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If the timestamps are out of sync and the Idle unit is available, a complete synchronization is pushed to the Idle unit. If the timestamps are in sync and a change is made on the Active unit, an incremental synchronization is pushed to the Idle unit. There are two types of synchronization for all configuration settings: incremental and complete. If the firmware configuration becomes corrupted on the Primary SonicWALL, the Backup SonicWALL automatically refreshes the Primary SonicWALL with the last-known-good copy of the configuration preferences. The Backup SonicWALL maintains a real-time mirrored configuration of the Primary SonicWALL via an Ethernet link between the designated HA ports of the appliances. Besides disabling PortShield, SonicWALL security appliance configuration is performed on only the Primary SonicWALL, with no need to perform any configuration on the Backup SonicWALL. The Primary and Backup SonicWALL devices are currently only capable of performing Active/Idle High Availability or Active/Active UTM – complete Active/Active high availability is not supported at present.įor SonicWALL appliances that support PortShield, High Availability requires that PortShield is disabled on all interfaces of both the Primary and Backup appliances prior to configuring the HA Pair. The failover to the Backup SonicWALL occurs when critical services are affected, physical (or logical) link failure is detected on monitored interfaces, or when the Primary SonicWALL loses power. The failover applies to loss of functionality or network-layer connectivity on the Primary SonicWALL. After a failover to the Backup appliance, all the pre-existing network connections must be re-established, including the VPN tunnels that must be re-negotiated. If the Primary device loses connectivity, the Backup SonicWALL transitions to Active mode and assumes the configuration and role of Primary, including the interface IP addresses of the configured interfaces. During normal operation, the Primary SonicWALL is in an Active state and the Backup SonicWALL in an Idle state. High Availability requires one SonicWALL device configured as the Primary SonicWALL, and an identical SonicWALL device configured as the Backup SonicWALL. By default, the Virtual MAC address is provided by the SonicWALL firmware and is different from the physical MAC address of either the Primary or Backup appliances. Convergence time is the amount of time it takes for the devices in a network to adapt their routing tables to the changes introduced by high availability.
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You do not need to purchase a second set of licenses for the Backup unit in a High Availability Pair.
#Where to find sonicwall mac address license
High Availability License Synchronization Overview.
#Where to find sonicwall mac address how to
This chapter describes how to configure and manage the High Availability feature on SonicWALL security appliances.
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