3

We're adding two SonicWALL NSA 2600 firewalls to our current setup. We currently get two WAN connections from two separate Cisco routers running on the same external subnet with what I believe is HSRP. Right now we run these two connections into two Cisco switches, and all of our computers then plug into both switches with NIC teaming.

In the new setup, we'd like to create a 3-port VLAN on each switch, one port for the WAN connection from the Internet and two ports for each NSA 2600. I've got the WAN port setup from one switch to each SonicWALL in HA mode. If I add the second switch connections to X2, I can't figure out how get the bridged in the Network section. If I choose the WAN zone, I just get Static, Wire Mode, and Tap Mode. Static doesn't make much sense, since I'd need to pick a new IP address. Wire Mode will only let me choose unused interfaces (X4 and X5), and Tap Mode looks totally useless.

Does anyone have any tips on how to make this work or where to learn more about getting something like this working?

In case a diagram might help someone understand what I'm trying to do:

Network Setup Diagram

Here is what it looked like pre-firewall:

Old Network Setup Diagram

Here are pictures of what I'm seeing on my LAN side:

LAN bridge

Nothing like that seems to exist on the WAN side:

enter image description here

2 Answers 2

1

Based on the information I've found and in testing configurations on an NSA 2600 in order to utilize multiple WAN connections on the same subnet, an intermediary device such as a load balancer would be needed. The load balancer would present a single link to each Sonicwall such that a single interface could be configured and the load balancer would handle the failover if one of the Cisco Routers went down. The setup would look similar to the following diagram:

The other, much more complex option would be to test creating a custom Zone on the Sonicwall and modifying the routes to use that zone as a WAN. The downside besides the obvious time commitment to configuring the routes is that this option would not allow for Failover & LB to utilize this zone. I would recommend looking into a load balancing device or similar intermediary between the Ciscos and the Sonicwalls.

11
  • This is good information, but I actually have the HA setup already. My problem is that I have two WAN switches and routers, and thus need two WAN interfaces. In the picture they show they just have one incoming connection: help.mysonicwall.com/sw/eng/6005/ui2/25000/images/…
    – Jake Braun
    Mar 24, 2014 at 15:07
  • Not sure I follow. The NSA 2600 has 8 interfaces, by default the x0 is the LAN and the others are configurable to whatever Zones you wish. On each firewall you can setup two WAN interfaces, one for each WAN connection, then in the Load Balancing/Failover config set which one is the default by putting it in the highest priority. Mar 24, 2014 at 15:10
  • 1
    Ah, I see. Sorry if I missed that earlier. HSRP is Cisco proprietary so Sonicwall won't be able to utilize that, which means the Cisco's can talk to one another correct? If so that means the diagram should have the Ciscos on the same switch or a connection between them. That's why I was confused. I see what you are saying and right off the cuff, the only suggestion I have is possibly creating a new Zone to use instead of using the WAN. The only downfall is that I don't think Failover&LB will work on that zone but it would allow Layer 2 Bridged mode on the interfaces. Lemme look into it Mar 24, 2014 at 15:19
  • 1
    Most of the solutions/documentation I'm seeing are single links to each Sonicwall. It may be necessary to have a load balancer in front of the Sonicwalls that presents the connection through a single interface. The custom zone may still work but it'd take a lot of extra configuration. I'll keep looking and see what I find or can come up with. Mar 24, 2014 at 15:31
  • 1
    Just updated the answer, I know it's not ideal to introduce another single point of failure on a network designed to resist failures but so far that is the only viable option I've found. If I run across any new discoveries I'll update this. Sorry it isn't a more elegant solution. Mar 24, 2014 at 15:54
0

In the current Firmwares you could select the x1 interface -> goto advanced and pick X2 as a redundant port for X1. that might be what you need?

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .