Hi,
Im currently in the process of configuring 2x PIX515E / 64MB RAM for Failover pair (UR and FO lisences)
These just became free from one older network and its my intetion to upgrade these to a new software.
They started with 6.3(4) software which I updated to 7.2(4) which i then updated again to 8.0(4). Both of the firewalls still had the old customer failover configurations fully with the other configurations too.
Now, after I had done the full updating of both of the firewalls I started checking the levels of memory usage. The Cisco page does say that you can use even the latest software with the 64RAM these have.
Now the strange thing I would want an answer to is this. Here are the output of the show memory commands from the exact same firewall with 2 different software versions (7.2(4) and 8.0(4))
PIX with 7.2(4) Software running:
pixfirewall# sh memory
Free memory: 20848240 bytes (31%)
Used memory: 46260624 bytes (69%)
------------- ----------------
Total memory: 67108864 bytes (100%)
ASDM shows 44MB RAM usage
PIX with 8.0(4) Software running
pixfirewall# sh memory
Free memory: 34748176 bytes (37%)
Used memory: 58086720 bytes (63%)
------------- ----------------
Total memory: 92834896 bytes (100%)
ASDM shows 53MB RAM usage with no other configurations other than those needed for ASDM use.
With the full customer configurations ASDM showerd a RAM usage of 56MB
Now check the outputs:
7.2(4) :Total memory: 67108864 bytes (100%)
8.0(4) Total memory: 92834896 bytes (100%)
How is it that they give such different values to the memory totals? Am I missing something here?
I would also like to ask you assuming the failover pair has the full configuration running with the newest software, how much memory should i have free on the PIX for safe operation without risk of having firewall crashing and loosing performance?
Sorry for the lengthy post. Hopefully someone can help with these questions and shed some light into wether its a good idea to run the lastest software with the current RAM setup.
/JF
