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jaked_150553's avatar
jaked_150553
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Oct 21, 2014

vips and selfips

Are there any documents in F5 kb that how VIPs and self-ips actually work? There is a big explanation about how to configure them everywhere, but nothing about how they really work. when we create a VIP, does bigip advertise a route for that? and is this also the case with self-ip. how does the bigip bring them into existence from a network perspective and what should we do to make the accessible? can we use any subnet to pickup an ip and configure a VIP with it?

 

1 Reply

  • gsharri's avatar
    gsharri
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Oct 21, 2014

    Have a look at these AskF5 articles: SOL9038 and SOL8082.

     

    By default bigip does not advertise routes for the vips. To do so would require the optional routing module license on bigip. For the majority of vips this is unnecessary as long as the network they are on is reachable by routing. However, you can also make a virtual server (vip) that represents a network or subnet that is reachable through the bigip in which case you may want to advertise that vip as a network route.

     

    Bigip will respond to arp and icmp for the host vips.

     

    The self-ips (assigned to bigipip vlans) can be used for management access, HA communication, etc. Each self-ip has a setting called port lockdown to control which ports it is listening on.