What does fw putkey -n do ?

[roadrunner]

What does fw putkey -n do ?
(This FAQ is relevant to FireWall-1 4.1 and earlier) putkey -n is documented on Check Point's Partner Support page, but not very well.

Normally, when "putkeys" are done between systems and, say, a Management Console and a Firewall Module begin communicating with one another, the actual communication takes place between the nodename IP addresses of each box. To find out the nodename IP address of a Unix box, you take the value of "uname -n" and compare this against the system's local host file (or other name resolution mechanism). Whatever IP address that "name" resolves to is the "nodename IP" address for that box.

If for some reason the systems can not communicate via the nodename IP addresses (because the nodename IP on one box must be tied to a non-routable or non-reachable IP address), you can use putkey -n to "overrides" the nodename IP address of the local system. Sometimes you will also use putkey -n after you have changed the IP address of one or more systems to "reset" the authentication to the proper IP.

The syntax for putkey -n is:

fw putkey -n local-ip remote-ip

Where "local-ip" refers to the local IP used for communication (e.g. the value that will "override" the local nodename IP) and "remote-ip" is the remote system's IP address.

Warning about using 'putkey -n': If you must do 'putkey -n' for multiple sites, you may only use only one distinct IP address for the "local IP" for all sites. The minute you use a different IP for -n, all the other putkeys you did with '-n' will cease to work. I'm not sure if this is a "bug" or a "feature", but that's the way it appears to work.

-- GuyR - 11 Jan 2004


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