Installing Palo Alto Firewall in GNS3 - Part I

Overview

I have installed GNS3 to test PALOALTO (PA) and ASAv firewall. But it is really hard to find the most suitable version of GNS3 to run both firewalls. After installing different versions of GNS3 couldn’t support to run both firewall. Finally, 1.5.2 version made a huge complement to satisfy my requirement. This version is freely available. You can easily download and install it in your computer. The file size is about not more than 50 MB and 5 minutes is almost enough to download the setup file. This will be depending on your internet speed but due the small size of the capacity you will able to download it faster.

The file I have downloaded ‘GNS3-1.5.2-all-in-one’

 Installation 

• ·         Uninstall all the application relating with GNS3 and install the GNS3 downloaded version.
• ·         When middle of the installation it asked to select the components to install. I kept all as it is except Npcap, Wireshark and SolarWinds. TightVNC should be install because it will be the CLI console for ASAv firewall.
• ·         During the installation process, error will popup regard to putty. You can safely ignore the error and proceed to install GNS3.

After completing the installation, PA console wont popup because GNS3 showing an error with Super Putty. You need to set it to putty and restart GNS3 application.

Go to the PA configuration and edit the Network tab adapter type as vmxnet3 and increase the number of adapters into 4 adapters. Select ‘Allow GNS3 to use any configured VMware adapter’ and reload the PA device.  

To load the console of PA will take 3 to 5 minutes. It will depend on your RAM size speed. I have corei3, 8 GB RAM laptop and it takes 5 minutes to load the PA.

I was stuck at hit any key to stop auto boot… screen.

Conclusion > 1.5.2 version is also not supporting for Windows 7 and not working the PA. Anyway GNS3 is loaded but no benefit coz no firewall installed yet.

Next Plan > GNS3 2.1.3 Version is available with me. In a previous case PA worked without errors. I’m going to install 2.1.3 version now. This also show an error saying file cannot be found. Then I installed 2.1.8 and same scenario. I imaged to restart my laptop and try with GNS3 2.1.3 version.

After restarting the computer, GNS3 2.1.3 version has been installed without any errors. Configured the PA under VMware. PA has started and now it is loading its initial setup. I have forced to run the VMware as run in background. Opened the console of the PA. It asked credentials to login. Username and password is admin. First time you enter the credentials it will not worked because PA needs little more time to load successfully. In my forth attempt, I’m able to login to the PA. This while process may take 3-5 minutes, but it will depend on your computer system performance. After loading gets success, you can enter command to verify PA management IP address to login through web browser. Enter below command to see the IP address.

admin@PA-VM> show interface management  

Open your web browser and type https://192.168.1.1 to login. Use the same credentials which you used before to login. To success this, I have used below versions and configurations. 

Laptop	Corei3, 8 GB RAM
GNS3	2.1.3
Palo Alto	PA-VM-ESX 6.1.0
VMWare Workstation	11.0.0 build-2305329
Console	putty

Here I can see some configurations have been done for this PA. I need to reset it to factory default settings to reconfigure PA for further labs.  

Part II > Installing ASA Firewall in GNS3