Migrate configuration from physical LTM to virtual

[Thomson_Thomas]

What would be the best way to migrate the config of a hardware based LTM running 11.6.1 to a new virtual pair running 13.1, appears the F5 big ip migration assistant isnt working as its trying to license and already licensed virtual ltm. Also no luck trying to restore an archive as well. Any help would be appreciated.

[Lidev · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Take a look on theses links below, you will find tips :

https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/welcome-to-the-f5-big-ip-migration-assistant-29191

https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/migrating-to-iseries-from-older-platforms-its-about-time-25612

Regards

[Thomson_Thomas]

Thanks these are helpful, my understanding was I couldn’t use the platform migrate option since I’m currently running v11 per F5 support. However after reading this my source version should be fine at v11 as long as my target system is running at least v12.1. Can I get a confirmation on this? Thanks, Thomson Thomas MBA, F5-CA Network Architect New York Power Authority

[Lidev]

Yes, UCS archive 'platform-migrate' option is available started from version 12.1.3.

If you want to use f5-big-ip-migration-assistant, it's not mentioned that it is not compatible with Virtual Edition in the Github project FAQ.

in v11, Migration Assistant cannot generate UCS files on these BIG-IP versions, but you can generate a UCS file manually and import it to Migration Assistant (as long as the target version system is running at least v12.1).

Regards

[Thomson_Thomas]

yes my problem with the migration assistant is its trying to license an already licensed LTM and failing, there is an option to unselect this but its grayed out.

[Lidev]

Ok, dropped the idea of using the migration assistant.

Try instead to load your UCS on the Virtual Edition with the parameter no-platform-check

https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K14906

tmsh load sys ucs [ucs file name] no-platform-check

[Thomson_Thomas]

Thanks Lidev since platform-migrate is supported that might be the easiest option to migrate the config.

[Lidev]

You're welcome Thomas, If my answers was helpful, please don't forget to mark the answer as "Select as Best" in order to pass your post as resolved and help other people to find it

[Thomson_Thomas]

trying to do the platform migration option with the UCS and running into the following issues , here is my output of the command. Its trying to load lacp configs however theyre not supported on my virtual

admin@(drf5app01)(cfg-sync In Sync)(Active)(/Common)(tmos)# load sys ucs drf5app01physical.ucs no-license platform-migrate

Replace all configuration on the system? (y/n) y

Processing UCS file: /var/local/ucs/drf5app01physical.ucs

Installing full UCS (11.6.3.1) data, excluding license file.

Extracting manifest: /var/local/ucs/drf5app01physical.ucs

Product : BIG-IP

Platform: UCS  : C112

     System: Z100

Version : UCS  : 11.6.3.1

     System: 13.1.3.4

Edition : UCS  : Final

     System: Point Release 4

Hostname: drf5app01.nypa.gov

Installing --full-- configuration on host drf5app01.nypa.gov 

Installing configuration...

Running ucs_builtin_preprocess

Warning: The DB variables, PvaSynCookies.Virtual.ConnThresholdHigh and PvaSynCookies.Virtual.InvalidThreshold are obsoleted in 13.0.0. The configuration has been replaced by Dos.syncookiedeactivate.

ATTENTION REQUIRED:

  Your previous configuration files have been archived, as listed

  below. If you customized any settings in these files before

  upgrading, you will need to manually restore those changes by

  using the Configuration utility or Traffic Management Shell (tmsh).

  Archiving /config/wa/pvsystem.dtd.11.6.3.1

  Archiving /config/wa/pvsystem.conf.11.6.3.1

  Archiving /config/wa/globalfragment.xml.11.6.3.1

Post-processing...

usermod: no changes

Reloading License and configuration - this may take a few minutes...

2020 Nov 13 12:53:55 drf5app01 logger: Re-starting snmpd

2020 Nov 13 12:54:06 drf5app01 load_config_files: "/usr/bin/tmsh -n -g load sys config partitions all platform-migrate" - failed. -- Loading schema version: 11.6.3.1 Loading schema version: 13.1.3.4 01070712:3: Cannot get device index for Internal in rd0 - ioctl failed: No such device Unexpected Error: Loading configuration process failed.

2020 Nov 13 12:54:08 drf5app01 load_config_files: "/usr/bin/tmsh -n -g load sys config partitions all base " - failed. -- Loading schema version: 11.6.3.1 Loading schema version: 13.1.3.4 01070687:3: Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) is not supported on this platform. Unexpected Error: Loading configuration process failed.

Configuration loading error: base-config-load-failed

For additional details, please see messages in /var/log/ltm

WARNING: There were one or more errors detected during installation.

     Check the error messages and take the proper actions if needed.

ERROR: UCS installation failed.

Operation aborted.

Unexpected Error: UCS loading process failed.