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Ali26
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Mar 04, 2023

Floating IP for standalone deployment

Hi Folks,

 Just read that SNAT uses floating IP, so in case of standalone deployment do we have to configure floating ip as well or just self ip is enough ?

3 Replies

  • Ali26 Which SNAT were you reading about that stated it uses the floating IP of the F5? From my understanding the F5 uses the self-IP for SNAT automatically if you use the automap feature and not the floating IP so HA or standalone shouldn't matter because it always uses the self-IP. I don't ever recommend configuring SNAT with the self-IP or floating IP of your F5 for standalone or HA. I recommend configuring a SNAT pool with the virtual server IP of the virtual server in question in that SNAT pool. The reason for a SNAT pool with the virtual server IP is because when left alone using auto-map in a high connection environment you could technically exhaust all the ports for the self-IP and then things such as health checks would not function correctly and so you would use the virtual server IP instead in the SNAT pool.

  • Hi Ali26 , 
    Floating IP is an objected related to DSC { Device service Clustering } or what we call it High availability , So there is no need to configure it without DSC or a standby box , and configure SNAT pool to have the varity of egress ips to forward your traffic. 

    I want to add something , if you have HA pair configures , definitely you will need the Floating ip addresses which they are shared between both of units { Active/standby } , and the Bigip prefers the Floating ips  over self ips to forward egress traffic in case you used { SNAT >>> Automap }. 

  • I use floating IPs only, if I need routing entries pointing to the F5 cluster.

    I always use SNAT-Pools and never Automap. SNAT-Pools are ways more flexible as automap.