Palo Alto Firewall Automation - Hands-On Labs

Lab Guidelines and Support

Physically configure the management IP addresses on both Palo Alto firewalls and the Ubuntu management PC.

Access Palo Alto firewall GUI from Ubuntu-Mgmt and configure basics initial setup like hostname and timezone.

Extracting configuration and understand basic XML structure for automation.

Create a dedicated account and generate an API key from Palo Alto firewall to use it.

Learn about Curl command and extracting Palo Alto firewall information via XML API Calls.

Find the XPath using API browser and creating address objects using XML API

Finding the correct XPATH and creating security policies via API browser.

Python is the industry standard for network automation. It's more powerful, easier to read, and has extensive libraries specifically designed to work with Palo Alto firewalls.

Use the pan-os-python SDK to programmatically connect to both firewalls and retrieve system information (hostname, model, version)

Use the pan-os-python SDK to programmatically create address objects on both firewalls.

Generate a REST API key, make simple calls to retrieve data in JSON format, and compare it to the XML API.

REST API to create an address object and a security policy on the firewalls.

Ansible is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that uses simple YAML files (playbooks).

Create Ansible playbooks to configure address objects and security policies on both firewalls.

Create Ansible playbooks to configure security policies (rules) on both firewalls. We'll create rules that use the address.

This simulates a real-world scenario where you might need to configure hundreds of firewalls with similar but slightly different settings.

Create scripts to monitor firewall health, collect operational data, and generate reports. We'll track sessions, system health, and configuration compliance.

Create automated backup and restore procedures for firewall configurations. Learn to schedule backups, store them securely, and restore when needed.