Fortinet FortiMail 3.0 MR4 - Manual (Page 322)

FortiMail™ Secure Messaging Platform Version 3.0 MR4 CLI Reference
322 06-30004-0420-20080814
system ha monitor set
system ha monitor
Use this command to configure how the FortiMail HA daemon sends HA heartbeat packets to detect if
the primary unit has failed. If the backup unit detects that the primary unit has failed, the backup unit
effective operating mode changes to master and the backup unit becomes the primary unit.
In most cases you do not have to change heartbeat settings. The default settings mean that if the
primary unit fails, the backup unit switches to being the primary unit after 3 x 5 or about 15 seconds;
resulting in a failure detection time of 15 seconds.
If the failure detection time is too long the primary unit could fail and a delay in detecting the failure
could mean that email is delayed or lost. Decrease the failure detection time if email is delayed or lost
because of an HA failover.
If the failure detection time is too short the backup unit may detect a failure when none has occurred.
For example, if the primary unit is very busy processing email it may not respond to HA heartbeat
packets in time. In this situation, the backup unit may assume that the primary unit has failed when the
primary unit is actually just busy. Increase the failure detection time to prevent the backup unit from
detecting a failure when none has occurred.
Syntax
set system ha monitor
Example
Enter the following command to change the HA heartbeat configuration so that each FortiMail unit in
the HA group send heartbeat packets every 20 seconds and the FortiMail units in the HA group detect
a failure if the HA heartbeat check fails 5 times. This command keeps the HA heartbeat TCP port set to
20000.
set system ha monitor port 20000 20 5
Note: Use the set system ha config command to configure HA daemon settings. Other HA
daemon configuration commands include
“set system ha config” on page 313 , “set system ha data” on
page 318 , “set system ha datadir” on page 319 , and “set ” on page 324 .
Keywords/Variables Description Default
The TCP port used for HA heartbeat communications. 20000
The time between which the FortiMail units in the HA group
send HA heartbeat packets. The default test interval between
HA heartbeat packets is 5 seconds. The test interval range is 2
to 60 seconds. Heartbeat packets are sent at regular intervals
so that each FortiMail unit in an active-passive HA group can
confirm that the other unit n the group is functioning. If the
primary unit detects that the backup unit has failed the primary
unit continues to operate normally. If the backup unit detects
that the primary unit has failed, the HA effective operating mode
of the backup unit changes to master and the back up unit
becomes the primary unit. 5
The number of consecutive times the HA heartbeat detects a
failure before the backup unit decides that the primary unit has
failed.
The number of times the check fails range is 1 to a very high
number. Set the number of times the check fails to 0 to disable
interface monitoring or hard drive monitoring.