Each appliance can optionally enable external SSH access to the SSH port of the appliance IP address, which takes the user to the service feature on the primary node of an appliance. The appliance IP address floats between the two nodes of the appliance as the primary designation changes. If external SSH is disabled, SSH access is disallowed. When an appliance first comes up and is not configured, SSH is enabled by default so that the appliance can be serviced if issues are encountered before it is added to a cluster. When a new cluster is created or for a join cluster operation, all appliances have SSH initially set to a disabled status.