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Jonathan_Scholi
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Jan 27, 2012

iControl Proxy

According to the email promoting Enterprise Manager 2.3, this new version of Enterprise Manager has iControl Proxy functionality. I contacted support for more information and they referred me to the forums. Are the iControl Proxy methods going to be added to the iControl Assembly packages?

 

  • The iControl proxy feature in EM allows you to make iControl calls via EM to other LTMs that EM is managing. iControl already supports connecting to an LTM via a web proxy. The iRule Editor implements this. Or am I missing your question?

     

     

    Also, Support should be able to provide detail on existing features. I'm surprised they would have referred you to Devcentral for this. I tried searching for your case to see the details but couldn't find it.

     

     

    Aaron
  • Historically support sends anyone that mentions iControl to the forum... they are allergic to it. ;)
  • Hi Aaron,

     

     

    Currently, I have a Java program which uses the iControl Library for Java. I can run this program on my desktop to create new virtual servers on a target Big-IP. A couple Big-IPs are behind a firewall where I can't reach them from my desktop, but I can reach them from EM. So, I though it would be possible to recode the program to run from my desktop, point at EM, and then EM would make the change on the remote device. That's how I was interpreting the new iControl Proxy functionality (is that right?). In any case, when I try to use code sample such as these (http://devcentral.f5.com/wiki/iControl.Java_DCO_EM_proxy.ashx), they don't work because the Java methods used in the sample don't exist in the current Java iControl Assembly (11.1). Is there an iControl Proxy API I can download that contains the necessary updates to the iControl.ManagementEM class?

     

     

    Thanks,

     

    Jonathan
  • I think that's one of the primary use cases for the EM iControl proxy feature.

     

     

    I am not sure about the Java iControl assembly. Joe, are you watching this thread? If so, can you respond?

     

     

    Thanks, Aaron
  • The iControl proxy for EM will be a true proxy to the LTMs. You will configure your iControl client to point to the EM device and by using the methods in the iControl.Management.EM interface, you can tell EM which device you would like to be connected to. Then all further iControl calls you make to the EM will be sent on to the selected LTM device. I believe I updated all the assemblies with these new methods in the latest iControl 11.1 assemblies. So, when you have a EM setup with the proxy, you should be able to use the latest libraries to make use of the proxy.

     

     

    -Joe
  • Here's all that's in the 11.1 iControl.Management.EM interface:

    package iControl;
    
    public interface ManagementEM extends javax.xml.rpc.Service {
    
    /**
     * The EM interface enables the user to perform enterprise management
     * daemon requests.
     */
        public java.lang.String getManagementEMPortAddress();
    
        public iControl.ManagementEMPortType getManagementEMPort() throws javax.xml.rpc.ServiceException;
    
        public iControl.ManagementEMPortType getManagementEMPort(java.net.URL portAddress) throws javax.xml.rpc.ServiceException;
    } 
  • You are looking in the ManagementEM.java class. That is just the interface wrapper container. You'll want to look in the ManagementEMBindingStub.class file for all of the method bindings. I just verified that the v11.1 java libs on DC have the 4 Management.EM methods.

     

     

    -Joe