FortiGate-5020 Chassis Guide
10 01-30000-0043-20061207
FortiGate HA between two FortiGate-5020 chassis Base backplane communications and HA between FortiGate-5020 chassis
FortiGate HA between two FortiGate-5020 chassis
The FortiGate-5020 chassis does not support direct ethernet connections
between two or more FortiGate-5020 chassis. To configure HA for FortiGate
modules installed in two different FortiGate-5020 chassis you must use one or two
of the front panel interfaces of the FortiGate modules as HA heartbeat interfaces.
Using two (or more) heartbeat interfaces is recommended for redundancy.
The following diagram shows an example of how to connect four FortiGate-
5001SX units installed in two FortiGate-5020 chassis to make a cluster of 4
FortiGate-5001SX units.
This example cluster has a relatively basic network configuration. In the
configuration, port1 connects to an internal network and port2 connects to the
Internet. Port3 to port8 are available to be connected as HA heartbeat interfaces.
This example uses port7 and port8 as the HA heartbeat interfaces.
Figure 3: Network and HA heartbeat connections

Changing the HA heartbeat interface configuration

To configure FortiGate-5001SX cluster units for HA heartbeat interface
connections between modules installed in two FortiGate-5020 chassis, you must
change the default FortiGate-5001SX HA heartbeat interface configuration.
By default the FortiGate-5001SX HA heartbeat configuration uses port9 and
port10 (the backplane interfaces) for HA heartbeat interfaces. To configure HA
heartbeat interfaces for this example configuration, select port7 and port8 to be
HA heartbeat interfaces and unselect port9 and port10.
PSU A
PSU B
PWR STAIPM
CONSOLE USB 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
ACC
PWR STAIPM
CONSOLE USB 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
ACC
PSU A
PSU B
PWR STAIPM
CONSOLE USB 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
ACC
PWR STAIPM
CONSOLE USB 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
ACC
Internet
Switch
port1 (internal network)
port7 (HA heartbeat)
port8 (HA heartbeat)
port2 (Internet)
Switch
Switch
Switch
Internal Network