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Mike_Rausch_628's avatar
Mike_Rausch_628
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Mar 01, 2011

Standby Unit will not remain Standby

I upgraded both of my bigip LTM to version 10.2 and now they both want to be the active unit.

 

I have one set with a preference of standby and the other active.

 

 

When I force the standby unit to standby it will change temporarily but then it will change to active.

 

 

I can synchronize the units using the network failover cable so they are talking to each other. The standby unit acts like it is not seeing the active unit so it changed to an active state.

 

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

 

Thanks

 

Mike

 

config
design

7 Replies

  • hoolio's avatar
    hoolio
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    Hi Mike,

     

     

    I actually avoid using state preference setting as it will result in an extra failover if the preferred active unit fails and then comes back up.

     

     

    Do the units have connectivity to the same management network? Have you configured the peer management address for each unit under System >> High Availability >> Network Failover?

     

     

    sol9947: Change in Behavior: The Peer Management Address setting is required for BIG-IP version 10.x systems configured for network failover

     

    http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/9000/900/sol9947.html

     

     

    Also, are the units physically close enough (50 feet) to use hardwire failover? If so, this is a faster failover mechanism than network failover.

     

     

    sol1901: Obtaining a longer serial failover cable for BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, GTM, ASM, WebAccelerator, Link Controller, or 3-DNS

     

    http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/1000/900/sol1901.html

     

     

    Aaron
  • Mike_Rausch_628's avatar
    Mike_Rausch_628
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    I do not have the serial cable.

     

    I have the peer management address entered on both systems.

     

     

    I also have the Unicast section filled out with the peer name, local address, remote address, and port 1026.

     

     

    I can perform a config sync to the backup unit but then my floating IP addresses get the unit ID of the other unit.

     

    The floating IP's should maintain the unit ID for each one they are configured on ....correct.

     

     

    Unit 1 Floating IP's became Unit 2 Floating IP's when I synched from unit 2 to unit 1.

     

     

    I am sure I am missing something here.

     

     

    Thanks

     

    Mike
  • Mike_Rausch_628's avatar
    Mike_Rausch_628
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    Scratch that about the Floating IP addresses... I just read that it is supposed to happen that way. I didnt think it worked like that with version 9x.

     

     

    I just synched the units again and then released the standby unit from its forced offline state but it went active within 10 seconds.

     

     

  • Chris_Miller's avatar
    Chris_Miller
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    Can you ping the management address of unit 1 from unit 2? How about the /var/log/ltm section of unit 2? Is it saying it cannot connect to peer?
  • Chris_Miller's avatar
    Chris_Miller
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    Sync uses different port and different IPs so isn't necessarily a valid test. Did you see any log messages?
  • Chris_Miller's avatar
    Chris_Miller
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    Can you run "csTest.pl -v" from the command line and paste the output. Feel free to redact IP addresses if you don't want to share them.