GP client asks to downgrade

[Farzana]

Hello,

We have PAN OS 8.0.3 with the GP client version 4.0.2 deployed to our clients. This works fine. I've downloaded GP version 4.1.0 on my machine and when I connect it asks me to downgrade to an older version. We haven't uploaded any GP client to the PAN itself.

We want to deploy the new version to the users but we don't want them to see this message of course. What should we do?

Thanks in advance.

[gwesson]

Yep, you can disable the upgrade/downgrade prompt entirely.

Network > GlobalProtect > Portals > [portal name] > Agent tab > [config name] > App tab.

Under "Allow User to Upgrade GlobalProtect App", choose Disallow. The default is Allow with Prompt.

This will also prevent users from upgrading manually, so you'll want to change that back or even set it to upgrade transparently if you'd like.

[Farzana]

@gwesson thank you for your prompt reply.

Any idea why is it prompting to download an older version even though I have downloaded 4.1.0 on my machine? 

[gwesson]

The term "upgrade" in that option is really a misnomer, since it's just comparing the version strings. If it's different, it offers the version on the firewall.

It should really say "Allow User to Change GlobalProtect App Version to Match the Version on the Portal", but that gets pretty wordy. The functionality is there to let an admin deploy a greater version but roll back if there's a need.

[Farzana]

@gwesson, thank you once again for the explanation.

So if we set the option to 'disallow', do we need to push out the GP client via another mechanism or it will auto upgrade in client pc?

[gwesson · Accepted solution]

If you disallow it, it will not allow an upgrade/downgrade at all. You need to change that setting in the future when you're ready to roll out the new version.

If you have further questions on this, please do open a support case, I'm stretched a bit thin here 🙂

[jgaffney123]

We need way to disable this check at the client level, does that exist?  This solution only works if your connecting to a single VPN with access to the firewall. 

When connecting to to multiple clients without access to their firewalls.  How do we disable this version check, or ignore anything "older" from the global protect client?