Configure PIX Security Appliance Failover
Serial cable-based failover configuration

In serial cable-based active/standby failover, there are two PIX Security Appliances interconnected with a serial failover cable. One unit is the primary unit the other is the secondary unit. In the top example Figure , the primary PIX is active and passes traffic. The IP addresses of the outside and inside interfaces are 192.168.2.2 and 10.0.2.1. The secondary unit is standby and has interface IP addresses of 192.168.2.7 and 10.0.2.7. In the bottom example in Figure , notice the primary PIX failed. In active/standby applications, the type of failover unit did not change. The primary unit is still the primary unit. What changed are the roles, active and standby, and the interface IP addresses. The secondary unit is now the active unit passing the traffic. The interface IP addresses were swapped. The secondary unit inherited the IP addresses of the primary unit, 192.168.2.2 and 10.0.2.1.

Complete the steps below to configure failover with a serial failover cable. Before starting this procedure, if the standby PIX Security Appliance is powered on, it must be powered down and left off until instructed to power it on.

Step 1 Attach a network cable for each network interface that is planned to be used.

Step 2 Connect the failover cable between the primary PIX Security Appliance and the secondary PIX.

Step 3 Configure the following failover parameters on the PIX Security Appliance. When this configuration is finished, save it to the Flash memory of the primary unit.

  1. Failover
  2. Standby IP addresses
  3. Stateful failover interface. This is optional, for use with stateful failover.
  4. Failover poll time (optional).

Step 4 Power on the secondary PIX Security Appliance.