- Zone-Based Policy Firewalls
- Zone-Based Policy Firewall IPv6 Support
- VRF-Aware Cisco IOS XE Firewall
- Layer 2 Transparent Firewalls
- Nested Class Map Support for Zone-Based Policy Firewall
- Zone Mismatch Handling
- Configuring Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Box-to-Box High Availability Support for IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
- Interchassis Asymmetric Routing Support for Zone-Based Firewall and NAT
- Interchassis High Availability Support in IPv6 Zone-Based Firewalls
- Firewall Box to Box High Availability Support for Cisco CSR1000v Routers
- Firewall Stateful Inspection of ICMP
- Firewall Support of Skinny Client Control Protocol
- Configuring the VRF-Aware Software Infrastructure
- IPv6 Zone-Based Firewall Support over VASI Interfaces
- Protection Against Distributed Denial of Service Attacks
- Configuring Firewall Resource Management
- IPv6 Firewall Support for Prevention of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks and Resource Management
- Configurable Number of Simultaneous Packets per Flow
- LISP and Zone-Based Firewalls Integration and Interoperability
- Firewall High-Speed Logging
- TCP Reset Segment Control
- Loose Checking Option for TCP Window Scaling in Zone-Based Policy Firewall
- Enabling ALGs and AICs in Zone-Based Policy Firewalls
- Configuring Firewall TCP SYN Cookie
- Object Groups for ACLs
- Cisco Firewall-SIP Enhancements ALG
- MSRPC ALG Support for Firewall and NAT
- Sun RPC ALG Support for Firewalls and NAT
- vTCP for ALG Support
- ALG—H.323 vTCP with High Availability Support for Firewall and NAT
- FTP66 ALG Support for IPv6 Firewalls
- SIP ALG Hardening for NAT and Firewall
- SIP ALG Resilience to DoS Attacks
- Zone-Based Firewall ALG and AIC Conditional Debugging and Packet Tracing Support
- Finding Feature Information
- Prerequisites for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Restrictions for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Information About Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- How to Configure Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Configuration Examples for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Additional References for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Feature Information for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
Configuring Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
The Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy feature enables you to configure pairs of routers to act as backup for each other. This feature can be configured to determine the active router based on a number of failover conditions. When a failover occurs, the standby router seamlessly takes over and starts performing traffic forwarding services and maintaining a dynamic routing table.
- Finding Feature Information
- Prerequisites for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Restrictions for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Information About Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- How to Configure Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Configuration Examples for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Additional References for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Feature Information for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
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 Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
The interfaces attached to the firewall must have the same redundant interface identifier (RII).
The active device and the standby device must have the same Cisco IOS XE Zone-Based Firewall configuration.
The active device and the standby device must run on an identical version of the Cisco IOS XE software. The active device and the standby device must be connected through a switch.
Embedded Service Processor (ESP) must match on both active and standby devices.
Restrictions for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
-
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is not supported.
-
LAN and WAN scenarios are not supported.
-
LAN and MESH scenarios are not supported.
- Cisco ASR 1006 and Cisco ASR
1013 platforms 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 platforms with single ESP and single RP in the chassis supports interchassis redundancy.
-
If the dual IOS daemon (IOSd) is configured, the device will not support the firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy configuration.
Information About Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- How Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy Works
- Exclusive Virtual IP Addresses and Exclusive Virtual MAC Addresses
- Supported Topologies
- VRF-Aware Interchassis Redundancy in Zone-Based Firewalls
How Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy Works
You can configure pairs of routers to act as hot standbys for each other. This redundancy is configured on an interface basis. Pairs of redundant interfaces are known as redundancy groups. The figure below depicts the active-standby device scenario. It shows how the redundancy group is configured for a pair of routers that has one outgoing interface. The Redundancy Group Configuration--Two Outgoing Interfaces figure depicts the active-active device scenario shows how two redundancy groups are configured for a pair of routers that have two outgoing interfaces.
Note that in both cases, the redundant routers are joined by a configurable control link and a data synchronization link. The control link is used to communicate the status of the routers. The data synchronization link is used to transfer stateful information from Network Address Translation (NAT) and the firewall and to synchronize the stateful database for these applications.
Also, in both cases, the pairs of redundant interfaces are configured with the same unique ID number known as the RII.
The status of redundancy group members is determined through the use of hello messages sent over the control link. If either of the routers does not respond to a hello message within a configurable amount of time, it is considered that a failure has occurred, and a switchover is initiated. To detect a failure in milliseconds, the control links run the failover protocol integrated with the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) protocol. You can configure the following parameters for the hello messages:
Active timer
Standby timer
Hellotime--The interval at which hello messages are sent
Holdtime--The amount of time before the active or the standby router is declared to be down
The hellotime defaults to 3 seconds to align with Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), and the holdtime 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 number for each pair of redundant interfaces. This ID number is known as the RII associated with the interface.
A switchover to the standby router can also occur under other circumstances. Another factor that can cause a switchover is a priority setting that is configurable for each router. The router with the highest priority value will be the active router. If a fault occurs on either the active or the standby router, the priority of the router is decremented by a configurable amount known as the weight. If the priority of the active router falls below the priority of the standby router, a switchover occurs and the standby router becomes the active router. This default behavior can be overridden by disabling the preemption attribute for the redundancy group. You can also configure each interface to decrease the priority when the L1 state of the interface goes down. This amount overrides the default amount configured for 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, previous priority, new priority, and a description of the failure event cause.
Another situation that will cause a switchover to occur is when the priority of a router or interface falls below a configurable threshold level.
In general, a switchover to the standby router occurs under the following circumstances:
Power loss or reload occurs on the active router (this includes crashes).
The run-time priority of the active router goes down below that of the standby router.
The run-time priority of the active router goes down below the configured threshold value.
The redundancy group on the active router is reloaded manually using the redundancy application reload group rg-number command.
Two consecutive hello messages missed on any monitored interface forces the interface into testing mode. When this occurs, both units first verify the link status on the interface and then execute the following tests:
In the Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy feature, the redundancy group traffic is routed through the virtual IP address that is associated with the ingress interface of the redundancy group. The traffic sent to the virtual IP address is received by the router that has the redundancy group in the active state. During a redundancy group failover, the traffic to the virtual IP address is automatically routed to the newly active redundancy group.
The firewall drops the traffic that arrives on the standby redundancy group in case the redundancy group traffic is routed through the physical IP address of a standby router and the traffic reaches the standby redundancy group. However, when the traffic arrives on the active redundancy group, the established TCP or UDP sessions are synchronized to the standby redundancy group.
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.
Supported Topologies
The LAN-LAN topology is supported in the Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy architecture:
Note | Asymmetric routing is not supported. |
LAN-LAN
The figure below shows the LAN-LAN topology. When a dedicated appliance-based firewall solution is used, traffic is often directed to the correct firewall by configuring static routing in the upstream or downstream routers to an appropriate virtual IP address. In addition, the Aggregation Services Routers (ASRs) will participate in dynamic routing with upstream or downstream routers. The dynamic routing configuration supported on LAN facing interfaces must not introduce a dependency on routing protocol convergence; otherwise, fast failover requirements will not be met.
For more information about the LAN-LAN configuration, see the section, Example Configuring LAN-LAN.
VRF-Aware Interchassis Redundancy in Zone-Based Firewalls
In Cisco IOS XE Release 3.14S, zone-based firewalls support VRF-aware interchassis redundancy. The VPN routing and forwarding (VRF) name at the active and standby devices must the same. The same VRF configuration must be available on both active and standby devices.
The VRF-Aware Interchassis Redundancy in Zone-Based Firewalls feature uses a VRF mapping mechanism that sends the VRF hash key along with box-to-box high availability session sync messages across active and standby devices.
How to Configure Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Configuring a Redundancy Application Group
- Configuring a Redundancy Group Protocol
- Configuring a Virtual IP Address and a Redundant Interface Identifier
- Configuring a Control Interface and a Data Interface
- Managing and Monitoring Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy
Configuring a Redundancy Application Group
1.
enable
2.
configure
terminal
3.
redundancy
4.
application
redundancy
5.
group
id
6.
name group-name
7.
shutdown
8.
priority value [failover threshold value]
9.
preempt
10.
track
object-number
{decrement value |
shutdown}
11.
end
DETAILED STEPS
Configuring a Redundancy Group Protocol
1.
enable
2.
configure
terminal
3.
redundancy
4.
application
redundancy
5.
protocol
id
6.
name
group-name
7.
timers
hellotime
{seconds
|
msec
milliseconds}
holdtime
{seconds
|
msec
milliseconds}
8.
authentication
{text
string |
md5
key-string [0 |
7]
key-string
timeout
seconds |
key-chain
key-chain-name}
9.
end
DETAILED STEPS
Configuring a Virtual IP Address and a Redundant Interface Identifier
1.
enable
2.
configure
terminal
3.
interface
type
number
4.
redundancy
rii
id
5.
redundancy
group
id
ip
virtual-ip
exclusive
[decrement
value]
6.
end
DETAILED STEPS
Configuring a Control Interface and a Data Interface
1.
enable
2.
configure
terminal
3.
redundancy
4.
application
redundancy
5.
group
id
6.
data
interface-type
interface-number
7.
control
interface-type
interface-number
protocol
id
8.
timers
delay
seconds
[reload
seconds]
9.
end
DETAILED STEPS
Managing and Monitoring Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy
Use the following commands to manage and monitor the Firewall Stateful Inter-Chassis Redundancy feature.
1.
enable
2.
debug
redundancy
application
group
config
{all
|
error |
event |
func}
3.
debug
redundancy
application
group
faults
{all |
error |
event |
fault |
func}
4.
debug
redundancy
application
group
media
{all |
error |
event |
nbr |
packet
{rx |
tx} |
timer}
5.
debug
redundancy
application
group
protocol
{all |
detail |
error |
event |
media |
peer}
6.
debug
redundancy
application
group
rii
{error |
event}
7.
debug
redundancy
application
group
transport
{db |
error |
event |
packet |
timer |
trace}
8.
debug
redundancy
application
group
vp
{error |
event}
9.
show
redundancy
application
group
[group-id
|
all]
10.
show
redundancy
application
transport
{client |
group
[group-id]}
11.
show
redundancy
application
control-interface
group [group-id]
12.
show
redundancy
application
faults
group
[group-id]
13.
show
redundancy
application
protocol {protocol-id |
group [group-id]
14.
show
redundancy
application
if-mgr
group
[group-id]
15.
show
redundancy
application
data-interface
group [group-id]
16.
end
DETAILED STEPS
Configuration Examples for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
- Example: Configuring a Redundancy Application Group
- Example: Configuring a Redundancy Group Protocol
- Example: Configuring a Virtual IP Address and a Redundant Interface Identifier
- Example: Configuring a Control Interface and a Data Interface
- Example: Configuring a LAN-LAN Topology
Example: Configuring a Redundancy Application Group
The following example shows how to configure a redundancy group named group1 with priority and preempt attributes:
Device# configure terminal Device(config)# redundancy Device(config-red)# application redundancy Device(config-red-app)# group 1 Device(config-red-app-grp)# name group1 Device(config-red-app-grp)# priority 100 failover-threshold 50 Device(config-red-app-grp)# preempt Device(config-red-app-grp)# track 200 decrement 200 Device(config-red-app-grp)# end
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:
Device# configure terminal Device(config)# redundancy Device(config-red)# application redundancy Device(config-red-app)# protocol 1 Device(config-red-app-prtcl)# timers hellotime 3 holdtime 9 Device(config-red-app-prtcl)# authentication md5 key-string 0 n1 timeout 100 Device(config-red-app-prtcl)# bfd Device(config-red-app-prtcl)# end
Example: Configuring a Virtual IP Address and a Redundant Interface Identifier
The following example shows how to configure the redundancy group virtual IP address for Gigabit Ethernet interface 0/1/1:
Device# configure terminal Device(config)# interface GigabitEthernet 0/1/1 Device(conf-if)# redundancy rii 600 Device(config-if)# redundancy group 2 ip 10.2.3.4 exclusive decrement 200 Device(config-if)# end
Example: Configuring a Control Interface and a Data Interface
Device# configure terminal Device(config-red)# application redundancy Device(config-red-app-grp)# group 1 Device(config-red-app-grp)# data GigabitEthernet 0/0/0 Device(config-red-app-grp)# control GigabitEthernet 0/0/2 protocol 1 Device(config-red-app-grp)# timers delay 100 reload 400 Device(config-red-app-grp)# end
Example: Configuring a LAN-LAN Topology
The following is a sample LAN-LAN configuration that shows how a pair of routers that have two outgoing interfaces are configured for stateful redundancy. In this example, GigabitEthernet 0/1/1 is the ingress interface and GigabitEthernet 0/2/1 is the egress interface. Both interfaces are assigned to zones and a classmap is defined to describe the traffic between zones. Interfaces are also configured for redundancy. The “inspect” action invokes the application-level gateway (ALG) to open a pinhole to allow traffic on other ports. A pinhole is a port that is opened through an ALG to allow a particular application to gain controlled access to a protected network.
The following is the configuration on Device 1, the active device.
! Configures redundancy, control and data interfaces redundancy mode none application redundancy group 2 preempt priority 200 failover threshold 100 control GigabitEthernet 0/0/4 protocol 2 data GigabitEthernet 0/0/3 ! protocol 2 timers hellotime ms 250 holdtime ms 750 ! ! Configures a VRF ip vrf vrf1 ! ! Configures parameter maps to add parameters that control the behavior of actions and match criteria. parameter-map type inspect pmap-udp redundancy redundancy delay 10 ! parameter-map type inspect pmap-tcp redundancy redundancy delay 10 ! ! Defines class-maps to describes traffic between zones class-map type inspect match-any cmap-udp match protocol udp ! class-map type inspect match-any cmap-ftp-tcp match protocol ftp match protocol tcp ! ! Associates class-maps with policy-maps to define actions to be applied policy-map type inspect p1 class type inspect cmap-udp inspect pmap-udp ! class type inspect cmap-ftp-tcp inspect pmap-tcp ! ! Identifies and defines network zones zone security z-int ! zone security z-hi ! ! Sets zone pairs for any policy other than deny all and assign policy-maps to zone-pairs by defining a service-policy zone-pair security hi2int source z-hi destination z-int service-policy type inspect p1 ! ! Assigns interfaces to zones interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/1 ip vrf forwarding vrf1 ip address 10.1.1.3 255.255.0.0 ip virtual-reassembly zone-member security z-hi negotiation auto redundancy rii 20 redundancy group 2 ip 10.1.1.10 exclusive decrement 50 ! interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/2 ip vrf forwarding vrf1 ip address 192.0.2.2 255.255.255.240 ip virtual-reassembly zone-member security z-int negotiation auto redundancy rii 21 redundancy group 2 ip 192.0.2.12 exclusive decrement 50 ! interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/4 ip address 198.51.100.17 255.255.255.240 ! interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/4 ip address 203.0.113.49 255.255.255.240 ! ip route vrf vrf1 192.0.2.0 255.255.255.240 GigabitEthernet0/0/2 10.1.1.4 ip route vrf vrf1 10.1.0.0 255.255.0.0 GigabitEthernet0/0/1 10.1.0.4 !
The following is the configuration on Device 2, the standby device:
! Configures redundancy, control and data interfaces redundancy mode none application redundancy group 2 preempt priority 200 failover threshold 100 control GigabitEthernet 0/0/4 protocol 2 data GigabitEthernet 0/0/3 ! protocol 2 timers hellotime ms 250 holdtime ms 750 ! ! Configures a VRF ip vrf vrf1 ! ! Configures parameter maps to add parameters that control the behavior of actions and match criteria. parameter-map type inspect pmap-udp redundancy redundancy delay 10 ! parameter-map type inspect pmap-tcp redundancy redundancy delay 10 ! ! Defines class-maps to describes traffic between zones class-map type inspect match-any cmap-udp match protocol udp ! class-map type inspect match-any cmap-ftp-tcp match protocol ftp match protocol tcp ! ! Associates class-maps with policy-maps to define actions to be applied policy-map type inspect p1 class type inspect cmap-udp inspect pmap-udp ! class type inspect cmap-ftp-tcp inspect pmap-tcp ! ! Identifies and defines network zones zone security z-int ! zone security z-hi ! ! Sets zone pairs for any policy other than deny all and assign policy-maps to zone-pairs by defining a service-policy zone-pair security hi2int source z-hi destination z-int service-policy type inspect p1 ! ! Assigns interfaces to zones interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/1 ip vrf forwarding vrf1 ip address 10.1.1.6 255.255.0.0 ip virtual-reassembly zone-member security z-hi negotiation auto redundancy rii 20 redundancy group 2 ip 10.1.1.12 exclusive decrement 50 ! interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/2 ip vrf forwarding vrf1 ip address 192.0.2.5 255.255.255.240 ip virtual-reassembly zone-member security z-int negotiation auto redundancy rii 21 redundancy group 2 ip 192.0.2.10 exclusive decrement 50 ! interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/4 ip address 198.51.100.21 255.255.255.240 ! interface GigabitEthernet 0/0/4 ip address 203.0.113.53 255.255.255.240 ! ip route vrf vrf1 192.0.2.0 255.255.255.240 GigabitEthernet0/0/2 10.1.1.4 ip route vrf vrf1 10.1.0.0 255.255.0.0 GigabitEthernet0/0/1 10.1.0.4 !
Additional References for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
Related Documents
Related Topic |
Document Title |
---|---|
Cisco IOS commands |
|
Security commands |
|
Technical Assistance
Description |
Link |
---|---|
The Cisco Support and Documentation website provides online resources to download documentation, software, and tools. Use these resources to install and configure the software and to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues with Cisco products and technologies. Access to most tools on the Cisco Support and Documentation website requires a Cisco.com user ID and password. |
Feature Information for Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy
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.
Feature Name |
Releases |
Feature Information |
---|---|---|
Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy |
Cisco IOS XE Release 3.1(S) |
The Firewall Stateful Interchassis Redundancy feature enables you to configure pairs of devices to act a backups for each other. The following commands were introduced or modified: application redundancy, authentication, control, data, debug redundancy application group config, debug redundancy application group faults, debug redundancy application group media, debug redundancy application group protocol, debug redundancy application group rii, debug redundancy application group transport, debug redundancy application group vp, group, name, preempt, priority, protocol, redundancy rii, redundancy group, track, timers delay, timers hellotime, show redundancy application group, show redundancy application transport, show redundancy application control-interface, show redundancy application faults, show redundancy application protocol, show redundancy application if-mgr, show redundancy application data-interface. |
VRF-Aware Stateful Interchassis Redundancy in Zone-Based Firewalls |
Cisco IOS XE Release 3.14S |
In Cisco IOS XE Release 3.14S, zone-based firewalls support VRF-aware interchassis redundancy. The VPN routing and forwarding (VRF) name at the active and standby devices must the same. The same VRF configuration must be available on both active and standby devices. |