Forum Discussion

traphix's avatar
traphix
Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
Jun 30, 2025

How to rename objects such as virtual servers

Hi,
 
We are evaluating the use of the 'mv' command in TMOS to rename objects such as virtual servers. We find the following in the documentation:
 
"WARNING Currently MV is an experimental feature. By using this feature,       
you may be subject to loss of statistics and disruption in GTM service.       
If you plan to move or rename a Virtual Server, please contact your GTM       
administrator before doing so. You may enable this feature by setting
the appropriate db variable. This can be done by issuing the command:
 
modify /sys db mcpd.mvenabled value true
 
This will turn on the feature and allow moving and rename of select
objects through TMSH only. Once you have finished using the feature, we       
recommend disabling it once again. You may do this by issuing the
following command:
 
modify /sys db mcpd.mvenabled value false
 
Please use responsibly."

We are talking about productive systems, so to risk doing that is not an option. Also pointed out here: https://community.f5.com/discussions/technicalforum/how-do-i-to-rename-a-virtual-serverpool-name-on-a-f5-ltm-/177240
 
We do not use the GTM service. However, has anyone answers to this: 
 
We are operating BigIPs running versions 16.x and 17.x. What is the official best practices for using the mv command in production environments?
 
What is the F5-recommended alternative for renaming objects — particularly virtual servers — in a way that minimizes risk and avoids manual configuration rebuilds?

 

Sincerely,
Raphael

2 Replies

  • Hi,

     

    You can rename Virtual server/pool name with use of mv command. Its not an issue. This commands works well in F5 LTM also. You will loss the statistics because object name is getting changed. 

     

    Other option is modify bigip.conf file and reload it. Somtimes it creats issue.

     

  • you could leverage journeys tool and run through a manual migration but not actually complete it.  During the process there is an opportunity to edit configuration objects names etc. and if you opt for an offline migration, it will create the new config file with the adjusted names etc..  This is not the main use case for using Journeys, but the tool does allow for object renaming when preparing for config moves / TMOS upgrades.  Journeys