Router
Router objects can be used:
- As the firewall’s default gateway,
- For specifying the type of routing in filter rules (PBR: Policy Based Filtering).
Router objects are defined by a name and at least a gateway used. They may contain one or several gateways used and backup gateways. A mechanism that tests the availability of these gateways makes it possible to provide redundancy – if no responses are received from one or several main gateways, one or several backup gateways will then take over.
Select a router to view or edit its properties.
Name of the object | Name given to the router object when it was created. |
Comments | Description associated with the router object. |
Button bar
Add | Adds a gateway. |
Delete | Deletes the selected gateway. |
Move to the list of backups / Move to the list of main gateways | Allows switching from one gateway in the main table to the backup table or vice versa. |
Apply | Sends the router’s configuration. |
Copy | Allows creating a new router object by duplicating the same characteristics as the edited router. |
Cancel | Cancels the router’s configuration. |
Tables of gateways used and backup gateways
Both of these tables contain the following columns:
Host (Mandatory) | Clicking on this column will open the objects database to allow selecting a host that acts as the router. |
Device(s) for testing availability (Mandatory) | Host or host group to ping in order to determine the connectivity of the gateway. The value selected may be the gateway itself (Test the gateway directly), a host or a group of third-party hosts. The availability test may be disabled for the selected gateway by selecting the value No availability testing. NOTE |
Weight | Allows assigning a priority between the various gateways for the load balancing mechanism. A gateway with a higher weight will therefore be used more often when balancing traffic load. |
(Optional) Comments | Any text. |
NOTE
Parameters that define the interval between two availability tests (“frequency”), the maximum waiting time for a response (“wait”) and the number of tests to perform before declaring the gateway uncontactable (“tries”) can only be configured via CLI command:
CONFIG OBJECT ROUTER NEW name=<router name> [tries=<int>] [wait=<seconds>] [frequency=<seconds>] update=1.
The default values suggested are 15 seconds for the “frequency” parameter, 2 seconds for the “wait” parameter and 3 for the "tries" parameter.
Advanced properties
Load balancing | The firewall allows distributed routing between the various gateways used through several methods:
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Enable backup gateways |
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Enable all backup gateways when unavailable | If this option is selected, all backup gateways will be enabled as soon as the condition for enabling them has been met. If it is not selected, only the first backup gateway listed will be enabled. |
If no gateways are available | Select the behavior that the firewall must adopt if all the gateways defined in the router object cannot be contacted:
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