Palo Alto node: how to mount an existing XML config file and whether config persistence is supported

[zunyu-liu]

Hi,
I am using the Palo Alto node (kind: paloalto_panos) in Containerlab and have two questions.

Mounting existing XML config
I have a working bootstrap.xml configuration file that was used in other environments (EVE-NG / KVM).
In my Containerlab topology, I mounted it as follows:

topology:
nodes:
US-NYC-PaloAlto-FW:
kind: paloalto_panos
image: vrnetlab/paloalto_panos:10.1.5
mgmt-ipv4: 172.31.0.8
binds:
- ./configs/bootstrap.xml:/config/bootstrap.xml

The container log shows “applying bootstrap configuration”, and the file exists under /config/bootstrap.xml inside the container, but the firewall does not actually load the configuration.
Is this the correct way to load an existing XML configuration for Palo Alto nodes in Containerlab, or is there another supported approach (e.g. init-cfg.txt, startup-config, etc.)?

Configuration persistence
After deploying and configuring the firewall, if I run containerlab destroy and then deploy again (even without --cleanup), the configuration is lost and the firewall returns to the default state.
Does the Palo Alto node support saving configuration between deployments?
If yes, where is the configuration stored? If not, is there a recommended method to preserve configuration?

Environment details:

Containerlab version: 0.70.2

Host OS: Rocky Linux (running inside ESXi with nested virtualization)

Image: vrnetlab/paloalto_panos:10.0.0

Virtualization: hardware virtualization (vmx) enabled

Thanks for your help and clarification.