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Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
The Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls feature supports high availability (HA) based on redundancy
groups (RGs) on IPv6 firewalls. This feature enables you to configure pairs of devices to act as backup for each other. This
feature can be configured to determine the active device based on a number of failover conditions. This feature supports the
FTP66 application-layer gateway (ALG) for IPv6 packet inspection.
This module provides information about Box-to-Box (B2B) HA support and describes how to configure this feature.
Finding Feature Information
Your software release may not support all the features documented in this module. For the latest caveats and feature information,
see Bug Search Tool and the release notes for your platform and software release. To find information about the features documented in this module,
and to see a list of the releases in which each feature is supported, see the feature information table.
Use Cisco Feature Navigator to find information about platform support and Cisco software image support. To access Cisco Feature
Navigator, go to www.cisco.com/go/cfn. An account on Cisco.com is not required.
Prerequisites for Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Interfaces attached to a firewall must have the same redundant interface identifier (RII).
Active and standby devices must have the same zone-based policy firewall configuration.
Active and standby devices must run on identical versions of Cisco software. The active and standby devices must be connected
through a switch.
The box-to-box (B2B) configuration on both active and standby devices should be the same because there is no autosynchronization
of the configuration between these devices.
For asymmetric routing traffic to pass, you must configure the pass action for the class-default class. Class-default class
is a system-defined class map that represents all packets that do not match any of the user-defined classes in a policy.
If you configure a zone pair between two LAN interfaces, ensure that you configure the same redundancy group (RG) on both
interfaces. The zone pair configuration is not supported if LAN interfaces belong to different RGs.
Restrictions for Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Only IPv4 is supported at box-to-box (B2B) interlink interfaces.
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) are not supported.
Cisco ASR 1006 and 1013 Aggregation Services Routers with dual Embedded Services Processors (ESPs) or dual Route Processors
(RPs) in the chassis are not supported, because coexistence of interbox high availability (HA) and intrabox HA is not supported.
Cisco ASR 1006 and Cisco ASR 1013 Aggregation Services Routers with single ESP and single RP in the chassis support interchassis
redundancy.
If the dual IOS daemon (IOSd) is configured, the device will not support the firewall stateful interchassis redundancy configuration.
Stateless Network Address Translation 64 (NAT64) with IPv6 firewalls is not supported.
Information About Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Zone-Based Policy Firewall High Availability Overview
High availability enables network-wide protection by providing fast recovery from faults that may occur in any part of a
network. High availability enables rapid recovery from disruptions to users and network applications.
The zone-based policy firewall supports active/active and active/standby high availability failover and asymmetric routing.
The active/active failover allows both devices involved in the failover to forward traffic simultaneously.
When active/standby high availability failover is configured, only one of the devices involved in the failover handles the
traffic at one time, while the other device is in a standby mode, periodically synchronizing session information from the
active device.
Asymmetric routing supports the forwarding of packets from a standby redundancy group to an active redundancy group for packet
handling. If this feature is not enabled, the return TCP packets forwarded to the device that did not receive the initial
synchronization (SYN) message are dropped because they do not belong to any known existing session.
Box-to-Box High Availability Operation
You can configure pairs of devices to act as hot standbys for each other. Redundancy is configured per interface. Pairs of
redundant interfaces are known as redundancy groups (RGs). Figure 1 depicts an active/active failover scenario. It shows how
two redundancy groups are configured for a pair of devices that have two outgoing interfaces.
Figure 1. Redundancy Group Configuration—Two Outgoing Interfaces
The redundant devices are joined by a configurable control link, a data synchronization link, and an interlink interface.
The control link is used to communicate the status of the devices. The data synchronization link is used to transfer stateful
information from the firewall and to synchronize the stateful database. The pairs of redundant interfaces are configured with
the same unique ID number, known as the redundant interface identifier (RII). The routing table is not synced from active
to standby.
Asymmetric routing is supported as part of the firewall HA. In a LAN-WAN scenario, where the return traffic enters standby
devices, asymmetric routing is supported. To implement the asymmetric routing functionality, configure both the redundant
devices with a dedicated interface (interlink interface) for asymmetric traffic. This dedicated interface will redirect the
traffic coming to the standby WAN interface to the active device.
The status of redundancy group members is determined through the use of hello messages sent over the control link. If either
of the devices do not respond to a hello message within a configured time period, the software considers that a failure has
occurred, and a switchover is initiated. To detect a failure in milliseconds, the control links run the failover protocol.
You can configure the following parameters for hello messages:
Active timer.
Standby timer.
Hello time—The interval at which hello messages are sent.
Hold time—The time period before which the active or standby device is declared to be down.
The hello time defaults to three seconds to align with the Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), and the hold time defaults
to 10 seconds. You can also configure these timers in milliseconds by using the
timers hellotime msec command.
To determine which pairs of interfaces are affected by the switchover, you must configure a unique ID for each pair of redundant
interfaces. This ID is the RII that is associated with the interface.
Reasons for Switchover
Another factor that can cause a switchover is the priority setting that can be configured on each device. The device with
the highest priority value will be the active device. If a fault occurs on either the active or the standby device, the priority
of the device is decremented by a configurable amount, known as the weight. If the priority of the active device falls below
the priority of the standby device, a switchover occurs and the standby device becomes the active device. You can override
this default behavior by disabling the preemption attribute for the redundancy group. You can also configure each interface
to decrease the priority when the Layer 1 state of the interface goes down. The priority that is configured overrides the
default priority of the redundancy group.
Each failure event that causes a modification of a redundancy group’s priority generates a syslog entry that contains a time
stamp, the redundancy group that was affected, the previous priority, the new priority, and a description of the failure event
cause.
Another situation that can cause a switchover to occur is when the priority of a device or interface falls below the configurable
threshold level.
A switchover to the standby device occurs under the following circumstances:
Power loss or a reload occurs on the active device (this includes crashes).
The run-time priority of the active device goes below that of the standby device.
The run-time priority of the active device goes below the configured threshold level.
The redundancy group on the active device is reloaded manually by using the
redundancy application reload grouprg-number command.
Two consecutive hello messages missed on any monitored interface forces the interface into testing mode. Both devices will
verify the link status on the interface and then execute the following tests:
Network activity test
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) test
Broadcast ping test
Active/Active Failover
In an active/active failover configuration, both devices can process network traffic. Active/active failover generates virtual
MAC (VMAC) addresses for interfaces in each redundancy group (RG).
One device in an active/active failover pair is designated as the primary (active) device, and the other is designated as
the secondary (standby) device. Unlike with active/standby failover, this designation does not indicate which device becomes
active when both devices start simultaneously. Instead, the primary/secondary designation determines the following:
The device that provides the running configuration to the failover pair when they start simultaneously.
The device on which the failover RG appears in the active state when devices start simultaneously. Each failover RG in the
configuration is configured with a primary or secondary device preference. You can configure both failover RGs to be in the
active state on a single device and the standby failover RGs to be on the other device. You can also configure one failover
RG to be in the active state and the other RG to be in the standby state on a single device.
Active/Standby Failover
Active/standby failover enables you to use a standby device to take over the functionality of a failed device. A failed active
device changes to the standby state, and the standby device changes to the active state. The device that is now in the active
state takes over IP addresses and MAC addresses of the failed device and starts processing traffic. The device that is now
in the standby state takes over standby IP addresses and MAC addresses. Because network devices do not see any change in the
MAC-to-IP address pairing, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) entries do not change or time out anywhere on the network.
In an active/standby scenario, the main difference between two devices in a failover pair depends on which device is active
and which device is a standby, namely which IP addresses to use and which device actively passes the traffic. The active device
always becomes the active device if both devices start up at the same time (and are of equal operational health). MAC addresses
of the active device are always paired with active IP addresses.
NAT Box-to-Box High-Availability LAN-LAN Topology
In a LAN-LAN topology, all participating devices are connected to each other through LAN interfaces on both the inside and
the outside. The figure below shows the NAT box-to-box LAN-LAN topology. Network Address Translation (NAT) is in the active-standby
mode and the peers are in one redundancy group (RG). All traffic or a subset of this traffic undergoes NAT translation.
Note
Failover is caused by only those failures that the RG infrastructure listens to.
In a WAN-LAN topology, two devices are connected through LAN interfaces on the inside and WAN interfaces on the outside.
There is no control on the routing of return traffic received through WAN links.
WAN links can be provided by the same service provider or different service providers. In most cases, WAN links are provided
by different service providers. To utilize WAN links to the maximum, configure an external device to provide a failover.
On LAN-based interfaces, a high availability virtual IP address is required to exchange client information and for faster
failover. On WAN-based interfaces, the redundancy group id ip virtual-ip decrement value command is used for failover.
Exclusive Virtual IP Addresses and Exclusive Virtual MAC Addresses
Virtual IP (VIP) addresses and virtual MAC (VMAC) addresses are used by security applications to control interfaces that
receive traffic. An interface is paired with another interface, and these interfaces are associated with the same redundancy
group (RG). The interface that is associated with an active RG exclusively owns the VIP and VMAC. The Address Resolution Protocol
(ARP) process on the active device sends ARP replies for any ARP request for the VIP, and the Ethernet controller for the
interface is programmed to receive packets destined for the VMAC. When an RG failover occurs, the ownership of the VIP and
VMAC changes. The interface that is associated with the newly active RG sends a gratuitous ARP and programs the interface’s
Ethernet controller to accept packets destined for the VMAC.
IPv6 Support
You can assign each redundancy group (RG) on a traffic interface for both IPv4 and IPv6 virtual IP (VIP) addresses under the
same redundancy interface identifier (RII). Each RG uses a unique virtual MAC (VMAC) address per RII. For an RG, the IPv6
link-local VIP and global VIP coexist on an interface.
You can configure an IPv4 VIP, a link-local IPv6 VIP, and/or a global IPv6 VIP for each RG on a traffic interface. IPv6 link-local
VIP is mainly used when configuring static or default routes, whereas IPv6 global VIP is widely used in both LAN and WAN topologies.
You must configure a physical IP address before configuring an IPv4 VIP.
FTP66 ALG Support Overview
Firewalls support the inspection of IPv6 packets and stateful Network Address Translation 64 (NAT64). For FTP to work over
IPv6 packet inspection, the application-layer gateway (ALG) (also called the application-level gateway [ALG]), FTP66, is required.
The FTP66 ALG is also called all-in-one FTP ALG and one FTP ALG.
The FTP66 ALG supports the following:
Firewall IPv4 packet inspection
Firewall IPv6 packet inspection
NAT configuration
NAT64 configuration (along with FTP64 support)
NAT and firewall configuration
NAT64 and firewall configuration
The FTP66 ALG has the following security vulnerabilities:
Packet segmentation attack—The FTP ALG state machine can detect segmented packets, and the state machine processing is stopped
until a complete packet is received.
Bounce attack—The FTP ALG does not create doors (for NAT) or pinholes (for firewalls) with a data port number less than 1024.
The prevention of a bounce attack is activated only when the firewall is enabled.
How to Configure Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Configures an IPv6 address based on an IPv6 general prefix and enables IPv6 processing on an interface.
Step 8
zone-member security
zone-name
Example:
Device(config-if)# zone member security z1
Configures the interface as a zone member.
For the
zone-name
argument, you must configure one of the zones that you had configured by using the
zone security command while configuring a firewall.
When an interface is in a security zone, all traffic to and from that interface (except traffic going to the router or initiated
by the router) is dropped by default. To permit traffic through an interface that is a zone member, you must make that zone
part of a zone pair to which you apply a policy. If the policy permits traffic (via inspect or pass actions), traffic can
flow through the interface.
Step 9
redundancy rii
RII-identifier
Example:
Device(config-if)# redundancy rii 100
Configures an RII for redundancy group-protected traffic interfaces.
Configures an IPv6 address based on an IPv6 general prefix and enables IPv6 processing on an interface.
Step 6
zone-member security
zone-name
Example:
Device(config-if)# zone-member security z2
Configures the interface as a zone member while configuring a firewall.
For the
zone-name
argument, you must configure one of the zones that you had configured by using the
zone security command.
When an interface is in a security zone, all traffic to and from that interface (except traffic going to the router or initiated
by the router) is dropped by default. To permit traffic through an interface that is a zone member, you must make that zone
part of a zone pair to which you apply a policy. If the policy permits traffic (via inspect or pass actions), traffic can
flow through the interface.
Step 7
ip tcp adjust-mss
max-segment-size
Example:
Device(config-if)# ip tcp adjust-mss 1360
Adjusts the maximum segment size (MSS) value of TCP SYN packets going through a router.
Step 8
redundancy rii
RII-identifier
Example:
Device(config-if)# redundancy rii 360
Configures an RII for redundancy group-protected traffic interfaces.
Associates a redundancy group with an interface that is used for asymmetric routing.
Step 10
end
Example:
Device(config-if)# end
Exits interface configuration mode and enters privileged EXEC mode.
Configuring an IPv6 Firewall
The steps to configure an IPv4 firewall and an IPv6 firewall are the same. To configure an IPv6 firewall, you must configure
the class map in such a way that only an IPv6 address family is matched.
The
match protocol
command applies to both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic and can be included in either an IPv4 policy or an IPv6 policy.
SUMMARY STEPS
enable
configure terminal
vrf-definition
vrf-name
address-family ipv6
exit-address-family
exit
parameter-map type inspect
parameter-map-name
sessions maximum
sessions
exit
ipv6 unicast-routing
ip port-map
appl-name port
port-num
list
list-name
ipv6 access-list
access-list-name
permit ipv6 any any
exit
class-map type inspect match-all
class-map-name
match access-group name
access-group-name
match protocol
protocol-name
exit
policy-map type inspect
policy-map-name
class type inspect
class-map-name
inspect
[parameter-map-name]
end
DETAILED STEPS
Command or Action
Purpose
Step 1
enable
Example:
Device> enable
Enters privileged EXEC mode.
Enter your password if prompted.
Step 2
configure terminal
Example:
Device# configure terminal
Enters global configuration mode.
Step 3
vrf-definition
vrf-name
Example:
Device(config)# vrf-definition VRF1
Configures a virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) routing table instance and enters VRF configuration mode.
Step 4
address-family ipv6
Example:
Device(config-vrf)# address-family ipv6
Enters VRF address family configuration mode and configures sessions that carry standard IPv6 address prefixes.
Step 5
exit-address-family
Example:
Device(config-vrf-af)# exit-address-family
Exits VRF address family configuration mode and enters VRF configuration mode.
Step 6
exit
Example:
Device(config-vrf)# exit
Exits VRF configuration mode and enters global configuration mode.
Step 7
parameter-map type inspect
parameter-map-name
Example:
Device(config)# parameter-map type inspect ipv6-param-map
Enables a global inspect-type parameter map for the firewall to connect thresholds, timeouts, and other parameters that pertain
to the inspect action, and enters parameter-map type inspect configuration mode.
Step 8
sessions maximum
sessions
Example:
Device(config-profile)# sessions maximum 10000
Sets the maximum number of allowed sessions that can exist on a zone pair.
Step 9
exit
Example:
Device(config-profile)# exit
Exits parameter-map type inspect configuration mode and enters global configuration mode.
Step 10
ipv6 unicast-routing
Example:
Device(config)# ipv6 unicast-routing
Enables the forwarding of IPv6 unicast datagrams.
Step 11
ip port-map
appl-name port
port-num
list
list-name
Example:
Device(config)# ip port-map ftp port 8090 list ipv6-acl
Establishes a port to application mapping (PAM) by using the IPv6 access control list (ACL).
Step 12
ipv6 access-list
access-list-name
Example:
Device(config)# ipv6 access-list ipv6-acl
Defines an IPv6 access list and enters IPv6 access list configuration mode.
Step 13
permit ipv6 any any
Example:
Device(config-ipv6-acl)# permit ipv6 any any
Sets permit conditions for an IPv6 access list.
Step 14
exit
Example:
Device(config-ipv6-acl)# exit
Exits IPv6 access list configuration mode and enters global configuration mode.
Step 15
class-map type inspect match-all
class-map-name
Example:
Device(config)# class-map type inspect match-all ipv6-class
Creates an application-specific inspect type class map and enters QoS class-map configuration mode.
Step 16
match access-group name
access-group-name
Example:
Device(config-cmap)# match access-group name ipv6-acl
Configures the match criteria for a class map on the basis of the specified ACL.
Step 17
match protocol
protocol-name
Example:
Device(config-cmap)# match protocol tcp
Configures a match criterion for a class map on the basis of the specified protocol.
Step 18
exit
Example:
Device(config-cmap)# exit
Exits QoS class-map configuration mode and enters global configuration mode.
Step 19
policy-map type inspect
policy-map-name
Example:
Device(config)# policy-map type inspect ipv6-policy
Creates a protocol-specific inspect type policy map and enters QoS policy-map configuration mode.
Step 20
class type inspect
class-map-name
Example:
Device(config-pmap)# class type inspect ipv6-class
Specifies the traffic class on which an action is to be performed and enters QoS policy-map class configuration mode.
Step 21
inspect
[parameter-map-name]
Example:
Device(config-pmap-c)# inspect ipv6-param-map
Enables stateful packet inspection.
Step 22
end
Example:
Device(config-pmap-c)# end
Exits QoS policy-map class configuration mode and enters privileged EXEC mode.
Configuring Zones and Applying Zones to Interfaces
Configures an IPv6 address based on an IPv6 general prefix and enables IPv6 processing on an interface or a subinterface.
Step 12
encapsulation dot1q
vlan-id
Example:
Device(config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 2
Sets the encapsulation method used by the interface.
Step 13
zone-member security
zone-name
Example:
Device(config-subif)# zone member security z1
Configures the interface as a zone member.
For the
zone-name argument, you must configure one of the zones that you had configured by using the
zone security command.
When an interface is in a security zone, all traffic to and from that interface (except traffic going to the device or initiated
by the device) is dropped by default. To permit traffic through an interface that is a zone member, you must make that zone
part of the zone pair to which you apply a policy. If the policy permits traffic (via inspect or pass actions), traffic can
flow through the interface.
Step 14
end
Example:
Device(config-subif)# end
Exits subinterface configuration mode and enters privileged EXEC mode.
Step 15
show policy-map type inspect zone-pair sessions
Example:
Device# show policy-map type inspect zone-pair sessions
Displays the stateful packet inspection sessions created because a policy map is applied on a specified zone pair.
The output of this command displays both IPv4 and IPv6 firewall sessions.
Example
The following sample output from the
show policy-map type inspect zone-pair sessions command displays the translation of packets from an IPv6 address to an IPv4 address and vice versa:
Device# show policy-map type inspect zone-pair sessions
Zone-pair: in-to-out
Service-policy inspect : in-to-out
Class-map: ipv6-class (match-any)
Match: protocol ftp
Match: protocol tcp
Match: protocol udp
Inspect
Established Sessions
Session 110D930C [2001:DB8:1::103]:32847=>(209.165.201.2:21) ftp SIS_OPEN
Created 00:00:00, Last heard 00:00:00
Bytes sent (initiator:responder) [37:84]
Half-open Sessions
Session 110D930C [2001:DB8:1::104]:32848=>(209.165.201.2:21) ftp SIS_OPENING
Created 00:00:00, Last heard 00:00:00
Bytes sent (initiator:responder) [0:0]
The following sample output from the
show policy-map type inspect zone-pair sessions command displays the translation of packets from an IPv6 address to an IPv6 address:
Device# show policy-map type inspect zone-pair sessions
Zone-pair: in-to-out
Service-policy inspect : in-to-out
Class-map: ipv6-class (match-any)
Match: protocol ftp
Match: protocol tcp
Match: protocol udp
Inspect
Established Sessions
Session 110D930C [2001:DB8:1::103]:63=>[2001:DB8:2::102]:63 udp SIS_OPEN
Created 00:00:02, Last heard 00:00:01
Bytes sent (initiator:responder) [162:0]
Configuration Examples for Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Example: Configuring a Redundancy Group Protocol
The following example shows how to configure a redundancy group with timers set for hello time and hold time messages:
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Feature Information for Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
The following table provides release information about the feature or features described in this module. This table lists
only the software release that introduced support for a given feature in a given software release train. Unless noted otherwise,
subsequent releases of that software release train also support that feature.
Use Cisco Feature Navigator to find information about platform support and Cisco software image support. To access Cisco
Feature Navigator, go to www.cisco.com/go/cfn. An account on Cisco.com is not required.
Table 1. Feature Information for Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Feature Name
Releases
Feature Information
Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Cisco IOS XE Release 3.8S
The Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls feature supports high availability (HA) based on redundancy
groups (RGs) on IPv6 firewalls. This feature enables you to configure pairs of devices to act as backup for each other. This
feature can be configured to determine the active device based on a number of failover conditions.
No commands were introduced or modified.
Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
Cisco IOS XE Release 3.8S
In Cisco IOS XE Release 3.10S, support was added for the Cisco ISR
4400 Series Routers.
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