Upgrading from Version 10 to version 11 - Synchronization configs lost

Unfortunately, upgrading F5 from v10.x to v11.x is not a straight-forward process. By the manual, installing a new software is fast and simple, but rarely it's the case. In regards to fast upgrade methods, you can try getting your configuration loaded by issuing a "/usr/libexec/bigpipe daol" command. However, this mostly helps in case of a very basic system configuration; you will most likely have to deal with several errors before the command can be executed successfully. Solutions involve removing conflicting LTM objects, overwriting system.db values etc.

• What I'd recommend? Upgrade it by bits and pieces - migrate all LTM monitors, then all LTM pools, then all iRules, and so on. The good thing is that nearly all of the configuration objects (/config/bigip.conf) can be converted to v11.x compliant syntax, using custom scripts (or even vi). The bad thing? You must know what v11.x compliant syntax looks like.

Good luck!

Unfortunately, upgrading F5 from v10.x to v11.x is not a straight-forward process. By the manual, installing a new software is fast and simple, but rarely it's the case. In regards to fast upgrade methods, you can try getting your configuration loaded by issuing a "/usr/libexec/bigpipe daol" command. However, this mostly helps in case of a very basic system configuration; you will most likely have to deal with several errors before the command can be executed successfully. Solutions involve removing conflicting LTM objects, overwriting system.db values etc.

• What I'd recommend? Upgrade it by bits and pieces - migrate all LTM monitors, then all LTM pools, then all iRules, and so on. The good thing is that nearly all of the configuration objects (/config/bigip.conf) can be converted to v11.x compliant syntax, using custom scripts (or even vi). The bad thing? You must know what v11.x compliant syntax looks like.

Good luck!

When I did upgrades to 11.4.x I saw the same thing. For us It was still in its group, but because of the code differences it shows up as standalone. Are both your devices upgraded already or just one?

We did go straight from 10.2.1 to 11.4.x. The biggest catch that we ran into was iRule and bigip.conf syntax changes, and as Hannes pointed out, to effectivly edit them you need to understand the differences in syntax. It can be done, but may be worth your while to go in stages. Did you get any kind of error? I do recall one pair that we did, for some reason would not upgrade with port-mirroring setup, but none of the other pairs we did gave us that issue.

If the only thing missing is HA and group configs, did you try to manually recreate the sync group?

did a couple of migration from 10 to 11 with clusters and it survived fine.

you can go the support route and let them solve it, it is supported.

Dear Ryan,

Have you solved this case? I planned to upgrade my box from v10.2.4 to v11.5.2 next week. About the configuration, I try to load SCF file from my box into my virtual BIGIP v11.5.2 to check whether this configuration is compatible or not. Unfortunately my 11.5.2 VM reject to load SCF from v10.2.4. It says "Syntax Erros". So i think it maybe because of a different SCF file format. So if you had solved your problem, can you give me some suggestion for my upgrade plan? :)

Dear Boneyard,

From a couple migration form v10.x to 11.x, did the v10.x configuration succesfully load to v11.x without compatibility problem at all?

Thanks before..

About the configuration, I try to load SCF file from my box into my virtual BIGIP v11.5.2 to check whether this configuration is compatible or not. Unfortunately my 11.5.2 VM reject to load SCF from v10.2.4. It says "Syntax Erros". So i think it maybe because of a different SCF file format.

i understand you have to use ucs instead of scf (i.e. load 10.x ucs to 11.x box).

when loading, you may also use no-license and no-platform-check options.

root@(B7200-R78-S18)(cfg-sync Standalone)(Active)(/Common)(tmos) load sys ucs test.ucs ?
Options:
  include-chassis-level-config  Include chassis level configuration that is shared among boot volume sets.
  no-license                    This option mostly is for RMA use. It loads full configuration from a UCS file except license file.
  no-platform-check             Bypass platform check.
  passphrase                    Passphrase for (un)encrypting UCS.

So to provide an update on my scenario, the upgrade eventually performed successfully after removing some entries in my bigip.conf file that were causing errors. Just like Hannes Rapp was suggesting above.

So as suggested, I ran the command '/usr/libexec/bigpipe daol' to determine which files were causing errors and removed these entries from /config/bagpipe/bigip.conf. The entries looked like this:

certificate file object 4e2c4ba3.0 { cache path "/config/filestore/.file_object_upgrade_staging/4e2c4ba3.0" }

I ran the command about five times or so and removed five entries like this, which eventually led to the configuration to upload successfully.

Apologies for not posting an update earlier.