Palo Alto Firewall Training - Beginner to Expert 2026

Navigate the Palo Alto firewall dashboard to inspect high-level device information, customize a multi-column layout, view system resources, manage licenses and sessions, and perform configuration commits.

Configure dns and http server on the Palo Alto firewall by updating device setup services, add primary and secondary dns, configure an ntp server, then commit and verify via cli.

Configure a two-zone topology to establish traffic flow through a Palo Alto firewall by defining inside and outside zones, configuring interfaces and routing, and applying NAT and security policies.

Configure RIP version two on a Palo Alto firewall and connected routers, advertise loopback and interface networks, and verify learned routes with show ip route and ping tests.

Secure RIP dynamic routing with an authentication profile and keychain on Palo Alto and Cisco routers to prevent intruders from learning routing information.

Configure OSPF on a Palo Alto firewall, an interior gateway protocol that uses area zero backbone, router IDs, ABRs, and cost and hello timers with multicast addresses 224.0.0.5 and 224.0.0.6.

Understand how Palo Alto firewall security policies control traffic by top-down matching and default intra- and inter-zone rules. Learn to create, override, revert, and manage policies in the GUI.

Configure a NAT profile and granular security policy on a Palo Alto firewall, enabling inside-to-outside connectivity, testing with two users, and later restricting one user to YouTube.

Explore ssl and tls and how their handshake provides privacy, authentication, and data integrity. See how client hello, server hello, certificates, and session keys enable encrypted web traffic.

Understand how ssl/tls decryption enables a two-session model where the firewall decrypts and re-encrypts traffic for content scanning and malware detection.

Configure ssl forward proxy on a Palo Alto firewall by creating a self-signed certificate, distributing it to clients as trusted, and enabling a decryption policy to inspect inside-to-outside traffic.

Explore how content ID enables Palo Alto firewalls to inspect content with security profiles, scanning allowed traffic for malware, viruses, and malicious URLs.

Define a file blocking security profile in Palo Alto firewall to block PDF and EXE downloads, monitor results via data filtering logs, and apply the policy in a lab topology.

Learn how wildfire analysis in Palo Alto forwards suspicious file content to the cloud for zero-day threat analysis, using the wildfire license and sandbox feedback to block unknown malware.

Learn how data filtering in Palo Alto firewall detects and blocks sensitive information, using predefined patterns, custom keywords, and regular expression, and apply it via security policies.

Configure a DDoS protection profile in Palo Alto, apply it to the security policy, and monitor threat logs as ICMP, UDP, and TCP floods are blocked.

Understand packet buffer protection on Palo Alto firewall interfaces, including threshold based alerts and random early drop to block flood traffic, with configuration and monitoring steps.

Create and attach a zone protection profile to your DMZ and outside zones to block flooding and reconnaissance traffic, including TCP SYN flood, ICMP flood, and general scanning.

Deploy a Palo Alto firewall in tap mode to monitor traffic and log transactions, mirroring data from the switch without making any security decisions.

Understand application dependencies in Palo Alto firewalls, where groups of subsets require dependent apps (such as YouTube base on Google base) to apply accurate security policies.

Learn to create a custom application profile and define a security policy for internal apps not in the 4300 PanOS applications, using patterns and signatures.

Explore how to configure DHCP on a Palo Alto firewall, including server and relay modes, and understand Dora—discover, offer, request, acknowledge—and IP provisioning via UDP ports 67 and 68.

Explore nat on Palo Alto firewalls, translating private ips to public ips and using pat with ports, covering source and destination nat and IPv4/IPv6 translation.

Explore the fundamentals of cryptography, including encryption, decryption, and hashing, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and authentication using symmetric and asymmetric keys.

Explore IPsec, the internet protocol security framework at the network layer, delivering confidentiality, integrity, and authentication with anti-replay via AH and ESP, plus transport and tunnel modes.

Explore how the IKE protocol negotiates IPsec security associations, exchanges encryption and hashing parameters, and establishes phase one and phase two tunnels for VPN traffic.

Learn to configure a site-to-site IPsec VPN on Palo Alto firewalls, including zone setup, tunnel interfaces, IKE phase one, IPsec phase two, and testing connectivity.

Configure and manage GlobalProtect remote access vpn for Palo Alto firewall, including portal, gateway, tunnel, authentication, self-signed certificate, IPsec, and split tunneling.

Acc dashboard overview visualizes application command center logs with interactive graphs, enabling widget customization and analysis of network, globalprotect, and ssl activity.

Explore backup and restore workflows for Palo Alto firewalls, including candidate vs running configurations, commits, saves, reverts, and exporting or importing device state for complete backups.

Deploy a Palo Alto firewall in VMware Workstation to build a practice lab by importing the pan-10 ovf and configuring bridged networks, then access the gui via https.