I have two PIX 515 firewalls in failover configuration. If I unplug the active unit from the network, failover occurs as it should. However, if I turn off the active unit, no failover occurs. When I turn the active back on, failover occurs to the standby unit.
This is the state shown while the active is powered down.
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pix01# show fail
Failover On
Serial Failover Cable status: Other side powered off
Reconnect timeout 0:00:00
Poll frequency 3 seconds
Last Failover at: 10:26:39 UTC Tue Feb 7 2006
This host: Primary - Standby
Active time: 0 (sec)
Interface outside (10.1.9.88): Normal
Interface inside (172.16.180.253): Normal
Interface unused0 (192.168.2.2): Link Down (Shutdown)
Interface unused1 (192.168.3.2): Link Down (Shutdown)
Interface unused2 (192.168.4.2): Link Down (Shutdown)
Other host: Secondary - Active
Active time: 192 (sec)
Interface outside (10.1.9.86): Normal
Interface inside (172.16.180.254): Normal
Interface unused0 (192.168.2.1): Link Down (Shutdown)
Interface unused1 (192.168.3.1): Link Down (Shutdown)
Interface unused2 (192.168.4.1): Link Down (Shutdown)
Stateful Failover Logical Update Statistics
Link : state-fo
Stateful Obj xmit xerr rcv rerr
General 20 0 21 0
sys cmd 20 0 19 0
up time 0 0 2 0
xlate 0 0 0 0
tcp conn 0 0 0 0
udp conn 0 0 0 0
ARP tbl 0 0 0 0
RIP Tbl 0 0 0 0
Logical Update Queue Information
Cur Max Total
Recv Q: 0 1 21
Xmit Q: 0 1 20
LAN-based Failover is Active
interface state-fo (192.168.1.1): Link Down, peer (192.168.1.2): Nol
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According to the documentation, the standby unit should take over if it detects a power failure in the active unit. This seems to be the case, as the show fail command shows that the active unit is powered down. Any ideas?
