IP Reachability Detection

The IP Reachability Detection feature uses the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) protocol or the ICMP ping to detect whether remote IP addresses are reachable.

Introducing Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)

From R80.20, the Gaia Check Point security operating system that combines the strengths of both SecurePlatform and IPSO operating systems. OS supports Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD).

For more information, see RFC 5880 and RFC 5881.

• In a ClusterXL High Availability mode, only the Active member sends and accepts BFD packets.

• In a VRRP cluster Two or more Security Gateways that work together in a redundant configuration - High Availability, or Load Sharing., only the Master member sends and accepts BFD packets.

• ClusterXL Standby and VRRP Backup cluster members do not send or accept BFD packets. They treat all their peer cluster members as reachable.

From R80.30, the Gaia OS supports BFD in Static Routes. BFD for static routes uses BFD protocol to monitor reachability of a BFD peer and updates the status of an associated static route nexthop in accordance to the reachability status. The status of the static route nexthop is "down", if that BFD peer is unreachable.