ASA 5505 Failover Monitoring

[Cody Ridge]

Hello,

I have a question regarding failover monitoring on the ASA5505 in an active/standby configuration.

I understand that on the 5505 you create VLAN interfaces and then assign the VLANs to the 5505 switchports.  With failover configured on the 5505, the VLAN interface names are monitored.  For example, VLAN 100 interface named Inside is assigned to ethernet0/1, switchport mode access.  When issuing a show failover command the output will show the monitor status of interface Inside..

Does failover monitor the VLAN virtual interface only?  Does failover also monitor the link status of the ethernet0/1 switchport?

What happens if the link status of ethernet0/1 fails, or the physical switchport ethernet0/1 faults?  Does failover trigger a switch from primary active to standby active?

Thank you.

[varrao]

Hi Cody,

It will monitor the physical as well as the logical interface, if the interface goes down then it would trigger a failover and your secondary device would become active. You can monitor an interaface by the following commands:

monitor-interface

and if you don't want to:

no monitor-interface

Plz be aware that if you monitor the interface, then only it would trigger a failover if it goes down, otherwise not.

Hope this  helps,

Thanks,

Varun