FAC Cluster Behavior

[IvanLin]

Hi all,

I've formed a A-P H.A cluster on a pair of physical FAC. Based on admin guide, we know that the unit set as high priority will become master.

We have a scenario where we shutdown the FAC-MASTER do test failover. The slave unit does take over as Master . However the question here is:

1. Will the FAC with high priority take back as MASTER role when it recovers?

This is not stated in the admin guide, whether a unit with high priority will still be elected as master when it joins back cluster. I have observed on the console of the FAC unit that when a unit with high priority joins back clsuter, it will not take back master role, instead existing unit still runs as master due to higher uptime.

can anyone confirm if its based on uptime of a unit to be elected as master after cluster is formed ?

regards

Ivan

[rmoussa]

Hi,

FAC HA is based on Priority not on uptime. When the master goes back online it will take the master role.

Rony Moussa

NSE Certified : Level 8

[IvanLin]

Hi Rony,

i have just got some answers from Fortinet team in Australia on the FAC failover behavior.

By default, when two units boots up, election of Master is by whichever unit is set with high priority.

Should a unit with High priority fails in the cluster and subsequently re-joins, the cluster is elected based on uptime. If unit is down more than 5 mins, then the unit with highest uptime remains to be master.

If unit has less than 5mins uptime, there will be a election process based on priority. I dont think i can share the diagram here. hope i can share this piece of information across.

thank you