Mar 27, 2026 - For details about updated CVE-2025-53521 (BIG-IP APM vulnerability), refer to K000156741.

Forum Discussion

VR12's avatar
VR12
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Nov 02, 2022

F5 - nPath configuration - display maintenance page

HI  our application vendor recommend we implement nPath  (direct server return)   -   which we did with the help of F5 support  ... it took several engineers but we were able to implement nPath  and ...
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Paulius's avatar
Paulius
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Nov 02, 2022

VR12from my understanding nPath should only mess with return traffic when the server receives the request. If you are attempting to implement a maintenance page that should be logic that is used prior to sending the traffic from the BIG-IP to the server. You should be able to use an iRule with a maintenance page to perform this.

https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K14702105

VR12's avatar
VR12
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Dec 07, 2022

Thanks Paulius -  we just  want to display a  under  maintenance page   - at this time we do not care about having it automatically displayed when the  POOL is down  .....  we will enable it manually. 

So  to explain we have iRule set for nPath  to work ....  as per the articles  they mention a  standard setup   to auto display maint page when  pool is down ...... and following the article it can not be configured because rule is configured different for nPath. 

Servers will be down for maint  so POOL  will be down ... so  we are looking for a way to have the maint page enabled at that time. 

Would it be possible to have 2 profiles for the same VIP   ---  and enable  as needed  .. prod or maint. 

Sorry  our F5  is managed by a different group.. and looking for suggestions so we can ask them try  ..as we have been  been told its not possible in nPAth config  ... BUT again  if pool is down  we are not using nPath. 

Many  Thanks for any suggestions.... 

 

  • buulam's avatar
    buulam
    Icon for Admin rankAdmin
    Dec 16, 2022

    You won't be able to have 2 VIPs with the exact same IP/port combo but since you're doing this manually, you could always have a bogus port specified for the maintenance page VIP and your manual process is simply adjusting the port.

    • VR12's avatar
      VR12
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      Dec 19, 2022

      Thank you Buulam    -  there is a part I don't understand -    So 

      We have  DNS entry  to sample.com  vip  (config uses nPath) set   to , lets say just to discuss, to  10.0.0.15  with pool of 2 servers that will be down for maintenance.  

      So we would create a  New VIP   with  10.0.0.20   and  ???  

      how would  we point sample.com  to  new VIP or maint page from new VIP  to respond  to requests to 10.0.0.15  sample.com   ( don't care to much for doing DNS changes since have to deal with  caching - tried that already.) 

       

      Many Thanks ... 

       

      VR12  

       

      • buulam's avatar
        buulam
        Icon for Admin rankAdmin
        Dec 19, 2022

        During the time when the pools are down, you'd change the 10.0.0.15 to something else and then change 10.0.0.20 in its place

        The new VIP does not need to have a pool attached if you are using a maintenance iRule. It will not show Green "Up" status but it will work.