ASA 5508-X FTD/ASDM/FMC Limitations

[pannkakan_1]

Hi, I got this firewall on my hands running Cisco ASA5508-X Threat Defense v6.2.2 (build 81). So I have few questions:

1. When managing this device I connect to the management IP and login to the FDM, I cant access "monitoring tab" it doesnt load anything only white pages, how do I fix this?

2. Do I need FMC to be able to configure the device fully? like DHCP-relay, RA-VPN and IPS for example.

3. I dont like FDM since its so limited with options, sure it looks great but can I switch to ASDM or something? if I can would I loose any functionality vs using FTD/FDM ?

Any help would be appreciated since I've only used ASDM when configuring the ASA before.

Kind Regards,

Rasmus

[AlexPi · Accepted solution]

Hello there,

I cannot answer your first question, since I have never used FDM, but as far as I can tell from experience and from discussions with other people if you want to configure firepower services and have access to everything you need, go with FMC.

Now there is one thing to make clear here. To configure ASA features you need to use CLI and/or ASDM to configure Firepower, which lives on your 5508-x you need to use FMC (in my experience and opinion). These are basically two separated devices sharing the same hardware. FMC will not let you configure any ASA features and ASDM is pretty bad with Firepower configuration and limited.

Hope that helps.