domingo, 2 de septiembre de 2012

How to migrate SMART Center Server running vsx to Provider-1

Hello everyone, due a new project related with a migration between a SMART Center to P1 and i haven't found any good info. I had to create a lab to recreate this environment.

This lab is focused to shows the steps followed during a cut over to migrate a SMART Center Server to a new infrastructure running P1.

The lab utilized is:


  1. Two Crossbeam Chassis running XOS 9.5.2
  2. A vsx cluster running in four apms using VSX R65 hfa20.
  3. The two chassis running in VRRP.
  4. Looking for a schema were the impact to the network were the less possible.
This plan was tested under a production enviroment and all works ok. But, is necesary before touch any production network have a valid coverage for Crossbeam technical support and Checkpoint.

Before the cutover:
  1. Obtain a photo from the affected chassis using "show tech-support".
  2. Obtain a license backup installed in the environment using SMART Update.
  3. Obtain a cpinfo from all the virtual firewall just in case if we have to open a case with checkpoint.
  4. Have a backup from the latest firewalls policies.
  5. Verify that all the licenses related with the P1 are correct.
  6. Obtain the latest local.arp file.
  7. Obtain the latest version for the /var/opt/fw.boot/modules/fwkern.conf and /etc/ppk.boot/boot/modules/simkern.conf files.
  8. Have migrated all the firewalls policies to P1.
Activities during the cutover:
  1. Installs the corresponding license to the P1 and the CMA.
  2. Obtain the routing table for every virtual firewall (sometimes after a chassis reboot these routes gets lost is a bug related with the XOS).
  3. Obtain a backup for the vap-group related to the vsx.
  4. In the backup chassis in every apm related with the vap-group we have to use the command "reset_gw" and this command brings to a initial state every vsx gateway.
  5. Using our P1 we have to take the necessary context related with our CMA using mdsenv
  6. We need to close all the dashboard instances to avoid any problem during the reconfiguration.
  7. Using vsx_util we have to reconfigure every apm related with the cluster.
  8. After the execution of the vsx_util we had to fill all the info related to the firewall, for example: "Enter VSX gateway/member object name to reconfigure:"
  9. We need to use the name of the object related with the cluster if you need to find this info use the dashboard in the cluster section.
  10. In this case the name of the object was: FW-VSX_Test_fw1.
  11. Once obtained a message similar to this, we have to reboot every apm affected using the command reboot or "reload vap-group "
  12. If for some reason the vsx_util doesn't work, you'll have to do some troubleshooting or call chackpoint in my case the troubleshooting was enough.
  13. Once the vap-group goes to active. We can observe it using “show ap-vap-mapping”.
  14. We can use our newer P1 SMART Dashboard in write mode and in every vsx cluster object we need to press ok in that screen to regenerate every virtual firewall.
  15. After this step is necessary remove the old licenses related with this vsx cluster using the SMART update in Provider-1
  16. After remove the old licenses we can continue adding the new licenses files.
  17. Using vim we have to regenerate the local.arp files in every apm affected by the reset_gw, in other words the backup chassis, the other one must be handling the traffic.
  18. We can proceed to install the rulebase in every virtual instance, don't forget remove the option "for gateway cluster..."
  19. After the policie installation we need to check the routes and compare to look if something have change. If something was changed, is necesary to do troubleshooting.
  20. Verify that arp entries in the local.arp file are working using fw ctl -vs vsid arp
  21. A very important point is compare the files /var/opt/fw.boot/modules/fwkern.conf y /etc/ppk.boot/boot/modules/simkern.conf, with the files taken before the cutover if something changes we have keep the original configuration.
  22. After all of this we can switch the traffic to this box using vrrp-relinquish-master.
  23. Using smartview tracker we can verify that the traffic is flowing.
  24. We can continue following all of this steps for the other chassis.

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