How to manage WXA from a SonicWall firewall

03/26/2020 1026 12211

DESCRIPTION:

How to provision SonicWall WAN Acceleration Appliances WXA 2000/4000, WXA 500 Live CD and WXA 5000 Virtual Appliance from the managing SonicWall UTM Appliance.

RESOLUTION:

NOTE: SonicWall WXA Appliance doesn't support configuring Static IP address on the appliance.

 
1. Logon to SonicWall WXA Appliance managed SonicWall UTM appliance

2. Navigate to Network | Interfaces section,  choose any unused Physical Interface that is unassigned; assign an IP Address and appropriate Zone, usually trusted.

2. Configure DHCP Server Scope on the SonicWall UTM appliance  for this Interface;
        configure Appropriate Scope;
        Domain name - Internal Active Directory Domain Name is required for Windows File Sharing - WFS Functionality

       DNS Servers - Use Internal DNS Servers that can resolve FQDNs associated to internal Domain configured above

3. Connect SonicWall WXA Appliance directly to the configured port that is used in Step 1 and turn on the appliance

4. Once the Appliance boots up, it automaticaly obtains IP address lease, domain name, DNS configuration information from SonicWall UTM Appliance and becomes operational

5. At this point, if you want WXA Appliance to get the same lease every time it boots up, click on " Create Static DHCP Scope for WXA Appliance". By doing so, firewall will automatically create a static DHCP scope for WAN Acceleration Appliance and the IP address is retained across reboots.

6. When you edit the created Static lease entry, you will see that the IP address, DNS, Domain name and Client ID populated automatically. Please not the highlighted Client ID populated in the MAC addres Field. This is not WAN Acceleration device MAC address. This client ID is used by Managing SonicWall UTM Appliance to identify that it is a WAN Acceleration Device.

NOTE: The above above mentioned method is the only way to create a Static DHCP scope for WXA Appliances on SonicWall UTM Appliances. Manaully creating Static DHCP scope for WXA is not recommended.