Technical Tip: How to view Base switch Health Check On chassis 6K

[adecottignies_FTNT]

Description	This article describes how to see Management Heartbeat in order to troubleshoot any Heartbeat issue between FPC and MBD in the FortiGate 6K Chassis.
Scope	FortiGate 6300f – FortiGate 6500f.
Solution	Run the command diagnose load-balance status and it shows one FPC as dead with the following output: FortiGate6K (global) # diagnose load-balance status ========================================================================== MBD SN: F6KF31T000000000 Primary FPC Blade: slot-1 Slot  1: FPC6KFT011111111 Status:Dead   Function:Active Link:      Base: Up          Fabric: Down Heartbeat: Management: Failed   Data: Failed Status Message:"Waiting for management heartbeat" (…) Confirming that the management heartbeat is correctly sent and received between FPC and MBD is necessary. Each FPM / FPC sent the Management Heartbeats every second. The Base backplane is used for this purpose, from both directions. Packets are ethertype 0x8990 sent using an Ethernet multicast 01:80:c2:00:00:0c destination MAC. Each FPC exchanges management heartbeats with MBD using its interface b-slot1. The MBD will use the interface b-slotX where X is the slot number +2. Fort Example on the MBD b-slot3 is used to communicate with slot1, b-slot4 for FPC2, etc. Refer to the following diagram : How to see the Management Heartbeat? First, it is necessary to confirm the Hardware address of the b-slot which is wanted to be checked. From the SSH console : # config global diagnose hardware deviceinfo nic b-slot3 (If it is wanted to check the FPC1 for example). ========================================================================== MBD SN: F6KF31T000000000 Description             FGT-6000F Ethernet Driver Driver Name             FGT-6000F Ethernet Driver System_Device_Name      b-slot3 Current_HWaddr          02:1c:ba:11:22:33 Permanent_HWaddr        02:1c:ba:11:22:33 <--- (…) Then : # diagnose hardware deviceinfo nic b-slot1 And confirm the hardware address for Slot 1 (Or the slot wanted to be checked). FortiGate6K (global) # diagnose hardware deviceinfo nic b-slot1 ========================================================================== Slot: 1  Module SN: FPC6KFT011111111 Description             FGT-6000F Ethernet Driver Driver Name             FGT-6000F Ethernet Driver System_Device_Name      b-slot1 Current_HWaddr          02:1c:ba:99:88:77 Permanent_HWaddr        02:1c:ba:99:88:77 <--- (…) Now leave the config global : FortiGate6K (global) # end FortiGate6K  # end Then go to the mgmt-Vdom: FortiGate6K # config vdom FortiGate6K  (vdom) # edit mgmt-vdom current vf=mgmt-vdom:2 FortiGate6K (mgmt-vdom) # And run the sniffer as follows: # diagnose sniffer options filter-out-internal-pkts disable # diagnose sniffer packet  b-slot3 ‘’ 6 0 l [MBD  ] 2023-01-11 11:10:12.772745 b-slot3 -- Ether type 0x8990 printer hasn't been added to the sniffer. 0x0000   0180 c200 000c 021c ba99 8877 8990 01a7        .........T.b.... [From the FPC1] 0x0010   0000 0003 0701 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000        ................ 0x0020   0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000        ................ (...) [MBD  ] 2023-01-11 11:10:13.772852 b-slot3 -- 802.1AD vlan#41 P0 [From the MBD] 0x0000   0180 c200 000c 021c ba11 2233 88a8 0029        .........T.!...) 0x0010   8990 0047 0500 0003 0700 0000 0003 0000        ...G............ (…) Now it is necessary to run it from the FPC in fault (FPC01 in our example): # diagnose sniffer options filter-out-internal-pkts disable # diagnose sniffer packet  b-slot1 '' 6 0 l From the FPC : [FPC01] 2023-01-11 12:14:02.424011 b-slot1 -- Ether type 0x8990 printer hasn't been added to the sniffer. 0x0000   0180 c200 000c 021c ba11 2233 8990 0047        .........T.!...G 0x0010   0500 0003 0700 0000 0003 0000 0003 0000        ................ 0x0020   0004 0000 0005 0000 0006 0000 0007 0000        ................ (...) [FPC01] 2023-01-11 12:14:02.986508 b-slot1 -- Ether type 0x8990 printer hasn't been added to sniffer. 0x0000   0180 c200 000c 021c ba99 8877 01a7        .........T.b.... 0x0010   0000 0003 0701 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000        ................ 0x0020   0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000        ................ (...) These packets should appear both ways every second. It means that FPC1 and MBD are correctly exchanging the management heartbeat. Related documents: https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortigate-6000/6.4.10/fortigate-6000-handbook/107847/connecting-t...  https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Note-Verification-of-SLBC-status-before-an-upg...