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cammy_178041's avatar
cammy_178041
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Apr 30, 2015

Failover cable on F5 4000 pair

We have a new pair of F5 4000s in our data center and I am attempting to configure them as an HA pair. I have looked through the documentation but am unable to find how/where to configure this cable as the HA failover. Do I just create a dummy VLAN and if so which interface would it need to be assigned to?

 

TMSH currently shows this. I know 1.2 is my external VLAN, 1.1 internal and 1.3 another internal VLAN.

Net::Interface Name Status Bits Bits Pkts Pkts Drops Errs Media

 

In Out In Out

1.1 up 10.8G 2.5M 6.9M 3.9K 0 0 1000T-FD 1.2 up 6.9G 28.6M 7.8M 54.8K 0 0 1000T-FD 1.3 up 109.0M 12.3K 50.5K 20 0 0 1000T-FD 1.4 down 0 0 0 0 0 0 none 1.5 down 0 0 0 0 0 0 none 1.6 down 0 0 0 0 0 0 none 1.7 down 0 0 0 0 0 0 none 1.8 down 0 0 0 0 0 0 none 2.1 miss 0 0 0 0 0 0 none 2.2 miss 0 0 0 0 0 0 none mgmt up 49.2G 1.6G 44.7M 688.7K 0 0 1000T-FD

 

application delivery
deployment
LTM
TMSH

3 Replies

  • Salim_83682's avatar
    Salim_83682
    Historic F5 Account
    Apr 30, 2015
    The failover cable goes into the failover port. It's a dedicated port to interconnect two BIG-IP. Failover cable is not mandatory to setup HA, but can trigger faster failover. So it can be used with a Network Failover configuration. My recommendation is to create a LACP trunk of 2 interfaces on each of your BIG-IPs. Create a HA VLAN untagged to this trunk on both devices Create a Self IP with Port Lockdown Allow Default on the HA VLAN on both devices (in same /30 network or bigger). Use these IP to configure ConfigSync, Network Failover and Network Mirroring if you need mirror SNAT, VS connections and/or persistence records. Salim
  • cammy_178041's avatar
    cammy_178041
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Apr 30, 2015

    Thanks, I understand how I can create the HA VLAN, but still unclear about the failover cable. Just to be clear, it does not have an actual interface assignment on the F5, right?

     

    • Salim_83682's avatar
      Salim_83682
      Historic F5 Account
      Apr 30, 2015
      Correct. It used to be a DB9 port but it's RJ45 now on new models, but it doesn't appear as a data interface. You can do everything without failover cable as long as network failover is properly configured. Adding failover cable in conjuction to network failover will give you faster failover detections on your Standby unit so it can go Active quicker. Of course it is limited to 2 devices and they need to be close to each other due to cable length limitations. Salim