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ralle_78154's avatar
ralle_78154
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Jul 07, 2009

lasthop alternative for 9.3.x

Hello folks,

 

 

we need to pimp the lasthop of our incoming connections by replacing the physical mac with the hsrp mac to provide for a smooth failover in case of failure of one of the hsrp nodes.

 

 

9.4 has the fasthop statement for that. Is there any 9.3.x alternative for that, since the command doesn't seem to be available there.

 

 

Thanks for any input!

 

 

Cheers, Ralph
application delivery
dev
devops
iRules
  • hoolio's avatar
    hoolio
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Jul 07, 2009
    Are you trying to change the MAC address that LTM sends traffic from or to? For the source, you can use MAC masquerading. For the destination on responses you can use auto lasthop to ensure LTM responds out the same interface to the original MAC address it received the packet from.

     

     

    Aaron
  • hoolio's avatar
    hoolio
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Jul 08, 2009
    That makes sense. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to configure this on LTM without the lasthop iRule function added in 9.4.0. I assume you cannot configure the upstream router to use the HSRP MAC address for sourcing the traffic?

     

     

    It would be good to upgrade to 9.4.7 sometime soon (or maybe 10 at some point) regardless, as 9.3.x will be out of support in less than a year (12 Mar 2010 per SOL5903).

     

     

    Aaron
  • ralle_78154's avatar
    ralle_78154
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jul 08, 2009
    no, as far as I found out yet, it's not possible to have the Cisco send the packets with the HSRP mac as source mac. So, the only solution seems to be upgrading to 9.4.7.

     

     

    Which leads to the next question: Is 9.4.7 production stable? Are people actually using it on their production systems? We were told by F5 training staff that 9.3.x are production images while 9.4.x are feature images that might not be as stable as one might wish them to be for production use.

     

     

    Cheers, Ralph
  • hoolio's avatar
    hoolio
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Jul 08, 2009
    With the new versioning schema, 9.4.7 is a general sustaining branch. I work with many customers who have it in production environments now. I've suggested they hold off on upgrading to 10.x until 10.0.2 or later to let it bake in.

     

     

    You can check SOL8986 (Click here) for details on the software versioning.

     

     

     

     

    * General Availability (GA)

     

     

    When a branch has the potential for additional minor releases, the branch is in the General Availability phase.

     

    * General Sustaining (GS)

     

     

    After a new major release is available, the existing branch enters the General Sustaining (GS) phase. F5 Networks does not add features or introduce changes in behavior in the GS phase. The only product changes will be for maintenance and sustaining purposes.

     

     

     

     

    Aaron