Will PIX Standby unit works also without primary unit connected?

[puk]

Hello,

can you please anybody confirm to me, that when active unit went down and the failover cable will be physically disconnected the secondary unit with FO licence will work properly? Is it true that every 24 hours the standalone unit with FO licence will reboot itself? Any link to the official document would be fine as I can not find it.

Thanks.

[sachinraja]

The FO license in PIX, cannot be used for configuring the PIX in the active mode. It is restricted to be used only as a failover unit. This is why the cost of a failover PIX is almost half of the Primary PIX.

YOu are right, the PIX will reboot every 24 hours. YOu can find the details in the following URL:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/secursw/ps2120/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a008017278a.html#wp1084723

Hope this helps.. rate replies if found useful.

Raj

[groupcisco]

Sachin is true about the firewall rebooting every 24 hours, but once the failover becomes active, it will remain active and function efficiently till it is rebooted. If it is not rebooted, it will continue to remain active and does not reboot every 24 hours.

Naveen

[puk]

Naveen,

now I am a little confused. When the PIX restart automatically and in what condition?

Thanks.

[puk]

Thanks for your reply. I do not need to configure the unit with FO licence. Here is the scheme:

- two functional PIXes (UR an FO lic.) connected via failover cable

- the active (A) unit will fail and is disconnected

- the standby (B) unit become active

My question is if the B unit will work correctly even after reboot.

Thanks.

[sachinraja]

In your case, the B unit will work really fine until you have your failover cable connected to the primary, even if it reboots. This should be the logical way of working. Do you have any problems in it??

Raj

[groupcisco]

In this case, unit B will reload after every 24 hours. Incase unit B is not reloaded after unit A goes down, unit B should not reload every 24 hours.

[puk]

Naveen,

what is the difference between this case and the case when unit B is not reloaded? I am asking because in this case I am not going to reload the unit B.

Thanks.

[groupcisco]

Puk,

when unit B is not reloaded after the unit A is down, it will continue to remain active and will not reboot every 24 hours. Only if unit B is manually reloaded, it does reload after every 24 hours if it does not sense the unit A connected to it.

Regards,

Naveen

[puk]

Naveen,

thanks, what about the FO cable? Is it necessary to have it connected to B unit (A unit is disconnected) or it does not matter? Is it documented anywhere?

[puk]

Raj,

you are right that it should be the logical way of working but I need to be sure. ;-) I currently do not have problems with it but need to know it for the near future.