Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Virtual Getting Started Guide

PDF

Deploy the Management Center Virtual

Updated: February 5, 2026

Want to summarize with AI?

Log in

Overview

Learn how to deploy Management Center Virtual on Hyper-V, including downloading the VHD image, preparing a Day 0 configuration file, creating a virtual switch, and creating a new virtual machine.

Perform the procedures given below to deploy the Management Center Virtual on Hyper-V.

Download Management Center Virtual VHD Image

Download the Management Center Virtual compressed VHD image from the Cisco Download Software page to your local machine:

  1. Navigate to Products > Security > Firewalls > Firewall Management > Secure Firewall Management Center Virtual

  2. Click Firepower Management Center Software and download the required VHD image. For example, Cisco_Secure_FW_Mgmt_Center_Virtual_Azure-7.4.0- xxxx.vhd.tar.

Prepare Day 0 Configuration File

You must prepare a Day-0 configuration file before you launch the Management Center Virtual. This file is a text file that contains the initial configuration data that gets applied when a VM is deployed. This initial configuration is placed into a text file named day0-config on your local machine, and is converted to a day0.iso file that is mounted and read on first boot.

Note

The day0.iso file must be available during first boot.

Specify the following parameters in the Day-0 configuration file:

  • The End User License Agreement (EULA) acceptance.

  • A host name for the system.

  • A new administrator password for the admin account.

  • Network settings that allow the appliance to communicate on your management network.

Note

We have used Linux in the following example, but there are similar utilities for Windows.

Procedure

1.

Enter the CLI configuration for Management Center Virtual in a text file called day0-config . Add the network settings and information about managing Management Center Virtual.

{
"EULA": "accept",
"Hostname": "virtual731265",
"AdminPassword": "r2M$9^Uk69##",
"DNS1": "208.67.222.222",
"DNS2": "208.67.222.222",
"IPv4Mode": "Manual",
"IPv4Addr": "10.10.0.92",
"IPv4Mask": "255.255.255.224",
"IPv4Gw": "10.10.0.65",
"IPv6Mode": "Manual",
"IPv6Addr": "2001:420:5440:2010:600:0:45:45",
"IPv6Mask": "112",
"IPv6Gw": "2001:420:5440:2010:600:0:45:1"
}
2.

Generate the virtual CD-ROM by converting the text file to an ISO file:

/usr/bin/genisoimage -r -o day0.iso day0-config

or

/ usr/bin/mkisofs -r -o day0.iso day0-config

Create a New Virtual Switch

Perform this procedure to create a new virtual switch (vSwitch).

Procedure

1.

On the Hyper-V Manager Actions tab, click Virtual Switch Manager.
2.

Click Virtual Switches > New virtual network switch.
3.

In the Create virtual switch window, select External.
4.

Click Create Virtual Switch.
5.

In the Virtual Switch Properties window, enter a Name for the virtual switch.
6.

Create an external or internal vSwitch.

  • To create an external vSwitch, select External network and the required physical adaptor from the drop-down list.

  • To create an internal vSwitch, select Internal network or Private network.
7.

Under VLAN ID, check the check box next to Enable virtual LAN identification for management operating system.
8.

Click OK.

Create a New Virtual Machine

Perform this procedure to create a new VM.

Procedure

1.

On the Hyper-V Manager, click Action > New > Virtual Machine
2.

Click Next on the New Virtual Machine Wizard dialog box.
3.

Enter a Name for the VM and click Next.
4.

Choose Generation 1 and click Next.
5.

Specify the amount of Startup Memory or RAM, in MB, that has to be allocated for the VM (Minimum is 28672 MB, recommended is 32768 MB)
6.

Choose the required vSwitch Connection from the drop-down list.
7.

Choose Use an existing virtual hard disk and click Browse to choose the downloaded Management Center Virtual VHD image.
8.

Click Finish to create the VM.
9.

After creating the virtual machine, it is important to increase the number of virtual processors (vCPU) for the virtual machine. By default, its value is set to 1.

  1. On the Hyper-V Manager, right-click the virtual machine that you have created and click Settings.

    The virtual machines' Settings window is displayed.

  2. Click Processor under Hardware on the left-pane.

    The Processor dialog box is displayed on the right-pane.

  3. In the Number of virtual processors: field, set the value to 4.

    Note

    We recommend to set the vCPUs (virtual processors) value to 8 for optimal performance. Note that a virtual machine requires a minimum of 4 vCPUs (virtual processors).

    For more information on minimum resource requirement, see Supported Windows Server for Management Center Virtual

  4. Click OK.