topic Re: Clone a Device Group? in General Topics

Clone a Device Group?

tinhnho — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 12:54:27 GMT

Hi Guys,

I have Panorama with a few device groups; how do I clone one of them from GUI so I can do testing without impacting a production device group?

Thanks

Re: Clone a Device Group?

reaper — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 16:04:16 GMT

unfortunately you can't do that from the GUI directly in one fell swoop

you can create a new device group, then go into the donor device group, select all the objects you need and 'clone' them into the new device group

if you're a bit of a CLI jockey, you can go into CLI, run `set cli configuration-output-format set`, go into configure mode, and run 'show | match <donordevicegroup>`

copy and paste the set commands into a text editor, find&replace the device group name with a new name and then copy&paste back into the CLI

Re: Clone a Device Group?

tinhnho — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 17:05:40 GMT

Thanks. I've created a new DG in Panorama and ready to clone objects. When I'm in the Address of donor DG, is there a way to select all items in the Address and clone them all at one? as of now, I have to select each of items manually and there are thousands of them in Address.

Re: Clone a Device Group?

aleksandar.astardzhiev — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 22:21:55 GMT

Hi @tinhnho , @reaper ,

What about the following approach:

1. Export Panorama running-config and selecting only the device-group you want clone

2. Open the exported XML with text editor and change the name of the device-group with name you wish to use for the cloning/new group

3. Back to Panorama GUI create the new device-group from Panorama -> Device-Groups. Use the same name as you put in the updated XML

4. Import the edited XML back to Panorama (remember to rename the file before importing and not using "running-config").

5. Load the XML config you just imported and select only the newly created (empty at the moment) device-group

6. Once the load is complete, you should have newly created device-group with all rules and objected copied from the donor group

(Optional) Once you have commited all the changes and the new device-group is ready you may want to delete the imported/save config file as it is not required anymore and only take space:

> delete config saved test-clone.xml

Re: Clone a Device Group?

aabdulwasea — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 11:45:40 GMT

@aleksandar.astardzhiev Thank you, very helpful.
just tried it in lab and it works as explained. but it would be great if we've cloning option directly on panorama GUI 😀

Re: Clone a Device Group?

yesitisme_007 — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 21:29:33 GMT

Late to the party but I thought this should be brought up... there is a documented method to duplicate device groups from the CLI that doesn't involve jumping through a lot of hoops --> How to Duplicate Device Groups on Panorama. Just be sure to specify 'mode merge' as other modes may fail.