Primary FortiGate-7000E selection and override

When configuring FortiGate-7000E HA, if you want one of the FortiGate-7000Es to always become the primary FortiGate-7000E you can enable override on that FortiGate-7000E. For override to be effective, you must also set the device priority highest on this FortiGate-7000E.

To enable override and increase device priority:

config system ha

set override enable

set priority 200

end

The FortiGate-7000E with override enabled and the highest device priority always becomes the primary FortiGate-7000E.

In most cases, with override enabled the cluster will negotiate more often. For example, with override enabled it is more likely that changes to the secondary FortiGate-7000E may cause the cluster to negotiate. More frequent negotiation can lead to more traffic disruptions.

This section highlights some aspects of primary FortiGate-7000E selection. For more details about how this works, see HA override.

Enabling override changes primary FortiGate-7000E selection

Enabling override changes the order of primary FortiGate-7000E selection. As shown below, if override is enabled, primary FortiGate-7000E selection considers device priority before age and serial number. This means that if you set the device priority higher on one FortiGate-7000E, with override enabled this FortiGate-7000E becomes the primary FortiGate-7000E even if its age and serial number are lower.

Similar to when override is disabled, when override is enabled primary FortiGate-7000E selection checks for operating modules and connected monitored interfaces first. So if interface monitoring is enabled, the FortiGate-7000E with the most disconnected monitored interfaces cannot become the primary FortiGate-7000E, even if this FortiGate-7000E has the highest device priority.