Installation and troubleshooting of Cisco PIX ASDM

To simplify the PIX firewall configuration, Cisco provides the adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM). The adaptive Security Device Manager provides a powerful, easy-to-use interface for configuring the selected PIX firewall. (see Cisco's file or the PIX model that supports Adaptive Security Device Manager on the Web site).

Installing ASDM is an easy process. However, many of us buy equipment or buy refurbished equipment from bankrupt ISPs and host providers. This kind of equipment is very cheap, but the lack of instructions and technical support is a very painful thing. Having said these words, this article will introduce some of the issues and workarounds for ASDM and the actual installation of ASDM.

My article is based on the PIX Software 7.0 (2) and ASDM 5.0. Before installing ASDM, you may need to upgrade your PIX software to version 7.0. Previous versions of the PIX software were used in conjunction with Cisco's PDM (PIX Device Manager) software, such as PIX 6.2 and 6.3 (4). Please note that if you are currently using PIX 515 or 515e devices, you will need to upgrade your memory to install PIX 7.0. You can send a display version command from the CLI to view the version of the software and the model of your pix.

The total memory capacity required for the PIX 515/515E series is 32MB. PIX 7.0 and ASDM require 64MB of RAM. For reference, in writing this article, Cisco provided the part number for this upgrade is pix-515-mem-32=.

Please refer to Cisco's description file for upgrade pix. Reducing the PIX version after installing version 7.0 of the software is supported. You can reduce the version to 6.x. However, if this happens, you need to remove the ASDM. Cisco PIX 6.x version of the software does not support ASDM.

You also need to note that the failover settings to upgrade a PIX device from the 6.x version to the 7.x version is a major upgrade, not shutdown is not possible to complete the upgrade. Upgrading to the 7.x version with failover settings has been provided by Cisco with documentation that can be found on Cisco's website.

After upgrading to 7.x, we can begin to install the ASDM process. Make sure you are getting a ASDM image from the Cisco website. You can download this image from the same Web page where you normally get Cisco PIX software.

Install ASDM

Let's get started. Here are the instructions we need to post and the steps to get ASDM to run:

1. Log in to PIX and enter enabled mode: "Pix> enable"

2. After entering the enabled mode, enter the command "copy TFTP flash", you can now see the following pop-up message:

3. "Address or name of remote host [x.x.x.x]?" ”。 You need to enter the IP address of the TFTP server hosting the ASDM image here. Press ENTER to continue.

4. "Source file name [Cdisk]?" ”。 Enter the filename of the ASDM image, for example: Asdm502.bin for ASDM version 5.0 (2). Press ENTER to continue.

5. "Destination file name [Asdm502.bin]?". There's really nothing to do here, unless you want to rename the image you're transmitting. So, press ENTER here.