FortiGate
FortiGate Next Generation Firewall utilizes purpose-built security processors and threat intelligence security services from FortiGuard labs to deliver top-rated protection and high performance, including encrypted traffic.
khogi
Staff
Staff
Article Id 198050

Description

 
This article describes the behavior of the HA 'link-failed-signal' error which brings all interfaces of a unit if a monitored link is detected as down.

If the FortiGate
HA clusters units are managed through a dedicated network management interface, the interface will not be brought down.
 
config system ha
    set link-failed-signal enable
    set ha-mgmt-interface "mgmt"
end
 
Scope
 
Any supported version of FortiGate in HA.
 
Solution

When a FortiGate HA cluster is operating and a monitored interface fails on the primary unit, the primary unit becomes a subordinate unit and another cluster unit becomes the primary unit.

Normally, after a link failover, the new primary unit sends Gratuitous ARP (GARP) packets to refresh the MAC forwarding tables of the switches connected to the cluster.

In some instances, switches ignore the GARP packets and continue to reference the MAC address for the port the on the
failed FortiGate
and will keep sending packets.

You can use the following command to cause a cluster unit with a monitored interface link failure to briefly shut down all of its interfaces (except the heartbeat interfaces and HA management Interface) after the failover occurs:

config system ha

set link-failed-signal enable

end 

 

Note: When the link-failed-signal is activated, any aggregate interface is exempted or excluded from the "bring down" and "bring up" processes because its status will be updated when a member of the aggregate interface is down or up.


Workaround.

 

This is as designed and there is no workaround.

Disabling 'ha-mgmt-status' and 'link-failed-signal' will work on the management interface.


Problem Verification

 

Execute the following command and check output1.
 
diag debug app hatalk -1

 

Related article.

Technical Tip: Updating MAC forwarding tables when an HA link failover occurs.