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Amit_Kumar9602's avatar
Amit_Kumar9602
Icon for Altocumulus rankAltocumulus
Jan 08, 2025

Do Active and Standby L4 Devices Both Send RST on TCP Health Check Failure?

 

Hello. 

I have a question regarding the operation of F5 devices, and I would like to ask for your guidance.

 

1. If a TCP health check fails, do both the Active and Standby L4 devices each send a Reset (RST) packet?


2. Is it the normal behavior for both Active and Standby L4 devices to send Reset packets individually?

 

I would appreciate it if you could provide any relevant technical documentation for reference.

  • Sebastiansierra's avatar
    Sebastiansierra
    Jan 08, 2025

    Hi Amit_Kumar9602,

    for your new questions:

    1. https://techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/ltm-monitors-reference-12-0-0/2.html
    2. https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K49435003
    3. The active device is the only one that processes the traffic for your applications if the service is down and the monitor marks the service down, the status of the VS will become offline and it restarts all connections to avoid send users to unresponsive servers.
  • Hi Amit_Kumar9602,

    About your questions

    1. Both devices in the HA group have individual monitoring using the non-floating IP, so yes, it is normal for each device to send the reset after the monitoring fails.
    2. It is normal behavior, both devices are monitoring the servers with their non-floating IP, take in mind that if a SW fails, the other device could take the active status to continue with the service.

    https://clouddocs.f5.com/cli/tmsh-reference/v16/modules/ltm/ltm_monitor_tcp.html

     

    I hope this clarifies your questions.

     

    • Amit_Kumar9602's avatar
      Amit_Kumar9602
      Icon for Altocumulus rankAltocumulus

      Hello 

      Thank you very much for the quick response. I have additional questions:

      1. Is there a technical document explaining the rationale behind the answer?
      2. Which part of the reference document I provided should I check to find the answer related to non-floating IP?
      3. In an Active-Standby setup, does sending an RST (Reset) impact the service session? I would like to know if it only resets the health check session or if there are other effects.

       

      • Sebastiansierra's avatar
        Sebastiansierra
        Icon for MVP rankMVP

        Hi Amit_Kumar9602,

        for your new questions:

        1. https://techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/ltm-monitors-reference-12-0-0/2.html
        2. https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K49435003
        3. The active device is the only one that processes the traffic for your applications if the service is down and the monitor marks the service down, the status of the VS will become offline and it restarts all connections to avoid send users to unresponsive servers.
  • Whether both active and standby Layer 4 (L4) devices send TCP RST packets in response to a health check failure depends on the configuration of the devices and the failover or load-balancing mechanism they use.

    • Amit_Kumar9602's avatar
      Amit_Kumar9602
      Icon for Altocumulus rankAltocumulus

      Could you explain in more detail? Or is there any reference document I can check? Is it possible that no RST packet is sent even if non-floating IP is used?