SSL bridging without SSL proxy forward
Dear all, I would like to implement ssl brigding for SMTPS traffic in my organization. In my case, I would like the client devices to receive the certificate configured in clientssl profile. When adding the serverssl profile to the virtual server, I get an error: smtps configuration error: SSL forward-proxy must be enabled Configuring SSL forward-proxy is not a solution for me, because the clients do not accept SMTP server certificates. Is it possible to configure ssl bridging for SMTPS without configuring SSL forward-proxy or to configure SSL forward-proxy so that client device get the certificate defined in clientssl profile?F5 NGINX Plus R33 Licensing and Usage Reporting
Beginning with F5 NGINX Plus version R33, all customers are required to deploy a JSON Web Token (JWT) license for each commercial instance of NGINX Plus. Each instance is responsible for validating its own license status. Furthermore, NGINX Plus will report usage either to the F5 NGINX licensing endpoint or to the F5 NGINX Instance Manager for customers who are connected. For those customers who are disconnected or operate in an air-gapped environment, usage can be reported directly to the F5 NGINX Instance Manager. To learn more about the latest features of NGINX R33, please check out the recent blog post. Install or Upgrade NGINX Plus R33 To successfully upgrade to NGINX Plus R33 or perform a fresh installation, begin by downloading the JWT license from your F5 account. Once you have the license, place it in the F5 NGINX directory before proceeding with the upgrade. For a fresh installation, after completing the installation, also place the JWT license in the NGINX directory. For further details, please refer to the provided instructions. This video provides a step-by-step guide on installing or upgrading to NGINX Plus R33. Report Usage to F5 in Connected Environment To effectively report usage data to F5 within a connected environment using NGINX Instance Manager, it's important to ensure that port 443 is open. The default configuration directs the usage endpoint to send reports directly to the F5 licensing endpoint at product.connect.nginx.com. By default, usage reporting is enabled, and it's crucial to successfully send at least one report on installation for NGINX to process traffic. However, you can postpone the initial reporting requirement by turning off the directive in your NGINX configuration. This allows NGINX Plus to handle traffic without immediate reporting during a designated grace period. To configure usage reporting to F5 using NGINX Instance Manager, update the usage endpoint to reflect the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the NGINX Instance Manager. For further details, please refer to the provided instructions. This video shows how to report usage in the connected environment using NGINX Instance Manager. Report Usage to F5 in Disconnected Environment using NGINX Instance Manager In a disconnected environment without an internet connection, you need to take certain steps before submitting usage data to F5. First, in NGINX Plus R33, update the `usage report` directive within the management block of your NGINX configuration to point to your NGINX Instance Manager host. Ensure that your NGINX R33 instances can access the NGINX Instance Manager by setting up the necessary DNS entries. Next, in the NMS configuration in NGINX Instance Manager, modify the ‘mode of operation’ to disconnected, save the file, and restart NGINX Instance Manager. There are multiple methods available for adding a license and submitting the initial usage report in this disconnected environment. You can use a Bash script, REST API, or the web interface. For detailed instructions on each method, please refer to the documentation. This video shows how to report usage in disconnected environments using NGINX Instance Manager. Conclusion The transition to NGINX Plus R33 introduces important enhancements in licensing and usage reporting that can greatly improve your management of NGINX instances. With the implementation of JSON Web Tokens (JWT), you can validate your subscription and report telemetry data more effectively. To ensure compliance and optimize performance, it’s crucial to understand the best practices for usage reporting, regardless of whether you are operating in a connected or disconnected environment. Get started today with a 30-day trial, and contact us if you have any questions. Resources NGINX support documentation Blog announcementproviding a comprehensive summary of the new features in this release.
Viprion F5 sending logs to Qradar need the slot number removed
when sending the log to qradar it comes up in the format of slot/hostname <132>Aug 11 15:27:37 slot1/testf502 warning tmm[11723]: 01260026:4: No shared ciphers between SSL peers 185.181.102.18.56372:192.168.10.156.443. looking to remove the slot from the log entry before sending to qradar to allow for better sorting.BIG-IP BGP Routing Protocol Configuration And Use Cases
Is the F5 BIG-IP a router? Yes! No! Wait what? Can the BIG-IP run a routing protocol? Yes. But should it be deployed as a core router? An edge router? Stay tuned. We'll explore these questions and more through a series of common use cases using BGP on the BIG-IP... And oddly I just realized how close in typing BGP and BIG-IP are, so hopefully my editors will keep me honest. (squirrel!) In part one we will explore therouting components on the BIG-IP and some basic configuration details to help you understand what the appliance is capable of. Please pay special attention to some of the gotchas along the way. Can I Haz BGP? Ok. So your BIG-IP comes with ZebOS in order to provide routing functionality, but what happens when you turn it on? What do you need to do to get routing updates in to the BGP process? And well does my licensing cover it? Starting with the last question… tmsh show /sys license | grep "Routing Bundle" The above command will help you determine if you’re going to be able to proceed, or be stymied at the bridge like the Black Knight in the Holy Grail. Fear not! There are many licensing options that already come with the routing bundle. Enabling Routing First and foremost, the routing protocol configuration is tied to the route-domain. What’s a route-domain? I’m so glad you asked! Route-domains are separate Layer 3 route tables within the BIG-IP. There is a concept of parent and child route domains, so while they’re similar to another routing concept you may be familiar with; VRF’s, they’re no t quite the same but in many ways they are. Just think of them this way for now. For this context we will just say they are. Therefore, you can enable routing protocols on the individual route-domains. Each route-domain can have it’s own set of routing protocols. Or run no routing protocols at all. By default the BIG-IP starts with just route-domain 0. And well because most router guys live on the cli, we’ll walk through the configuration examples that way on the BIG-IP. tmsh modify net route-domain 0 routing-protocol add { BGP } So great! Now we’re off and running BGP. So the world know’s we’re here right? Nope. Considering what you want to advertise. The most common advertisements sourced from the BIG-IP are the IP addresses for virtual servers. Now why would I want to do that? I can just put the BIG-IP on a large subnet and it will respond to ARP requests and send gratuitous ARPs (GARP). So that I can reach the virtual servers just fine. <rant> Author's opinion here: I consider this one of the worst BIG-IP implementation methods. Why? Well for starters, what if you want to expand the number of virtual servers on the BIG-IP? Well then you need to re-IP the network interfaces of all the devices (routers, firewalls, servers) in order to expand the subnet mask. Yuck! Don't even talk to me about secondary subnets. Second: ARP floods! Too many times I see issues where the BIG-IP has to send a flood of GARPs; and well the infrastructure, in an attempt to protect its control plane, filters/rate limits the number of incoming requests it will accept. So engineers are left to try and troubleshoot the case of the missing GARPs Third: Sometimes you need to migrate applications to maybe another BIG-IP appliance as it grew to big for the existing infrastructure. Having it tied to this interface just leads to confusion. I'm sure there's some corner cases where this is the best route. But I would say it's probably in the minority. </rant> I can hear you all now… “So what do you propose kind sir?” See? I can hear you... Treat the virtual servers as loopback interfaces. Then they’re not tied to a specific interface. To move them you just need to start advertising the /32 from another spot (Yes. You could statically route it too. I hear you out there wanting to show your routing chops.) But also, the only GARPs are those from the self-ip's This allows you to statically route of course the entire /24 to the BIG-IP’s self IP address, but also you can use one of them fancy routing protocols to announce the routes either individually or through a summarization. Announcing Routes Hear ye hear ye! I want the world to know about my virtual servers.*ahem* So quick little tangent on BIG-IP nomenclature. The virtual server does not get announced in the routing protocol. “Well then what does?” Eery mind reading isn't it? Remember from BIG-IP 101, a virtual server is an IP address and port combination and well, routing protocols don’t do well with carrying the port across our network. So what BIG-IP object is solely an IP address construct? The virtual-address! “Wait what?” Yeah… It’s a menu item I often forget is there too. But here’s where you let the BIG-IP know you want to advertise the virtual-address associated with the virtual server. But… but… but… you can have multiple virtual servers tied to a single IP address (http/https/etc.) and that’s where the choices for when to advertise come in. tmsh modify ltm virtual-address 10.99.99.100 route-advertisement all There are four states a virtual address can be in: Unknown, Enabled, Disabled and Offline. When the virtual address is in Unknown or Enabled state, its route will be added to the kernel routing table. When the virtual address is in Disabled or Offline state, its route will be removed if present and will not be added if not already present. But the best part is, you can use this to only advertise the route when the virtual server and it’s associated pool members are all up and functioning. In simple terms we call this route health injection. Based on the health of the application we will conditionally announce the route in to the routing protocol. At this point, if you’d followed me this far you’re probably asking what controls those conditions. I’ll let the K article expand on the options a bit. https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K15923612 “So what does BGP have to do with popcorn?” Popcorn? Ohhhhhhhhhhh….. kernel! I see what you did there! I’m talking about the operating system kernel silly. So when a virtual-address is in an unknown or enabled state and it is healthy, the route gets put in the kernel routing table. But that doesn’t get it in to the BGP process. Here is how the kernel (are we getting hungry?) routes are represented in the routing table with a 'K' This is where the fun begins! You guessed it! Route redistribution? Route redistribution! And well to take a step back I guess we need to get you to the ZebOS interface. To enter the router configuration cli from the bash command line, simply type imish. In a multi-route-domain configuration you would need to supply the route-domain number but in this case since we’re just using the 0 default we’re good. It’s a very similar interface to many vendor’s router and switch configuration so many of you CCIE’s should feel right at home. It even still lets you do a write memoryor wr memwithout having to create an alias. Clearly dating myself here.. I’m not going to get in to the full BGP configuration at this point but the simplest way to get the kernel routes in to the BGP process is simply going under the BGP process and redisitrubting the kernel routes. BUT WAIT! Thar be dragons in that configuration! First landmine and a note about kernel routes. If you manually configure a static route on the BIG-IP via tmsh or the tmui those will show up also as kernel routes Why is that concerning? Well an example is where engineers configure a static default route on the BIG-IP via tmsh. And well, when you redistribute kernel routes and that default route is now being advertised into BGP. Congrats! AND the BIG-IP is NOT your default gateway hilarity ensues. And by hilarity I mean the type of laugh that comes out as you're updating your resume. The lesson here is ALWAYS when doing route redistribution always use a route filter to ensure only your intended routes or IP range make it in to the routing protocol. This goes for your neighbor statements too. In both directions! You should control what routes come in and leave the device. Another way to have some disasterous consequences with BIG-IP routing is through summarization. If you are doing summarization, keep in mind that BGP advertises based on reachability to the networks it wants to advertise. In this case, BGP is receiving it in the form of kernel routes from tmm. But those are /32 addresses and lots of them! And you want to advertise a /23 summary route. But the lone virtual-address that is configured for route advertisement; and the only one your BGP process knows about within that range has a monitor that fails. The summary route will be withdrawn leaving all the /23 stranded. Be sure to configure all your virtual-addresses within that range for advertisement. Next: BGP Behavior In High Availability ConfigurationsBIG-IP Report
Problem this snippet solves: Overview This is a script which will generate a report of the BIG-IP LTM configuration on all your load balancers making it easy to find information and get a comprehensive overview of virtual servers and pools connected to them. This information is used to relay information to NOC and developers to give them insight in where things are located and to be able to plan patching and deploys. I also use it myself as a quick way get information or gather data used as a foundation for RFC's, ie get a list of all external virtual servers without compression profiles. The script has been running on 13 pairs of load balancers, indexing over 1200 virtual servers for several years now and the report is widely used across the company and by many companies and governments across the world. It's easy to setup and use and only requires auditor (read-only) permissions on your devices. Demo/Preview Interactive demo http://loadbalancing.se/bigipreportdemo/ Screen shots The main report: The device overview: Certificate details: How to use this snippet: Installation instructions BigipReport REST This is the only branch we're updating since middle of 2020 and it supports 12.x and upwards (maybe even 11.6). Downloads: https://loadbalancing.se/downloads/bigipreport-v5.7.13.zip Documentation, installation instructions and troubleshooting:https://loadbalancing.se/bigipreport-rest/ Docker support https://loadbalancing.se/2021/01/05/running-bigipreport-on-docker/ Kubernetes support https://loadbalancing.se/2021/04/16/bigipreport-on-kubernetes/ BIG-IP Report (Legacy) Older version of the report that only runs on Windows and is depending on a Powershell plugin originally written by Joe Pruitt (F5) BIG-IP Report (only download this if you have v10 devices): https://loadbalancing.se/downloads/bigipreport-5.4.0-beta.zip iControl Snapin https://loadbalancing.se/downloads/f5-icontrol.zip Documentation and Installation Instructions https://loadbalancing.se/bigip-report/ Upgrade instructions Protect the report using APM and active directory Written by DevCentral member Shann_P: https://loadbalancing.se/2018/04/08/protecting-bigip-report-behind-an-apm-by-shannon-poole/ Got issues/problems/feedback? Still have issues? Drop a comment below. We usually reply quite fast. Any bugs found, issues detected or ideas contributed makes the report better for everyone, so it's always appreciated. --- Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/7JJvPMYahA Code : BigIP Report Tested this on version: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
VAPT or APT tools scan prevention
Hello When the security team starts Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) or Application Security Testing (APT) on a web application, then it can go and test those web pages that only registered users can browse. Is there any way I can block this with Big-IP. Sorry if my question is silly.
SSL Server Profile
Hi everybody, I have an issue about a SSL Profile (Server). If I enable "no SSLv3" option (as in the attachment), I thought that Big-IP DOESN'T USE SSLv3 protocol in the handshake with the server, but tracking the communication, I notice that use that protocol. Do you know hoe to force the SSL Profile (Server) to use another protocol (e.g. TLSv2)? Thanks, regards
Irules Editor
HI Guys. I read on an article that there is an Irules editor here in DevCentral, to check rules syntax before testing. I'm totally new so this would be very useful i think. Is that true ? where can i find it ? Generally speaking is possible to upload Irules code and have some expert opinion ? If Yes how ? Thank you for your help Regards Mario
