: Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX
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Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX

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Activate the License for the VM-Series Firewall for VMware NSX

Panorama serves as the central point of administration for the VM-Series firewalls for VMware NSX and the license activation process is automated when Panorama has direct internet access. Panorama connects to the Palo Alto Networks update server to retrieve the licenses, and when a new VM-Series firewall for NSX is deployed, it communicates with Panorama to obtain the license. If Panorama is not connected to the internet, you need to manually license each instance of the VM-Series firewall so that the firewall can connect to Panorama. For an overview of the components and requirements for deploying the VM-Series firewall for NSX, see VM-Series for NSX Firewall Overview.
For this integrated solution, the auth code (for example, PAN-VM-1000-HV-SUB-BND-NSX2) includes licenses for threat prevention, URL filtering and WildFire subscriptions and premium support for the requested period.
In order to activate the license, you must have completed the following tasks:
  • Registered the auth code to the support account. If you don’t register the auth code, the licensing server will fail to create a license.
  • Entered the auth code in the Service Definition on Panorama. On Panorama, select VMware Service Manager to add the Authorization Code to the VMware Service Definition.
    If you have purchased an evaluation auth code, you can license up to 5 VM-Series firewalls with the VM-1000-HV capacity license for a period of 30 or 60 days. Because this solution allows you to deploy one VM-Series firewall per ESXi host, the ESXi cluster can include a maximum of 5 ESXi hosts when using an evaluation license.
The following process of activating the licenses is manual. If you have a custom script or an orchestration service, you can use the Licensing API to automate the process of retrieving the licenses for the VM-Series firewalls.