FWD Sub-Processes Not Starting After System Restart

Product: IPSec VPN, Identity Awareness, Security Gateways
Version: R81.10 (EOS), R81.20, R82
Last Modified: 2025-12-21

Symptoms

• After a system restarts (for example, reboot or cprestart), the following issues may be observed:
  • FWD-related sub-processes such as vpnd and pdpd are not running.
  • Services dependent on these sub-processes such as Identity Awareness and VPN are not working.

Cause

The issue occurs when the tp_conf_service process is terminated or not running. You can verify its status using the following command:

• cpwd_admin list | grep -E "APP|TP_CONF_SERVICE"

If tp_conf_service is inactive, the FWD refresh handler fails, which prevents the initialization of its sub-processes.

Note: The root cause of tp_conf_service being down should be investigated, as it may point to a deeper configuration or stability issue.

Solution

This problem was fixed. The fix is included in:

• Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator for R82 starting from Take 41
• Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator for R81.10 starting from Take 183

If you choose not to upgrade, Check Point can supply a Hotfix. Contact Check Point Support to get a Hotfix for this issue.

A Support Engineer will make sure the Hotfix is compatible with your environment before providing the Hotfix.

For faster resolution and verification, please collect CPinfo files from the Security Management Server and Security Gateways involved in the case.

Hotfix installation instructions:

Refer to sk168597 - How to install a Hotfix.

Also, this workaround is available: manually restart the FWD process using the following commands:

1. cpwd_admin stop -name FWD -path "$FWDIR/bin/fw" -command "fw kill fwd"
2. cpwd_admin start -name FWD -path "$FWDIR/bin/fw" -command "fwd"

This will reinitialize the FWD process and its associated sub-processes.

NOTE

This solution has been verified for the specific scenario, described by the combination of Product, Version, and Symptoms. It may not work in other scenarios.