iRules Change Management

I personally do not think this has to be handled on the F5 itself. If you consider each iRule as a configuration file, you can manage each one like you would manage a system configuration file. We started using Git to manage our iRules, right now it's a manual process, but the F5 has APIs which will be used to implement automated processes. We started by adding headers to each file, so that people know not to modify the iRules directly on the box. Here's what we put at the beginning of each iRule:

 Managed by Git (git@your.git.machine/gitpath/conf.git)
 Version: $Id$
 $Format:Git ID: (%h) %ci/%cn$

And then you can add this to your .attributes file:

 Manage the Identity substitution
*.txt    ident
*_stash  ident

 Substitute information on export
*.txt    export-subst
*_stash  export-subst

We then use git archive to export the files, which will replace the variables with some information. I realize this solution is not perfect, we are in the early rounds.

The biggest challenge becomes the human factor, no iRules should be modified directly on the F5. BTW, the $Id$ variable can be used to verify that nobody touched the file.

Regards, Didier