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tom-servo
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Jan 03, 2024
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Enabling Package Management in v12 Removed iApps AWS Item

So I'm working in an old lab environment (v12) that isn't currently being used, and under the iApps menu, there was an AWS option listed but Package Management was missing. From the AS3 documentation, I ran the following command to enable Package Management from the CLI - touch /var/config/rest/iapps/enable - and rebooted the BIG-IP. The Package Management option now shows up but the AWS option is gone. 

Any idea why? The lab environment was set up years ago, so no one knows what the AWS option was used for or who added/enabled it, so it's not really a loss that it's now gone. However, that it's missing after enabling Package Management is weird. 

Any thoughts on what happened would be great to hear. 

Thanks!

  • That does seem strange! I checked older versions and indeed there is some special logic in the GUI to turn on this AWS menu option only if: a) the ILX subsystem is hidden (with that touch command you mentioned) AND the platform type is "Z100" (virtual) AND the current user is full admin. I'm assuming it was written this way so people wouldn't have to use that "touch" command to see AWS in the GUI and that if they did, they could replace the built-in AWS ILX package with a new version if needed because it was early-access/beta back then. The AWS support has been updated several times as there have been updates to various APIs and security issues.

    A warning about those old versions: There are a lot of GUI/API vulnerabilities in BIG-IP versions that even a naive internal attacker could exploit as a jump-off point for further attacks.

2 Replies

  • That does seem strange! I checked older versions and indeed there is some special logic in the GUI to turn on this AWS menu option only if: a) the ILX subsystem is hidden (with that touch command you mentioned) AND the platform type is "Z100" (virtual) AND the current user is full admin. I'm assuming it was written this way so people wouldn't have to use that "touch" command to see AWS in the GUI and that if they did, they could replace the built-in AWS ILX package with a new version if needed because it was early-access/beta back then. The AWS support has been updated several times as there have been updates to various APIs and security issues.

    A warning about those old versions: There are a lot of GUI/API vulnerabilities in BIG-IP versions that even a naive internal attacker could exploit as a jump-off point for further attacks.

    • tom-servo's avatar
      tom-servo
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      Thanks for the explanation. I was really confused about the whole thing, but like you said, it's an old version so I'm sure there are a few oddities that can be encountered. LOL

      Thanks again!