High Availability states in SonicWall

05/13/2020 10 3700

DESCRIPTION:

The Primary SonicWall and Secondary SonicWall in High Availability Pair when configured go through different states. This article describes about each state briefly.

RESOLUTION:

The Primary State field and Secondary State field is displayed on both the Primary and the Secondary HA appliances. Primary State Indicates the current state of the Primary appliance as a member of an HA Pair. 

Different state values on Primary Appliances are mentioned below:

• ACTIVE – Indicates that the Primary unit is handling all the network traffic except management/monitoring/licensing traffic destined to the standby unit.
• STANDBY – Indicates that the Primary unit is passive and is ready to take over on a Failover.
• ELECTION – Indicates that the Primary and Secondary units are negotiating which should be the ACTIVE unit.
• SYNC – Indicates that the Primary unit is synchronizing settings or firmware to the Secondary.
• ERROR – Indicates that the Primary unit has reached an error condition.
• REBOOT – Indicates that the Primary unit is rebooting.
• NONE – When viewed on the Primary unit, NONE indicates that HA is not enabled on the Primary. When viewed on the Secondary unit, NONE indicates that the Secondary unit is not receiving heartbeats from the Primary unit.  

To verify the current HA states on both Primary and Secondary SonicWall appliances :

Navigate to Monitor| Current Status | High Availability Status

The Secondary State Indicates the current state of the Secondary appliance as a member of an HA Pair.

Different state values on Secondary Appliances are mentioned below:

• ACTIVE – Indicates that the Secondary unit is handling all the network traffic except management/monitoring/licensing traffic destined to the standby unit.
• STANDBY – Indicates that the Secondary unit is passive and is ready to take over on a Failover.
• ELECTION – Indicates that the Secondary and Primary units are negotiating which should be the ACTIVE unit.
• SYNC – Indicates that the Secondary unit is synchronizing settings or firmware with the Primary.
• ERROR – Indicates that the Secondary unit has reached an error condition.
• REBOOT – Indicates that the Secondary unit is rebooting.
• NONE – When viewed on the Secondary unit, NONE indicates that HA is not enabled on the Secondary. When viewed on the Primary unit, NONE indicates that the Primary unit is not receiving heartbeats from the Secondary unit.