156-315.81.20 ClusterXL and VRRP High Availability Practice Question
A security administrator needs to ensure that the primary firewall node always regains the master role after a failover once it recovers. Which setting must be enabled?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse 'Failover' with 'Preemption'. They assume the cluster naturally returns to the primary node, forgetting that this behavior must be explicitly configured.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable the Preemption feature.
Preemption allows the higher-priority node to reclaim the master role automatically once it returns to a healthy state after a failure. Without preemption enabled, a cluster will remain on the secondary node even if the primary node has recovered, which might not align with corporate uptime or performance policies. Mastering this setting is vital for maintaining predictable cluster behavior in production.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable VRRP Master-Only mode.
Why it's wrong here
Master-Only mode is not a standard configuration setting in Check Point VRRP. The election process relies on priority values and preemption settings. Simply designating a node as 'Master-Only' is not a supported mechanism to force the desired failback behavior during node recovery after an incident.
- ✗
Set the preempt-delay to zero.
Why it's wrong here
A preempt-delay of zero would cause the member to immediately preempt upon recovery, which could cause instability if the member's services are not fully initialized. While it enables preemption, it is rarely the best practice for production environments, as a small delay is usually necessary for stability.
- ✓
Enable the Preemption feature.
Why this is correct
Preemption is the standard mechanism that allows a higher-priority member to take over the master role as soon as it is detected as healthy. This ensures that the primary gateway, which often has better resources or specific configuration, returns to active duty after recovery from a failure.
- ✗
Set the cluster-mode to High Availability.
Why it's wrong here
High Availability mode determines how members share traffic but does not control the preemption logic. Preemption is a specific functional setting within the VRRP or cluster configuration that dictates if and when a recovered node should resume its role as the active master node after a failure.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Check Point exam blueprint
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