Hostname config in Chassis cluster

This is a small post to inform followers of this blog about a common mistake done in SRX cluster configuration. This is something I really need to write. A cluster has two various configuration stanza

• Node specific
• Global

If you want to set something which is specific to only one node e.g node0 you configure it under groups level.

set groups node0 system host-name SRX1
set apply-groups ${node}

This command above means that “set the hostname only on node0 i.e not on both nodes” Here comes the mistake:

When you have a SRX Chassis cluster and you set the following host-name command under global config;

set system host-name SRX-FW

then this overrides your node specific configuration. This not only causes the same hostname SRX-FW to be displayed on the cli prompt of both devices but also syslog messages written to each box take the same name. Why is this so important?

It is important because it hinders the troubleshooting dramatically. So the bottom line is, if you have a chassis cluster, no host-name should be configured under global config. At least in my humble opinion:)