If the primary unit or a backup unit fails
If the primary unit fails the backup units stop receiving HA heartbeat packets from the primary unit. If one of the backup units fails, the primary unit stops received HA heartbeat packets from the backup unit. In either case the cluster is considered down until it is reconfigured.
When the cluster goes down the cluster units still operating send SNMP traps and write log messages to alert the system administrator that a failure has occurred. You can also see the failure from the real time monitor and the HA Status page.
You re-configure the cluster by removing the failed unit from the cluster configuration. If the primary unit has failed, this means configuring one of the backup units to be the primary unit and adding peer IPs for all of the remaining backup units to the new primary unit configuration.
| When changing a secondary unit in an HA cluster to a primary unit, the FortiManager unit must be rebooted. |
If a backup unit has failed, you re-configure the cluster by removing the peer IP of the failed backup unit from the primary unit configuration.
Once the cluster is re-configured it will continue to operate as before but with fewer cluster units. If the failed unit is restored you can re-configure the cluster again to add the failed unit back into the cluster. In the same way you can add a new unit to the cluster by changing the cluster configuration to add it.