Introduction
The document briefly describes in an FAQ format the Failover requirements for the ASA 55xx VPN/Firewall appliance in handling digital certificates .
Q. What are the general Failover capabilities and requirements of the ASA 55xx aplicance?
A. The general Failover requirements are found in the High Availability (HA) chapter of the Configuration Guide .
Q. Are digital certificates replicated in a Active/Standby configuration?
A. Yes. Third-party digital certificates (ie. from Entrust, Verisign, Microdoft,etc) that are installed on the Active ASA are replicated to the Standby ASA in an active/standby config. However, the ASA's Local/onboard CA-generated certificates (used for SSL VPN remote access) are not replicated to the standby ASA.
Q. Are there specific procedures in order to carry out the 3rd-party digital certificates replication in a Active/Standby configuration?
A. Digital Certificate replication across an Active/Standby Failover pair of ASA's only occurs during bulk replication processes.
Bulk replication processes are defined as :
1.Power cycling the ASA device
2.Performing a "write standby" operation on the active ASA
There is an enhancement request to be considered to able to replicate certificates at the time the certificate is imported into the ASA (no specific timeline has been defined).
CSCsr71150-certificates from imported pkcs12 are not replicated to standby
Q. With Active/Standby will one certificate installed in Active ASA be all that is needed to use it for SSL VPN remote access, or do I need one certificate installed on each ASA?
A. Only one certificate installed on on the Active AS is required, since the failover functionality wil handle the replication of same certificate and keys to the standdby ASA.
