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VM-Series Deployment Guide

Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall

Table of Contents

Install a Device Certificate on the VM-Series Firewall

Get the device certificate to activate the site licenses on the VM-Series firewalls.

The firewall requires a device certificate to retrieve the site license entitlements and securely access cloud services such as WildFire, AutoFocus, and Cortex Data Lake. There are two methods for applying a site license to your VM-Series firewall—One-time password and auto-registration PIN. Each password or PIN is generated on the Customer Support Portal (CSP) and unique to your Palo Alto Networks support account. The method you use depends on the license type used to deploy your firewall and if your firewalls are managed by Panorama.

One Time Password—For VM-Series firewalls that have already been registered with Palo Alto Networks licensing server, you must generate a One-Time Password on the Customer Support Portal and apply it to your VM-Series firewall. Use this method for VM-Series firewalls with a BYOL or ELA license in small-scale, unmanaged deployments and manually-deployed VM-Series firewalls managed by Panorama.
Registration PIN—This method allows you to apply a site license to your VM-Series firewall at initial startup. Use this method for VM-Series firewalls with usage-based licenses (PAYG), that you bootstrap at launch or with any type of automated deployment, regardless of license type. The auto-registration PIN enables you to automatically register your usage-based firewalls at launch with the CSP and retrieve site licenses.

For the VM-Series firewall on NSX-V and NSX-T, you can add the auto-registration PIN to your service definition configuration so the device certificate is fetched by the firewall upon initial boot up. See the service definition configuration for NSX-V, NSX-T (North-South), and NSX-T (East-West) for more information. If you upgrade previously-deployed firewalls to PAN-OS version that supports device certificates, you can apply a device certificate to the those firewalls individually using a one-time password.

One-time passwords and auto-registration PINs must be used before they expire. If you do not, you must return to the CSP to generate a new one.

Enable the firewalls to retrieve the site licenses automatically at launch.
The firewall requires the device certificate to get the site license entitlements and securely access the cloud services. To retrieve the site licenses when you launch the firewall, in the bootstrap package you must include the authcode in the /license folder, and add the auto registration PIN ID and value in the init-cfg.txt file and place it in the /config folder. Adding the auto registration PIN ID and value also enable auto-registration of the PAYG or usage-based instances on the VM-Series firewall.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal (CSP).
2. Generate the VM-Series registration PIN.
  Select AssetsDevice CertificatesGenerate Registration PIN. Save the PIN ID and value. Make sure to launch the firewall before the PIN expires.
3. Add the registration PIN ID and value in the init-cfg.txt file.
  In addition to the required parameters, you must include:
  vm-series-auto-registration-pin-id=
  vm-series-auto-registration-pin-value=
4. Log in to the firewall and verify that you can see the site license on the firewall.
Generate the one-time password (OTP) and manually retrieve the device certificate on the firewall.
The firewall requires this device certificate to get the site license entitlements and securely access the cloud services.
1. Log in to the Customer Support Portal.
  Register your VM-Series firewall, if you have not already.
2. Select AssetsDevice CertificatesGenerate OTP.
3. Select your firewall from the list to Generate OTP.
4. Log in to the firewall, and retrieve the device certificate.
  Select SetupManagementDevice Certificate and Get Certificate
5. Verify that the device certificate is fetched and that you can see the site license on the firewall.
If using Panorama to manage the VM-Series firewall, see Install the device certificate on a managed firewall.

Switch Between the BYOL and the PAYG Licenses