Fortinet FortiGate FortiGate-1000A Administration Manual page 99

System Config
FortiGate-1000A/FA2 Administration Guide
To enable HA heartbeat communication for an interface, enter a priority for the
interface. To disable HA heartbeat communication for an interface, delete the priority
for the interface.
The HA heartbeat priority range is 0 to 512. The interface with the highest priority
handles all HA heartbeat traffic. If this interface fails or becomes disconnected, the
interface with the next highest priority handles all HA heartbeat traffic.
The cluster units use the ethernet interfaces configured with HA heartbeat priorities for
HA heartbeat communication. The HA heartbeat communicates cluster session
information, synchronizes the cluster configuration, synchronizes the cluster routing
table, and reports individual cluster member status. The HA heartbeat constantly
communicates HA status information to make sure that the cluster is operating
properly.
You can enable heartbeat communications for physical interfaces, but not for VLAN
subinterfaces.
Enabling the HA heartbeat for more interfaces increases reliability. If an interface fails,
the HA heartbeat can be diverted to another interface.
HA heartbeat traffic can use a considerable amount of network bandwidth. If possible,
enable HA heartbeat traffic on interfaces only used for HA heartbeat traffic or on
interfaces connected to less busy networks.
Table 5: Default heartbeat device configuration
FortiGate model
FortiGate-1000A and
FortiGate-1000AFA2
Change the heartbeat device priorities as required to control the interface that is used
for heartbeat traffic and the interface to which heartbeat traffic reverts if the interface
with the highest heartbeat priority fails or is disconnected.
Setting the heartbeat priority for more interfaces increases the reliability of the cluster.
To optimize bandwidth use, you can route most heartbeat traffic to interfaces that
handle less network traffic. You can also create a failover path by setting heartbeat
priorities so that you can control the order in which interfaces are used for heartbeat
traffic.
Heartbeat device IP addresses
You do not need to assign IP addresses to heartbeat device interfaces for them to be
able to process heartbeat packets. The cluster assigns virtual IP addresses to the
heartbeat device interfaces. The primary cluster unit heartbeat device interface is
assigned the IP address 10.0.0.1 and the subordinate unit heartbeat device interface
is assigned the IP address 10.0.0.2. A third cluster unit would be assigned the IP
address 10.0.0.3 and so on.
01-28011-0254-20051115
Default heartbeat device
Port 3
Port 4
Default priority
50
100
HA
99