Track routers using higher cost static route

[ohareka70]

Hello,

I have two routers on the network separated by firewalls. I want to track one the primary router (router1)  by IP and switch to other secondary router (router 2) when primary router fails.

What is the best way to do this sort of configuration on a cisco network?

is it .... The secondary router will provide a consistent higher cost static route which will be used in the event of failure of the primary routes at Router 1.

any advice is appreciated.

regards,

Kevin

[Peter Paluch]

Hi Kevin,

If I understand you correctly you want to prefer a path through a particular router, and if this router fails, prefer a different router to reach the same destination network. Is this true?

Usually, this is done by having a routing protocol advertise this route from both routers but have the secondary router advertise this route with a higher metric. If this route is a static route on both routers then this can be accomplished by redistributing the route into the routing protocol and making sure that the seed (or the redistribution) metric is sufficiently higher on the secondary router.

What kind of routing protocol are you using in your network? Would this approach be applicable for you?

Best regards,

Peter

[ohareka70]

That is correct in that it will still be trying to hit the same destination network which sits outside our network, ie the destination network is a 3rd party's IP address.

The two routers in question are using static routes because they sit in the dmz interface on the firewalls.  One router sits in the dmz on one of our Cisco ASA firewalls and the other router sits on a Cisco ASA on another firewall.  Our cisco network on the inside of both firewalls uses OSPF.

What about using static route tracking?  IP SLA

I have never tried this before though.

Basically if Router 1 fails i want to be able to track this and route across to the other Router 2 and still be able to pass the data to the 3rd party IP address.

regards,
Kevin

[Peter Paluch]

Hi Kevin,

Using IP SLA is an option - no doubt about that. But I am having some trouble understanding your exact topology, and whether the IP SLA is more suitable than using OSPF. Do you believe you could create a quick sketch of your network topology including the routers, the firewalls, the destination in question, and the placement of the routers that should be doing the failover work?

Thank you!

Best regards,

Peter

[ohareka70]

Peter,

We have users sitting on the Corporate network at different sites.  The are using ftp to a server on a 3rd party network via RTR1 which sits on the DMZ on the firewall pointing to the outside world to a 3rd party address 111.222.333.444

If the MPLS connection on RTR1 goes offline or unavailable for any reason i want the ftp to go via RTR2 instead which sits off a different firewall on our network. 

I was thinking of using static route tracking to do this ie if the route from RTR1 to 111.222.333.444 is unavailable then use a route from RTR2 to 111.222.333.444

Is that possible?  I have access to all layer 3 devices and also the cisco asa firewalls to make any changes required.