Each model in the Cisco ASA 5500 range comes with a range of licences and features, to add these features you can purchase them from a Cisco reseller. You will then need to apply the licence to the device.
Solution
1. Your first step is to purchase the Licence you require from an authorised cisco reseller.
2. When your licence arrives you need to locate the PAK that is on the certificate.
3. You need the Serial number of the ASA 5500, to get this either look on the chassis of the device or issue a “show version” command.
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PetesASA# show version
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software Version 8.0(3)
Device Manager Version 6.1(3)
Compiled on Tue 06-Nov-07 22:59 by builders
System image file is "disk0:/asa803-k8.bin"
Config file at boot was "startup-config"
PetesASA up 5 days 17 hours
Hardware: ASA5510, 256 MB RAM, CPU Pentium 4 Celeron 1600 MHz
Internal ATA Compact Flash, 256MB
BIOS Flash M50FW080 @ 0xffe00000, 1024KB
Encryption hardware device : Cisco ASA-55x0 on-board accelerator (revision 0x0)
Boot microcode : CN1000-MC-BOOT-2.00
SSL/IKE microcode: CNLite-MC-SSLm-PLUS-2.01
IPSec microcode : Cnlite-MC-IPSECm-MAIN-2.04
0: Ext: Ethernet0/0 : address is 001d.70df.3e28, irq 9
1: Ext: Ethernet0/1 : address is 001d.70df.3e29, irq 9
2: Ext: Ethernet0/2 : address is 001d.70df.3e2a, irq 9
3: Ext: Ethernet0/3 : address is 001d.70df.3e2b, irq 9
4: Ext: Management0/0 : address is 001d.70df.3e27, irq 11
5: Int: Not used : irq 11
6: Int: Not used : irq 5
Licensed features for this platform:
Maximum Physical Interfaces : Unlimited
Maximum VLANs : 100
Inside Hosts : Unlimited
Failover : Active/Active
VPN-DES : Enabled
VPN-3DES-AES : Enabled
Security Contexts : 2
GTP/GPRS : Disabled
VPN Peers : 250
WebVPN Peers : 25
AnyConnect for Mobile : Disabled
AnyConnect for Linksys phone : Disabled
Advanced Endpoint Assessment : Disabled
This platform has an ASA 5510 Security Plus license.
Serial Number: JMX1234ABCD
Running Activation Key: 0x5c385c4d 0xf8344dbb 0xac3161c8 0xaf983c24 0x88888888
Configuration register is 0x1
Configuration has not been modified since last system restart.
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4. So the one above has a serial Number of JMX1234ABCD.
5. Now you have the PAK and the serial number, you need to register them with Cisco Go there, login with a Cisco CCO account name. Enter the PAK Code > Submit.
6. Check the PAK details, and add more as required > Click “All Done”.
7. Enter the Serial Number of the ASA and tick “I Agree..” > Enter/Check your details > Enter the Licensee details (If Different) > Continue.
8. Read the Summary > Submit > Wait for it to stop saying “Processing” > When complete it should “Go Green” and say Registration Complete.
9. If can take a little while for the licence to be emailed to you and USUALLY goes straight to Junk Mail (Thanks Microsoft, that’s not funny!)
10. When the Licence comes in, the detail that you need is the activation key, it will look like….
dd12eb50 9e16d5bb 45b2a92c 78901838 44999999
11. You add this licence to the ASA with an “activation-key” command:
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PetesASA> enable
Password: ***********
PetesASA# configure terminal
PetesASA(config)# activation-key dd12eb50 9e16d5bb 45b2a92c 78901838 44999999
Licensed features for this platform:
Maximum Physical Interfaces : Unlimited
Maximum VLANs : 100
Inside Hosts : Unlimited
Failover : Active/Active
VPN-DES : Enabled
VPN-3DES-AES : Enabled
Security Contexts : 2
GTP/GPRS : Disabled
VPN Peers : 250
WebVPN Peers : 50
AnyConnect for Mobile : Disabled
AnyConnect for Linksys phone : Disabled
Advanced Endpoint Assessment : Disabled
This platform has an ASA 5510 Security Plus license.
Both running and flash activation keys were updated with the requested key.
PetesASA(config)#
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12. That’s the licence added.
Note: In the example above I added a licence to increase the web VPN peers from 25 to 50 (Which you can see if you compare the two pieces of code).
If you are having problems with internal clients NOT getting through the firewall, the license on your ASA 5505 may be ‘to small’.
ASA 5505 License Differences
Essentially the licenses come in 10 user, 50 user, and unlimited*. You can also have a Security Plus License, this increases IPSEC VPN’s from 10 to 25, and adds Active/Standby failover, Dual ISP Support, and DMZ Support.
*Note: These figures are the concurrent total users, for internal clients making connections through the firewall, from the internal VLAN to the external VLAN (not between internal VLANS). If you have no default route defined then the limit is placed in ALL hosts on ALL VLANS.
From Cisco
In routed mode, hosts on the inside (Business and Home VLANs) count towards the limit when they communicate with the outside (Internet VLAN), including when the inside initiates a connection to the outside as well as when the outside initiates a connection to the inside. Note that even when the outside initiates a connection to the inside, outside hosts are not counted towards the limit; only the inside hosts count. Hosts that initiate traffic between Business and Home are also not counted towards the limit. The interface associated with the default route is considered to be the outside Internet interface. If there is no default route, hosts on all interfaces are counted toward the limit. In transparent mode, the interface with the lowest number of hosts is counted towards the host limit. See the show local-host command to view host limits.
Solution
To locate your license version issue the following command whilst in enable mode. ‘sho ver or show version’.
code?
ASA 5505 10 User License
ASA5505 50 User License
ASA 5505 Unlimited License
ASA 5505 Security Plus License
Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links
I had to set this up for a client this week, I’ve setup a DMZ on a 5505 before and I’ve setup other VLANs to do other jobs, e.g. visitor Internet access. But this client needed a secondary VLAN setting up for IP Phones. In addition I needed to route traffic between both the internal VLANs.
I did an internet search and tried to find some configs I could reverse engineer, the few I found were old (Pre version 8.3) ones and the little info I got were more people in forums asking why theirs did not work. So I built a firewall with 8.2 code, then worked out how to do it, then upgraded the firewall to version 9.1. Finally I picked out the relevant parts of the upgraded config.
Here’s the scenario I’m going to use for this example.
Solution
Before we start, yes I know the ASA is a firewall not a router! A better solution would be to have either a router behind the firewall or, (as is more common) a switch that is layer 3 capable, i.e it can route.
The commands you use will be different if your firewall is running an operating system earlier than 8.3, check your ASA version and proceed to the correct set of commands.
For Firewalls running an Operating System OLDER than 8.3 go here
How to Setup VLAN Routing on an ASA 5505 (Version 8.3 and Newer)
User Access Verification
Password:
Type help or '?' for a list of available commands.
Petes-ASA> enable
Password: ********
Petes-ASA# configure terminal
Petes-ASA(config)#
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2. As in the diagram (above) I have three VLANs, VLAN 0 is outside and will be connected to Ethernet 0/0. VLAN 1 is inside and will be connected to Ethernet 0/1. VLAN 112 is for my phones and will be connected to Ethernet 0/2. Here I setup the IP addresses, and add the VLANs to the physical interfaces.
Note: I don’t need to Add VLAN 1 to Ethernet 0/1, because all ports are in VLAN 1 by default.
4. Turn on ‘Hair Pinning’ (the ability to route traffic back out of the same interface it came in through) and allow traffic to pass between interfaces.
5. Out of the box, if you have not configured any access-lists then you can skip this step, as traffic will flow from a more secure interface (the inside and the phone one) to a less secure interface (the outside one). Here I’m going to use an ACL and allow all traffic anyway.
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Petes-ASA(config)# access-list VLAN112_outbound extended permit ip 192.168.112.0 255.255.255.0 any
Petes-ASA(config)# access-list outbound extended permit ip 192.168.12.0 255.255.255.0 any
Petes-ASA(config)# access-group outbound in interface inside
Petes-ASA(config)# access-group VLAN112_outbound in interface PHONE_VLAN_112
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6. Now setup ‘dynamic’ NAT so that all traffic leaving both the inside VLAN and the Phone VLAN network get NATTED to the public IP address.
User Access Verification
Password:
Type help or '?' for a list of available commands.
Petes-ASA> enable
Password: ********
Petes-ASA# configure terminal
Petes-ASA(config)#
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2. 2. As in the diagram (above) I have three VLANs, VLAN 0 is outside and will be connected to Ethernet 0/0. VLAN 1 is inside and will be connected to Ethernet 0/1. VLAN 112 is for my phones and will be connected to Ethernet 0/2. Here I setup the IP addresses, and add the VLANs to the physical interfaces.
Note: I don’t need to Add VLAN 1 to Ethernet 0/1 because all ports are in VLAN 1 by default.
4. Turn on ‘Hair Pinning’ (the ability to route traffic back out of the same interface it came in through). and allow traffic to pass between interfaces.
5. Out of the box, if you have not configured any access-lists then you can skip this step, as traffic will flow from a more secure interface (the inside and the phone one) to a less secure interface (the outside one). Here I’m going to use an ACL and allow all traffic anyway.
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Petes-ASA(config)# access-list VLAN112_outbound extended permit ip 192.168.112.0 255.255.255.0 any
Petes-ASA(config)# access-list outbound extended permit ip 192.168.12.0 255.255.255.0 any
Petes-ASA(config)# access-group outbound in interface inside
Petes-ASA(config)# access-group VLAN112_outbound in interface PHONE_VLAN_112
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6. Enable NAT so that all traffic leaving both the inside VLAN and the Phone VLAN network get NATTED to the public IP address.
