a firewall cluster comprises three or more firewall processing nodes , which report primary node status based on the reporting node &# 39 ; s membership in a preexisting cluster . a controller uses the reported status to assign a primary node in the distributed firewall cluster . reported primary node status includes reported primary node eligibility if the node is a member of a preexisting cluster , reported primary node status comprising reporting primary node ineligibility if the node is not a member of a preexisting cluster , reported primary node status if the node is a primary node in a preexisting cluster , and reported primary node eligibility in a node that has timed out