Cisco ACE Context Switchover

There is a set of Cisco ACE 4710 appliances at work that have several contexts configured.  Failover is setup between each ACE appliance in an active-passive configuration so that the contexts are distributed between the devices.   The good thing about this setup is that, similar to a Microsoft server cluster, the contexts can be switched over to one ACE Appliance while the other is rebooted, all without causing any significant downtime.

Today I was in one of the situations where it was necessary to reboot both ACE appliances.  The ACE has a really good web interface but it occasionally stops working.  I usually solve the problem by rebooting the appliance.  Of course, when the web interface isn’t available you can always rely on the CLI.  Here are the steps to switchover the contexts and reboot the device using the command line.

First, check which contexts are running on the appliance:

ACE4710_1/Admin# show ft group brief

FT Group ID: 2 My State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE

Context Name: TS1 Context Id: 3

FT Group ID: 3 My State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT

Context Name: TS2 Context Id: 2

FT Group ID: 4 My State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT

Context Name: TS3 Context Id: 5

FT Group ID: 5 My State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT

Context Name: TS4 Context Id: 4

FT Group ID: 6 My State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT

Context Name: WEB1 Context Id: 7

We can see that there are four contexts active on this appliance – FT Group ID 3, 4, 5, and 6.

I need to fail all of them to the other appliance so the following command is entered:

ATL_ACE4710_1/Admin# ft switchover all

This command will cause card to switchover (yes/no)?  [no] yes

Type yes and hit enter.  The FT peer will take over running all the contexts.

Check to make sure that all the contexts are set to standby on the appliance.

ACE4710_1/Admin# sh ft group brief

FT Group ID: 2  My State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE

Context Name: TS1 Context Id: 3

FT Group ID: 3  My State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE

Context Name: TS2   Context Id: 2

FT Group ID: 4  My State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE

Context Name: TS3    Context Id: 5

FT Group ID: 5  My State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE

Context Name: TS4   Context Id: 4

FT Group ID: 6  My State:FSM_FT_STATE_STANDBY_HOT Peer State:FSM_FT_STATE_ACTIVE

Context Name: WEB1   Context Id: 7

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