Export Virtual Server Configuration in CSV - tmsh cli script
Problem this snippet solves: This is a simple cli script used to collect all the virtuals name, its VIP details, Pool names, members, all Profiles, Irules, persistence associated to each, in all partitions. A sample output would be like below, One can customize the code to extract other fields available too. The same logic can be allowed to pull information's from profiles stats, certificates etc. Update: 5th Oct 2020 Added Pool members capture in the code. After the Pool-Name, Pool-Members column will be found. If a pool does not have members - field not present: "members" will shown in the respective Pool-Members column. If a pool itself is not bound to the VS, then Pool-Name, Pool-Members will have none in the respective columns. Update: 21st Jan 2021 Added logic to look for multiple partitions & collect configs Update: 12th Feb 2021 Added logic to add persistence to sheet. Update: 26th May 2021 Added logic to add state & status to sheet. Update: 24th Oct 2023 Added logic to add hostname, Pool Status, Total-Connections & Current-Connections. Note: The codeshare has multiple version, use the latest version alone. The reason to keep the other versions is for end users to understand & compare, thus helping them to modify to their own requirements. Hope it helps. How to use this snippet: Login to the LTM, create your script by running the below commands and paste the code provided in snippet tmsh create cli script virtual-details So when you list it, it should look something like below, [admin@labltm:Active:Standalone] ~ # tmsh list cli script virtual-details cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { puts "Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Profiles,Rules" foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] puts "[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"],$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } } total-signing-status not-all-signed } [admin@labltm:Active:Standalone] ~ # And you can run the script like below, tmsh run cli script virtual-details > /var/tmp/virtual-details.csv And get the output from the saved file, cat /var/tmp/virtual-details.csv Old Codes: cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { puts "Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Profiles,Rules" foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] puts "[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"],$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } } total-signing-status not-all-signed } ###=================================================== ###2.0 ###UPDATED CODE BELOW ### DO NOT MIX ABOVE CODE & BELOW CODE TOGETHER ###=================================================== cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { puts "Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Pool-Members,Profiles,Rules" foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { set poolname [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"] set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] if { $poolname != "none" }{ set poolconfig [tmsh::get_config /ltm pool $poolname] foreach poolinfo $poolconfig { if { [catch { set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ]} err] } { set pool_member $err puts "[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } else { set pool_member "" set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ] foreach member $member_name { append pool_member "[lindex $member 1] " } puts "[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } } } else { puts "[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,none,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } } } total-signing-status not-all-signed } ###=================================================== ### Version 3.0 ### UPDATED CODE BELOW FOR MULTIPLE PARTITION ### DO NOT MIX ABOVE CODE & BELOW CODE TOGETHER ###=================================================== cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { puts "Partition,Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Pool-Members,Profiles,Rules" foreach all_partitions [tmsh::get_config auth partition] { set partition "[lindex [split $all_partitions " "] 2]" tmsh::cd /$partition foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { set poolname [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"] set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] if { $poolname != "none" }{ set poolconfig [tmsh::get_config /ltm pool $poolname] foreach poolinfo $poolconfig { if { [catch { set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ]} err] } { set pool_member $err puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } else { set pool_member "" set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ] foreach member $member_name { append pool_member "[lindex $member 1] " } puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } } } else { puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,none,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"]" } } } } total-signing-status not-all-signed } ###=================================================== ### Version 4.0 ### UPDATED CODE BELOW FOR CAPTURING PERSISTENCE ### DO NOT MIX ABOVE CODE & BELOW CODE TOGETHER ###=================================================== cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { puts "Partition,Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Pool-Members,Profiles,Rules,Persist" foreach all_partitions [tmsh::get_config auth partition] { set partition "[lindex [split $all_partitions " "] 2]" tmsh::cd /$partition foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { set poolname [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"] set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] set persist [lindex [lindex [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "persist"] 0] 1] if { $poolname != "none" }{ set poolconfig [tmsh::get_config /ltm pool $poolname] foreach poolinfo $poolconfig { if { [catch { set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ]} err] } { set pool_member $err puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist" } else { set pool_member "" set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ] foreach member $member_name { append pool_member "[lindex $member 1] " } puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist" } } } else { puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,none,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist" } } } } total-signing-status not-all-signed } ###=================================================== ### 5.0 ### UPDATED CODE BELOW ### DO NOT MIX ABOVE CODE & BELOW CODE TOGETHER ###=================================================== cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { puts "Partition,Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Pool-Members,Profiles,Rules,Persist,Status,State" foreach all_partitions [tmsh::get_config auth partition] { set partition "[lindex [split $all_partitions " "] 2]" tmsh::cd /$partition foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { foreach { status } [tmsh::get_status ltm virtual [tmsh::get_name $obj]] { set vipstatus [tmsh::get_field_value $status "status.availability-state"] set vipstate [tmsh::get_field_value $status "status.enabled-state"] } set poolname [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"] set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] set persist [lindex [lindex [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "persist"] 0] 1] if { $poolname != "none" }{ set poolconfig [tmsh::get_config /ltm pool $poolname] foreach poolinfo $poolconfig { if { [catch { set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ]} err] } { set pool_member $err puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist,$vipstatus,$vipstate" } else { set pool_member "" set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ] foreach member $member_name { append pool_member "[lindex $member 1] " } puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist,$vipstatus,$vipstate" } } } else { puts "$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,none,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist,$vipstatus,$vipstate" } } } } total-signing-status not-all-signed } Latest Code: cli script virtual-details { proc script::run {} { set hostconf [tmsh::get_config /sys global-settings hostname] set hostname [tmsh::get_field_value [lindex $hostconf 0] hostname] puts "Hostname,Partition,Virtual Server,Destination,Pool-Name,Pool-Status,Pool-Members,Profiles,Rules,Persist,Status,State,Total-Conn,Current-Conn" foreach all_partitions [tmsh::get_config auth partition] { set partition "[lindex [split $all_partitions " "] 2]" tmsh::cd /$partition foreach { obj } [tmsh::get_config ltm virtual all-properties] { foreach { status } [tmsh::get_status ltm virtual [tmsh::get_name $obj]] { set vipstatus [tmsh::get_field_value $status "status.availability-state"] set vipstate [tmsh::get_field_value $status "status.enabled-state"] set total_conn [tmsh::get_field_value $status "clientside.tot-conns"] set curr_conn [tmsh::get_field_value $status "clientside.cur-conns"] } set poolname [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "pool"] set profiles [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "profiles"] set remprof [regsub -all {\n} [regsub -all " context" [join $profiles "\n"] "context"] " "] set profilelist [regsub -all "profiles " $remprof ""] set persist [lindex [lindex [tmsh::get_field_value $obj "persist"] 0] 1] if { $poolname != "none" }{ foreach { p_status } [tmsh::get_status ltm pool $poolname] { set pool_status [tmsh::get_field_value $p_status "status.availability-state"] } set poolconfig [tmsh::get_config /ltm pool $poolname] foreach poolinfo $poolconfig { if { [catch { set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ]} err] } { set pool_member $err puts "$hostname,$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_status,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist,$vipstatus,$vipstate,$total_conn,$curr_conn" } else { set pool_member "" set member_name [tmsh::get_field_value $poolinfo "members" ] foreach member $member_name { append pool_member "[lindex $member 1] " } puts "$hostname,$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,$pool_status,$pool_member,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist,$vipstatus,$vipstate,$total_conn,$curr_conn" } } } else { puts "$hostname,$partition,[tmsh::get_name $obj],[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "destination"],$poolname,none,none,$profilelist,[tmsh::get_field_value $obj "rules"],$persist,$vipstatus,$vipstate,$total_conn,$curr_conn" } } } } } Tested this on version: 13.0
F5 to read a combined CRL file
Hello , i have a client ssl profile which uses a crl file that is uploaded to F5 every night . Now i have a second CRL file . Question - can the F5 read a file that is a combination of 2 CRL files . meaning multiple begin and ends . i understand that openssl has this limitation that it can only read the first. -----BEGIN X509 CRL----- -----END X509 CRL----- -----BEGIN X509 CRL----- -----END X509 CRL-----
checking the fan status on the device.
Hi everyone, I have a question about checking the fan status on the device. I checked using the command: system_check -d | grep -E "Units|_fan" Key Sys Data Unit Sta Cur Tbl # Type Range Value Hyst Sev 1/bld_cpu_fan 0 4928 RPM 1 NORM I|D|S 0 1 0 750 250 CRIT cha_fan1_volt 3 12065 mV 1 NORM I|D|S 0 2 0 10558 241 CRIT cha_fan1_volt 3 12065 mV 1 NORM I|D|S 2 2 2 13442 241 CRIT cha_fan2_volt 3 12100 mV 1 NORM I|D|S 0 2 0 10558 241 CRIT cha_fan2_volt 3 12100 mV 1 NORM I|D|S 2 2 2 13442 241 CRIT cha_fan_1 3 2882 RPM 1 NORM I|D|S 0 1 0 500 250 CRIT cha_fan_2 3 2896 RPM 1 NORM I|D|S 0 1 0 500 250 CRIT cha_fan_3 3 2896 RPM 1 NORM I|D|S 0 1 0 500 250 CRIT cha_fan_4 3 2906 RPM 1 NORM I|D|S 0 1 0 500 250 CRIT with the results as the table above, what I am confused about is what the Sev column means, and why all the statuses are CRIT, while the current sensor value and data are still above Hyst. thank you
How are memory and disk allocated to different modules on bigip appliance?
hi, when doing "Resource Provisioning", the memory and disk space are auto allocated to LTM and ASM are shown as below. The amount of Memory and disk is minimum requirement, right? When a huge number of virtual server will be created later, will appliance auto allocate more spare memory and disk to the module? And what is he management module responsible for? Is it responsible for packet forwarding? should we set "Provisioning" to "Medium" or "Large" if the throughput is larger than 1Gbps? Can someone please advise? thanks in advance!F5 BIG-IP and NetApp StorageGRID - Providing Fast and Scalable S3 API for AI apps
F5 BIG-IP, an industry-leading ADC solution, can provide load balancing services for HTTPS servers, with full security applied in-flight and performance levels to meet any enterprise’s capacity targets. Specific to S3 API, the object storage and retrieval protocol that rides upon HTTPS, an aligned partnering solution exists from NetApp, which allows a large-scale set of S3 API targets to ingest and provide objects. Automatic backend synchronization allows any node to be offered up at a target by a server load balancer like BIG-IP. This allows overall storage node utilization to be optimized across the node set, and scaled performance to reach the highest S3 API bandwidth levels, all while offering high availability to S3 API consumers. S3 compatible storage is becoming popular for AI applications due to its superior performance over traditional protocols such as NFS or CIFS, as well as enabling repatriation of data from the cloud to on-prem. These are scenarios where the amount of data faced is large, this drives the requirement for new levels of scalability and performance; S3 compatible object storages such as NetApp StorageGRID are purpose-built to reach such levels. Sample BIG-IP and StorageGRID Configuration This document is based upon tests and measurements using the following lab configuration. All devices in the lab were virtual machine-based offerings. The S3 service to be projected to the outside world, depicted in the above diagram and delivered to the client via the external network, will use a BIG-IP virtual server (VS) which is tied to an origin pool of three large-capacity StorageGRID nodes. The BIG-IP maintains the integrity of the NetApp nodes by frequent HTTP-based health checks. Should an unhealthy node be detected, it will be dropped from the list of active pool members. When content is written via the S3 protocol to any node in the pool, the other members are synchronized to serve up content should they be selected by BIG-IP for future read requests. The key recommendations and observations in building the lab include: Setup a local certificate authority such that all nodes can be trusted by the BIG-IP. Typically the local CA-signed certificate will incorporate every node’s FQDN and IP address within the listed subject alternate names (SAN) to make the backend solution streamlined with one single certificate. Different F5 profiles, such as FastL4 or FastHTTP, can be selected to reach the right tradeoff between the absolute capacity of stateful traffic load-balanced versus rich layer 7 functions like iRules or authentication. Modern techniques such as multi-part uploads or using HTTP Ranges for downloads can take large objects, and concurrently move smaller pieces across the load balancer, lowering total transaction times, and spreading work over more CPU cores. The S3 protocol, at its core, is a set of REST API calls. To facilitate testing, the widely used S3Browser (www.s3browser.com) was used to quickly and intuitively create S3 buckets on the NetApp offering and send/retrieve objects (files) through the BIG-IP load balancer. Setup the BIG-IP and StorageGrid Systems The StorageGrid solution is an array of storage nodes, provisioned with the help of an administrative host, the “Grid Manager”. For interactive users, no thick client is required as on-board web services allow a streamlined experience all through an Internet browser. The following is an example of Grid Manager, taken from a Chrome browser; one sees the three Storage Nodes setup have been successfully added. The load balancer, in our case, the BIG-IP, is set up with a virtual server to support HTTPS traffic and distributed that traffic, which is S3 object storage traffic, to the three StorageGRID nodes. The following screenshot demonstrates that the BIG-IP is setup in a standard HA (active-passive pair) configuration and the three pool members are healthy (green, health checks are fine) and receiving/sending S3 traffic, as the byte counts are seen in the image to be non-zero. On the internal side of the BIG-IP, TCP port 18082 is being used for S3 traffic. To do testing of the solution, including features such as multi-part uploads and downloads, a popular S3 tool, S3Browser, was downloaded and used. The following shows the entirety of the S3Browser setup. Simply create an account (StorageGRID-Account-01 in our example) and point the REST API endpoint at the BIG-IP Virtual Server that is acting as the secure front door for our pool of NetApp nodes. The S3 Access Key ID and Secret values are generated at turn-up time of the NetApp appliances. All S3 traffic will, of course, be SSL/TLS encrypted. BIG-IP will intercept the SSL traffic (high-speed decrypt) and then re-encrypt when proxying the traffic to a selected origin pool member. Other valid load balancer setups exist; one might include an “off load” approach to SSL, whereby the S3 nodes safely co-located in a data center may prefer to receive non-SSL HTTP S3 traffic. This may see an overall performance improvement in terms of peak bandwidth per storage node, but this comes at the tradeoff of security considerations. Experimenting with S3 Protocol and Load Balancing With all the elements in place to start understanding the behavior of S3 and spreading traffic across NetApp nodes, a quick test involved creating a S3 bucket and placing some objects in that new bucket. Buckets are logical collections of objects, conceptually not that different from folders or directories in file systems. In fact, a S3 bucket could even be mounted as a folder in an operating system such as Linux. In their simplest form, most commonly, buckets can simply serve as high-capacity, performant storage and retrieval targets for similarly themed structured or unstructured data. In the first test, we created a new bucket (“audio-clip-bucket”) and uploaded four sample files to the new bucket using S3Browser. We then zeroed the statistics for each pool member on the BIG-IP, to see if even this small upload would spread S3 traffic across more than a single NetApp device. Immediately after the upload, the counters reflect that two StorageGRID nodes were selected to receive S3 transactions. Richly detailed, per-transaction visibility can be obtained by leveraging the F5 SSL Orchestrator (SSLO) feature on the BIG-IP, whereby copies of the bi-directional S3 traffic decrypted within the load balancer can be sent to packet loggers, analytics tools, or even protocol analyzers like Wireshark. The BIG-IP also has an onboard analytics tool, Application Visibility and Reporting (AVR) which can provide some details on the nuances of the S3 traffic being proxied. AVR demonstrates the following characteristics of the above traffic, a simple bucket creation and upload of 4 objects. With AVR, one can see the URL values used by S3, which include the bucket name itself as well as transactions incorporating the object names as URLs. Also, the HTTP methods used included both GETS and PUTS. The use of HTTP PUT is expected when creating a new bucket. S3 is not governed by a typical standards body document, such as an IETF Request for Comment (RFC), but rather has evolved out of AWS and their use of S3 since 2006. For details around S3 API characteristics and nomenclature, this site can be referenced. For example, the expected syntax for creating a bucket is provided, including the fact that it should be an HTTP PUT to the root (/) URL target, with the bucket configuration parameters including name provided within the HTTP transaction body. Achieving High Performance S3 with BIG-IP and StorageGRID A common concern with protocols, such as HTTP, is head-of-line blocking, where one large, lengthy transaction blocks subsequent desired, queued transactions. This is one of the reasons for parallelism in HTTP, where loading 30 or more objects to paint a web page will often utilize two, four, or even more concurrent TCP sessions. Another performance issue when dealing with very large transactions is, without parallelism, even those most performant networks will see an established TCP session reach a maximum congestion window (CWND) where no more segments may be in flight until new TCP ACKs arrive back. Advanced TCP options like TCP exponential windowing or TCP SACK can help, but regardless of this, the achievable bandwidth of any one TCP session is bounded and may also frequently task only one core in multi-core CPUs. With the BIG-IP serving as the intermediary, large S3 transactions may default to “multi-part” uploads and downloads. The larger objects become a series of smaller objects that conveniently can be load-balanced by BIG-IP across the entire cluster of NetApp nodes. As displayed in the following diagram, we are asking for multi-part uploads to kick in for objects larger than 5 megabytes. After uploading a 20-megabyte file (technically, 20,000,000 bytes) the BIG-IP shows the traffic distributed across multiple NetApp nodes to the tune of 160.9 million bits. The incoming bits, incoming from the perspective of the origin pool members, confirm the delivery of the object with a small amount of protocol overhead (bits divided by eight to reach bytes). The value of load balancing manageable chunks of very large objects will pay dividends over time with faster overall transaction completion times due to the spreading of traffic across NetApp nodes, more TCP sessions reaching high congestion window values, and no single-core bottle necks in multicore equipment. Tuning BIG-IP for High Performance S3 Service Delivery The F5 BIG-IP offers a set of different profiles it can run its Local Traffic Manager (LTM) module in accordance with; LTM is the heart of the server load balancing function. The most performant profile in terms of attainable traffic load is the “FastL4” profile. This, and other profiles such as “OneConnect” or “FastHTTP”, can be tied to a virtual server, and details around each profile can be found here within the BIG-IP GUI: The FastL4 profile can increase virtual server performance and throughput for supported platforms by using the embedded Packet Velocity Acceleration (ePVA) chip to accelerate traffic. The ePVA chip is a hardware acceleration field programmable gate array (FPGA) that delivers high-performance L4 throughput by offloading traffic processing to the hardware acceleration chip. The BIG-IP makes flow acceleration decisions in software and then offloads eligible flows to the ePVA chip for that acceleration. For platforms that do not contain the ePVA chip, the system performs acceleration actions in software. Software-only solutions can increase performance in direct relationship to the hardware offered by the underlying host. As examples of BIG-IP virtual edition (VE) software running on mid-grade hardware platforms, results with Dell can be found here and similar experiences with HPE Proliant platforms are here. One thing to note about FastL4 as the profile to underpin a performance mode BIG-IP virtual server is that it is layer 4 oriented. For certain features that involve layer 7 HTTP related fields, such as using iRules to swap HTTP headers or perform HTTP authentication, a different profile might be more suitable. A bonus of FastL4 are some interesting specific performance features catering to it. In the BIG-IP version 17 release train, there is a feature to quickly tear down, with no delay, TCP sessions no longer required. Most TCP stacks implement TCP “2MSL” rules, where upon receiving and sending TCP FIN messages, the socket enters a lengthy TCP “TIME_WAIT” state, often minutes long. This stems back to historically bad packet loss environments of the very early Internet. A concern was high latency and packet loss might see incoming packets arrive at a target very late, and the TCP state machine would be confused if no record of the socket still existed. As such, the lengthy TIME_WAIT period was adopted even though this is consuming on-board resources to maintain the state. With FastL4, the “fast” close with TCP reset option now exists, such that any incoming TCP FIN message observed by BIG-IP will result in TCP RESETS being sent to both endpoints, normally bypassing TIME_WAIT penalties. OneConnect and FastHTTP Profiles As mentioned, other traffic profiles on BIG-IP are directed towards Layer 7 and HTTP features. One interesting profile is F5’s “OneConnect”. The OneConnect feature set works with HTTP Keep-Alives, which allows the BIG-IP system to minimize the number of server-side TCP connections by making existing connections available for reuse by other clients. This reduces, among other things, excessive TCP 3-way handshakes (Syn, Syn-Ack, Ack) and mitigates the small TCP congestion windows that new TCP sessions start with and only increases with successful traffic delivery. Persistent server-side TCP connections ameliorate this. When a new connection is initiated to the virtual server, if an existing server-side flow to the pool member is idle, the BIG-IP system applies the OneConnect source mask to the IP address in the request to determine whether it is eligible to reuse the existing idle connection. If it is eligible, the BIG-IP system marks the connection as non-idle and sends a client request over it. If the request is not eligible for reuse, or an idle server-side flow is not found, the BIG-IP system creates a new server-side TCP connection and sends client requests over it. The last profile considered is the “Fast HTTP” profile. The Fast HTTP profile is designed to speed up certain types of HTTP connections and again strives to reduce the number of connections opened to the back-end HTTP servers. This is accomplished by combining features from the TCP, HTTP, and OneConnect profiles into a single profile that is optimized for network performance. A resulting high performance HTTP virtual server processes connections on a packet-by-packet basis and buffers only enough data to parse packet headers. The performance HTTP virtual server TCP behavior operates as follows: the BIG-IP system establishes server-side flows by opening TCP connections to pool members. When a client makes a connection to the performance HTTP virtual server, if an existing server-side flow to the pool member is idle, the BIG-IP LTM system marks the connection as non-idle and sends a client request over the connection. Summary The NetApp StorageGRID multi-node S3 compatible object storage solution fits well with a high-performance server load balancer, thus making the F5 BIG-IP a good fit. S3 protocol can itself be adjusted to improve transaction response times, such as through the use of multi-part uploads and downloads, amplifying the default load balancing to now spread even more traffic chunks over many NetApp nodes. BIG-IP has numerous approaches to configuring virtual servers, from highest performance L4-focused profiles to similar offerings that retain L7 HTTP awareness. Lab testing was accomplished using the S3Browser utility and results of traffic flows were confirmed with both the standard BIG-IP GUI and the additional AVR analytics module, which provides additional protocol insight.
malformed tcp and udp with 0 port
hi , how to stop malformed tcp and udp with 0 port attack in AFM. does this Irule work when CLIENT_DATA { if {[UDP::local_port] == 0 || [UDP::remote_port] == 0} { log local0. "Dropped UDP packet with port 0" drop } } when CLIENT_ACCEPTED { if {[TCP::local_port] == 0 || [TCP::remote_port] == 0} { drop } }
Issues with kubernet cluster server which is managed by Tanzu
Hello, dear F5 family, The kubernet clusters managed with Tanzu serve F5 as a backend server. However, sometimes I get authentication and 404 errors at different times in some services. I would like to get support from someone who has knowledge / advice / experience with this issue. Thanks allR2600 Enabling Multi-Interface Causes L2 Forwarding
Hello, I’m currently working on an F5 deployment with the following architecture: Two F5 R2600 devices (active/standby). Two switches connected in a full mesh configuration. The switches do not support stacking, so LACP cannot be used. Here’s the challenge I’m facing: On the F5 devices, a VLAN cannot be assigned to more than one interface by default. However, I found a KB article that outlines a way to configure it. When I followed the KB instructions, I managed to assign the VLAN to two interfaces, but the behavior became problematic. The two interfaces on the F5 devices started communicating with each other, effectively making the standby F5 act like a switch. This resulted in L2 forwarding between the two interfaces, which is not something I’ve experienced with physical F5 devices in non-VM environments. I tested connecting the gateway only to Switch1 and then disabled the interface between the F5-Active and Switch1. However, the connection to the gateway was still functional. Upon investigation, I discovered that the standby F5 was forwarding the packets as follows: F5-Active to Switch2 to F5-Standby to Switch1. KB Command： config system network config multi-interfaces-vlan enabled Commit mod sys db vlan.macassignment value unique （ON VM） The outcome is undesirable because it causes unexpected packet forwarding on the standby F5, which disrupts the network. This issue does not occur with other physical F5 devices—it seems specific to the R series. I’d like to know the best way to properly configure a full mesh architecture in this scenario. How can I prevent the F5 from forwarding packets between two interfaces on the same VLAN? Is there a better approach? Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!iRule to Change Default Pool (not redirect to another pool)?
Everyone, Moving from NetScaler to BigIP, LTM, and F5 and am "drinking from the firehose" trying to learn everything I can before my company goes live. I could use some suggestions here so here it goes: Scenario: My company has a blue/green deployment model. I'm looking to use the LTM to direct traffic to the application to the proper pools/nodes based on a STATIC variable set with a RULE_INIT event. All developers have to do in their deployment pipeline is send an API call to BigIP to change the variable to blue/green as needed. We have opted for this design because if changes need to be made within F5 for any reason (object renaming, partition changing, etc.), developers don't have to change their pipelines to accommodate. The application has an iRule which then reads the variable value and directs to proper pool using SWITCH. Simple. Challenge: Because the iRule is technically looking at two pools in its logic, when I disable the nodes in the "active" pool, if the "inactive" pool is still up, LTM leaves the Virtual Server as up/green, even though traffic cannot reach the disabled "active" nodes on the server side (should register as "grey" in my test). Solution(?): Rather than recreate the monitoring logic in the iRule for the site (and multiple other future sites), I would think the easiest way to leverage existing LTM architecture would be to change the logic of the iRule to change the Default Pool of the application when the STATIC variable changes. Is it possible to do this within an iRule? Every time I search for this option, I only get hits on how to redirect to different pools. Or perhaps there is another way to accomplish this that I am not aware of? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!
Future F5 versions & automation support
Hi! Seeing that BigIP v17.x is EOL March 31, 2027, is there a v18.x in the pipeline some where in the future, or do we need to make the switch to BigIP NEXT? Ansible is highly supported for BigIP LTM, but not really for BigIP NEXT LTM. Is that still coming, or do we switch to something else like F5 FAST, AS3, or Infrastructure As Code? Kind Regards
