Forum Discussion

wellington_1134's avatar
wellington_1134
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Nov 08, 2010

Remedy AR and F5

Hi, I'm having problems running Remedy through F5 version LTM 10.2.0. I have a Remedy Virtual server listening on port 2025 (Remedyar) a server pool with 1 Remedy AR server as active the other server in Standby mode listening also on port 2025, simple setup. I also have a Cisco CSM load balancer on the same switch as the F5, I'm migrating services off the CSM to the F5. Anyway Remedy was working with the Cisco CSM but not with F5!

 

 

I've noticed the backend connections to the database server (DB sitting on another switch/vlan) are stopping due to sql time outs, though I can't spot any timeouts in my tcpdumps either on the F5 Virtual Server interface or F5 server vlan interface. you can login to Remedy fine then after a while 5mins or 30mins for example, the application stops with sql errors. the sql logs show there were a bunch of timeouts to the remedy server. I moved remedy back to the CSM and everything worked fine again. Back again to the F5... same problem. With all the infrastructure sitting on the same switch (apart from the sql Server) there are certainly no latency issues. Though I did notice when your on the sql server you ping the remedy server with 1 ms responses (when on the CSM) and 2.5ms responses (when on the F5)

 

 

I'm fairly new to F5's....I've tried creating a fastL4 custom profile and added idle timeout to 3600 seconds and TCP keep alives to 30. To see if this would help, thinking the problem maybe to do with timeouts....I just can't see anything in the TCPDUMP like REST packets or keep alive errors.

 

 

any suggestions or experience with Remedy F5 configuration.

 

 

 

 

 

  • It looks like you're on the right track - I'd definitely tune up the timeout values on the TCP profiles. Did this work for you? This is a common issue for long-lived connections like DBs.

     

     

    -Matt
  • My setiings are:

     

     

    Idle Timeout 3600

     

    TCP handshake 5 seconds

     

    TCP CLose Timeout 5 seconds

     

    TCP Keep Alive interval 30 seconds

     

     

    I've put Remedy back to the CSM for the time been. I really need to understand how Remedy works through an f5. I found a load balancing doument from BMC I'm currently reading (over 500km so can't attach)

     

     

    http://communities.bmc.com/communities/message/84229;jsessionid=C10DECAAEFF552ED7B2111DE6AA5B5FC

     

     

    What recommended Timeout options do you configure for database servers normally?

     

     

     

  • Ok, sybase uses the Unix standard which is 2 hours, I'll change the Profile Idle timeout to 130mins and test

     

     

    Does anyone know whether you can put the F5 into complete Router mode, forward everything. During my CSM>F5 migration servers who have migrated to the F5 that need to talk to hosts or Virtual Servers on the CSM, the return packets get blocked by the F5 (coming from the CSM interface), the only way around this so far is to add static /32 routes either on the Real CSM server to force the connection to the F5 interface or add routes /32 on the CSM interface to force connection to F5 interface. Admin nightmare....... i.e - is there some sort of forwarding rule like 0.0.0.0 * forward everything! accepts packets from everywhere & everyone!
  • The above worked...fixed routing problem F5 servers can talk to CSM Virtual Servers and CSM Server pools vice versa CSM>F5
  • Hi guys,

     

     

    I seam to have a slightly different problem.

     

    I have Remedy AR server that i am trying to balance on F5.

     

    I want to know if anyone has steps to do this because i have tried to do this for the whole day but still doesn't work. I tried using standard, forwarding(IP) but it still failed.

     

    I am getting exception RPC timeout and bind fail.

     

     

     

    Can i get any help??

     

    Thanks guys