TABLE OF CONTENTS The most important system in any Check Point FireWall-1 configuration is the management server, renamed SmartCenter Server in FP3. Some of you might have used FireWall-1 in standalone configurations only, but the majority of deployments are distributed. Regardless of deployment, every FireWall-1 design has a management server.
The management server handles major functions of the firewall enforcement point and provides all connectivity for the SMART Clients. The management server provides the connectivity and data for all SMART Client connections and stores enforcement point logs, enforcement point configuration, and all other aspects of the firewall architecture. Therefore, maintaining your management server is an important task. If you lose your management server, your life can become difficult in a very short time.
Of course, your management server should be backed up to a trusted medium, such as a local tape drive or local DVD burner. However, you can back up your management server on a regular basis and still face the possibility of losing this system, regardless of how careful you are. For this reason, Check Point provides the ability to have multiple, highly available management servers in your environment. In this chapter, we discuss how to set up those servers and how they function. FP3 adds new and modified functionality for SMART Clients. The functionality and name changes are discussed in the second half of this chapter.
Have you ever lost your Check Point management server? If you have, you know the...
