Use High Availability in Hot-Standby Mode

For DrayOS models, the two Vigor Router working in HA hot-standby mode can share the same WCF license key, and the configuration made on the primary will automatically sync to the secondary one. This article is going to demonstrate how to set up two routers in HA Hot-Standby Mode and create a group on MyVigor to share the WCF license key.

Note: The firmware and country code of both routers must be the same.

Configuration of the Primary Router

1. On the primary router, go to Application >> High Availability,

1. Group ID: The routers with the same number will be in the same HA group. The default value is 1, we may leave it as default here.
2. Priority ID: In a HA group, the router with the largest number will be the primary one. if two router's Priority ID are the same, the smaller IP number will be the primary router.
3. Authentication Key: All the HA members should have the same key.
4. Management Interface: the packets for communication between members will send over the selected interface. To have the best communication and for security purpose, we recommend to choose an interface that has less interruption. In our scenario, we reserve LAN 1 for High Availability only and put all other LAN clients in LAN2~LAN5.
5. Update DDNS: for dynamic WAN IP users, enable this function so once the secondary router becomes primary and dials up the WAN, it will also update its new WAN IP address to the same DDNS profile, so your network will be accessible with the same DDNS domain.
6. Syslog: enable to show all the High Availability relative logs in syslog.
7. Enable the LAN Subnet to join High Availability. Hardware redundancy will only apply to the selected LAN subnets. Virtual IP is the IP which will be used as LAN client's gateway IP.

2. Go to Config Sync tab, check Enable Config Sync to update the configuration to the secondary router periodically. Every time the router finish Config Sync, the router will reboot, so I suggest that set the Config Sync Interval to 1 Day.

3. LAN IP Configuration at LAN >> General Setup,

• IP Address: It has to be different from the Virtual IP. If the HA peers have the same Priority ID, the one has the smaller number for LAN IP will be the primary one, so we suggest using an IP with a lower number on the Primary one.
• Gateway IP: should is the same as LAN IP, and the note indicates that the actual gateway IP provided to DHCP clients will be the Virtual IP.

For the Secondary Router

4. Go to Application >> High Availability, and have a similar HA configuration except for Priority ID. Priority ID should be lower than the primary router.

5. Go to LAN >> General Setup for LAN IP Configuration. Mind that the IP should be different from (better larger) than that of the primary router.

If you have more than one LAN, every LAN should have a different IP Configuration on primary and secondary routers to avoid IP conflict.

	Subnet	Primary Router	Secondary Router	Virtual IP
LAN1	192.168.1.0	192.168.1.2	192.168.1.3	192.168.1.1
LAN2	192.168.2.0	192.168.2.2	192.168.2.3	192.168.2.1
LAN3	192.168.3.0	192.168.3.2	192.168.3.3	192.168.3.1
. . .	. . .	. . .	. . .	. . .
LANx	192.168.x.0	192.168.x.2	192.168.x.3	192.168.x.1

6. After all the functions are set up correctly, we link up the management interface LAN so both routers can start communicating with each other, deciding which one should be the primary and syncing the configuration.
NOTE: Be sure to link the routers on a port that is a port member of the management LAN subnet. The VLAN of the management LAN can be port-based and tag-based. You can confirm this from LAN >> VLAN. In this example, we can use port 5.

Sharing the WCF License

7. Now the routers are set, if you have MyVigor licenses, please create a group on MyVigor so these routers can share the same license. First, log in to myvigor.draytek.com, find High Availability Settings and click Add New Group.

8. Give a Group Name, select the same HA Group ID as router's HA settings, and select the member routers in the HA Device drop-down menu.
Note: Only the devices registered under this MyVigor account will be listed. The HA peers should be registered to the same account. As Myvigor registration requires Internet access, please disable HA so that both routers can access Myvigor and sync the HA group. We may reboot routers after HA group is set, then enable HA.

9. Save the profile, and we can see the group entry.

Note: With this High Availability Group configured, if a high availability failover occurs, the backup routers will be able to use the licenses available on the primary router.

Checking HA status

10. We may check the High Availability status by visiting the Status page. For the first time the two routers link up, we can see they are syncing the configuration from the primary to the secondary (showing "Progressing" on the secondary router).
TIPS: Click "Renew" to update the information of remote router, click "Refresh" to update the information of local router.

11. When the routers have the same configuration, it will show the "Equal" at Config Sync Status.
TIPS: Router will check if there's any un-synced modification when it reaches the time interval we set in step 2. We may force to sync by clicking the "Sync" button. The secondary router will reboot after the config sync.

12. We may also check the Details page.