Technical Tip: Forming an HA cluster with models of different hardware revision level

Description

This article describes that FortiGate models have multiple hardware revisions (versions of hardware) and how to allow them to join a high availability (HA) cluster.

Scope

By default, when configuring HA, FortiGates with different hardware revision levels and/or hard disk status will NOT be able to join together in a cluster.

Typically, a hardware revision means minor changes such as an increase in memory or a different disk drive vendor while retaining the same major platform name. These different versions are known as 'revision' levels (for example FortiGate-101F gen1, FortiGate-101F gen2).

Solution

The following commands will enable FortiGates with different hardware revisions to form an HA cluster.

execute ha ignore-hardware-revision status
execute ha ignore-hardware-revision enable

It should be noted that running the command 'exec ha ignore-hardware-revision enable' will cause a reboot of the firewall.

Executing the above command disables 'config system storage' as well as disk logging.

To be more precise, this setting will allow devices with different hard disk or RAID status to form a cluster.

For example when RAID is configured on one device but not on the other(s) it will result in a different hard disk status and a cluster cannot be built.

The settings the HA service looks at for differences are stored in 'config system storage'.

The CLI commands to verify disk differences are as follows:

show system storage
diagose hardware deviceinfo disk

For more information, refer to the 'Troubleshooting HA clusters' section of the chapter 'High Availability' in the FortiOS Handbook.

Note:

1. This command is only available on FortiGates that have multiple hardware revisions. There are some exceptions to certain models where this command is not feasible, though there are different hardware generations, such as the FortiGate-1500D or 3700D. Multiple hardware revisions are for example present on models 60F_3G4G, 60F Rugged, 100D, 100F, 101F, 140E, 140E_POE, 80F_BP, 80F, 81F. Check with support for hardware generation information.

2. No action is needed for hardware generations where the difference is not related to the disk (for example TPM chip only). The command ignores HA checksums related to the disk details when calculating differences between HA cluster members.

Related articles:

• Technical Tip: Error 'slave and master have different hdisk status. Cannot work with HA master. Shutdown the box! The system is halted.'

• Technical Tip: Configuring RAID for supported FortiGates on FortiOS 5.6.1 and above