Process to change to HA from cold spare

[pkuhnen]

The HA documentation states that one should start with a 'clean slate' when implementing HA. I currently have one PA-500 in production on 4.1.4 and another PA-500 as a cold spare. The production PA-500 has 2 unused traffic ports that can be used for HA. I would like to know what the least disruptive process is to change from cold spare to active-passive HA. (I've been told by our firewall vendor that active-active "is a mess")

[mharding]

Do you have your HA licensing, and have you ever configured your cold spare?

[gswcowboy]

Hi,

You would have to go through Sales first as a cold spare is typically used to replace your production unit in case of failure. To enable HA on both units, the cold spare has to be considered a 'production' device and only Sales can offer more insight on that aspect. Once you have the cold spare tag removed, HA options would then made available to you.

[gvernie]

The units were purchased as an HA pair but the HA part was never implemented.

[gswcowboy]

That makes it easier then. I assume you also purchased TP and/or URL licensing to match the current production device. That being said, you should be able to configure HA using one of the KB articles or utilizing the admin guide on the PAN device.

[pkuhnen]

Right. And the reason I posted this question is that the documentation says to clear the config of both firewalls. I want to know if I can connect both firewalls while the production unit is in it original configuration, add the second firewall with cross over cables, configure HA and force the config down to the passsive unit.

[gswcowboy]

You sound ready. Set up your HA with the current production unit with lowest priority value. Don't enable preemptive just yet. Match PANOS first and foremost and content/av/gp soon thereafter. Connect your cables and sync from active's running-config to peer soon thereafter. Enable preemptive if you choose to have that functionality.