Forum Discussion
Forrest_Field
Nimbostratus
NimbostratusNot able to access BIG IP using external Self IP Address
Hello Everyone, I am new to F5 world and am in the process of setting up my F5 lab. I have been able to set it up but couldn't access it using the external Self IP Address. I can however ping t...
Kevin_Davies
MVP
MVPFirst up, download the latest OVA version of BIG-IP. I've found the VE version of v14 to be buggy as hell.
Secondly do you have dual LAN connections on your machine? I notice dual Local Area Connections. If so then VMNet2 is the same as the address space on Local Area Connection so it will never route correctly. If you want to use the same network intenal as external to the machine you have to change the VMNet2 interface type to bridged.
If you want it to stay as NAT then change VMNet2 to 10.1.30.0/24 and the SelfIP address something in that network. You should then be able to access the F5 on its external Self-IP address from the local machine. When you are coming from outside the machine, eg somewhere on the network then it will be Local Area Connection address on whatever port you forward to the F5's Self IP address. (you dont have any port forwards setup at the moment on that NAT interface)
Lastly, some VE's have a really nasty habit of swapping interface order. So interface 1.1 on the BIGIP is not the second interface in VMware as it should be. Once you have the BIG-IP running, check the MAC address under interfaces is the same MAC address under the second assigned Vmware interface. Check all the data interfaces MAC's match the interfaces in Vmware in the same order. (https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K12149)
Forrest_FieldNimbostratus
NimbostratusThanks for your reply Kevin. Sorry for being noob here but I didn't understand below paragraph:
"I notice dual Local Area Connections. If so then VMNet2 is the same as the address space on Local Area Connection so it will never route correctly. If you want to use the same network intenal as external to the machine you have to change the VMNet2 interface type to bridged
If you want it to stay as NAT then change VMNet2 to 10.1.30.0/24 and the SelfIP address something in that network. You should then be able to access the F5 on its external Self-IP address from the local machine. When you are coming from outside the machine, eg somewhere on the network then it will be Local Area Connection address on whatever port you forward to the F5's Self IP address. (you dont have any port forwards setup at the moment on that NAT interface)."
Below is how I have setup my lab environment:
I have installed VMware workstation on my laptop. Inside that VMware workstation, I have installed my BIGIP VM and my Windows 7 VM. On my VMware workstation, I have defined below three networks:
10.1.1.0/24 - Management network
10.1.10.0/24 - External Network, type set to NAT with Default Gateway of 10.1.10.2
10.1.2.0/24 - Internal Network
Now since 10.1.1.0/24 and 10.1.10.0/24 networks are being checked for the option "Connect a host virtual Adpater to this network" hence that had also created two networks VMnet 1 and VMnet 2 on my physical laptop with IP address of 10.1.1.150 and 10.1.10.150 respectively.
On my virtual Windows 7 installed on VMware workstation, I also have two networks Local Area Connection and Local Area Connection 2 with IP address of 10.1.10.199 and 10.1.1.199 respectively.
Now with above setup and configuration, what exactly you want me to do that should resolve this connectivity problem.
Your help is much appreciated.