new interfaces are detected during the boot cycle. To avoid the need to reboot the firewall, make sure to add the interfaces at initial deployment or during a maintenance window so that you can reboot the firewall. To view the progress of the installation, monitor the Recent Tasks list.	Log in to vCenter using the vSphere client. You can also go directly to the target ESXi host if needed. From the vSphere client, select File > Deploy OVF Template. Browse to the OVA file that you downloaded in Step 1, select the file and then click Next. Review the templates details window and then click Next again. Name the VM-Series firewall instance and in the I nventory Location window, select a Data Center and Folder and click Next Select an ESXi host for the VM-Series firewall and click Next. Select the datastore to use for the VM-Series firewall and click Next. Leave the default settings for the datastore provisioning and click Next. The default is Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed. Do not configure CPU affinity for the VM-Series firewall. The vCenter/ESXi server optimizes the CPU placement for the VM-Series and the firewall performs best when you do not modify the non-uniform memory access (NUMA) configuration. Select the networks to use for the two initial vmNICs. The first vmNIC will be used for the management interface and the second vmNIC for the first data port. Make sure that the Source Networks maps to the correct Destination Networks. Review the details window, select the Power on after deployment check box and then click Next. When the deployment is complete, click the Summary tab to review the current status.