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Jin-Gyu
Explorer
August 23, 2025
Question

Ping test in Fortigate HA passive

  • August 23, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 560 views

Hi

 

How do Fortigate work if I ping test on passive when HA is a-p mode?

Do packet go directly to destination from passive or via active?


When I do ping test in passive, there are some equipment that appears in the arp table and some that don't.

What are the criteria that appear in arp table?

 

Thank you.

2 replies

kaman
Staff
Staff
August 23, 2025

Hi Jin-Gyu,

Generally, in an HA active-passive cluster, the FortiGate secondary unit does not respond to the ARP requests, and it cannot participate in active communication. Only the primary unit responds with the virtual MAC address.


https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-Understanding-hardware-switch-and-port-group/ta-p/379463#:~:text=Generally%2C%20in%20an%20HA%20active%2Dpassive%20cluster%2C%20the,Traffic%20Handling%20and%20Failover%20with%20HW%20switch:


You can also refer to the document below:


https://community.fortinet.com/t5/Support-Forum/Problems-with-Active-Passive-HA-deployment/m-p/257231#:~:text=with%20Active%20unit%20in%20Availabilty,unit%20in%20Availability%20zone%202.&text=I%20can%20understand%20that%20the,Go%20to%20Solution.


If you have found a solution, please like and accept it to make it easily accessible to others.


Regards,
Aman

Jin-Gyu
Jin-GyuAuthor
Explorer
August 25, 2025

Thank you for your answer.
However, what I want to know is that when I ping test from passive to gateway, there are times when it comes up to the arp table and sometimes it doesn't, I'm curious about the cause of this phenomenon.

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