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Forum Discussion

mukul's avatar
mukul
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Sep 19, 2017

Management IP Requirement?

what are the limitations,or cons or disadvantages of using self ip to access GUI and perform all my other actions on f5 recommend to use a mgmt ip? For what specific reason there is a need for mgmt ...
application delivery
LTM
Leonardo_Souza's avatar
Leonardo_Souza
Icon for Cirrocumulus rankCirrocumulus
Sep 19, 2017

The F5 unit has multiple systems. For example, there is a small Linux system called AOM (SCCP in the old times), that you may want to read about.

 

The main system is layered with multiple systems. The first layer you have the Linux system (CentOS), then you have F5 TMOS (with TMM as the Kernel).

 

When you use the management IP, CentOS system using the Linux Kernel is handling your access. When you manage via Self IP, TMOS using TMM is handling your access.

 

If the system has a bug that restarts TMM, or you do some configuration that requires TMM to restart, you will lose the access if you are connected via Self IP. However, if you are connected via management that access will continue to work.

 

If you restart the unit both management and Self IP will not work during the restart. In that case, you need console access.

 

There are multiple ways to manage the F5 devices, however, they are not the same.