UCS Encryption Question

Hi Cory,

Not sure if your issue was solved and if anyone has reached out to you. I'm here to provide some answers and hopefully, it answers yours.

If you’re planning a platform migration or recovery involving a FIPS-licensed BIG-IP (for example, moving from physical to virtual), you’ll likely need to extract, modify, and restore a UCS (User Configuration Set) file. There’s a lot of confusion around encryption requirements and the right way to handle UCS files on FIPS platforms, so here’s a comprehensive guide based on F5’s official documentation and best practices.

Do You Need to Re-Encrypt the UCS File for FIPS Restore?

Short answer:
No, you do not need to manually re-encrypt a UCS file to restore it on a FIPS-licensed platform. The restore process depends on how the UCS was originally created:

• If the UCS was created with a passphrase (encrypted), you must provide that passphrase during the restore.
• If the UCS was created without a passphrase (unencrypted), you can restore it without a passphrase.
  
  

Important:
On FIPS platforms, you cannot create a new UCS without specifying a passphrase, but you can restore an unencrypted UCS if you have one from another system.

References:

• K13132: Backing up and restoring BIG-IP configuration files with a UCS archive
• K68691386: Encryption setting for New Archive is unavailable
  
  

How Should You Encrypt or Re-Encrypt a UCS File?

Do not use manual GPG commands to encrypt or re-encrypt a UCS file for F5 restore. The correct and supported way is to use the BIG-IP command line:

tmsh save sys ucs <filename> passphrase <your_passphrase>

• This command ensures the UCS is encrypted in the format expected by BIG-IP.
• If you’ve extracted and modified a UCS (for example, to edit configuration files), repackage it as a tar.gz, then use the above command to re-encrypt it on a BIG-IP system.
  
  

Why not use GPG directly?
Manual GPG encryption (even with the correct cipher) does not produce a UCS file that BIG-IP can restore. Attempting to restore such a file will result in errors like “Unexpected Error: UCS loading process failed.” (K5437, K13537502)

Step-by-Step: How to Restore a UCS on a FIPS-licensed BIG-IP

1. If you need to modify the UCS:
• Extract the UCS file:
• mkdir /tmp/ucs_extract
• tar -xzvf /var/local/ucs/<yourfile>.ucs -C /tmp/ucs_extract
• Make your changes to the configuration files as needed.
• Repackage the UCS:
• cd /tmp/ucs_extract
• tar -czvf /var/local/ucs/<newfile>.ucs *
• (Optional) If you want to encrypt the UCS, use the tmsh command below.
  
  
2. To encrypt (or re-encrypt) the UCS:
• On the BIG-IP CLI, run:
• tmsh save sys ucs /var/local/ucs/<finalfile>.ucs passphrase <your_passphrase>
• This will create a UCS file encrypted with your passphrase.
  
  
3. To restore the UCS:
• On the target BIG-IP, copy the UCS file to /var/local/ucs/ (or /shared/).
• Run the restore command:
• tmsh load sys ucs <finalfile>.ucs
• If the UCS is encrypted, you’ll be prompted for the passphrase.
• If you’re migrating between platforms (e.g., hardware to VE), you may need to use the platform-migrate option:
• tmsh load sys ucs <finalfile>.ucs platform-migrate
  
  
4. Troubleshooting:
• If you see errors like “Unexpected Error: UCS loading process failed,” ensure the UCS is properly compressed and, if needed, repackage it as a tar.gz and rename it with a .ucs extension before restoring (K13537502).
• If you get passphrase errors, double-check that you’re using the same passphrase used during UCS creation.
  
  

Summary Table

Cheers, 

Mo