ASA Active/Standby Failover Configuration

The fail-over configuration requires two identical security appliances connected to each other through a dedicated fail-over link and, optionally, a state full fail-over link. The health of the active interfaces and units is monitored to determine if specific fail-over conditions are met. If those conditions are met, fail-over occurs.

Active/Standby Fail-over lets you use a standby security appliance to take over the functionality of a failed unit. When the active unit fails, it changes to the standby state while the standby unit changes to the active state. The unit that becomes active assumes the IP addresses, or, for a transparent firewall, the management IP address, and MAC addresses of the failed unit and begins to pass traffic. 

First you should have two identical ASAs with fail-over feature enabled. you can verify it by issuing following command. If not you have purchase a license.

#show version

Primary Firewall 

1. Enable fail-over feature
FW01(config)#failover

2. Set FW as primary or secondary. FW01 configured as primary in given example.

FW01(config)#failover lan unit primary

3. Set the failover link which use to synchronize each other. Ge3 is configured as failover link and "failover-interface" is set as name of the interfaces in both FWs in given example.

FW01(config)#failover lan interface failover-interface GigabitEthernet3

4.Set failover interface primary and secondary ip addresses. 

FW01(config)#failover interface ip failover-interface 10.200.190.17 255.255.255.252 standby 10.200.190.18

Secondary Firewall 

1. Enable fail-over feature
FW02(config)#failover

2. Set FW as primary or secondary. FW02 configured as primary in given example.

FW02(config)#failover lan unit secondary

3. Set the failover link which use to synchronize each other. Ge3 is configured as failover link and "failover-interface" is set as name of the interfaces in both FWs in given example.

FW02(config)#failover lan interface failover-interface GigabitEthernet3

4.Set failover interface primary and secondary ip addresses. 

FW02(config)#failover interface ip failover-interface 10.200.190.17 255.255.255.252 standby 10.200.190.18

Done!!! :)

You can verify the whether it is working properly or not by issuing following command.

FW01# show failover state

FW02# show failover state

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standby

VRRP and HSRP

The Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is a computer networking protocol that provides for automatic assignment of available Internet Protocol (IP) routers to participating hosts. This increases the availability and reliability of routing paths via automatic default gateway selections on an IP subnetwork.

The Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) is a Cisco proprietary redundancy protocol for

establishing a fault-tolerant default gateway.

Using the diagram above we are going to configure R02 and R03 for VRRP and HSRP using following ip plan.

	R02	R03
Fa 0/0 IP	200.100.1.2/30	200.100.1.3/30
Virtual IP	200.100.1.1/30

VRRP

1. First you need to enable vrrp feature

R02(config)#feature vrrp

2. Assign IP address to physical interface. Fa 0/0 is configure in given example.

R02(config)#interface fastEthernet  0/0R02(config-if)# ip address 200.100.1.2 255.255.255.252 

3. Configure vrrp with unique group no

R02(config-if)#vrrp 1

4. Set a description

R02(config-if)#vrrp 1 description ###########Test VRRP###############

5. Assign a priority level to Router. This will help two routers to decide who is master and who is slave. Router which has higher value act as master master and route the traffic. If no value has been configured then default value take as 100. Note that R02 is set as master in given example.

R02(config-if)#vrrp 1 priority 110 

6. Set the virtual IP. This is same for both devices.

R02(config-if)#vrrp 1 address 200.100.1.1   

7. Set a authentication type for security. Authentication type can be plain text or md5.This should be same in both routers.Note that text authentication configures in given example. 

text	vrrp 1 authentication text text-string	vrrp 1 authentication text-string
md5	vrrp 1 authentication md5 <key-chain/key-sring> key-chain-name/key-string

R02(config-if)#vrrp 1 authentication cisco123

8. Enable the interface

R02(config-if)#no shutdown

9.end :)

R02(config-if)#end

10. Do the same configuration for R03 with correct IPs and priority no

R03(config)#feature vrrp
R03(config)#interface fastEthernet  0/0
R03(config-if)# ip address 200.100.1.3 255.255.255.252 
R03(config-if)#vrrp 1
R03(config-if)#vrrp 1 description ###########Test VRRP###############
R03(config-if)#vrrp 1 priority 90
R03(config-if)#vrrp 1 address 200.100.1.1   
R03(config-if)#vrrp 1 authentication cisco123
R03(config-if)#no shutdown

R03(config-if)#end

HSRP

1. Assign IP address to physical interface. Fa 0/0 is configure in given example.            

R02(config)#interface fastEthernet  0/0R02(config-if)# ip address 200.100.1.2 255.255.255.252 

2. Configure hsrp with unique group no
R02(config-if)#standby 1

3. Set a description
R02(config-if)#standby 1 name ###########Test HSRP###############


4. Assign a priority level to Router. This will help two routers to decide who is master and who is slave. Router which has higher value act as master master and route the traffic. If no value has been configured then default value take as 100. Note that R02 is set as master in given example.
R02(config-if)#standby 1 priority 110 

5. Set the virtual IP. This is same for both devices.
R02(config-if)#standby 1 address 200.100.1.1  

6. Set a authentication type for security. Authentication type can be plain text or md5.This should be same in both routers.Note that text authentication configures in given example. 

text	standby 1 authentication text text-string	standby 1 authentication text-string
md5	standby 1 authentication md5 <key-chain/key-sring> key-chain-name/key-string

R02(config-if)#standby 1 authentication cisco123

7. Enable the interface
R02(config-if)#no shutdown

8.end :)
R02(config-if)#end

9. Do the same configuration for R03 with correct IPs and priority no
R03(config)#interface fastEthernet  0/0

R03(config-if)# ip address 200.100.1.3 255.255.255.252
R03(config-if)#standby 1
R03(config-if)#standby 1 name ###########Test HSRP###############
R03(config-if)#standby 1 priority 90
R03(config-if)#standby 1 address 200.100.1.1
R03(config-if)#standby 1 authentication cisco123
R03(config-if)#no shutdown
R03(config-if)#end

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vrrp