Force reload of external datagroup files?

Here are the steps for future reference:

Create a new external data group from the CLI non-interactively

1. Create or copy over to LTM a temporary file containing the external data group contents. If copying, make sure the line terminators are \n only not \r\n.

You can use od to view the unprintable characters in a file:

od -c /var/tmp/dos.file
    0000000   "   n   a   m   e   1   "       :   =       "   v   a   l   u
    0000020   e   1   "   ,  \r  \n   "   n   a   m   e   2   "       :   =
    0000040       "   v   a   l   u   e   2   "   ,  \r  \n   "   n   a   m
    0000060   e   3   "       :   =       "   v   a   l   u   e   3   "   ,

If the source file was created on Windows, it most likely has \r\n line terminators, so use tr to remove the \r's:

tr -d '\r' < /var/tmp/dos.file > /var/tmp/string_name_value_external_dg.txt

od -c /var/tmp/string_name_value_external_dg.txt
    0000000   "   n   a   m   e   1   "       :   =       "   v   a   l   u
    0000020   e   1   "   ,  \n   "   n   a   m   e   2   "       :   =
    0000040   "   v   a   l   u   e   2   "   ,  \n   "   n   a   m   e   3
    0000060   "       :   =       "   v   a   l   u   e   3   "   ,

 cat /var/tmp/string_name_value_external_dg.txt
    "name1" := "value1",
    "name2" := "value2",
    "name3" := "value3",

2. Create the new external data group file

    tmsh create /sys file data-group string_name_value_external_dg_file separator ":=" source-path file:/var/tmp/string_name_value_external_dg.txt type string

3. Create the external data group referencing the file

    tmsh create /ltm data-group external string_name_value_external_dg external-file-name string_name_value_external_dg_file

4. Save the config from memory to file

    tmsh save /sys config

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Modify the external data group file

1. Create a new temporary file containing the updated external data group contents

 cat /var/tmp/string_name_value_external_v2_dg.txt
    "name1" := "valueA",
    "name2" := "valueB",
    "name3" := "valueC",

2. Modify the system file to reference the new content. Note that the new existing system file content is overwritten with the new file content. A new system file is not created.

    tmsh modify /sys file data-group string_name_value_external_dg_file source-path file:/var/tmp/string_name_value_external_v2_dg.txt

3. Save the config from memory to file

    tmsh save /sys config